"Can I help?" a woman's voice asked from behind me. A young woman had appeared with a shovel.
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Suprise Me
Shovelers Anonymous
Prompted By Random Acts of Kindness
/ Stories
"Can I help?" a woman's voice asked from behind me. A young woman had appeared with a shovel.
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The Day My Computer Blew Up
Prompted By Hacks and Scams
/ Stories
This was originally published in Retrospect on October 12, 2019 under the prompt Hacked and Scammed. Although I have been hacked other times, it is still my favorite story of being hacked. The screen froze. A red, pulsing light covered QuickBooks, accompanied by a loud, persistent beep. I froze in horror, as this old laptop…
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Strings from Heaven
Prompted By Memorable Performances
/ Stories
The second the music began, it was transcendent.
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Laundry: A Gothic Exploration of the Mundane
Prompted By Laundry
/ Stories
In the tapestry of human existence, there are filaments that bind us together, threads that weave through the fabric of our days, shaping our experiences and defining our routines. Among these filaments, there is one that is often overlooked, yet undeniably present: the thread of laundry. Laundry, the humble chore of cleaning clothes, may seem…
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The Slurping of the Soup
Prompted By Pet Peeves
/ Stories
And he cooked with a smiling twinkle,/His paring knife a-twinkle,/ His graters and ladles a-twinkle, as he prepped an amazing potage.
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Sounds like sit’-zen-zee.
Prompted By S#*t My Family Said
/ Stories
Skinny Dipping
Prompted By Beaches
/ Stories
Skinny Dipping For several summers in our early, married-without-children years we rented a beach house in the Hamptons with our good friends J and K. After a few years our friends – serious fishermen by then – opted for the mountains instead and bought a house near a trout stream. (See Catskill Weekend) And…
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A friendly feud
Prompted By Family Feud
/ Stories
Nearly every winter, it seems, my wife and I engage in a friendly feud about how many pets are enough.
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Suzanne — RetroFlash
Prompted By Chance Encounters
/ Stories
I didn’t notice when Suzanne first showed up. We unloaded the stage, carried it into the theater, and assembled it behind the proscenium, a stage upon a stage. First came the wine barrels, then the interlocking frame, and finally the wooden platforms. We lashed the backdrop to the uprights and, with a shout from cast…
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Calendar Girl
Prompted By Baby Books
/ Stories
My parents didn’t keep baby books, but they did keep photo albums. The kind with the black construction paper pages. They pasted the pictures in, or else sometimes the pictures were held by those photo corners with adhesive on the back. They made an album for each of their three daughters. At some point, after…
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