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Patrick Druid

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Jul, 2020

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87 Stories

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Do Not Enter

Author Notes: I based this story on a dream that I actually had around 2004. I put "creative nonfiction" as a category mainly because I did have the dream and my grandmother did pass away shortly after I had the dream. I found myself at the old house on Graycroft Street. The sky was a dark, overcast gray and the sun was setting behind the hills beyond the house. I walked slowly up the gravel driveway, listening as the ground crunched beneath my shoes. That was when I saw a single crow perched atop the awning of the old house, staring down ...

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Opryland After Hours

Author's Note I worked the third shift at Opryland back in the mid-eighties. I always thought it felt..odd without the usual throng of people and there were old tales of about Lady McGavock(sometimes called 'the lady on the goat' wondering around at night. I never saw her myself, but it was no less creepy. OPRYLAND AFTER HOURS “Click” The last timecard was inserted into the time clock Sweat ran down my face as I sat on the wagon, waiting for the rest of the graveyard shift crew to get on board. The twins, Bill and Brad got on next, each...

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Excerpt from Befriending Aliens

This excerpt was written by my mother, Norma Druid. I’m publishing it here as part of an ongoing Legacy Edition project to preserve, curate, and share her work with new readers. Although Reedsy lists this piece as a “response” to the weekly prompt, it stands independently as a selected passage from her book Befriending Aliens. My role here is not as the author, but as the caretaker of her voice — presenting her words with context, respect, and the same sense of wonder she carried into every story she wrote. Befriending Aliens explores connec...

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Not In The Cards

Weekly Contest #368

Not in the Cards It had been a long day at the call center for me. The queue was at a constant 110 calls waiting in line; One would be answered and several more calls would replace them in the queue for 8 hours straight(or was it 9?). That’s nearly 1000 calls during the shift or more. I got up from my non-descript cubicle, with its computer and telephone and made sure that everything was off and ready for the next unlucky soul to find themselves chained to this desk, picked up my backpack and started heading out of the room, hoping that I ...

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The Courier 

Author's Note Some of my readers really seemed to enjoy the New Assignment story, I wrote about a month ago and the main takeaway I got was that everyone liked the banter between, Ben and the Assassin. Well.. guess what? Sheeeeee'sssss Baaaaaccck! And she is a little more.. suggestive, shall we say? Enjoy! The Courier Chap 2: The waking. “Ohhnhh!” My head was throbbing with an unforgiving and pulsating pain. It was like being in the inside of a base drum in a marching band. What the hell happened? Had I been drinking the night before?...

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Finding Ytherielle: The Diary

Author's Note: I decided to got back and look at all of the Ytherielle pieces I wrote and see if I could flesh them out a bit more. My original inspiration come from the prompt about picking up a diary and deciding whether to read it or return it. Here's one of the pieces I wrote Finding Ytherielle: The Diary Diary Entry: June 24th My dearest Confidante The sun has set on the day and I have precious little time to inscribe the events that have unfolded before my very eyes upon your most revered pages. The governess Katarina had us all...

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Tokusatsu Farewell: A moment

Weekly Contest #363

Tokusatsu Farewell: A Moment: Outside the little cafe on Hill street,, the storm raged on, buckets of water, drenching the streets and soaking the New Byzantine banners that draped from every lamppost and building in town. It had been the third day of rainfall, which seemed odd to everyone. They would all come drenched into the cafe and ask for their usual lattes and sit on the barstools, warming themselves from the heat of the hot drinks. I was always happy to serve them and as always, more customers made the boss happy since it meant mor...

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Tokusatsu Farewell

Weekly Contest #362

Tokusatsu Farewell It had been two years since the New Byzantine had defeated the legendary Star Fall team at the Old Barfield Rock Quarry. It was a neat ploy. Coax the team into fighting the pizza monster at the quarry; convincing them that this would limit property damage to the city. Oh yeah, that was brilliant Timmy sat at the little cafe on Hill street, now adorned with New Byzantine banners in front and posters of smiling soldiers posing with the young and old alike. He shook his head. “We got stupid”, he muttered to himself, takin...

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Tokusatsu

Weekly Contest #359

Note: My kid is a fan of Tokusatsu like Super Sentai, Kamen Rider etc. I thought I would try my hand at it. “Hey Timmy, the green suit said. “Take him on the left. Shelly has him on the right and I got center” “!0-4” said Timmy dressed the black suit. The grizzly monster, that resembled a misshapen pizza with tentacles, jumped up once in the air and vanished before appearing behind the team, splattering bits of pepperoni and anchovies at them. The team caught the projectiles full in the chest and were knocked backwards to the ground, whi...

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New Assignment

Weekly Contest #357

New Assignment The night came as usual over the warehouse district as the decades old street lamps lit the corrugated metal of the rooftops. A stray dog sniffed at a row of trash cans near the graffiti filled wall, while I walked towards the door. I blinked my eyes in front of the red beam of light of the security camera as the unmistakable click sounded indicating that the door was unlocked. My footsteps echoed on the cement as I stepped into the dimly lit warehouse that smelled of decades old motor oil mixed with kitty litter. I tried t...

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Candy Thriller: Bud

Weekly Contest #356

Lenny’s Dad pulled up in our driveway one Saturday afternoon, still driving that rusty, green Nova with the sagging ceiling. Lenny and I had been friends in grade school before his mom and dad got divorced and he had to move to another part of town and go to a public school. I still went to the private school, although I didn’t much like it. It was a religious school where they did a lot more bible thumping than teaching. My Saturday visits to the movie theater with him and his Dad were a sort of relief from the monotony of continual judgem...

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Just Hanging On

Weekly Contest #349

Just Hanging On To those that follow Today is April 31st of .. whatever year it is and we are just hanging on. No one knew how it happened. It just happened all of sudden. The Great Falling. Millions and millions of people suddenly collapsed for no apparent reason. Several doctors were on the various sites and they were just as baffled. One of them even said that all of the people who died should still be alive, even now. No cause No reason Just A Great Falling. Those that were left…..well some of them turned to religion because scie...

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A Kinship

Weekly Contest #344

A Kinship. “CRACK!” Screams of sheer terror. Paul’s eyes shot open, heart pounding in his chest, his breath shallow and quick. After a few minutes, his eyelids fluttered and he dozed off again. Paul was alone in his room at the boarding house that he had been renting for a year. A single candle provided some dim light, illuminating his face in an orange light as he gazed out the window watching the horse drawn carriages as they passed by. He glanced down at the journal on the desk, a journal he had used every day, chronicling events lik...

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Chuck's Luck

Weekly Contest #334

Note: I did write this one for the contest but mostly, I wrote this to annoy my choir director Chuck’s Luck The old dusty lane was familiar to old Chuck as he wandered home from the tavern, shaking his shaggy brown hair as he walked along the path. The breeze seemed to hum a melody that floated into his ears. Once upon a time, he had traversed this path as a child and met a man selling magic beans, or rather he collided with him. The disheveled bean salesman fell right on his bum and the beans he was carrying scattered on the ground. “So...

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Empty Plate

Weekly Contest #333

Empty Plate I sat alone in my little bedroom, reading a children’s book, looking at pictures of far away places and stars that seemed to beckon to me as if to say, “come to me!” I smiled as I imagined starships crossing the vastness of open space, far away from the confines of my little room. Just as I was about to turn the page, I heard the sound of a sizzling frying pan and the unmistakable scent of homemade French Fries coming from the kitchen. These were not the fries from your usual fast food joint; these were hand sliced into wedges,...

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