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Barry Starcher

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Jul, 2023

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13 Stories

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The Pirate

Weekly Contest #370

The Pirate (1776) My name is Mark Wallace, and I am not a son parents should be proud of. I began stealing hubcaps at age fourteen. Back then, hubcaps were beautiful and fetched a good price on the Southern California black market. The older I got, the more advanced I became in the art of theft. Then came the robbery that turned terribly wrong. A fence had planned the robbery of a high-priced jewelry store. My friend Jerry and I broke through the back door at two AM Sunday morning. We had almost finished stuffing the jewels into our bag whe...

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The Cellar

The Cellar Jeff Nobles was not a happy man. He had been traveling since sunup through the vast, flat farmlands of Kansas. He had sold only one vacuum cleaner in two days. Hell, the farms were so widely spread out that he only had the opportunity to present his sales pitch to three families today. Now the sky was overcast, and it looked like a good chance of rain. One more house and he would call it a day. He checked his gas gauge, which registered less than half a tank. His old Ford pickup, which he named Rosco, got pretty good gas mileage...

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The Beer Wars

Weekly Contest #317

The Beer Wars My name is Mark Wallace, and I am not a son parents should be proud of. I began stealing hubcaps at age fourteen and advanced to armed robbery. I am serving thirty years to life for a botched jewelry store robbery where the owner died. Then I was introduced to Dr. Marsh, who was looking for a human subject with nothing to lose, for his time machine. He arranged with the warden to take several years off my sentence if I agreed. Here was his proposal. To test our machine, we have chosen Chicago during the 1920s, a relatively rec...

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The Loaded Gun

Weekly Contest #314

The Loaded Gun "Sadie, hold Billy tight while I cut this fool horse loose. Looks like she ran into a piece of barbed wire, and now it’s tangled up in the wagon wheel." Blake handed the reins to his wife and stepped down from the wagon. We don’t know what spooked the horse; perhaps it was when Blake pulled on the wire trying to free the wagon wheel. The horse jerked sideways, then took off running full out. Blake’s arm became tangled in the wire. He was yanked off his feet and dragged across the expansive prairie, desperately shouting to Sad...

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The Pirate

Weekly Contest #285

                                                   My life came crashing down when a robbery took a deadly turn, claiming two lives. The judge sentenced me to thirty years to life. I had settled into prison life when a scientist approached me a year ago with a proposition, ...

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The Cellar

Weekly Contest #267

The Tornado   Jeff Nobles was not a happy man. He had been traveling since sunup through the vast, flat farmlands of Kansas. He had sold only one vacuum cleaner in two days. Hell, the farms were so widely spread out that he only had the opportunity to present his sales pitch to three families today. Now the sky was overcast, and it looked like a good chance for rain. One more house and he would call it a day. He checked his gas gauge, which registered less than half a tank. His old Ford pickup he named Rosco got pretty good gas mileage,...

2 likes 1 comment 1
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The Pirate I Wish I Had Not Met

Weekly Contest #265

The Pirate I Wish I Had Not Met I have lived an un-conventual life for the last couple of years. My name is Mark Wallace and my life of crime began very young, starting with stealing hub caps when only fourteen. As I got older, my involvement in auto theft progressed, but everything came crashing down when a robbery took a deadly turn, claiming two lives. The judge sentenced me to thirty years to life. I had settled into prison life when a scientist approached me a year ago with a proposition I found impossible to refuse. Their search for s...

9 likes 0 comments 0
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The Woolybugger

Weekly Contest #260

   You know the old expression, raining cats and dogs? Well, I saw neither cats nor dogs, but it was raining too hard for any living creature to be walking the streets of Cincinnati. I had taken the bus to the emergency room for ex rays on my fractured arm. My experience with emergency rooms is to anticipate a lengthy wait. Nothing happens there at the speed of light. It was late by the time I saw the doctor, and a heavy storm struck before I could start for home. I wasn't prepared for the rain. On a side street down from the ...

14 likes 3 comments 3
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Monkey Business

Weekly Contest #243

                                    Monkey Business Hello, my name is Ralphie. We don't speak the same language but that's all right being as I am a Capuchin monkey. I am quite handsome with my lighter colored face and chest and a black body. My name has a pretty cool history that I bet you are unaware of. It all started back with St Francis of Assisi when he start...

6 likes 1 comment 1
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The Sailor

Weekly Contest #240

The Sailor   "Bob, a call just came in and it may be related to our missing poet. Some kid found a sailboat on the beach with a lot of blood in it. It's way the hell up the coast in a place called Lucia Beach. I think it's part of the Birch Point State Park in Maine." Robert Montgomery stirred behind his weathered mahogany desk. A lean northeasterner with a short-cropped beard. He spoke with a crisp Maine accent. "I'm not familiar with it. What makes you think it's our guy this time? There were seven ship wrecks from the last storm and ...

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The Kaamos Murders

Weekly Contest #232

                                         The Kaamos Murders My name is Lars Jokijen, and I have spent most of my life in Finland. The capital of Lapland, Rovaniemi, was where my mother, father, and two older siblings lived. After retiring from the army, my father became the principal of the high school. Years later, he tried to teach me ...

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The Apprentice

Weekly Contest #222

  The Apprentice   Walking the back ally’s and side streets of Philadelphia with a mobster was not exactly how I envisioned my first day of my apprenticeship. It all began with my father’s involvement as a bookkeeper for the Salvatore Sabella Family in the summer of 1921. l was born in South Philadelphia in 1906. Thousands of immigrants, emigrated to New York and Philadelphia at the turn of the century to fulfill their dream of a better life, including my father. He had worked as a tailor and part-time bookkeeper in his native S...

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A bang-Up Vacation

Weekly Contest #214

He stood, frozen in time, staring out the plate-glass window. It was raining with such intensity that Don Bryant could barely make out his car parked in the driveway.  Carol came up beside him and gently put a hand on his arm. She spoke in a low, commanding voice. "I don't like it, Donny love. Will we be able to complete the contract in time?" "Don't worry, dear. The car is packed and the gear is oiled and ready." He smiled, reached over and patted her hand with authority. "We have never done a double job before and it worries me," s...

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