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Ali Anthony Bell

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Aug, 2020

Stories (44)
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87 Followers
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44 Stories

865 karma pts

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Turnin’ in Circles

Submitted to Contest #305

It all started with a lie more than 40 years ago. I was 23 and had moved to Paris from Minneapolis to study film making (that was little less than a lie as well, because I had no real intention to make movies) and especially to paint and see all of the great paintings there. I’d arrived on a charter flight with a one-way ticket (you can’t do that anymore) with just a backpack and $100 in my pocket (that’s not a lie).After shacking up with Michèle, a pretty French girl two years my senior, (because I had no way to pay rent), I started looking...

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The Raven’s Quest

Submitted to Contest #305

It took a few seconds to realize I was utterly and completely lost. I’d gone off the beaten path and was now far from it. I tried finding my way back, but it seemed like I was just turning in circles. The forest was enormous and my screams did no good. I trudged along until I couldn’t go any further, then collapsed under a tree. I’d already been warned not to go off the path; there are black bears and timber wolves in the area.I woke up when someone touched me, and jumped out of my skin at the old, dark, wrinkled and weathered face that star...

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I Hung a Left

Submitted to Contest #305

With the sun in my eyes, I was driving through the forest on the way home. I’d taken the road hundreds of times, it was my usual route to and from work. The sun was also always in my eyes in the morning, as I drove Eastward in the morning and Westward in the evening. My mouth dropped open when I came to a crossing that normally only had a road on the right, and this time there was also one on the left. It hadn’t been there in the morning when I took a left onto the main road, but there it was. At the intersection, I could go right and head h...

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The Falcon's Plunge

Submitted to Contest #305

“You know what? I quit.”“You’re not serious, are you?”“Dead serious. I was already considering leaving the job and going back to school, and your stupid punishment gave me the opportunity to decide on the spot.”“But we have rules. No drinking during working hours. Our owner saw you having a beer with your lunch. We have to give you a three-day suspension. It’s company rules and we don’t have a choice.”“Maybe so, but it’s a stupid rule. It’s not like I was getting drunk on the job. I had one beer.”“Listen, I want you to reconsider. You know t...

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Piercing Vision

At 30 years of age, and alone for the first time since he’d met Léonie a decade earlier, Paul was at a loss with what to do. On one hand, he was free to pursue his artistic exploration (that had been the case when he was with both Léonie and Aimée), on the other hand, he had no one to love and support him. Fate had taken Léonie from him, and in a certain way Aimée also, but with the latter he had his part of responsibility in the destiny that had played out.He had just been paid a high commission for the last portrait, so he was alright fina...

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Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained

Submitted to Contest #248

Paradise LostAfter washing their faces in the small sink in her maid’s room, Aimée dressed while Paul Barry waited on the landing. They caught a fiacre and went to his studio, where he changed clothes and picked up his papers while she waited in the fiacre.Léonie’s portrait was there to greet him and a flood of dolor rushed through his mind and body, making him tremble. He covered it with a cloth thinking “I have to get rid of this, I can’t bear seeing it every day. What should I do with it though? Perhaps send it to her parents? Later thoug...

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City of Light, Angel of Darkness

Submitted to Contest #247

The day after their wedding, Paul and Léonie Barry set out on their Honeymoon voyage to Paris, not to return to the USA. For Paul, it was the adventure he’d been anticipating for half his life and for Léonie the return she’d been longing for since her family had immigrated and settled in Manhattan three years earlier.Paul had insisted that they only take two suitcases each, because they could buy everything they needed for their new life when they arrived. Léonie didn’t have any difficulty putting everything she owned in two valises, with th...

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When the Blood Moon Was a Blessing

Story written in Aramaic on a clay tablet found in the archeological site of Pasargadae in Iran.My name is Amytis, I’m the daughter of King Astyages and Queen Aryenis and the wife of King Kuras II and his queen. I was named after my paternal aunt, who is the Queen of Babylon with King Nebuchadnezzar II. Her beauty is so astonishing that the king built the hanging gardens for her. It’s an honor for me to be named after her.I would not even be alive today had it not been for the fateful event which occurred when my father was in battle with th...

