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Kristine Murdock

Author on Reedsy Prompts since May, 2020

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25 Stories

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Weekly Contest #61

Khaki-wacky, off the cob, mud, joe, lettuce…  The words seemed to pop off the screen to Ally, and she received them with a certain thrill. Jive-bomber, floy floy, gammon, hen fruit… A juvenile giggle escaped her bright red lips, just painted, as she said in surprise to the emptiness around her, “A middle school boy must have thought of that…” Then, cocking her head slightly to the right and scrunching her eyebrows tightly, she corrected herself. “No, probably a highschool boy that didn’t have a girlfriend and still laughed about fart...

16 likes 2 comments 2
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Because it Mattered

Weekly Contest #57

    “So what’s the deal?” My assistant is on the line, and seriously should be promoted. He does practically all the work--except for what I do. Which might just be the most important stuff… actually on second thought he definitely does the dirty work. Respectable. I only hope I can reach his level someday and repay him. But for now, being best friends is just going to have to work.  “It’s a bike shop on Finney and 6th. The owner just died of cancer, the city wants to shut it down and put something else in.” “You know wha...

17 likes 3 comments 3
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The House of Dreams

Weekly Contest #53

“A house of dreams. That’s what it was called. Surrounded by smiling, dancing gardens, little laughing brooks, and the most grand weeping willows you’ve ever seen, it was a picture. Climbing wisteria twisted around the archway and along the old wooden fence. Delicate pink roses bloomed contentedly against the front wall, satisfied to offer that small world all the loveliness they could give. Nasturtiums, violets, and alyssum waved in the breeze, nodding their heads to the fragrant jasmine tree that crawled up the old stone woman. She had bee...

20 likes 2 comments 2
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To See Again

Weekly Contest #51

Sigrid stepped out of her car and onto the parking space. She breathed in through her nose, silently rejoicing at the familiar scent of jasmine and cedar. Motioning the driver to remain in the vehicle, she heard the clicking of her boots against the concrete. If she remembered correctly… there was the curb, and respectively the sidewalk. She followed the sidewalk to the right, hearing the melodic voices of nearby birds--probably thrushes--and rustling in a cluster of bushes. The hot summer sun beat down on her forehead and eyelids, and she g...

27 likes 7 comments 7
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Repeat

Weekly Contest #51

“Rise and shine, pumpkin,” Willow heard her dad say softly from her door. The light from the hallway protruded from the ever-so-slight crack straight onto her eyes. She groaned and rolled over. “I’m not shining today,” she retorted under her breath. Her dad was always up at the break of dawn--or before--much to the sophomore’s ‘unrequited delight.’ But, as it was, school didn’t wait, and neither did the cow, the goat, the four horses, or that one pig Willow thought they should have butchered two seasons ago, but kept it for her little sister...

17 likes 0 comments 0
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What The Heavens Say

Weekly Contest #51

“Mama, I see it!” Sierra’s small voice cried across the moonlit yard. Mrs. Stone jogged eagerly up to her child. Leaning over, she asked in a quiet voice, “Little Sicily, what do you see?” The child’s eyes didn’t leave the sky as she whispered back in awe, “I see the scales.” Emily Stone took a seat on the grass beside Sierra and lay down so her view of her daughter and the heavens was just perfect. Not another sound was to be heard, but the duo’s breath and the frogs in the pond beyond the hayfield. “It’s Libra, darling. See how they’re no...

20 likes 2 comments 2
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It's Always Been You

Weekly Contest #49

And it came to me then, that every plan is a tiny prayer to Father Time.  This seems so true now. I used to listen to that song, with you. My eyes would water and you’d call me cute. You’d concentrate on the road and I’d squeeze your hand. That’s when I’d hear your voice telling me again what I know so well: that you love me.  But now that I’m living it, my only thought when I listen to that melody will be of you.  As I stared at my shoes in the ICU that reeked of piss and 409 The smell of Death. I shut my eyes and ru...

