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Patrick Druid

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Jul, 2020

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268 Followers
441 Following

86 Stories

1748 karma pts

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The Moment of Life

Weekly Contest #256

With my gym bag slung over my shoulder, I boarded the Express bus to the city.  I found an empty window and placed my bag on the floor and sighed, trying to wrestle with butterflies in my stomach coupling with the sizzling elation.  Hard as I tried, I could only get maybe four hours of sleep the night before competition day.  While the bus was idling heavily, I watched as the black soot passed by my window, momentarily obscuring my apartment complex. I smiled at the memories of all the training I had done w...

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Straussian Rage

Weekly Contest #255

Author's noteIn a way, I wrote this in honor of my mother. She would often share opera with me and this story sort pays an homage to both her and the opera.Straussian RageThe storm clouds hovered over the fortress of Atreus. The rains continued to pummel the roof as if to break through and flood the entire hall, yet the fortress stood still in defiance of the gods. The slaves were gathered together washing the Mistress’s clothes clean while they themselves were soaked to the bone. They all knew what awaited them if they didn't get ...

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Prelude to Ashton Heights Affair

Author's note: This story is part of a larger work I'm working on called The Ashton Heights Affair. It is set during an alternate history of our world where Napoleon had taken over the entire world.Prelude to the Ashton Heights AffairOn a warm, summer evening, a carriage arrived at the Chateau du Sinclair located in the mountain regions. Ms. Cynthia Dupuis stepped out of the carriage and almost tripped onto the gravel, cursing herself for her clumsiness. She was already late to the soiree which is unthinkable for gossip colum...

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Secret of the Andante Hand

Weekly Contest #253

The Secret of the Andante Hand It had been one hell of a night at the department store of Teri Davenport, a woman of about 40ish who is oftentimes mistaken for someone much younger. That night, three of her employees called out leaving her to manage the store pretty much by herself.  The big bosses would deal with the absenteeism of course, but it usually came too late to be of any use.  She usually had to pick up the slack.   "Sell, sell, sell!",.she muttered as she set about the process of closing the store for the ni...

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Calvin

Calvin Evan Charles stood by the register and looked up at the wall clock, counting down the minutes until closing time and he was sweating so much even in this air conditioned electronics store, that it soaked his shirt and put his deodorant into overdrive. "Why me?!", he said to himself, smiling the plastic smile at the last minute stragglers who often came in near closing time to buy "just one thing" they say they need. He heard the sounds of the security gates being pulled down and other people chatting as they left their shops. His...

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The One and Only

Weekly Contest #250

One and onlyI sat down in the chair facing the reception area, grabbed a magazine and waited for the nurse to call me back to the examination room. I wasn't too concerned. I had been here countless times before due to my asthma, but this was just a 6 month checkup so I had made sure to take off the entire day. My supervisor seemed vaguely annoyed but understood.The waiting room was pretty well packed, with people , crying children and older adults who looked like they really should be in an emergency room rather than a clinic,...

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One Good Turn

Weekly Contest #249

One Good Turn.A torrent of rain continued to descend upon the streets and highways of old forgotten towns as a small, red, two door Pinto coughed and sputtered it's way up an exit ramp. William, it's driver, nervously peered through the windshield, hoping for some signs, landmarks or anything that would tell him exactly where he was.William groaned. “Just my luck! Forced to go to some seminar, stay in some dive motel and now, driving home in a thunderstorm at night and to top it all off, I’m lost!”Last week, he had been c...

15 likes 4 comments 4
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A Tale of Two Cities

Weekly Contest #248

A Tale of Two Cities Dusk had settled in Berlin as Fraulein Meuller walked outside in the fields, watching the sun set over the western hills, trying to keep her mind from going back to the terror that she felt and the nightmare that she had previously endured. Herr Goebel, a man of about 50, sighed as he walked towards her, knowing full well that he could not talk her out of anything. She had come to them some few months ago after miraculously making it over the wall and while this was good, she was not happy. "I knew I would find you ...

9 likes 4 comments 4
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Monkey Business

Weekly Contest #246

Monkey BusinessThe bell rung just after 4th period and that always meant recess. All of the kids that were itching to just run out to the playground, lined up in the hallway per the teacher's instructions to walk in a safe and orderly fashion.I walked with the others all in a line towards the playground which was beyond the dusty softball field. As soon as we were near the basketball hoops, the teachers let us disperse and we all ran to the various places in the playground like the slide, the ladders, the jungle gym and t...

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Moon Eyes

Weekly Contest #245

Moon Eyes Mark gathered his equipment excitedly into.his leather bag, while his partner,  Andrea, grabbed the laptops, the telescope and other equipment and loaded the van. Both Mark and Andrea were grad students who had apparently stumbled upon something significant during their tracking duties at the observatory.  Unfortunately, when they reported the data to their supervisor, their conclusions were dismissed and they were reassigned to another project.  Mark was ready to let it go, but Andrea was far more headstrong and e...

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Boys will be Boys

Weekly Contest #241

The birds that had been beating in the trees suddenly launched themselves in the air en masse after a shot was fired."What did you do?!?Breathless, Keith slowed his pace as he caught up to his older brother Tom, who stood stock still.Charlie followed Keith up the hill and the youngest brother, Rick, brought up the rear."Uh...."Tom couldn't seem to get the words out or any words out. He just stood there at the edge of the ravine."What do we….?”, Charlie began catching his breath. He was about to ask again but, when he turned to face Tom, his ...

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Little Lady

Weekly Contest #240

Trigger warning: this story does deal with substance abuse and death. Little Lady Little Amber sat quietly on the porch swing on a Sunday morning.  The cool,. autumn breeze brushed against her hair in soft caress that was both comforting and painful.  She savored the small moment greedily, while looking at the horizon in the rising sunlight. Amber's biggest wish was to run through the open fields freely and live amongst the other kids her age, playing games of kickball, climbing on jungle gyms, maybe a little softball. But this pla...

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Coming to a Head

Weekly Contest #239

Authors Note:There's an old legend in Tennessee about a ghost that wanders the endless tracks at night. This is my take on that.x"Ooogh!"I got up from my position and dusted myself off, brushing excess dirt and debris from my pants and my coat and I looked around for a bit and hugged myself and shivered in the cold. It was definitely night. . What happened to me? I wasn't sure, but I knew that something was missing and it was important…I listened intently to everything around me and heard a distant owl and the sound of the night crickets fr...

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TAMI

Weekly Contest #236

TAMI The little one bedroom trailer sat on the edge of  a forgotten Hill that was near a landfill in the western part of the county.    The owner, one Doug Mason had purchased the plot of land and the trailer at a rock bottom price several years ago much to the dismay of his family who believed that this trailer idea was a death trap waiting to be sprung by some unwitting soul, like him. Benita Mason sat in the passenger seat of her brother's beat up Chevy and looked out the front window at the little trailer and slow...

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Bridge

Bridge The temperature outside the beat up station wagon dropped a few more degrees as the night lingered on and the snow fell onto the waiting street, hindering visibility and drivability as well. Still, Mark Smith pushed on the gas trying his best to force his way through. The road itself was a two lane road somewhere away from the main road and it had little lighting except for the headlamps of other passing vehicles. Mark noted that as he continued onward, there seemed to be fewer and fewer vehicles on the road. Mark still presse...

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