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TINKERBELL

Submitted to Contest #202

“How about a little fun?” Jack snickers to his gang, tossing his chin up like a pointer, his eyes zeroing in on a solitary bookworm sitting on the blacktop of the school courtyard with his back against a brick wall. It’s the morning recess. They all nod approvingly as sinister smiles unite and eyes gleam with the anticipation of the attack. The loner is small and slim, with long straight sandy hair and gold wire-framed aviator glasses. Jack is the outsider’s antithesis in every way, from his sporty build to his outgoing manner. All the girls...

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Brook's Breakaway

Submitted to Contest #200

“Mr. Hawkins?” Sally Lehmann knocks on the open door and pokes her head into Alan Hawkins’ classroom at Orono High School in Northern Maine. Her husband Mark is with her. It’s after school and there aren’t any students.“Yes, come in Mr. and Ms. Lehmann, It’s good to see you. Please shut the door.” He gets up, walks towards them, shakes their hands, and returns to his desk, standing and leaning back on it. The Lehmanns take a seat at desks in the front row.“I hope it’s not serious?” Sally asks with a worried look.“Not at all. Let me tell you ...

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Going-to-the-Sun Once Again

It’s Saturday August 2nd, 1980, I turned 20 last March, and I’m living in a two-bedroom apartment in Minneapolis by myself. I’m on holiday until September 2nd, because the 1st is Labor Day.My job’s not too bad for a high school grad; worked my way up from stockman to Assistant Manager in two years. I have a $1000 ready reserve, and I just bought a ’76 Oldsmobile Delta 88 sedan with only 20 thousand on the meter. While beige isn’t exactly my favorite color, it was a great deal at 880 bucks, and I couldn’t pass it up.My younger brother Ben had...

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Riding the Struggle Bus

Submitted to Contest #196

It’s a hot summer day in Casablanca, and I’m riding the bus home from work, standing room only. I had a seat when I got on at the terminus, but I soon gave it up to an old lady, something that most of the local men would never think of doing. It irritates me to no end. Sometimes, when I see a big hulk of a man sitting thoughtlessly while an old man or woman, a pregnant woman, or a mother with infants is standing right next to him, I want to go up and say “Hey, if that was your mother you’d be standing! There’s no difference. Get your ass up!...

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Just a Piece of Paper

Submitted to Contest #188

Aziz Bellali is checking his mail at home.“Hey love, come and check this out! The Muhammad bin Ali al-Haj University wants to give me an award! And it’s even on my 65th birthday!”“That’s great, you deserve it!” his wife Aisha responds cheerfully.“But I can’t accept. Come and read the mail.”Aisha comes over to his side and reads:           Dear Dr. Bellali,We would like to thank you for your recent talk at our university and for the inspiration you’ve been to so many people in our country...

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Happy Teacher’s Day

Submitted to Contest #166

8:05, Wednesday October 5, 2022, World Teacher’s DayI’m an English teacher in an expensive private school in Casablanca. I was hired a month ago as Head of the English Dept. I arrive at school early and punch the clock, none of the material in the classrooms work, but there’s one thing that works, the digital employee time clock that they installed at the start of the school year, just one month ago.I go to my office and open the old run-down laptop that they loaned me, I go onto the ‘koolschools’ platform and check the names of the students...

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Stand-in Ovation

Submitted to Contest #123

Ali Albaz is standing in front of the mirror in the early morning sun. He’s practicing, experimenting, inventing, talking to himself, gesturing, and not sure at all how he’ll handle tonight’s concert. Scheherazade is still stretched out on the canopy bed in her nightgown. She’s explained the whole incredible situation. But before that, she had checked the bump on his head and changed the bandage, and then she had made love to him, partly to get even with Fatima Zahra for doing it with his brother, but then again, her twin sister was right, e...

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