Darby Tanner

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Sep, 2023

Stories (4)

4 Stories

75 karma pts

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“COULEUR LABS User Testimonial #54” by Darby Tanner

Submitted to Contest #292

The package — sleek and square — arrives. I peer at it through the security camera despite already standing behind the front door. I lock my phone and scan my fingerprint on the doorknob. The opaque glass makes a whiiiishhhhhh sound as it slides into the wall. The previous owners described the door as “sleek” but I describe it as “slow as hell.” It shouldn’t take a door ten seconds to open. The package is a stark black in my world of grey. I purse my lips. I like to have control over some things — like when I go outside and how f...

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“christmas lights” by Darby Tanner

Submitted to Contest #279

Last year, the Christmas lights were so tangled that it took two days of griping and Cara’s nimble fingers to straighten out the matted bunch. They’re vintage C6 bulbs on an ivy green wire; I refuse to replace them. Lights always go up on Thanksgiving Day in my house. It was after Black Friday that I wrapped the final cord around the tree last year. That’s not happening again. I packed the lights myself after the fiasco, painstakingly, might I add. I fashioned a storage system out of cardboard, cutting sizable notches into the side to g...

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“exempli gratia” by Darby Tanner

Submitted to Contest #278

A black bird glides down to the billboard outside Ellen's apartment. She sips a London Fog as the bird sidles into the crowded line of preening starlings, causing a jostling ripple to the unlucky few pushed off the edges. Ellen cranks her window open and invites the morning breeze into her home, then scoots her favorite reading chair, plush and checkered, toward it. The Argenta district bustles below her. It's cozy, with murals of dogs bursting from block letters "Dogtown Proud" on the opposite building, which houses a jazz bar, cafe-bakery,...

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“The Falling Leaf” by Darby Tanner

Submitted to Contest #218

The smell hits me first. Yesterday morning mirrors today's in nearly every way, except today is the first day of fall, and the atmosphere in Witch’s Brew tangibly reflects the shift. Where lavender and fresh lemonade defined the summer, I now catch whiffs of pumpkin and apple cider. Wafting cinnamon gives the shop an autumnal edge (Autumnal in the corporate sense. It’s still 85 degrees in Arkansas). My mouth brims, gluttonous as I imagine pumpkin syrup melting on my tongue, laced with plenty of sugar, ginger, and cloves. In the South, we...

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Author bio

Copywriter by day, novelist by night.