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Ian Craine

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Oct, 2024

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35 Stories

575 karma pts

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Only One Phone Call Allowed

Weekly Contest #374

ONLY ONE PHONE CALL ALLOWED Ridley drove me into Northamptonshire. It was the empty heart of England he told me, which is just what they had been looking for. We were heading for Towcester, an attractive enough little one-street town on the A5- not that I was looking for architectural gems or modish coffee houses. Because that wasn’t what an inner South London fella looked for, and beside that I wouldn’t be seeing them anyway. The place had been a hotel once but had reverted to some kind of normality that no-one would give a second look at. ...

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Colour Me Blue

Weekly Contest #367

COLOUR ME BLUE Nearly seven hundred years ago Robert de Eglesfield founded one of the more modest colleges of Oxford University. His name was remembered in its dramatic society. The Eglesfield, like most college societies, held a jolly during Freshers Week, that anarchic time before work started and newbies, freshers, got to know each other and the various allures of the Oxford life. Oxford is not really like other universities, even Cambridge with its dour scientific seriousness in the damp Fens. A student at Oxford is there for less than h...

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Catalonia Revisited

Weekly Contest #362

(NOTE: Two swear words, but no actual swearing) CATALONIA REVISITED Outside, the street lights came on and she saw a young woman wrap a cardigan around her shoulders. A gull called out. Nerys was imbibing atmosphere, trying to consign things to long term memory. Inside, the big welcoming wooden table was plenty big for three. It was circular too, the best shape for a table. There was a half drunk bottle of red wine on it and when Ramon had finished replenishing their glasses it was almost empty. A waiter was passing. Ramon lifted the bott...

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Post-Op and Cobalt Blue

Weekly Contest #351

POST-OP AND COBALT BLUE The night ward was a tent, and he was in the jungle; noise and chatter clattered through his dreams. His mind was light and frayed and full of chimeras. Every time he closed his eyes some weird, disjointed imagery took him gradually away from logical thought. Little by little the anaesthetic loosed its grip. He begged to go. His doctor concurred though nurses demurred. They let him go, discharging him too soon, freeing him of their support. Motivation is the key to life; there must be will. He wanted only to lie in...

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THE LION OF HAGGARD MIEN: A X-Special Exercise in Inclusivity

Weekly Contest #350

THE LION OF HAGGARD MIEN- A X-Special Exercise in Inclusivity Once upon a time there was an old lion who lived in a small village somewhere in the South of England called Haggard Mien. It lay snuggled in the Dent Valley between the almost equally small villages of Upper Denture and Lower Denture. There wasn’t much to do in Haggard Mien so the lion spent most of his time either lying under the big oak on the village green or sitting at the bar of the only pub, the Fox and Fabulist, run by the agreeable landlord David Palin-Dromish. Most of t...

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A Clash of Civilisations, A Song of Redemption

Weekly Contest #348

A CLASH OF CIVILISATIONS, A SONG OF REDEMPTION Part I: From Westport to the Nueces River They came for him as the night set on a dark and bloody ground. They came with saws, and boards and sodden rags that they pushed between his teeth. He fought them with a ferocity that had lurked unseen deep inside of him. Yes, even he who would see three civil wars with all their hatred and hurt. He lay on the soaked ground breathing heavily. He was alone. Had he woken from a final delayed dream of battle or was he already in some other land? Painfully ...

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Moving On

Weekly Contest #343

CW: Grief MOVING ON Ridley sat in his chair and his breath was audible. The conversation had flagged. It was a long time since his son and his daughter had visited together. Well not really together- they had come from opposite ends of the country. Jasper was a go-getter or thought he was. He was a solicitor, but he was clearly more interested in his Bristol property empire. Ridley suspected he was over-exposed; there had been hints of borrowing money which Ridley had pretended not to pick up on. He knew the boy was too proud to ask directl...

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Reedsying and Writing, but no 'Rithmatic: Meditations on Perspective

Weekly Contest #340

REEDYSING AND WRITING BUT NO ’RITHMETIC Meditations on Perspective It was Monday evening. She must have come across the fields. There she was sitting across the bench from me. It was a late spring evening and it already seemed warm enough to sit outside the pub. The sun was low in the sky and its light was flashing through the trees on the edge of the fields. It was right behind Ruby. “Tell the story through Quentin”, she said. It seemed the most natural thing in the world that she should say that. I’d been wrestling with my Faulkner screen...

