Darya Silman

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Jan, 2021

Stories (9)

9 Stories

343 karma pts

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“A Story That Never Happened” by Darya Silman

1A skyscraper hasn't grown out of the curb in the very center of Tallinn, Estonia. You can check this by using Google maps: type in Postimaja Shopping Center and choose the street view. You'll see a busy intersection with buses, cars, pedestrians, and no birds (remember the birds) encapsulated forever in the amber of a camera. Maples, with leaves unnaturally green in the picture - in reality, quietly dying under a thin layer of dust and traffic fumes - have their roots in patches of...

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“The First Journey to Mars ” by Darya Silman

TW: death.I read once that you had to accept everything life offered you with thankfulness. I was thankful for the gift of camaraderie I had received during preparation for the space mission. As I looked right from my tiny plastic seat, I saw a smile of excitement dancing on the lips of Big Brother. He was the oldest of us, forty-two, with fair soft hair I had wanted to ruffle from day one. His patronal tone left no doubt how he felt about us, the second generation of the spa...

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“The Penguin and The Keys ” by Darya Silman

I"Get off me!" Lionel yelled and straightened up. Few white and black feathers stuck to his back, looking like arrows. A large emperor penguin readied itself to attack again. IIIf to think logically, it had to be Ben, standing in the middle of the night, in the aviary full of savage penguins and searching for the keys in splashes of guano. Under the watchful eye of Ms. Burgess, the students from Ben and Lionel's class were allowed to enter the aviary to feed the penguins the day b...

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“Twenty-four Hours in the Life of Jane Doe” by Darya Silman

Jane unwillingly lived off the smell of an oily rag. Books in the alphabetic order on two bookshelves.Bowls of decreasing sizes one within the other. Saturday is for cleaning and washing, Sunday is for reading and walking.An alarm clock set up at 8.05. Five minutes represented frivolousness. Not three or four, or one; five minutes. Although five minutes was a sign of rebellion, it seemed like a good compromise between a wish to sleep longer and the need to wake up.A glass of water half an hour ...

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“The Land of the Tigers” by Darya Silman

For Abbey ForrestIA Siberian tiger was old. The last winter, when the temperature fell to minus 40, took its toll. The Tiger didn't have the strength to enjoy the fast-pacing spring, brooks growing into rivers and rivers becoming mighty, insurmountable streams. The lukewarm sun couldn't reach the underwood through the still naked branches, and the first pheasant's eyes on clearings coexisted with deep snow lumps in the ravines. Green blades of grass stretched upward, piercing the wetness of y...

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“Love” by Darya Silman

I'Come here, Prince, you'll be safe with me.' A woman squatted in front of John's hideout, his favorite corner between a nightstand and bed. John had never seen a woman like her before. Her skin looked like it was shining white from within, pulsation of thin red veins visible through skin's paleness. The color of her eyes transitioned from dark blue to mesmerizing black with every rise and fall of long lashes. A red-yellow dragon slightly wriggled on her left temple, and he heard the quiet hissing of a golden...

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“Who is Ilona Marchenko?” by Darya Silman

IA blast of light swished through towns and villages, turning out electrical devices and making pedestrians' hair stand on end. Babushka Glafira in a small city Aprelovka, Kirov oblast, who just made herself comfortable to watch the 6 am program thought that it was the 1st April joke from her spoilt grandson. But Glafira was a loving grandmother: she decided to wait till 8 am.The grandson's phone was put on mute. A long-desired day-off after a week of pressure and deadlines lay before him. The old exp...

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“The City of Shadows” by Darya Silman

That’s the thing about this city; the more you look into the shadows the more shadows look at you.The noise of an alarm clock was too annoying to ignore. Melissa could turn it off without looking, her eyes still closed, and her mind still processing the dream. It was something nice, she was sure, but she already couldn’t remember what it was. Her second move, so comforting in the past, was to put on her glasses. The quick glance through the glasses made Melissa shake in disgust. Cheap brown plastic arms were helplessly trying to fi...

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“Happy” by Darya Silman

I 'Today is Saturday, you could have slept longer.' 'This is irrational. A strict regime is the second rule to be happy.' 'You look awful.' 'You are programmed to say nice things!' 'I think you are selfish. You never say nice things to me.' Mechanical eyes stared at me. I blinked. 'I will shut you down!' 'It will prove that I'm right.'<...

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Author bio

I am an avid reader and writer who dreams of publishing three books: a supernatural novel, a collection of short stories, and poetry. I've been writing since I was 10, first in my native Russian. I wrote short stories, poems, and even one novel. At 22, I stopped writing at all, feeling that my pieces were not good enough. I resumed writing at 34, now in English, and thanks to the massive support of my friends on Instagram (we call ourselves a tacocrew) I've been able not to quit so far. As for now, I am a published poet ("Mind", poetry anthology, 2020) and a published reviewer ("The Fall and Rise of Chimeras", seasonal of Ink Gladiators Press, 2021). Please, check out my poetic page https://www.instagram.com/darya_silman/ Examples to follow in writing (in my opinion) are Julio Cortazar, Franz Kafka, Friedrich Nietzsche, Vladimir Nabokov, Eugene Ionesco, Sylvia Plath, and Osip Mandelshtam. See you in the Fold!