Menu

More apps built by Reedsy

Assemble a team of professionals

The writing app for authors

Writing courses, events and memberships

Get your book reviewed

Weekly writing prompts and contests

Menu
Prompts
Contests
Stories
Blog

Story Time

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Aug, 2020

Stories
Comments
Library
1293 Followers
176 Following

150 Stories

13363 karma pts

?

Sunday Night Karaoke

Weekly Contest #348

He asked me to marry him on the beach towards the end of March. It was just over forty degrees, and the creature in the sea told me to accept the proposal. I would have accepted it no matter what, but hearing her voice made me feel confident that it was the right decision. After he got up from the sand and kissed me on the cheek, we ordered an Uber and went downtown to sing karaoke. On the way to the bar, I took the shell I’d picked up from the beach and put it to my ear. The voice inside told me to sing Natalie Cole or Gladys Knight. I want...

6 likes 9 comments 9
Read story

A Car for Clowns

Weekly Contest #347

I thought my father owned this house, but I’ve been wrong about better things. I was wrong about how long a tomato can stay in the fridge. I was wrong about someone loving you hard enough so that it never stops. I was wrong about naming my dog and my second dog and the dog after that. I can never get a dog’s name right. I thought my father owned this house until Mr. Shell, who I just met, knocked on the door and told me there’s no rent. I knew there was no rent, because I never knew there had to be rent. Mr. Shell gave his condolences upon m...

11 likes 4 comments 4
Read story

Spring Break

Weekly Contest #346

We went to the Thai place off East Main for the last time on a Wednesday evening. Ruby likes going to karaoke at this bar down by the wharf and they start at 8pm, so we had to meet by six. Didn’t they used to start at nine? They did, but people seem to like it, so they’re starting earlier, but finishing earlier too. Although, if you tip the girl, or, I should say, if enough people tip the girl, she’ll usually do another hour. Oh, that’s nice. We were the only people in the restaurant other than some Mormons a few booths up from us. I didn’t ...

12 likes 6 comments 6
Read story

Narragansett Avenue

Weekly Contest #345

Nothing was out of the suitcase. The apartment he found online had come furnished and so far he was still wearing the same sweatpants and t-shirt he’d stepped off the plane in. That had been two days ago. He’d only nearly be able to afford it in the off-season, and once summer arrived, he’d have to find a new place to live. In the meantime, he could enjoy the circular layout, the spacious kitchen, the hardwood floors, the view of the shared backyard from his third floor window, and the little desk where he could study Psalms and write intent...

16 likes 10 comments 10
Read story

Linda Lands on the Moon

Weekly Contest #344

When Buzz Aldrin couldn’t make the moon mission, they called Linda. She was a single mother of two and a pool player. Well, player is the wrong word. She was a hustler. Linda would walk into pool halls in her sundress with her clutch held tight to her stomach. She’d claim to be looking for her no-good husband, and oh, while she was there, maybe she could play a game. Was it hard? Could someone--some nice man--show her how to play? Three hours later, she’d have rent money in her pocket and a few pissed off guys threatening her. Linda didn’t k...

20 likes 6 comments 6
Read story

Hold Your Peace

Weekly Contest #343

When it was time to object, Gemma stood in front of the forty or fifty assembled guests and ran her hands down the front of her slightly wrinkled cream dream. She cleared her throat, and all forty or fifty heads turned to look at her. It’s moments like these that people believe are staged or performative. There’s so much inauthenticity in the world that anything out of the ordinary begins to feel produced. Gemma looked down the aisle at the happy couple. Their officiant was their favorite college professor. His name was Eduardo String and he...

18 likes 9 comments 9
Read story

Rob the Baron

Weekly Contest #342

But we suspected that Gina, the parakeet, had survived. We had been led to believe that she was doing well. That she was living with seagulls now. The Baron would be most proud of the ease with which she adapted to being a part of a new community. A community of sea fowl. Perched on bridges and on the stone walls that separate the beach from the main road that connects one town from another. We believed many fables about Gina, and in our believing, we developed a newfound affection for the Baron. And the Baron was our father.And the Baron w...

