♡ Tana ♡

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Apr, 2020

Stories (14)

14 Stories

280 karma pts

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“Paradise Lost ” by ♡ Tana ♡

⭐️ Shortlisted for Contest #248

My late husband never did give me his green thumb.  I remember when we first met, I was amazed at his ability to coax life into blighted tomatoes, pray seedlings into sprouting in lackluster soil, and convince frostbitten blueberry bushes to produce gallons.  My late husband grew up on a ranch in Southern Texas, and his sweet drawl and lazy eyes persuaded me to have not one and not two but three drinks with him that sleepy summer night in Alabama. He was visiting the University of Alabama where I was a student and had lived all my ...

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“Star Oddity” by ♡ Tana ♡

Submitted to Contest #247

Somewhere during our second year in space, we started talking about astrology. One might think that flying past countless stars each waking minute would make us wonder at our own heavenly correlations, but we were too busy being proper astronauts to think about anything except propulsion and coordinates. National Geographic had run a special on us before we left, on New Year's Day, 2086. Star Light, Star Bright, Guide our Travelers Tonight, the headline read. It was not an overall hopeful piece, since most people assumed we would die. This f...

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“Do You Live Under a Rock?” by ♡ Tana ♡

Submitted to Contest #244

The school bus has always reminded me of a dragon, yellow and fierce, and not guaranteed to spit you back out again once it swallows you up.  Every morning, when I stand at the end of my driveway and wait for it, I close my eyes and imagine that it will not come. I am the last person to be picked up, and somehow the last person to be dropped off, even though that doesn’t make sense to me, so sometimes I pretend that Mr. Tim, our bus driver, will skip me for convenience's sake. I create elaborate scenarios in my mind; accidents and detou...

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“The Hitchhiker” by ♡ Tana ♡

Submitted to Contest #241

This is a story about the day that I learned that the human soul is unexpectedly wonderful, that God is real but entirely made up, and that I am not anyone but who I am right now. The story doesn’t start at the final epiphany of course, they never do.Imagine how easy that would be, and how boring to read. There is no great joy without the contrast of grief. At least, that’s what I’ve been told. Nothing is set in stone, if the hitchhiker taught me anything, it was that.Oh yes, this is a story about a hitchhiker, and me, a twenty- six yea...

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“Last Words” by ♡ Tana ♡

Submitted to Contest #238

Trigger Warning: Miscarriage. CHLOEBefore we fell in love, Evan and I spent two months talking to each other over text and phone calls. After we fell in love we spent three more months talking over text, and all night phone calls. We spent three years talking to each other through morning breath, evening whispers, late night confessions, ordinary daytime passing remarks. Our vows took almost fifteen minutes to say a piece. If someone attempted to calculate the sheer number of minutes we have spent talking, I’m sure that it would equal years ...

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“Running to Hawaii” by ♡ Tana ♡

Submitted to Contest #235

Jeremiah is waiting for Susie to meet him. He has one leg propped up on the park bench, and his right hand braced against the thigh of the said leg, his fingers pressing into his skin as though it can reach the muscle underneath.  Jeremiah didn’t want to get up to run this morning, but Susie never doesn’t want to get up to run, and the thought of her thinking he can’t keep up with her is unbearable.  Je...

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“The Table” by ♡ Tana ♡

Submitted to Contest #107

We sit here together around this table that your father built before you were born, and we eat the rich olive bread from the wooden plate at the center of the table; thirteen hands sharing bread, and I wonder at the intimacy of it, especially now when we all feel as distant as strangers. I keep trying to catch your eye, but you keep your head down and eat very little, and if there were not so many others around us I woul...

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“After the Garden” by ♡ Tana ♡

Submitted to Contest #70

3 A.M, Thursday, September 17thAdam:hey are you awake? i really need to talk to you.3:03 A.Mmaybe i shouldn’t have said ‘need’. i really, really want to talk to you.3:08but it’s basically like needing to3:20eva please talk to me. i know that you probably hate me, and to be honest you probably should, but please just listen3:30 so i’m just going to say this, ok? and you don’t have to respond or anything, i just ne...

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“The Queen of the Irises” by ♡ Tana ♡

Submitted to Contest #64

Do you remember, my love, the first time we saw each other? On the court of Edward VI, with a thousand candles mounted on the walls, casting flickering shadows across our jewels and finery and powdered hair, until we all looked like ghosts? Do you remember how the music floated over our heads like an angel’s serenade, how you took my hand and swept me out onto the floor before I had the chance to say yes? You spun me about until I was dizzy, and then you pressed your hand against my back to keep me steady, while my heart raced agains...

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“The Secretary ” by ♡ Tana ♡

Submitted to Contest #49

The secretary had learned to make herself invisible. Not literally of course, if anyone cared to look they would see her, but no one ever bothered too. She sat quietly behind her desk, handed out paperwork, and gave out ‘hellos’ and ‘goodbyes’ and ‘sign here’s’ like the peppermints she kept in a mug on her desk.  She didn’t realize that she was invisible until she had been working for two years, and realized that people didn’t meet her eyes when she talked to them. Instead they seemed to l...

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“The Words” by ♡ Tana ♡

Submitted to Contest #47

“Do you believe in love?” he asks you. You’re sitting in the doorway of the old French theater, watching the rain pour down beyond the crumbling awning and tired posts. You’re sitting in his lap with your cheek pressed against his chest, and the roughness of his wool jacket rubs against your face. “What kind of love?” you say, even though you know what he is talking about. “Eros,” he says, “Flowers and hearts and marriage and sex and saying ‘I love you’ with your...

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“The Story” by ♡ Tana ♡

Submitted to Contest #45

The storyteller finally put down his pen, and closed the book, for he had at long last finished. And he sat back in his old armchair by the roaring fire with his wine and books and women, with the small leatherbound book sitting quietly on the bedside table. The storyteller closed his eyes and rested, satisfied, and when he slept he had no dreams, for all was done.*********************************************************************Summer watched the fires out of her window, wonder...

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“For Thea: To Read One Day” by ♡ Tana ♡

Submitted to Contest #43

Dear tiny life inside me, Hello. You are the size of a poppy seed, but you have suddenly become such a huge part of my world. It’s strange to think that yesterday you did exist to me, and yet today, thanks to two pink lines, you have become my everything.  It scares me to no end to think that I am now responsible for a life, tiny though you may be. I hope that you like it in my womb, that you are comfortable, that you do not want to leave.  I suppose that I should admit to you now that you were not exactly...

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“In the Stars” by ♡ Tana ♡

Submitted to Contest #39

She was watching the stars again. She believed that they held secrets in them, perhaps even words spelled out across the dusky canvas of the sky, waiting for someone with the patience to read them. When the world didn’t make any sense, and she felt like no one understood her, she would go onto the roof at night and watch the stars. Sometimes she would almost believe that she could see the messages, but she could never fully understand them, which she blamed on the wine she would always be drinking during those star...

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Author bio

Trying to find beauty in the little things... and write about it. ♡ ♡ I'm always open to any kind of critique and comments! :)

Shortlisted 1 story ⭐️

Contest #248
Paradise Lost – read story