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Alex Marmalade

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Feb, 2020

Stories (141)

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84 Followers

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141 Stories

2025 karma pts

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Where Rivers Learn to Weep

Amara's left breast was leaking again, the milk seeping through the cloth she had wrapped beneath her clothes. She pressed her grandmother's handkerchief against the wet spot, praying the smell would not give her away. The community center smelled of cleaning chemicals and sadness, but mother's milk had its own particular sweetness that cut through everything else.The baby stirred in her arms, making those small sounds that meant he would soon cry with hunger. She had fed him in the restaurant bathroom one hour before, but he was going throu...

3 likes

In the Year That King Uzziah Died

Toby Hartwell stood knee-deep in a hole, spade in hand, when Mrs. Okafor's voice cut across the garden fence."Toby, what are you doing there?"He froze, dirt-streaked and guilty, beside the peacock's magnificent corpse. His Majesty lay sprawled beneath the climbing roses, tail feathers fanned in one final display of theatrical vanity."Gardening," Toby said weakly."Gardening." Mrs. Okafor's tone could have corrected a misbehaving child from three streets away. "In your good trousers. On a Tuesday morning."She appeared at the back gate without ...

2 likes

Lux et Veritas

"Sarah Hartwell! Well, aren't you a sight for sore eyes."Jessica Whitman stood armed with a clipboard and the smile of someone who'd discovered that organising things gave her the same rush as crushing them. Behind her, the Ashworth Grammar reunion committee had achieved peak institutional beige: name tags featuring sixth-form photos, bunting that screamed compulsory fun, and a cash bar charging London prices for supermarket wine."Morrison now," Sarah said, accepting the air-kiss that felt like being blessed by a particularly vindictive vica...

2 likes

Borough at Five

The Borough Market at five AM belonged to a different species of London. Maya's trainers squelched against wet pavement as she navigated between stalls, her canvas bag empty but her mental list precise: prawns from Tommy, coconut milk from the Thai sisters, noodles from Uncle Chen if his arthritis allowed."Maya, love!" Bernadette's voice cut through morning chill. The flower seller was arranging chrysanthemums with aggressive efficiency. "You look terrible. When's the last time you ate something?""Yesterday," Maya lied, accepting herbs Berna...

1 like

All The Things You Are

The Blue Moon Jazz Cellar smelled like cigarettes and sixty years of spilled bourbon, and Eddie Thornfield hadn't felt this alive since his diagnosis. He gripped his oxygen tank's handle with white knuckles, scanning the cramped basement venue while Dmitri hovered behind him like a guilty conscience."Is very small place for such important bloke," Dmitri whispered, his Romanian accent thickening with nerves.Eddie ignored him. The stage was a postage stamp of scarred wood, barely wide enough for a trio, but he recognised the acoustics immediat...

3 likes

Seven Wildflowers Under Glass

Maya pressed her palm against the laboratory's reinforced window, watching the protesters below wave their signs like prayer flags in the summer wind. MY DAUGHTER THINKS SHE'S MARRIED TO A DEAD MAN, one placard read. REALITY IS NOT OPTIONAL, declared another."Seventeen years," she whispered to the glass. Seventeen years since she'd first sketched the neural interface designs on napkins in her grandmother's kitchen, three days before the old woman died still believing Maya was wasting her gifts on "parlor tricks."Dr. Chen cleared his throat b...

2 likes

Solstice Confessions

The morphine drip cast dancing shadows on the white walls as Father Marcus stepped into room 314, his black cassock rustling against the starched hospital linens. Through the window, afternoon sunlight painted golden rectangles across the floor—the kind of light that reminded him why he'd once believed in miracles."You came," the patient whispered, eyes unfocused but alert. An elderly man, maybe seventy, with weathered hands that trembled slightly against the white sheets.Marcus hadn't planned to. The call had come during evening prayers: Pa...

3 likes

And A Squishy Giraffe

Marcus pulled the Focus into the last space between a Range Rover and something German with cream leather seats. The gift bag from Wilko sat on his passenger seat like evidence.The front garden was pristine—edges cut with geometric precision. A handwritten sign tied to the gate read "Mia's Magical Midsummer Party" in calligraphy that probably cost more than his weekly food shop."Marcus!" Claire appeared at the front door wearing a yellow sundress and a smile that didn't reach her eyes. "I'm so glad you could make it. Mia's been asking about ...