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Loup de Mer and Nothing Soup

Weekly Contest #333

LOUP DE MER AND NOTHING SOUP NOTE there is nothing sensitive here (bar a couple of mentions of cancer, the before to this story's after). Indeed there is little conflict and no drama. Sorry to anybody who thinks that's boring. But this is about good food and good friends. And I wish everybody here a Happy Christmas. His friends came over on the Balthazar and arrived on the beach just as Johnny was sweeping down the stone forecourt. It was the first time they had seen him in quite a while, Brian and Liz and Karen. They all wore shorts and t-...

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A Tale of Two Storms

Weekly Contest #332

A TALE OF TWO STORMS Luke Cottrell leaned back in his chair, his hands clasped round the back of his neck. He was a big man but the man who had just come in off the street was bigger. A cold presence met an even colder one. “Can I help you?” “Heard you were looking for bounty hunters.” “Big demand now the War’s over” “Mopping up time” Cottrell looked at the fellow and gave him a slow nod. “Yeah. You got a name” “You can call me Hendriksen” “All I need it for. You a Dutchie”. “No I kill Dutchies before breakfast.” Cottrell did not respond. “C...

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In Bed as Winter Takes Hold

Weekly Contest #331

IN BED AS WINTER TAKES HOLD He slept on the left hand side of the bed as he had done with all his girlfriends. He was restless; he could not throw off the memory of the performance they had attended. It wasn’t the music as much as the story. He couldn’t leave it be, and the more he realised that the more concerned and restless he became. Pauline was sleeping. She too seemed a little uneasy. She was snoring more loudly than usual and it was less regular, almost musical in its cadences. He felt trapped though he didn’t know why. There was noth...

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In Khorezm

Weekly Contest #328

The severe schools shall never laugh me out of the philosophy of Hermes, that this world is but a picture of the invisible, wherein as in a portrait, things are not truly, but in equivocal shapes, and as they counterfeit some more real substance in the invisible fabric. Sir Thomas Browne IN KHOREZM From the journals of al-Biruni (973-1050) Ghazni 418AH And did I dream you also, Roxalana? The seventh child of a seventh child. Seven sisters all called Roxalana and none saw the next. You whom I sat with at the close of day below crimson cloud...

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St Paul's Cathedral (a fragment; a shaggy cat story)

Weekly Contest #327

ST PAUL’S CATHEDRAL (a fragment; a shaggy cat story) In his youth Chris fronted a bar blues band. He was tall and blond and charismatic. Phil was the lead guitarist, more intense, kept his head down as he played. Mike, Chris’s brother, played bass and like the rest of the band favoured black and brown pullovers. Mike hated summer when you were supposed to wear bright colours. Russ was the drummer, and kept himself a little apart from the others. Of course there was another bar blues band starting up in those days. In fact they were myriad bu...

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Histories of the Sea

Weekly Contest #324

HISTORIES OF THE SEA Part 1- In Times Immemorial Cuckoo wrasse change gender. Male sea horses give birth, their young emitted like spurts of semen. Portuguese man o’war create houses of multiple occupation. And all the strange creatures too that forsook the sea that was once their common home. At first they lived ambivalently before declaring that terra firma was their permanent and only home. Some took to the skies, others found new eggless ways to procreate. Fierce beasts roamed the earth so the more timid and vulnerable made trees their...

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A Young Woman's Guide to Ambition

Weekly Contest #322

A YOUNG WOMAN’S GUIDE TO AMBITION They used to say (maybe some still do) that ambition is what gets you out of bed of a morning. Though it does depend on the ambition. If you want to write a novel why bother? Write the novel by all means. But do you need to get out of bed? Is ambition a good thing? The obvious answer is, depends on the ambition. Yeees. But it’s a little more complicated isn’t it. Why do people have ambitions? Maybe they want to be famous. Maybe they want to be rich. Maybe they want to be fulfilled. In this day and age we mig...

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