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Zack Powell

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Oct, 2021

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831 Followers
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46 Stories

5706 karma pts

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To Live and Die in Cemetery Creek

Weekly Contest #204

We didn't think much of him at first. We'd seen our fair share of strangers tumbleweed their way through Cemetery Creek over the years. We'd come to recognize the peddlers: their honeyed words, their dirt-free mustaches, the way they'd ride into town on mules, never horses, so we lowered our guards, so we'd think they were one of us. This man, we reckoned, was no different.Said his name was Ambrose. Suppose he saw us on that Sunday afternoon three weeks ago, spilling out of the church's double doors, all of us in our chaps and vests, our blo...

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Multiple Choice

Winner of Weekly Contest #198 🏆

Okay class! Pop quiz. If you've been doing the readings, this should be a piece of cake. Remember to fill out both sides of this paper. You have the whole class period to finish. Good luck.1. Christopher Columbus first traveled to the Americas using which means of transportation?A) A cargo shipB) A steam locomotiveC) A Boeing 747 airliner D) A vintage red 1985 Camaro with a crack in the middle of the windshield and no heated seats2. What is the term for the pilgrims leaving England to journey to America?A) ImmigrationB) EmigrationC) Mig...

282 likes 189 comments 189
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Daycare, After Hours

Weekly Contest #194

CW: References to miscarriage/domestic violence/injury***It's five minutes before six o'clock when Daphne bids the girl and her father goodnight. From the daycare's entrance, she watches them drive off into the dark winter evening. When they're out of sight, she sighs and returns to Wesley, the only thing standing between her and going home."Welp, just you and me now, kiddo," she says.It isn't an unfamiliar situation. Among the daycare staff, Wesley Dawson's mother is known for two things: being a single parent, and arriving chronically late...

58 likes 56 comments 56
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The New Language

Weekly Contest #190

We called it Yopanko. No real reason why, other than the fact that it was a word we could all pronounce equally. There were no S sounds for Georgie's tongue to mash into lisps. No Rs to trigger Kelvin's Elmer Fudd syndrome. And no Ls to make me self-conscious about my hand-me-down accent, the byproduct of my mother's emigration from Nagoya, Japan to Seattle, Washington. Our speech impediments, our insecurities, our home and school troubles—suddenly none of that seemed to matter.What mattered was that Yopanko was ours, a new language entirely...

52 likes 56 comments 56
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The Many Lives of Oberon

Shortlisted for Contest #187 ⭐️

CW: Themes/mentions of death***He waits in his car for nine minutes before approaching my parlor. He stops at the window, leans forward to stare at the shop sign, waits for the person behind him to continue down the sidewalk. Only then does he glance over his shoulder, throw open my door, and scamper inside, holding an ash-gray cat as close to his chest as a love letter.He shuts the door then turns to take in the shop's interior: the jars and vials on the shelf labelled "Potions," the votive candles tucked inside random nooks and crannies, t...

69 likes 104 comments 104
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Different Today

Weekly Contest #186

She's different today, my human. She shed her fur. Yesterday it was blonde and it flowed down her back like water from a fire hydrant and it smelled like strawberries when I nuzzled it. Today it's gone. I shed mine too sometimes, like when the weather gets too hot outside, or when I've gone too many days without being walked. Sometimes it just happens on its own. Maybe that's true for her too, my human. Maybe she woke up today and her fur spilled out over her pillow and left her with the too-short table scraps she has now. Maybe it just happ...

50 likes 39 comments 39
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Why I Summoned the Devil

Weekly Contest #186

"Let me get this straight: you summoned me because of a toaster?""Yeah, you got it, bucko. That orange one right there. See it?""Of course I see it, mortal.""Okay. Good. So, I was thinking. Maybe you could just wave your hands and do your magic mumbo jumbo and make it work again, Satan.""Satan?""That's your name, isn't it?""No.""Lucifer, then?""No.""Beelzebub?""Now you're just being racist.""Well, you don't have to say it like that. And you can nip that eye-rolling in the bud, too. I tell you, kids these days have no manners. No respect for ...

