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M. Darrow

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Oct, 2024

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72 Followers
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8 Stories

481 karma pts

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Starfish

Weekly Contest #302

There were certain truths in the world that simply beggared disbelief. Truths that appeared and refused to be neatly packed away back into the reality that they had just called into question. The silvery creature in front of him was one of those truths. Of course, he’d heard the stories--he was a fisherman’s son, after all. But that was supposed to be all they were, stories. Those flat black eyes were very much not a story. How did I get here? Well. That was actually the easy answer, counterintuitively. Angelo had practically been raised...

10 likes 2 comments 2
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Once Upon A Time

Weekly Contest #290

Come away, O human child!To the waters and the wildWith a faery, hand in hand,For the world’s more full of weeping than you can understand-- W.B Yeats, “The Stolen Child” Mama always said to watch the water’s edge. The pony bows to me, one spindly leg thrust out in front of her body as she curves her head down so the water weeds in her mane drag over the stones of the riverbank. She is singing, the lights in her eyes brighter now that she is out of the water. I cannot help moving toward her. I smile. She smiles back. It should frighten me, I...

17 likes 4 comments 4
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"StarSign" Excerpt

Author's Note: This piece is an excerpt, taken and adapted from a scene in my ongoing work StarSign. The first few chapters are available on my Vocal account (vocal.media/authors/m-darrow) --------------------------------------------------------- “Do you want some tea? I want tea. Can you drink tea? Do you know what tea is? Tea is good. I’m--I’m gonna make some tea…” ******* “This is not tea,” Melody murmured vaguely into her cup fifteen minutes later. “This is just hot water.” “Mrrow?” Leo glanced up from his toybox, tucked into a corner ne...

6 likes 1 comment 1
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Holding Hands

Weekly Contest #285

There’s one thought I keep returning to: a child could never reach that high. The tiny outline of a handprint is easily seven feet in the air, higher even than the largest prints clustered near what might otherwise be called the “top” of the painting--though truly it is too irregular to be labeled so specifically. A beautiful balance of chaos and order.It is hardly a revelation, the idea that a child’s hand would never be able to press itself to the stone that high up without help. And yet the thought is like a thunderclap inside my hea...

8 likes 0 comments 0
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Mike and Lucy

Weekly Contest #283

"You've got to be shitting me.""Language, little sister," the man at the bar laughed. He took a long sip of his already nearly empty glass, then lifted it in a toast toward the doorway and the smartly dressed young woman in it who had gone icy still at the sight of him. “I’d hate for you to receive some sort of official reprimand for improper conduct.”The woman growled under her breath as she stalked forward to claim an empty stool at the opposite corner of the bar. “Get fucked, Lucy,” she spat. “I’m really not in the mood.”“Ooooo, Little Mi...

11 likes 2 comments 2
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Wanna Dance With Somebody

Weekly Contest #277

We never meant for all those princes to die, you know. That was all Dad’s idea. I mean, three days isn’t a lot of time to figure out how a dozen girls are getting in and out of their room with no one the wiser every night. If none of our guards, nursemaids, governesses, or ladies’ maids had been able to figure it out since the whole thing started--years ago, mind--how was some random second-or-third-born son after an inheritance supposed to do it in three days? Marta, my oldest sister, told him it was a bad plan, but of course he didn’t list...

15 likes 3 comments 3
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Mother Earth

Weekly Contest #277

CW: This story contains themes of religious trauma and implied sexual violence/coercion Mother EarthMan has struggled with the serpent from the very moment of Her creation. She has been an enigma, a dual symbol. She represents evil power and chaos from the underworld. But she is also a sign of fertility, of life and healing. They had told her not to. Not to approach the tree. Not to question. They had told her so many things. Eve stares up at shining coils of scales as the creature drapes herself over the branches above her head. She is al...

19 likes 6 comments 6
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Sweetbread: An Epilogue

Winner of Weekly Contest #274 🏆

My sister has always had a soft heart. Soft as sweetbread.She cried after the old woman, despite everything. Maybe because of everything. I remember holding her as she wept, both of us covered in soot, her fingers scalded from holding shut the oven door. After the tears, she was quiet. She trailed me through the awful house with its sweetbread walls and sugared windows. I found the clothes we’d arrived in, offered up her kirtle, and she donned it without a word. She showed no whisper of response when we found the treasure in the attic, ...

169 likes 58 comments 58
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