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Robert Martin

Author on Reedsy Prompts since May, 2025

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14 Stories

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Black Hollow Road

Weekly Contest #372

Black Hollow Road The radio came on by itself just after Marlene turned onto Black Hollow Road. At first, she thought she had bumped the knob with her knee. The old Buick had a habit of taking offense at ordinary use. The Buick made plenty of noise on its own. The heater clicked. The glove box rattled. Wind slipped in around the passenger-side window whenever it blew from the north. Marlene knew all of those sounds, but the radio was not one of them. Almost. Static filled the car, low and dry, like dead leaves being dragged across concre...

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One Last Delivery

Weekly Contest #363

The river looked as though it had been moving forever. Ben rested both hands on the weathered railing of the old bridge and watched the current fold around half-submerged cottonwood trunks. Morning light scattered across the water in broken silver ribbons, making it impossible to tell where the reflections ended, and the river itself began. People always imagined rivers were in a hurry. This one never seemed to be. Behind him, the town was waking. A bakery door clattered open. Somewhere, a truck changed gears. The courthouse clock, perpet...

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The Night Before

Weekly Contest #355

The Night Before Rain tapped steadily against the stretched canvas overhead. Not hard enough to drown conversation. Only enough to make the camp feel smaller than it really was. Captain Elian Voss stood beneath the awning outside the command tent with one hand resting against a support pole slick with rainwater. Mud sucked quietly at boots as soldiers crossed the camp carrying crates, rifles, and coils of wire. Nobody hurried anymore. The men and women who still rushed the night before a battle usually had not survived enough battles. The...

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What the Lamp Remembers

Weekly Contest #340

I will tell you what the lamp rememers. I have stood on this shelf longer than the shelf has stood beneath me. That is not boasting. It is simply true. I was old when the wood was new, when the nails still rang bright under the hammer and the house smelled of sap and hope. I was carried in carefully, wrapped in cloth that had already known other uses, and set down as if I were something that might object to being handled roughly. I did not. I have never been the sort of thing that resents hands. I only remember them. I am an electric lamp, t...

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Restaurant Review: The Event Horizon Bistro

Weekly Contest #333

Restaurant Review: The Event Horizon Bistro ⭐⭐☆☆☆ (Two stars, generously rounded up because I survived.) I visited the Event Horizon Bistro last night after my navigation implant rerouted me due to a “localized time sneeze.” This happens more often than you would think, especially if you live within three miles of a university physics department or have angered a theoretical mathematician. When you wake up thirty minutes earlier than you went to sleep, you have two responsible options: call a physicist or order dinner. I chose dinner, large...

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It was a dark and stormy night

Weekly Contest #329

It was a dark and stormy night. Suddenly, a shot rang out, and a pirate ship hove to over the horizon. No, this wasn’t real—or more correctly, most of it wasn’t real. No pirate ship showed, and there were no gunshots. It was still a dark and stormy night. I glared at the blinking cursor like it had personally insulted me. Wind pushed against the cabin wall, and the windowpanes quivered. Rain hammered the roof so hard it sounded like the whole sky was trying to break in. On my dim laptop screen, my English assignment glowed accusingly: B...

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The Night They Came for My Witch

Weekly Contest #327

The night they came for her, the moon was a thin, scared thing hiding behind clouds that smelled of smoke and judgment. It felt like the air was shaking, as if even the wind wanted to run away from the coming violence. I was sitting on the windowsill with my tail curled around my paws and my eyes on the narrow path that went through the birch trees below. It had rained earlier, and the ground was still steaming. A thin, ghostly haze hung in the air, like lost souls. I was sure they were on their way, and I heard them before I saw them. The ...

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The Glass Summit

Weekly Contest #322

The Glass Summit Elliot Crane stood before the mirror in the penthouse bathroom, fixing the knot of his tie with a precision that belonged less to habit and more to survival. He had done this routine a thousand times: adjust the tie, smooth the jacket, inhale, exhale, and dominate. His reflection showed a man in his early forties, square-jawed, hair salted just enough to look distinguished, and eyes that appeared to see through all the bullshit. Tonight was supposed to be the crown jewel of his career as his company’s IPO was unveiled. It ...

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The Orchard Beneath the Lake

Weekly Contest #321

There were once rows of trees where the water shines now. The ridge still shows the line of the old road, like a scar. People said the dam was progress. People say many things when they need to fold a loss into something useful. Iris came back in late September, when the aspens flashed and the lake turned pewter. She hadn’t seen her grandmother’s cabin in ten years. The skiff still lay upside down on the rocks, the fishing license above the door still reading MARIGOLD VALE. “Two nights,” Iris told herself. “Clean, sort, list the house. Two n...

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Breakfast Served All Day

Weekly Contest #318

Breakfast Served All Day “I don’t belong here,” Russell muttered before blowing into his nearly frozen hands. It was a freezing day in the city’s lower downtown area. A sharp wind wound its way through the abandoned buildings and nearly deserted streets, scattering the accumulated debris of modern civilization in its path. Russell pulled his tattered overcoat tighter around his shoulders and flipped the collar up to cut the cold that seeped in. He felt in his bones this would be a hard winter. He wished he could be somewhere else—anywhere...

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An Unlikely Hero and an Inconvenient Truth

Weekly Contest #316

An Unlikely Hero and an Inconvenient Truth Sarah Connor grew up with an unfortunate name. Her father, Steve Connor, was a lifelong Terminator superfan. He had DVD (and his original VHS) copies of all the movies, the director’s commentary, an unopened box of Terminator 2 action figures “for investment purposes,” and a custom ringtone that blared “I’ll be back!” at inappropriate moments, such as funerals or staff meetings. Steve desperately wanted a son so he could name him after his cinematic idol: John Connor, future leader of the human r...

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The Case of the Misplaced Cookbook

Weekly Contest #311

The Case of the Misplaced Cookbook Maple Glen, Iowa, wasn’t known for much. It was a typical Midwest town—old, dusty, damp, and friendly. The kind of place where the newspaper still ran a column called Seen Around Town, folks kept casseroles in their freezers “just in case.” It helped that the crossroads was a long, gritty one hundred and seven minutes from Des Moines, give or take a tractor. The town boasted a single blinking stoplight, a diner with world-class rhubarb pie, and a population of just under 1,200 souls, 1,198 of whom had nev...

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The Old Saucepan

Weekly Contest #307

The Old Saucepan After nearly fifty years in the same home, my wife and I were looking for someplace new to live. A bold move, sure—but when the house has held your entire life, you don’t leave it lightly. We did. Over those years and in that house, we raised two children, greeted three grandchildren, and loved eight dogs. We made a mistake when we sold the house during a crappy housing market to buy a fancy motorhome that cost ten times what the house had cost fifty years before. We planned to spend the rest of our lives traveling the co...

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What We don’t Say

Weekly Contest #302

What We Don’t Say “I don’t understand,” she said. Three words. Just five syllables. But they landed like stones on the quiet surface of our kitchen, rippling through everything we hadn’t said in weeks. I didn’t answer. I didn’t know how. Instead, I looked down at my coffee, which had grown cold and bitter, much like us. The fluorescent light above us buzzed in that annoying way, casting a faint halo over her bent head and mine. The kitchen table between us was small, but it exaggerated the gulf that separated us. She waited, eyes lookin...

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