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Alex Marmalade

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Feb, 2020

Stories (179)
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179 Stories

2092 karma pts

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The Arithmetic of Belonging

Submitted to Contest #290

Nisha sat still as the henna artist worked, watching the fine lines emerge on her palms. Outside the window, the monsoon clouds gathered, promising rain for tomorrow's ceremony. She flexed her fingers carefully, counting the hours until she would become a wife to a man whose face she had seen only in photographs. "Keep still," her mother scolded, adjusting the heavy gold necklace around Nisha's neck. "Your father and grandfather secured this match with considerable effort. The Raos are a good family." "I know, Amma," Nisha replied. Her mothe...

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When the West Rides East

Submitted to Contest #290

A faded buzz—a dim screen in a rain-washed Kowloon backstreet—a single, broken message still echoed in his mind: “I need you.” That call, received long before he boarded a plane he’d always feared, had drawn him from the vast, unforgiving plains of Texas to the neon labyrinth of Hong Kong. It was a promise made on lonely Texan nights and kept in the quiet spaces between heartbeats—a call that no matter how far the world stretched, some oaths could not be broken.He was a Texan born under endless skies—a cowboy whose low, deliberate drawl and ...

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Covenant of Shadows

Submitted to Contest #290

The neon haze of New Singapore dripped over every surface like spilled mercury—a city of contradictions where the state’s creed held sway over every heartbeat. In this realm, permanent union was not celebrated but condemned. The state’s modern champions—collectively known as the Modernity Council—decried the ancient practice of binding oneself irrevocably to another. They argued, in measured tones and with pointed glances, that such permanence was anachronistic and an impediment to progress. Yet in the dark corridors beneath the metropolis, ...

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Silk Moths Don't Return

Submitted to Contest #289

Maya's reflection stared back at her from the cathedral bathroom mirror, a stranger wrapped in yards of hand-embroidered silk. The dress alone cost more than what Maria, who was currently mopping the floor behind her, would earn in ten years. Two hundred thousand dollars of white silk and crystal beading, designed to transform her into the perfect Malhotra bride. The same silk that had arrived three months ago in a box carved from sandalwood, accompanied by a note that read: *"Tradition meets luxury. Just like our families."* She remembered ...

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Verborgene Wiege

Submitted to Contest #289

Karl Schmidt's fingers trembled as he filled out the Hitler Youth application. One more form, one more stamp of approval, and he could finally prove his worth to Gruppenführer Müller. After two years of suspicious glances and whispered questions about why he wasn't already a member, Karl would silence the doubters. He just needed his birth certificate. Outside his father's study window, December snow fell on Munich's streets, coating the remnants of broken glass that still glittered in some shopfront corners, even a month after Kristallnacht...

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Tempus Resurgens

Submitted to Contest #289

The clock on the wall read 2:57 PM. Margaret Ashworth studied its methodical movement with the same analytical focus she'd once applied to quarterly reports and market projections. The second hand's steady march reminded her of stock tickers – those digital harbingers of fortune that had guided her decisions for four decades at Ashworth Pharmaceuticals. Now, in this sterile room with its institutional whites and greys, another number demanded her attention: Protocol 65. The newest initiative from the Department of Dignified Transitions, laun...

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Rent the Slay: A Customer Service Chat

Submitted to Contest #289

*A transcript from the Rent the Slay customer service chat portal, 2:14 AM EST* **Welcome to Rent the Slay! I'm Marcus. How can I help make your evening more fabulous?** Hi Marcus! Sorry to bother you so late. I need help with a return label for the Louboutins I got on Friday? The red ones with the crystal heel? Usually there's a label in the box but I can't find it anywhere. And I know it's super late but I have to get these packed up for tomorrow and I'm kind of freaking out. **Please don't apologize - the night shift exists precisely for ...