18 likes 8 comments 8
Read story

A Strange Illness

Weekly Contest #341

I go in and clean around her. That’s what I do. I don’t have time to ask her why she’s lying like that. She’s not, uh, uh, physically sick, I know that. She’s on the bed, and she’s like this, like this. She’s lying on the bed. Can’t get up, I guess. I don’t know. I talk to her, because I’m not rude. I know I’m not getting any kind of tip from her, but nobody gets tips here, so that’s fine. I ask her how her day is even though I know she hasn’t gotten out of bed. Does she eat? I don’t know. You think I’m going to ask her if she eats? How is t...

14 likes 4 comments 4
Read story

Hunter Falls

Weekly Contest #340

When they would wake in the night, I’d take them to Hunter Falls. A car ride up the hill and down the hill and around that road that goes and goes and doesn’t know when to end. Their eyes would be open and they’d be chanting in unison. I thought twins doing things like that was made up, but no. From the time they first spoke, they spoke together. As one. Not all the time, but whenever they wanted to adjust the dynamics. I was their mother, but I was one. They were two. I would drive up to the old factory where there used to be manufacturing ...

11 likes 8 comments 8
Read story

Radicchio

Weekly Contest #339

I didn’t have anything to do, but watch the snake. We were not supposed to go out, but there was over a foot of snow on the ground. No one was going anywhere. The man pushing the snow blower outside my window had a mask on. I yelled something to Steve about wearing a mask outside, and he yelled back that it’s better to be safe than sorry. Steve would die of an embolism at the age of seventy-four. By then, I’ll have already been gone for two years. My death will be peaceful. It will happen on a Friday night. How exciting. Today is a Sunday. W...

19 likes 10 comments 10
Read story

Honesty's Fool

Weekly Contest #338

He brought a copy of A Winter’s Tale. It was July 18th and, in the dead of night, it was still close to eighty-five degrees. When the central air in his apartment broke, his landlord told him it would take two to three days to fix. Being almost eighty-five himself, Ronald Dill might not have made it that long with the heat and, as they say in New England, the humidity. His landlord being a nice woman named Lisa who was very fond of her only tenant, she decided that she would put him up in a hotel across town until the issue was resolved. He ...

12 likes 4 comments 4
Read story

Corkscrew

Weekly Contest #337

CW: Physical violence, gore or abuse, prostitution I thought I’d find him near the Corkscrew. A pair of overalls and a t-shirt that showed some of my waist. A five o’clock shadow that was going on six. A thin gold chain around my neck. The guy who dropped me off shaved ten bucks off my fee to supply the ride. He was a regular, but he always broke my rule about cigarettes before a session. I let him off the hook, because he told me his wife was dying. I didn’t ask what she was dying of, but I hope it wasn’t lung cancer. He asked me as I was g...

17 likes 7 comments 7
Read story

How Turkeys Drown in the Rain, or Three Floods

Weekly Contest #336

Teresa puts a wilting rose in a sea green bottle and admires her handiwork shortly thereafter. She looks outside her window and sees you looking in at her. The water is up to your chest and you are gulping in air as though practicing for when it will consume you. Teresa doesn’t quite laugh to herself, but she makes a little noise indicating that she thinks where you are is the result of your choices and nothing else. We try to tell her that you have amnesia, but she doesn’t believe it. Don’t take it personally. She doesn’t believe in amnesia...

31 likes 17 comments 17
Read story

Make Yourself Useful

Weekly Contest #335

I was asked to go home and take care of my sister. She had been ranting about a man following her all over the island, and I was supposed to come home and assure her that no such man existed. She was refusing to leave the house, and even though she worked for our uncle, he had confided in our father that if she didn’t return to her bartending job at his restaurant, he’d have to let her go. He couldn’t show any favoritism or his other employees might complain. All of this was explained to me over the phone a few days before Easter. The plan w...

19 likes 7 comments 7
Read story

The Pyramids of Broadway

Weekly Contest #334

The man who came over left a box of doughnuts on the coffee table. He’s been over before and he always brings treats. Not treats for me. Treats for the Doctor. Even knowing that there are doughnuts in the box, I must examine. I nudge the box once, twice, until it falls onto the floor. I wonder if the Doctor and his man will exit the bedroom, but they do not. I hear a sharp intake of breath, and then a short laugh. They are occupied. I see a doughnut release a little jelly onto the hardwood floor. It looks like blood, but fresh blood. Blood t...

17 likes 4 comments 4
Read story