73 likes 61 comments 61
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Dancing by Moonlight

Weekly Contest #183

It started with that damn plié.And look. Let's get something clear right off the bat: I am not a bigot. I'm not one of those guys who's angry at the world just because his son has a little sugar in the tank. I knew what was up a few years ago, when we were on the couch watching a Toys-R-Us commercial and Jesse pointed to the screen, begging me for that atomic-blonde Holiday Barbie. Right then I saw he wouldn't follow in my footsteps. I knew he'd never join the varsity football team or get his championship photo superglued in the school paper...

51 likes 22 comments 22
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My Apology to You for Camp Crescendo

Weekly Contest #182

Content warning: Themes/mentions of physical abuse and death***I apologize in advance. For the lateness of this, and for any details I get wrong. Twenty years has been nothing but one long tidal wave, crashing onto the beach of my memory. I can never quite recall what all I told you out there, how much of myself I let you see. I only know for certain how it all ended.***Camp Crescendo looked like any other summer camp you'd find in Iowa, and maybe that was the problem. Not as though I'd been to any other summer camp. But I imagined, as Mr. A...

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Resolutions for the Great Full

Shortlisted for Contest #179 ⭐️

Content warning: Mentions/themes of death and mental health issues***Name: Timmy CalhounGrade: 1stDate: Friday, Decimbur 15, 1995Resolution #1: Be more great fullPlease explain: That's what my aunt Lola tells me all the time. That I should be more great full. That means when some one does some thing nice for you, you should say Thank You.I do say it some times. Like when Suzy Brown holded the door for me yesturday after lunch. And also last Krismus when Santa got me a new toy car. It was brite blue, like the one on the TV comershul, and it m...

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How to Win an Unwinnable War

Weekly Contest #178

This year it's my turn to host our family's annual war. That's why we're doing 75 along the highway now, me and Mom and Dad, who's sitting in the back seat loading our guns. It's one of the reasons, anyway.The timing couldn't be better; there's nothing I need more than a diversion from my own war with Jasper last month. That was messier than anything will be today. The way we turned the living room into a battleground, hurling books and words like live grenades. The way he packed what was left of his stuff and screeched off in the dead of ni...

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The Best Part Is Not Wearing Pants

Weekly Contest #177

By Phil's humble estimation, the best part about the pandemic was being able to work from home without wearing pants. It was even better than the superiority he felt from being "pretty much bilingual thanks to Telemundo" in a country of arrogant English-only speakers. Even better than not having to smell a client's day-old-tuna-fish breath. Even better than turning up to a job jelly-limbed and wasted, which he could do so much more easily now.Take today, for example. Nine in the morning and he'd already downed three Irish coffees, which gave...

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Other Ways to Say Hello

Weekly Contest #177

The winter I turned fourteen, my mother asked me to do her job for her.One night over spaghetti and meatballs, she told me about a boy in her ESL class: Ivan."Sweet boy, I think," she said, twisting a cyclone of noodles around her fork. "But I just can't seem to get him to talk. I thought it was just nerves. Some kids are like that, you know? Even ten-year-olds. But it's been a few months now and nothing.""That sounds like something you should talk to the school about," I replied.Typically, my mother never brought her work home with her. She...

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Seeds

Weekly Contest #175

Content warning: Allusions to teen pregnancy and child loss *** The tree, like most things, is Beth's idea. It is August, late summer, too hot for TV and too cool for bathing suits. School starts again next week, fourth grade. Now is the perfect time, Beth says, to plant a tree. "They need sunshine to grow, Annie," she adds, holding her watering can in front of her like a Halloween bucket. The two of them stand at the edge of Beth's unmown backyard, out where the grass makes their knees itchy, out by the fence that's missing one of its...

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10 Ways to Explain Your Husband's Death to Your Son

Winner of Weekly Contest #163 🏆

Content warning: Themes of death***1. Tell the truthBe gentle but honest. This is your son's first time experiencing death, his only rodeo.He is five years old, wild-eyed and sugar-crazed and baby-toothed. A sweet boy. He doesn't complain about going to church or preschool. He picks up the toy cars in his room without being asked, lowers the seat after using the toilet. Some days you feel as though you've won the lottery.At night, he helps you say grace. Eyes closed, hands clasped over a plate of hot dog mac and cheese, he prays for God to w...

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