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Darren Horton

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Jan, 2025

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11 Followers

9 Following

8 Stories

136 karma pts

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Reflections and Reconnections

Weekly Contest #348

Adam and Julia, a married couple in their early thirties with a sombre air about them, sat on a bench beneath the sprawling branches of a eucalyptus tree on a balmy Perth summer night. Their mood seemed to fuse into their sparsely populated surroundings as they looked out on the river with glassy eyes. They occasionally made observations, without much enthusiasm, but always politely agreeing. The last remark had come from Julia, on how the light cast down from the lampposts on the opposite path looked like tentacles searching the depths of t...

7 likes

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Everybody Needs Good Neighbours

Weekly Contest #332

On a Monday afternoon in March 2010, a young English woman called Ally was on her way home from work to the affluent Perth suburb she and her husband had been renting in for just over six months. It had been a stressful day, beginning with a car that took forever to start, only to make it to work and find herself in meetings that took forever to end. Having spent most of Sunday night fretting and planning her way out from under a mountain of work, Ally left the office feeling even more weighed down.Stopped at a set of lights, she noticed her...

4 likes

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An Old Face in a Good Place

Weekly Contest #307

A couple weeks ago I found myself ankle-deep in a rabbit hole, which wouldn’t have been so bad if I hadn’t dived down it headfirst. I ignored several nudges from the algorithm to come back up for air, until a particular thumbnail grabbed my attention. The title was forgettable, but the face, though I hadn’t seen it for years, I recognised instantly.I clicked on the video and was treated to an episode of the I’m All Ears Podcast, hosted by Dane Watkins, a psychologist specialising in men’s mental health, which ended with Dane taking call-ins....

17 likes

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Sulks and Smiles by The Sea

Weekly Contest #302

On a sunny August day in 1990, in the carpark of a beach on the northwest coast of France, the boot of a reliable oyster gold Ford Cortina had just popped open. Two boys, one ten years old, the other a month shy of eight, were handed beach towels by their grandparents, who had gladly offered to take them out for the day while the boy’s parents visited a vineyard. Scott, the eldest, was then given his football, and Michael, the youngest, his bucket and spade. Next, their granddad took out a cooler box and their nan picked out two more towels....

12 likes

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Breakfast Epiphanies

Weekly Contest #289

The room is unfamiliar. I don’t know how I got here. That is, I can’t remember arriving. The reason I’m here, I do know. I fell off the wagon. As is often the case, when I begin to find my bearings after the tumble, I start from a place I don’t recognise.The last time I fell off was nine months ago. The wagon had been climbing a steep incline for what felt like forever, but I managed to keep control long enough to make it to the crest of a hill, looking forward to some respite. The breather was short lived. There was little flat road to enjo...

5 likes

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Nan Knows Best

Weekly Contest #287

On a September afternoon about ten years ago, Rose, a cup of tea in her hands and a look of peace on her face, entered the living room of the humble semi-detached she’d then called home for thirty years, the last five of those spent as a widow. As of a year prior, when Rose's eldest granddaughter added to her offspring with her first great-grandchild, she was the progenitor of twenty people, all of whom she loved dearly and was loved by as much or more in return. She was never short of visitors to help her deal with the loneliness of widowho...

2 likes

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Plenty of Space in a Suitcase

Weekly Contest #286

‘So, that’s the plan. Squeeze your life in a suitcase and trek about on the continent for a few months?’ James, topping up the korma in his slow cooker with coconut cream, asked his younger brother.‘That’s about the sum of it. After what Maggie and her lawyer did to me, shouldn’t be much of a squeeze. A holdall bag should do the trick,’ Luke, sat on a kitchen stool on the other side of the stone counter, answered breezily.As he stirred the korma and looked at his brother, a glimmer in James’s dark brown eyes coincided with the forming of a w...

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I Wouldn't Bet on it

Weekly Contest #285

A couple of months ago, following a two-year onslaught of misfortune, I found myself with no option but to move back into my childhood home and spend some time with the folks. On the Friday night of my second week there, longing for a place to drown all the sorrows I’d accumulated, I made the twenty-minute walk to The Royal Oak, a traditional pub built over two centuries ago that sits at the halfway point of a steep hill in a nearby village. A regular spot for me in my early twenties, I figured if the sorrows resisted my attempts to drown th...

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