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Author on Reedsy Prompts since Aug, 2020

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150 Stories

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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...

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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...

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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...

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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...

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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 ...

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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...

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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 ...

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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...

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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...

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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...

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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...

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Out on the Ice

Weekly Contest #333

CW: References to self-injury She wants me to go play pool with her. I have eggs burning on the stove, and she wants to go play pool. What am I supposed to do? Let the house burn down? I know I was out there on the ice for too long. Cookies on the ice. Brownies on the ice. Sitting waiting for something to bite. That’s one kind of meditation. Pool is another. She plays pool. And I’m not allowed to remind her of two years ago. I’m not allowed To bring up when we met. To bring up when we were introduced to each other To bring up our kids Our ki...

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The Steakhouse

Weekly Contest #332

Bonnie didn’t come into work on Thursday, because the storm destroyed her shoes. Bonnie keeps all her shoes in one part of her closet, and wouldn’t you know it, that’s the part that caved in when the rain was coming down like “Noah get the boat” and she told everybody she was under the weather, but really, she was just shoeless and you can’t show up with no shoes on even if everybody feels bad for you, because of your house. The steakhouse is a Joe Jeremiah’s and they have high standards for their employees. The JJ’s we worked at was right o...

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Esplanade

Weekly Contest #331

It was too warm outside to leave the pies on the porch the way Lillian would have back when the kids lived at home. She put them in the spare room instead (the one that used to be Jodie’s before it was Kristin’s), and turned the ceiling fan on hoping that would take the temperature down far enough to keep the apple and blueberry cool until the following afternoon. It was just after midnight, and she was behind on her cooking. This never used to happen, but when Ken passed away, she found herself becoming less and less punctual. Retirement ha...

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A Thousand and One Plastic Bags

Weekly Contest #330

No one was going to make him leave the cupboard. If he wanted to stay in there forever, that was his choice. This was not a family that believed in rushing someone when they were grieving, and this was a kind of grieving. He was going to be dressed up in a tuxedo as soon as he got to the new house. Once a very small boutonniere was pinned to his lapel, he would be asked to perform four or five marriages before retreating to a new bedroom that would be much tinier than the one he was leaving behind. His mother kept a thousand and one plastic ...

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