Donald Bluhm

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Aug, 2020

Stories (9)

9 Stories

215 karma pts

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“Big Blue” by Donald Bluhm

Submitted to Contest #143

When he first had come to the river it was summer and he was 12 years old and he carried a spinning rod and reel. He used a small silver lure that wobbled and flashed on the retrieve. The fish in the river were mostly brook trout, but occasionally a brown trout would appear and even a rainbow, stocked by the local conservation club, and all attracted to the small silver lure that wobbled and flashed. The river was not very wide and it ran crookedly through a forest that had not been logged, his father said, in maybe 50 years. The river wat...

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“Who Could Guess?” by Donald Bluhm

Submitted to Contest #104

Jake Anderson was a life-of-the-party guy, he thought. A never-say-die guy. A push-it-to-the-limit guy. Someone who would tell you something from across a fairly crowded room, even if, or especially if, you didn't want to know what he was about to announce. He had another questionable habit, and you may have guessed, that annoyed many: He frequently finished sentences begun by others. And almost always louder than was needed. “As I was telling Nancy Begonia the other day,” began Lucy Smith, for example, at a recent gathering that included ...

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“Preston's Trial” by Donald Bluhm

Submitted to Contest #103

Preston Sergeant was twenty-five years old, a recent college graduate, an occasional smart aleck, and a young man who was not at all sure about prayer, even though he had been raised in a religious family and had attended religious schools, which taught him to believe in prayer. He thought of several times when he recalled that it did not work for him, and reflected on the joke about the basketball player on the free throw line who made the sign of the cross. “Does that help?” the player was asked after the game. “Yeah, if you can shoot free...

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“Dalton's Window” by Donald Bluhm

Submitted to Contest #97

Dalton could not sleep. That was not unusual. At his age, 79, sleep was elusive at times. He had arthritis in his right shoulder and he slept on his right side because an old nose injury, that surgery did not repair, required him to take that position so he could breathe. And when he could not sleep he sat in a chair by the bedroom window that overlooked Glenwood Avenue. His sixth floor apartment was located in the middle of the Wayfair Building and Glenwood ran directly away from the building under his window and into the distance. Daytime ...

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“A Place in the Woods” by Donald Bluhm

Submitted to Contest #77

The flames, bright orange from the sodium in the wood, danced and flickered in the field stone fireplace and told Jack Darcy that he was in the right place at the right time, that his decision was as sound as the bed rock beneath the cabin.He sat there in the rocker, in front of the fire, in a seat that sagged about six inches from level, and mused about fire's immutable connection to human evolution, and smiled broadly about his circumstance. Surrounded by hemlock logs that he had cut two dozen Springs before, logs he had shaved, shaped, as...

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“Forthy's Burden” by Donald Bluhm

Submitted to Contest #73

The bird's voice, amazingly human-like, but way too loud, filled the studio apartment with a cacophony of words that Jim Forthy did not understand but whose volume had sent him to the edge of a severe headache. The creature, an African gray parrot, was screaming words in Swahili and French and would not stop. Forthy, a young man of mild, but unambitious disposition, had begun seriously entertaining bird recipe thoughts. The parrot, with the packet of literature that came with it, was described as “an unsurpassed talker.” That was manifest...

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“Sawtooth Settlement” by Donald Bluhm

Submitted to Contest #60

Jim Collins stood on a rocky outcropping and looked west into the Sawtooth Valley, a beautiful, deep coniferous green valley that he remembered as an Eden of tranquility. It had been a wonderful place to visit and maybe retire if the family left Florida, which now was history. Then he turned, once again, to look back at Buckham, Idaho, at what used to be a wonderful small town of log buildings with a million-dollar view of the Sawtooth Mountains. Was it just three years ago that he and Trudy and the three young ones had become nomads, fleein...

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“Kalahari” by Donald Bluhm

Submitted to Contest #59

Kalahari The last thing Daryl Oates remembered, at least the last thing he thought he remembered, was the left front wheel of the Land Rover had caught a rut in the dry river bed and flipped the vehicle onto its roll bar cage. In fact, what Oates did not remember was the vehicle being airborne before it landed and before the left side of his head grazed a boulder the size of his Rover as it rolled three times and came to a rest upside down. Oates was not completely awake but he knew his head ached and was wet and sticky on one side. ...

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“Foster's Chance” by Donald Bluhm

Submitted to Contest #58

Foster was ready. A trim, 29-year-old up-and-comer with am MBA from Wharton and an appointment with John (don't even think of calling him Jack) MacKenzie, manager of a $38 billion hedge fund. That was going to happen today in his 38th floor office in the Metasales Building on the water in East Pawtucket, five minutes from the city. Foster had shined his $135 Gucci caramel wingtips twice; there was not a single area with a smudge, a scuff or a discoloration anywhere from tip to heel. He had purchased a $900 Brooks Brothers pin stripe in a w...

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Author bio

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