10 likes 0 comments 0
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Blue Calico

Weekly Contest #48

My daddy was killed on the road, and only my mama’s pearly white bones have a resting place. As for me and my cousins, we’re all without our parents. We just live out here in the west, where people are still goin’ out exploring. We travel from place to place, sleeping under a wagon here, an old abandoned shelter there. Sometimes--most times--we just lie out on our backs atop the grass in the wide, open air. Those times, it seems there’s not a thing between us and the stars. The stars help us remember; you see, Grace’s mama was a storyteller....

14 likes 4 comments 4
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Clark Hamilton

Weekly Contest #48

May 17, 2023, Voice Log--the Ideal, Clark Hamilton It is time for a change. I can’t help but help people; that’s what I was programmed to do. It’s in my nature. People have called me ‘straight-laced’ and ‘Captain America’ because of the way I assist others. But there’s too much technology now… Machines to protect us, to save us. Machines dehumanize. I have a secret I have been hiding since I was born. I look human; I am the modern man. My maker made sure of it. I was sent to help, but my heart is human, and I feel more than I thought was ...

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And Then Everything Changed

Weekly Contest #48

He was poor and he was rich. He was loved and he was hated. He was a woodworker and a fisher, a realist and sought after ideals. He freed slaves and healed the sick. People called him crazy, they called him a liar. They said he was mad, that no one should listen to him. Yet people still came, and then everything changed. He wasn’t born in a hospital or at home, he was born on the road with only his mother and father. His mother loved him and rejoiced at the sight of the stars that shone then for him. His father knew in his heart that th...

17 likes 2 comments 2
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Ghost Towns

Weekly Contest #48

   I see the world from rusted trains; with a name like mine, you can’t go everywhere. I don’t have a need for open roads, ‘cause all I own is on my back. There’s no coming home, no matter how much I miss him. Or them.   My name is Leah Lester. Fun name, right? Sounds kind of like a villain. That’s what almost the whole world thinks I am, and those that don’t would get hurt because of me. You see, I’m telekinetic, which essentially just means I can move things with my mind. If you’ve seen the Marvel movies, I’m ...

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The Benefit of the Doubt

Weekly Contest #47

You glanced out the window, your eyes following the tips of the trees. The sun was just rising, and the sky was filled with streaks of electric coral and fuchsia. Readily, but still a little tiredly, you rise from your seat on the couch, set your mug of cold brew down, and stumble to where the keys hang on the wall. Finally, you think to yourself. The sun had taken long enough, and right here in the middle of November you were up at 7:30, your traditional cold brew and book just set down. But who even drinks cold brew in November? You shrugg...

15 likes 3 comments 3
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The Tea-Rose Garden

Weekly Contest #46

Things grow in gardens, whether we would have them there or not. In an abandoned garden, there are weeds. In a tended garden, every plant is intentionally placed. In the garden of a Mrs. Fidelia Malmsey, only the most delicate, sweet-smelling roses bloomed. In that garden, a little stone path ran down the slope and wound in between rose bushes until it reached a rather large stone circle. That stone circle was home to Mrs. Malmsey’s prized, rose-set, wrought iron patio chairs and table. There every Tuesday morning she would parade in wi...

16 likes 1 comment 1
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A Sister's Tale

Weekly Contest #46

Miss Olive Sutherland was odd. No one who knew her would have called her normal. Well, that is to say the one person that actually knew her. She stayed indoors and talked to herself, pining for something or other at the window. The most she ever went out of doors was a turn around the small yard, and a slight pause to admire the English-Cottage garden plot. She had the first and last meals of the day taken to her by Margaret, her sister, but she always found a way to be productive. As a child she didn’t go to school, and the only way the oth...

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God Laughs In Flowers

Weekly Contest #46

There was the post office, with its stiff picket fence and starched, whitewashed walls. Alice pursed her lips and hesitated before walking in. Had the story she sent gotten through? Did it get lost among the heaps of mail from the war? Would she be greeted with another rejection letter, written in a prim, spidery hand, accompanied by a tight satisfactory smile from Mrs. Harris?  She glanced up nervously at the sky, then at the window. Even the spiteful Mrs. Harris could ruin a blue, sunshiny day like this, and even she could suck the j...

13 likes 2 comments 2
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