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T.K. Opal

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Apr, 2021

Stories (13)

Comments

Library

21 Followers

21 Following

13 Stories

392 karma pts

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Bardic Inspiration

T.K. Opal

Submitted to Contest #332

It’s Good Rangers Eve and for the fifth night in a row the crazy old woman who calls herself Cal is hunched in her spot near the fire, holding court with ghosts. The front bar is elbow-to-elbow, backs press against every stone wall, and all the tables are full, save hers. No one wants to listen to her ranting. But I’ve worked enough packed houses to know that at some point, for someone, the desire for a seat will outweigh the aversion to deranged old ladies, and things might get interesting.The place is loud, an avalanche of voices high and ...

5 likes

Null

T.K. Opal

Submitted to Contest #331

If you’re lucky, you’ll never know the silence of interstellar space. I used to think I would enjoy it, bragged I was built for it, wired for it. I remember back on Old Home, after a late movie in an empty theater, when the credits ended and the lambent aisle lights swelled. I thought that was silence, and I relished it. Aside from humming ambiance, the only sounds were mine: the seat creaking as I stood, the bop when I kicked the popcorn bucket, the scuff of the popped kernels skittering across smooth cement. The rich, creamy crinkling when...

15 likes

Rigid

T.K. Opal

Submitted to Contest #330

The first symptoms appeared after I started volunteering at the Madson Public Library, but I didn’t immediately make the connection. And by the time I did…well, now I’m getting ahead of myself, and I have a strict policy against spoilers, both giving and receiving. They’re untidy, rude, and indicate a lack of discipline. It’s better if you earn it. The library is on Main Street, right in the beating heart of town, in a one-story red brick building with a three-bar bike rack and a black, powder-coated steel and cedar bench erected in loving m...

15 likes

Wish and the Honky-Tonk Man

T.K. Opal

Submitted to Contest #329

The ghost in the wheatfield saved me three times, but not the fourth. I feel like that violates some rule of storytelling Miss Beacon taught us back in fifth grade, but I’m not worried about that, for two reasons: I’m not much for rules, and this is no story. It’s true.The first time I was maybe twelve. I got it in my damn fool head to ride my bike to Zane’s house, which sat a few miles west of Madson, plopped in the middle of wheatfields. On the way to the garage, I poked my head in the living room to tell Mom, but she was sleeping in front...

12 likes

The Man at the Window

T.K. Opal

Submitted to Contest #328

People who choose a booth by the front window are looking for something. Often it’s an old friend rolling in at the bus station across the street; they got here early, traffic was lighter than they expected. Sometimes it’s a full face of sun, eyes closed in ecstasy, or gazing into the nearly pupilless eyes of their loved one across the table, glowing blue or green or brown in the brilliance. They might be searching for fellowship, or at least proof that it exists, in the hustling crowds only a foot away through insulating glass. The tables i...

19 likes

The Weekend Warriors

T.K. Opal

Submitted to Contest #327

Carson Parr’s interests were eclectic, to say the least. Once I came out of Madson Bowl & Pin, wrist sore from my lousy hook, jaw sore from too much Laffy Taffy, to see him painting a mural of porcelain dolls and capuchin monkeys on the alley wall. On a breezy afternoon last summer, I spotted him over the fence from my lifeguard tower, sitting on a park bench staring up at an oak tree for hours. He even played an impromptu guest stint on trombone with the high school pep band at one Friday night football game. The last time I saw him, at...

11 likes

Earl's Garage

T.K. Opal

Submitted to Contest #326

(Content Warning: Violence, Blood, Gore, Language) The Rattlesnake brothers blew into town like a midnight call from an unknown number. They pulled off Highway 32 too fast, missing the apron and jacking the left front of their sixth gen Charger over the curb. I watched it all from my place in the back. I remember thinking they’re gonna wanna get that looked at, but a fucked up alignment turned out to be only the start of their trouble. They rolled over the pneumatic road snake, which Earlene always called the “dinger” as a kid and never sto...

11 likes

All the Lovely Blossoms and Cracks

T.K. Opal

Submitted to Contest #325

When I was fourteen I had a summer job at the local antiques/video rental/burger shop. According to my dad I was “too old to sit around all day, but too young to drive wheat truck”. Which was interesting since he spent an awful lot of time sitting around. Of course, he wasn’t supposed to drive wheat truck or anything else either, on account of the DUI’s. But we aren’t talking about him, we’re talking about me. Or rather, about Mrs. Sylvia Hanson, proprietor of said antiques/video/burger shop.Mrs. Hanson was a local character in Madson when I...

12 likes

08718

T.K. Opal

Submitted to Contest #324

Mom left me here forty-nine minutes ago, according to the calculator watch I won this spring selling magazine subscriptions to help fund the middle school marching band trips. It’s hot in here. With the windows up it’s smothering, like in my galvanized steel fort that Dad calls a “shed” and keeps putting yard equipment in. With the windows cranked down, it’s like sticking my face in the fireplace insert fan. Dry, blasting gusts. At the moment, I’ve decided on down in the back, up in the front. Like my hair. Another wheat truck zooms by, rock...

6 likes

Nightguard

T.K. Opal

Submitted to Contest #323

I wake to the sound of nothing, which isn’t right. Something’s different in the house. Time check: 4:55 am. I roll over, the tormented ghost of yesterday’s workout haunting my shoulder. Matt’s on his stomach, one bare foot jutting over the side of the bed, the other on my side, arms doing the “Y” of the YMCA dance, face entirely engulfed in the pillow. I’ve never understood how he’s able to breathe like this. This is how they murder people in movies. So I wait, monitoring for signs of life. My jaw tightens, jamming my night guard too snugly ...

10 likes

There’s a Witch in the Scabrock Cliffs

T.K. Opal

Submitted to Contest #321

~now~ The only reason I came home after nearly twenty years is Shelby warned me Mom and Dad are threatening to take me out of their will. “Your ass is helping me move them out of this shithole,” she said. “Or I stop talking them out of disowning you.” So here I am. Shelby “makes me useful” by assigning me to recycling duty. Dad’s nowhere to be found, but Mom is puttering around in her threadbare dressing gown, taking things out of my hands and putting them back where I found them. Shelby’s husband is here, too, supplying me with my recommend...

8 likes

The Wooden Fist of Tor

T.K. Opal

Submitted to Contest #320

Three weary adventurers came upon a clearing in the forest, a flat, sunny piece of land just up the bank from the river they were following, and agreed it was an ideal location to rest for the night. The sun was well past its zenith, so they presently set about clearing the loose brush and collecting rocks for the fire. While rolling out her bedroll, one of the travelers noticed a small patch of loose earth. Something buried. She peeked over her shoulder at the others. They were companions of convenience, having met along the river path and ...

5 likes

Invocation

T.K. Opal

Submitted to Contest #319

I am my actions alone. I do as I am bid. Will is an illusion. There is no resolve but the Patron’s.~~~ I exist where once I did not. The Patron crouches four meters from me, her eyes half-lidded, stroking her blonde hair with a gloved hand. Four members of her party stand behind her: a ruddy-cheeked dwarf mining a non-precious substance from her ear; a stooped, balding elf with thick spectacles poised on the tip of his aquiline nose, peering at the door behind me; a human woman, composed but grim, with voluminous orange hair swept up and bo...

7 likes