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Alexander Colfer

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Feb, 2025

Stories (12)
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6 Followers
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12 Stories

250 karma pts

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The Familiars Apprentice

Submitted to Contest #327

Midnight, Esme’s familiar, had been fully sentient for three years, two months, and seventeen days, and he was absolutely sick of pretending to be impressed by jingling keys."Who's a good familiar? Who's a good boy?" Esme cooed, dangling her keyring above his head like he was some common alley cat who'd never contemplated the philosophical implications of Schrodinger's thought experiment. (He was both annoyed and not annoyed until observed, thank you very much.)Midnight yawned, comforted by Esme's sweet smell of efficient, perfectly executed...

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An Enniscorthy Christmas Carol

Submitted to Contest #326

Laughter hit the street first. It burst out of the “Soldiers of Fortune” Pub like warm air from a kitchen door; fiddles chasing it, boots knocking rhythm out of a stubborn floor, glasses striking wood with the relief of people who'd earned the right to be noisy. It ran a few yards into the cold, met the wind, and dared it to try anything.Beyond the doorway's punch of heat, the town wore its year the way old fighters wear their scars. Shopfronts were patched with plywood and optimism. Scorch marks traced black commas up the stone where robota...

9 likes 2 comments 2
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An Unsnarling of Thread

Submitted to Contest #325

The Stairwell: Someone, or something, watched from the room with the wired-glass pane. May didn’t look; she knew the geometry of the asylum’s landing was wrong, that it folded and unfolded like a paper trick when no one was watching. On some nights, faces bloomed pale in that wired-glass window, patients who weren’t on the books anymore, their mouths writhing furiously as if they were eating pain. They brought May down the narrow stairwell where dirty beige paint peeled like old scabs and each step coughed a hollow note. At the bottom, the a...

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The rising

Submitted to Contest #324

2034Saharah pressed her small hand against the car window, watching the ocean shimmer beneath the afternoon sun. Four years old and this was her first clear memory, the way the water stretched forever, blue meeting blue at some impossible distance. Her father had driven them here, to what remained of Miami Beach, so she could see it before it disappeared entirely."Remember this, Saharah," he said, his voice tight. "Remember when the sea was beautiful."The beach was narrow now, barely twenty feet of sand between the seawall and the waves. Her...

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Dear Diary: My Summer in Chaos (Thanks Love Rituals)

Submitted to Contest #323

Monday, 1st JuneDear Diary,What a chaotic weekend. I met Alice after three months of Facebook messaging. Bumped into her in Waterloo, recognised her straight away. She didn't recognise me, mistook my pleased-to-meet-you hug for a sex attack and pepper sprayed me in the eyes. She was very apologetic after I stopped screaming and managed to explain who I was. She even gave me a lift to the local A&E where they washed my eyes out and gave me oxygen to help with my irritated lungs.Took a leap of faith and asked her on a date. Admittedly she ...

7 likes 4 comments 4
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The Last Walk from Ravensdale Woods

Submitted to Contest #322

The leprechaun clawed his way through the hardened earth, each movement agony as radiation-poisoned soil crumbled around him. The mound in Ravensdale Woods, once his sacred dwelling, had collapsed inward, the ancient magic barely sustaining its structure. He emerged into a world transformed, gasping as unfamiliar air, filled lungs that had not breathed for fifteen years. What remained of the woods stretched before him like a blackened skeleton. Trees stood as charred sentinels, their branches reaching skyward in permanent supplication. The p...

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The Last Ride to Ravensdale Woods

Submitted to Contest #321

"Where to, my sweetie?""Enniscorthy town centre, please, near the church if that's not too much trouble. Thanks a million for stoppin' - it's such a relief to find a taxi on a night like this so it is. 'Tis fierce cold, isn't it? I was startin' to think I'd be walkin' all the way, and these roads can be so dangerous for a woman alone, especially with all the stories you hear about what happens to people who wander too far from the roads after dark.""That's so right, my lovely.""You must know these parts well, drivin' them every night. I imag...

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The Last Mound in Ravensdale Woods

Submitted to Contest #320

The November sky hung like a burial shroud over Ravensdale woods as it hunkered down just south of Enniscorthy, County Wexford. 1919 was a year of joy and sorrow; the war was over, and families could be reunited again as soldiers returned from the conflict. Equally, many families would mourn the missing loved ones, lost to the blood-soaked mud of far-off fields. Helen Colfer, now 12, picked her way along the narrowing path that led into the heart of the woods, her worn boots squelching in the boggy earth. Gnarled oaks twisted overhead like a...

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This is all my fault

Submitted to Contest #319

This Is All My FaultMolloy's Office 6:00 PMCathaoirleach (Town Chairman) Brendan Molloy sat behind his oversized desk like a man trying to look important in a suit that had fitted him considerably better two years and several thousand biscuits ago. He was surrounded by glittering wrappers of artisan shortbreads so expensive they were individually hand-wrapped in gold foil. With his head in his hands, he rocked back and forth, muttering, "This is all my fault. This is it—the public shame, the uncovering of my creative accounting with town fun...

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Don't Mind Me

Submitted to Contest #318

TRIGGER WARNING: CONTAINS THEMES OF DEATH AND LONELINESS, GUILT AND EMOTIONAL TRAUMA. MAIN BODY OF TEXT MondayMarcus never saw the car that missed him by the narrowest of margins, the wind from its passing ruffling his coat. He stumbled backwards onto the pavement, heart hammering, as the taxi swerved back into the traffic on North Michigan Avenue without slowing."Don't mind me," Marcus muttered to no one in particular, straightening his grey suit jacket. Around him, the Chicago morning rush continued without pause, commuters hurrying toward...

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Dear Diary: My Week in Hell (Thanks, Horoscope)

Shortlisted for Contest #317 ⭐️

Monday, 23rd OctoberDear Diary,Well, I've officially hit rock bottom. And it's all because I'm apparently an idiot who believes in astrology now.It started this morning when I grabbed a coffee and saw the newspaper horoscope. "Beware of water today, Scorpio." Normally, I'd ignore this rubbish, but something made me read it. Maybe because Karen from accounting is always going on about "the universe sending signs."So I decided to be extra careful around water. Skipped my shower (gross, I know). Avoided the coffee machine. Carried my umbrella e...

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Red is the colour

Submitted to Contest #292

“White is the colour” I whispered to myself as the Dolmus, which literally means stuffed bus in Turkish, bumped and rocked beneath me as the driver raced along the dusty road. I close my eyes against the bright morning light, grip the rail on top of the seat in front of me, and begin to repeat the phrase over and over, a meditational mantra to help me remember. The memory comes forward, and I find myself reliving my first journey on this same road all those decades ago. I gasped in wonder seeing the festooned lights of the village spreading ...

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