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Ghost Notes

Submitted to Contest #289

*The room is unfamiliar. I don't know how I got here.* The words filtered through the earbud nestled in James Mitchell's left ear, delivered in his own voice with clinical precision. He stood before a mirror in what appeared to be a hospital staff bathroom, fluorescent lights casting harsh shadows across his face. Wine-colored scrubs hung slightly loose on his frame, as if they'd been chosen for someone else. *You're experiencing an episode of Korsakoff-Wernicke encephalopathy. The condition affects your ability to form new memories. Trust n...

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51% Attack

Submitted to Contest #288

A relentless drip echoed from the high ceiling of a cramped detention cell as humid air pressed in around Elias Mbogo. Outside, through a small barred window, the tropical sky over Singapore appeared as an unchanging expanse of steely grey. In this city-state—where the climate was predictably hot, humid, and punctuated by intermittent, steady showers—Elias’s every moment felt suspended in a loop of inevitability.Cuffed to a cold metal chair in a government holding facility adjacent to Changi Airport, Elias recalled the sacrifices that had br...

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Jade Monsoon

Submitted to Contest #288

Marcus stood motionless in front of the waterfall display at Chang's Garden, watching sheets of water cascade over polished black granite. The sound reminded him of rain against windows during childhood storms, when he'd huddle under blankets with Sophie, counting seconds between thunder and lightning. Today, his sister sat across the restaurant's private dining room, her fingers wrapped so tightly around her chopsticks that her knuckles had gone white. "The Chang family has been good to us for three generations," their father said, cutting ...

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Celestial Tempest

Submitted to Contest #288

A cool breeze brushed against Lydia’s skin as she stood by the fogged window of the research facility. Outside, the weather remained deceptively calm—a muted, steady rain that masked the turbulent forces hidden in plain sight. Inside, every monitored signal and sensor reading whispered of secrets too extraordinary to ignore.Jasper, a mixed-race boy with eyes that defied the sedation keeping him docile, lay in his containment chamber. In his veins, nanorobots streamed data to satellites and drones, their digital gaze matching the unchanging m...

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Speak Water, Walk Sky

Submitted to Contest #288

Ancient scrolls tell of a time when words shaped reality, when masters of the Way could command the elements with their breath. In the mountains above Lake Taihu, where mist clings to bamboo like thoughts to an unquiet mind, such wisdom was once passed from master to student in whispers, in silences, in the spaces between heartbeats. Here, at Dawn Mountain Temple, thirteen stone pillars rose from the morning fog like fingers reaching for heaven. Each pillar bore thousands of characters, carved by generations of masters who had learned to spe...

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And One for the Little Boy Who Lives Down the Lane

Submitted to Contest #288

Silas rested his forehead against the cellar’s wooden beams, listening for the shuffle of boots overhead. Thunder rolled in the distance. An edge of lightning lit the cracks in the planks, and for an instant, the flicker revealed the tattered scrap of paper he kept tucked inside his shirt. That single page—taken from a nameless, coverless book found on a lynched runaway—showed a faint drawing of a shepherd leading sheep through a valley, and Silas’s fingers curled around it like a secret promise.He had never quite fit the flock. Born light-s...

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Threads of the Unseen

Submitted to Contest #287

Night had settled over Qīnghuā, masking the looming threat in its velvet shadows. Liàng crept through the twisted bamboo grove, heart pounding. He knew something was off—an unseen force tugged at his mind, urging him to turn back, give up, lash out. It felt like a presence clinging to his soul, but he had no words for it, only a deep, persistent dread.He clutched the stolen parchment, ink still fresh with the hidden teachings of Yēsū—a wandering sage who claimed that what lay beyond mortal sight was more real than the tangible world. Liàng h...

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Tea and Sympathy at St Michael's

Submitted to Contest #287

"You simply must meet my other African friend," Betty Howard had insisted, practically dragging Marie toward her Volvo after their chance encounter outside Tesco. "She's from Kenya – you'll have so much to talk about!" Now, checking her phone for the fourteenth time that morning, Betty surveyed her domain – St. Michael's church hall, where she'd coordinated the food bank for twelve years. The digestive biscuits sat in neat rows on the plate, each one identical to the last, a uniform beige that Betty found comforting. The ginger nuts, with th...

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