Debra Caples

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Oct, 2019

Stories (5)

5 Stories

108 karma pts

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“The Fairy Godfather” by Debra Caples

Submitted to Contest #16

Once upon a time there lived a widow with five children. The eldest was Julian, a shiftless young man more inclined to hide in the haymow than clean the stable. Clothide, sixteen, wept and moaned about her clothes, hair and their lack of wealth. Twins Roger and Ronald were eight, naughty boys behind in their schooling who would rather fight one another than do sums. The baby, Ella, gave her mother the least trouble, usually upon soiling her nappies and when teething. The widow Jane wasn’t a widow at all but the abandoned wife of a wastrel. H...

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“In Dying Color” by Debra Caples

⭐️ Shortlisted for Contest #14

There used to be sticker vines here. Months of nuclear winter left only angry thorns, the rest withered from lack of sun. Ash made everything the same color. No greens, no blue sky, no butterflies or birds. Skinny dogs and cats dug in the trash before humans could squabble over it. The fast ones, anyway. The maimed, sick and old were dinner.Beth squeezed through the bars and peeled the clinging vines off her clothes. Across the potholed asphalt she scuttled then plunged beneath the collapsed roof of a house. In the nick of time, she thought....

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“The Cat Came Back” by Debra Caples

Submitted to Contest #13

Bittie had always loved animals. She’d grown up on a farm in Kansas with cows, goats, a mule, rabbits. There’d been lots of dogs and lots of barn cats during her growing up. Years back, in her second hometown of Pawkuntsy, Ohio, she’d taken a puppy to the vet after it was hit by a car. Not able to afford to have it fixed up, she’d had it put down. Days later she’d gotten a thank you note from her office and an invitation to make her the first stop for veterinarian needs. Enclosed had been a sweet poem about The Rainbow Bridge, where you meet...

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“Parent's Day” by Debra Caples

Submitted to Contest #11

“I’m an ol’ s.o.b. because it’s a big, bad world. One day you’re going to know just how tough so you better get some of it, too.” But I never did. The world knocked me around like a feather. I didn’t have Daddy’s boot leather attitude about life and certainly would never fill his shoes. Not that I wanted to. His opinion was the only one that mattered. I wasn’t allowed to think for myself much less “do my own thing” as we said in the sixties. We were expected to sit up straight, graduate from high school (as he had not), act like Christian s...

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“The Cruelest Sting Of All” by Debra Caples

Submitted to Contest #9

Spring had arrived in Connecticut, Elspeth’s favorite season. A long, cold winter hadn’t helped her condition at all. Said condition had always puzzled her. What exactly was “a wasting disease?” No mystery to her, seeing as the affliction was hers. She knew the outcome, the pains, the limitations, but what was the cause? What, if anything, could be done about it? Old Dr. Norris here in Hambleton had urged Mother and Father to take her to New Haven where he assured them the most up-to-date medical help could be found. They discovered nothing....

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Author bio

Debra Caples also goes by the pseudonym of Dee Caples under which she's been published in Altered Reality Magazine and Potato Soup Journal. She's the mother of two, grandmother of two and resides in Texas.

Shortlisted 1 story ⭐️

Contest #14

In Dying Color – read story