Barbara Minshall

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Dec, 2024

Stories (4)

4 Stories

82 karma pts

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“Barrio 31” by Barbara Minshall

Submitted to Contest #286

BARRIO 31Argentina, 1977"Everybody, Get Out!" I was jolted awake in the middle of the night by yelling and banging outside. My mother rushed into my room--or rather, my space--separated from the living room by a tired old sheet hung up to give a fifteen-year-old some privacy. We lived in villas miseria, Barrio 31, one of the shantytown slums in the heart of Buenos Aires, situated between two wealthy neighborhoods of Recoleta and Puerto Madero. Papa had moved us here to escape uprisings in Paraguay, with dreams of a better life, only to find ...

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“Heartbeat of the Home” by Barbara Minshall

Submitted to Contest #285

Why can't I remember? he thought. His mind would only reveal flashes of the afternoon's events.His head was on fire, sweat dripping down his face, like an addict on autopilot. Grant Liscomb burst through the front door, avoiding his mother in the kitchen. Like a spider returning to its web, his lanky teenage legs scurried up the wooden stairs of the old farmhouse to his bedroom. His arms flailed with uncontrollable fear as he yanked the dirt-covered shirt over his head, discarded it on the floor, then bounded to the bathroom, slamming the do...

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“Curse of the Nutcracker” by Barbara Minshall

Submitted to Contest #284

He stood in the shadows, by the old, shriveled man's hospital bed--pensive, listening to the beeping of the monitors, the steady breath of the ventilator, keeping the man alive. He tried to reassure his conscience of the inevitable: this man was going to die soon anyway. His mouth was parched. His hands--trained to save lives, not take them--shook with fear and guilt. As he filled the syringe with morphine from the glass vial, Dr. Brad Telman wondered how things might have been different, if he hadn't opened that damned box.It was the day be...

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“Don't Cry” by Barbara Minshall

Submitted to Contest #282

It is a cold, mid-January evening, Elizabeth Brooks shudders, feeling a foreboding hesitation in the air, the snow crunches beneath her feet as she steps through the shadow of the front porch of their modest cottage by the lake. She's tired. It was a busy workday at the textile company and she hopes her husband, Tom, has brought something home for dinner. She sees him through the stained-glass window in the door, his tall, dark, refracted image moving quickly, carrying boxes? She turns the door knob, enters and looks at the suitcases on the ...

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Author bio

As an older gal who was raised with Saturday afternoon Vincent Price Classics and monster movies, I am embracing retirement and fulfilling my passion for writing. Thank you for reading and commenting.