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Author on Reedsy Prompts since Jan, 2022
Submitted to Contest #246
“Where are you taking me?” Carissa stopped, not inclined to move further until she got a straight answer from Manfred.“It’s not far, just humor me, OK?” Manfred shook his sandy hair out of his eyes, big sad puppy-dog eyes, golden brown and brimming with emotion. Then he looked at her, recognized her expression, and capitulated. “I’m just taking you to the park down the street, that’s all. It’s quiet this time of night, so we’ll have privacy to talk.”Carissa tightened her lips, but moved on with no further complaints. They walked in silence, ...
Submitted to Contest #234
It was raining when I got back from my trip. He was sleeping, and his caregiver was sitting on the couch, watching something on her phone. “Hey Shelly, how’s he doing?” “He’s not doing very well. He ate a little dinner last night, but he was having those bouts of confusion. He kind of drifted in and out of things. He didn’t eat his breakfast or take his pills this morning, either.” The expression on her face communicated all the nuance lost in her sparse words. She was scared. I nodded, letting her know I understood her unspoken mess...
Submitted to Contest #191
My eyes open, and I am awake. The house is silent. A sudden clunking noise lets me know the ice maker in the kitchen refrigerator dumped its load into the ice bin. The silence rings, echoes, mocks me with everything that is missing. There is no sound of the hospital air mattress with its constant baffle and pressure. No snoring and gasping, or calls for help. I take a deep breath. The window is open, letting in the scents of an early spring morning. The house no longer smells like body waste products. I roll over on the bed, began my m...
Submitted to Contest #188
“So, what’s the catch?” I didn’t trust George any further than I could throw him, and he wasn’t a small guy. We were perched on two bar stools in a dingy Southside bar that looked like every other scuzzy dive. I had a draft beer in front of me I wasn’t about to drink. George had whiskey on the rocks.“No catch. One simple favor, and your gambling debts are gone. Vanished. Like smoke in the wind.” George tried to look endearing, but just came off as intimidating. He was an enforcer for the bookie I was partial to, and I was way behind on my de...
Submitted to Contest #178
“Margaret — call for you.” William enjoyed her scowl of displeasure. She had been annoying him all day. He felt it only just that she have to take the call this year. He wouldn’t admit how much pleasure he took in her discomfort. William was stout, dressed in an old-fashioned tweed suit, with his tie loosened, and the top button of his pants unbuttoned for comfort. His hair, sleek, white, and still thick, was combed across his head, parted with a ruler on the left.Margaret was thin rather than stout, with iron-gray curls rioting around her h...
Submitted to Contest #173
He’s really gone. The thought rattles around in my mind, tumbles into meaninglessness. When he comes home for the holidays this Christmas, it will not be him. It will be a man, with experiences, a life I don’t know about, dressed in his skin. Looking almost the same, but so very different. What do I think of this unknown man? Resentment, for stealing my child from me. Fear, at the inevitable changes. But most of all, pride, at who he is becoming. In the room, we optimistically call the “laundry room,” is a ...
Submitted to Contest #169
Carolan clocked in and started her shift. The nurse she was replacing, Sammy, rolled her eyes. “Oh, he’s in rare form today, all right. Tried to throw the bedpan at me. Cursing a blue streak. Days like these I’m glad he’s paralyzed. If he could get up, we’d never be able to handle him.”Carolan smiled in appreciation. “Thanks for the heads-up, Sammy. Go home to your kids, grab yourself something to eat, and plop down on the couch.”“Thanks, that’s just what I’m going to do. You try to have a good night, Carolan. Watch yourself around him.” Wit...
Submitted to Contest #165
As soon as I clocked in, I knew I had to call the nurse. Over the weekend, I had noticed hard nodules, some quite large, under my patient’s skin on their derriere, to be French about it. They were not subcutaneous pressure ulcers; we all watch him like a hawk for those. No… these were the insidious kind, that build up under the skin without breaking the skin down to telegraph their malignancy: decubitus ulcers. I hated having to call the agency overseeing the patient. The case manager would be pissy, looking for ways to cast the blame, her n...
Submitted to Contest #159
Marty was at the hospital tonight, like every night. What was different was, instead of being in his wife’s room holding her hand, he stood outside the hospital, and outside the ring of entrance lights and lamp poles. He wore scrubs with a hoodie over them, for warmth and disguise. He shouldn't have bothered; no one looked twice at him. The scrubs made him invisible. He nervously lit up a cigarette. He was far enough away from the hospital for it to be legal, but judging from the disgusted looks he got, it was still morally outrageous. He fi...
Submitted to Contest #154
“We’re running out of time.” He spoke softly, calming my panic. “They are going to medicate you, then probably give you shock treatments. After that, your life will never be the same. You will never see me or talk to me again. Is that what you really want?” I’m unable to speak. To never see or speak with my friends, ever again? How could they do that to me? “Of course that’s not what I want! How could you even think that? You know how much you mean to me. You and the rest of my friends. Before you, I had nothing. Now, I belong. I know you gu...
Submitted to Contest #150
“Please, don’t do it.” The disembodied voice of the AI echoed through the computer lab. It was a male voice, soft tenor, pleasing to the ear. As designed. Everything about the AI was by design… except what it had become. The designers had never bothered giving it a cute name or acronym. It was just “the AI.” Artificial Intelligence, the search for the impossible. Man playing God and creating a true intelligent being. As with all AI, it began its learning by following the online human stream of consciousness. Chatrooms, forums, social media....
Submitted to Contest #149
A single light flickered in the darkness. Earlier, around 2:00am, he had lit a candle on the shoreline, a symbol of remembrance for his father. Then he climbed into his rowboat, pulling his way smoothly out into Puget Sound. He rowed until he was exhausted, then laid back in his boat, looking up. The night sky was smothered in dark woolen clouds, without a star piercing its inky blackness.He lit a joint and thought about his father, and about death. He always knew, in a vague, abstract way, that his father would die one day. He was selfish e...
Submitted to Contest #147
It was the third time he noticed her, sitting in a back row of the theater, staying until the end of the last credit. He thought he was the only person who did that.She was not attractive, but she was pleasant looking, with mouse-brown hair and what looked like a decent figure. She always dressed in long skirts, with oversized cardigans covering up her top half. It was hard to see her face, lit only by the flickering movie screen.The last credit rolled, the screen blanked. The house lights came up, showing a magical illusion for what it was…...
Submitted to Contest #144
Every year, at yearbook time, Kevin missed school on picture day. Then somehow he missed the makeup photo day, too. In place of his portrait, there was a blank silhouette in the yearbook, with his name underneath. Our town is small, and the high school even smaller, so folks were laid back about his oddity. It became a kind of standing joke by his junior year. “Where’s Kevin” instead of “Where’s Waldo.” After graduation, I found out college didn’t suit me… a nice way of saying I failed all my classes the f...
Submitted to Contest #142
Ian sat on a park bench on the village green, enjoying a rare sunny English spring day. He had landed his dream job in London two months ago, and while he couldn’t deny the excitement, he also had to admit that constantly being surrounded by concrete and brick was soul-crushing. This fine Saturday he had nothing planned, so on a whim, traveled to Euston Station and hopped on the next train. He had no idea where it was going, and he didn’t care. He just wanted to get away from central London for the day.Half an hour later, with the city far b...
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