3 likes

Fifteen Seconds in a Blackout

Detective Ray Castellano woke up in the same pew for the seventieth time, the smell of incense thick as Boston fog in February and twice as persistent. The funeral program crackled in his sweaty palm: Francis Xavier Murphy, 1943-2024, Beloved Father and Grandfather.Seventy times. He'd died more often than a Red Sox playoff run.The priest's voice droned over the congregation like static from his patrol car radio. Ray's eyes drifted to the altar where seven votive candles flickered in their brass holders. Everything identical except—the third ...

3 likes

Indefinite Leave

The citizenship papers were already burning when Nasreen smelled the smoke.She found Tariq collapsed beside the kitchen sink, a lighter clutched in his trembling fist, blue flames licking at documents bearing both their names. His face was gray as old newspaper, his breathing shallow and ragged."What have you done?" she whispered in Urdu, dropping to her knees beside him.He couldn't answer. Could only point with shaking fingers at the charred remains of Home Office correspondence—letters that had been arriving for months, always intercepted,...

3 likes

The Blanket Committee

The notification popped up at 2:47 AM: Emergency Subcommittee Meeting - 3:15 AM - Link Below. Nadia Williams squinted at her phone, wondering why anyone would schedule a meeting for the exact moment when clocks jumped ahead. Then she remembered: if they met during the missing hour, technically they weren't meeting at all. Clever loophole for avoiding official oversight.She fumbled for her reading glasses, noting seventeen missed calls from Mrs. Thompson about "urgent procedural violations in charitable distribution protocols." Margaret Thomp...

1 like

The Lord Rebuke You

The silver coins were still warm when Helel slipped through the cracks they had opened in the betrayer's soul.Thirty pieces of temple currency—enough to purchase a field, enough to purchase a man's loyalty, enough to shatter the spiritual defenses that had once protected one of the Twelve. The metal's heat lingered against Judas's palm like a brand as Helel settled into the deepest chambers of his consciousness, coiling around thoughts and memories like smoke filling a sealed jar.Three days. Three days to orchestrate the end of the greatest ...

3 likes

Silicon Sons

The notification arrived at 3:47 AM, stamped with the corporate seal of Meridian Dynamics—the same company Dr. Marcus Chen had built from nothing before the board stripped his voting rights and relegated him to "Chief Innovation Officer."Your participation is required in Project Verification. Location: Sub-basement C, Room 1247. Time: 8:00 AM sharp. Failure to comply will result in immediate termination and forfeiture of all benefits, including your sons' educational trusts.The sons' educational trusts—that wasn't standard corporate language...

2 likes

When Lions Remember Their Names

The torch flames cast dancing shadows across the council chamber as Queen Amytis entered flanked by guards, her chains clinking softly against the marble floor. Seven years of sleeping in gardens and managing an empire's slow collapse had taught her many things, but the most valuable lesson was this: when facing a tribunal of ambitious men, posture was everything.She walked like a queen.Behind the crescent-shaped table sat nine members of the Babylonian High Council, their faces masks of practiced neutrality. But Amytis could read the tells—...

1 like

Birds Don't Fly Backwards

Kofi adjusted his knock-off Adidas tracksuit—purchased from Peckham Market for three pounds—and tried not to laugh as his cousin Akwasi introduced him to the funeral gathering as "our poor Kofi who cleans toilets in London." The assembled mourners made the appropriate sympathetic sounds, their faces carefully arranged in expressions that said what a waste of a good education.His uncle's funeral had drawn the entire extended family back to Ddamba, including his brother Samuel, who stood beside their father wearing a pristine white coat despit...

2 likes

Author bio

Hi, I’m Alex Marmalade. I tell stories that try to dig for the truths we bury beneath the surface.

Yes, Marmalade is a somewhat ridiculous last name – I've made peace with this (sort of 🙃). But sometimes it takes an unusual perspective to see what others miss.

My stories explore what happens in those pivotal moments when pretense falls away—when characters stop calibrating themselves against artificial standards and finally embrace who they truly are. I'm still figuring this all out myself, honestly. 🤗

Fiction is sometimes the clearest way to tell the truth. As Over the Rhine once said, "If you're not embarrassed, then you're not doing it right."

These stories are fragments I've unearthed from somewhere deeper—fossils carefully brushed clean and held to the light. I publish a new one every weekday, along with reflections on the unexpected discoveries found along the way.

If these explorations resonate with you, find more at: https://alexmarmalade.substack.com/

The garden gate is always unlocked. ✨

1 winning story 🏆

Contest #294

Unspoken Orders – read story