Daniel Brown

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Aug, 2019

Stories (43)

43 Stories

841 karma pts

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“Succulent Story ” by Daniel Brown

"Set the succulent on the counter, Maurice. Mama's got a blender to buy," Mama growls with a bounce and cold calling grin. She bends into a lowercase r at the edge of the sofa. Italian leather squeaks beneath her frenetic body. Belches a caustic mixture of chili and draft beer as two kinetic middle-aged people with shifting blonde hair shout about "once-in-a-lifetime deals you can't afford to miss" in a s...

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“The World is Ugly and Everyone's Okay with It” by Daniel Brown

TW: graphic depictions of death, sexual assault, some violence, brief strong profanity I remember watching my dead horse Mollie fester in the sun not far from the barn. All my dad did was cover her with tarp. Bet Dad would have buried Mollie if she was a he, my brother Arn quipped. I swore off horse-riding going forward. Dad sponged over my eye in our claw-foot tub from ...

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“Space Cat Adventures” by Daniel Brown

My stomach gurgles in the engine room and I have to set down my wrench to address the emptiness. I pat my vest pockets for some semblance of food and I feel flatness.  A bag of freeze-dried barracuda strips. Beautiful. Beggars can’t be choosers though. First one out the bag and down my throat launches my body into a uniformed squirm. It’s edible enough.  The engine is fixed at last. The hu...

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“Why Do We Dream of Horses? ” by Daniel Brown

“No one in this dreary cafeteria knows I dream of being a horse mid-Spring. No one knows my glorious neigh-and-gallop through sweeping vistas and picturesque sunflower fields. Everyone knows I vanish inside of a temperamental Walkman while I consume tapioca and file documents. They know the metal that swirls and shovels cassava between my perpetual chapped lips. The tape hiss and pop of a slanted Walkman window.” 

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“The Killing Pages” by Daniel Brown

TW: graphic depictions of violent acts Day 1 I answer an ad formatted like a Black Ops mission that leads me to a colorless office building.         You come      here and   read       for  money 772 Iris Boulevard The blacked-out words catch my wayward cigarette ashes like the cracked sidewalk catches raindrops in its crevices. I...

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“The Last Time I Saw Vivian ” by Daniel Brown

Life wedged Vivian between a monumental breakdown in a law firm and an impromptu flight to Japan last time I saw her. I discovered a photograph of her in a discolored denim-clad starfish pose beneath a torii gate used as a bookmark for a porn magazine. Didn’t bother to focus on the two porn stars who my eyes skimmed over en route to the photograph but they mirrored her brunette bob to uncanny effect. She was accompanied ...

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“River Song” by Daniel Brown

The sun glistens on Mark's wide back with a patient eroticism.  “What are the odds of us being stranded on a river?” He snickers arched over the boat like a prying gargoyle.  I want to tell him the odds are high if the oars are underwater. Tell him they are high if help is equidistant to looming clouds. That his brief descent into anger over a torn childhood life jacket launched the oars i...

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“The Bridge Between Us” by Daniel Brown

I need someone to proofread my essay on how to take care of lilacs but Barry takes ages to pore over a sentence. He begins at the first word and breaks into hysterical sneezes against the margin. And he has yet to return my disposable camera. We are NOT friends at the moment. I can correct this myself at the Downtown Cafe.  I wanna enter this songwriting contest but Therese is my songwriter and she judges...

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“Who Loves the Sun? ” by Daniel Brown

The sun makes me wheeze hard. It makes me grow spots and welts. It makes me strip naked and roll around in my front yard to stop the intense burning and sweating. I confine myself to the house and shut the blinds. People call me weird but they don’t understand because- “-they’re not allergic to the sun.”  “And you are?”  That is Falicia Myers over the phone. She's my...

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“The 8:15 Train to Vanessa” by Daniel Brown

“The 8:15 train to Vanessa is leaving the station. Stand clear of the closing doors.”  I wander in after a rush of people scramble into the train. Three high schoolers chat about drugs and swing around a pole. A nondescript businessman mumbles to himself in a cracked phone. And two lanky thirty-something lovebirds point handguns at everyone. They're fake and I'm smart-ass Lamar today.  “Em...

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“Who Dreams of Cut Flowers? ” by Daniel Brown

“Who dreams of cut flowers?” It felt like an idiot question that deserved an idiot answer. And at a time where the moon was especially bright, where its glow turned the usually dark diner into a paper lantern, Rainbow and I appeared particularly idiotic. Alone in a diner, charred fries, two greasy, untouched burgers and warm, denim-clad bodies who blabbered about dreams of cut flowers.  “I...

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“Not a lot is going on here ” by Daniel Brown

This Sunday heat presses a reckless thumb against the bodies of wealthy and impoverished alike. Kids wrench open fire hydrants to prevent them from melting into the sidewalk like their defenseless popsicles and cones and sundaes. And parents and cousins and siblings and aunts and uncles, necks craned beneath the unity of an officer's bent knee perspiring through the uniform and the sizzling asphalt boiling their skin. Th...

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“Nine postcards in a white room ” by Daniel Brown

June- Ronald’s perspective It's been a week since Darnell collapsed off his roof to his untimely death. Who knew setting down new shingles in the sweltering heat could be dangerous?  This is why I'm writing to you bedridden in his white room, not from a degenerative disease unless you consider this all-encompassing intense sadness to be one. Loss of appetite, no showers, n...

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“Because we love each other” by Daniel Brown

“Cheyenne, remember when we screamed over... what was it, who would take the reins for dinner?”  “You wanted to make green bean casserole.”  “Which you said was, and I quote, the kind of dish you make for someone you despise.” “My mom went to her grave without a kind word for me, and made green bean casserole every other night. Can you blame me?”  “I guess n...

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“Forgiving the Outline of a Man” by Daniel Brown

The sun-soaked evergreen of Dora Park darkens in the presence of this mold of bearded flesh in nicotine cologne, cross-body bag, unkempt business casual clothes, wan smile. Yellowed teeth and four-dollar cigarette breath greet me before anything else. Claims he's my father. I scoff toward the trees as a group of scattered wise oaks bend over to hear us. My dad is an outline of a man, I deadpan. ...

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Author bio

A Florida-based author who hopes to be published someday