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Erbil Shaban

Author on Reedsy Prompts since May, 2025

Stories (5)

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5 Stories

70 karma pts

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The Maestro's Mask

Erbil Shaban

Submitted to Contest #316

Movement I: Fortissimo The spotlight cut through the darkness of a grand music hall, illuminating a majestic figure at the conductor's podium. Maestro Alessandro Benedetti. He raised his baton, and two thousand souls held their breath. The Vienna Philharmonic waited like eager disciples for their prophet's command. One. Two. Three. Four. Beethoven's Ninth erupted into the Royal Albert Hall with the force of creation itself. The orchestra didn't just fill the space. It transformed it, elevated it, and sanctified it. Every note that flowed fro...

6 likes

Journal of Anselm Palabras

Erbil Shaban

Submitted to Contest #306

October 11 They’ve assigned me to Site B-12. Disused military research complex buried beneath the ridge. Not on any standard grid, and no one will say who greenlit the excavation. I was told to survey for structural instability. Cracks, shifts, potential flooding or caving. Standard fare. The facility’s real name is the “Seabright Research Annex”, but the workers called it “the Scar.” I think it’s apt. A gash in the earth, bleeding metal and history. Built before the war, shut down long before the bombs fell. Now it’s mine to explore. Harker...

10 likes

Below the Fold

Erbil Shaban

The press conference was hastily arranged: a white plastic table in front of a plywood wall, two microphones, a foldable chair, a bottle of water beside an upside-down glass, the school crest looming behind me and a piece of paper with the words I’d prepared. The camera lenses glinted like eyes in a river. Not hostile. Just waiting. I was swimming with the crocodiles. I watched them watch me, and I felt the story begin to harden. I looked down at the words on the page, and read out loud: “I confronted him after school. I was angry. I lost co...

0 likes

Krasnaya Pod Davleniem (Кра́сная Под Давлением)

Erbil Shaban

Submitted to Contest #304

Pressure biting on hull. Metal groan like lamenting of preachers outside Leningradsky railway terminal. Depth gauge: glowing green, like mould growing in brain. We are past safe. Long past. It does not matter.Silence down below. It is heavy. Not peaceful kind, like sleep. No. This kind, it sit on your chest like dying dog. It settle in your marrow, thick, like dirty oil. Become part of you. Each breath, like last sigh of world.No light. Only glow green from console. Three buttons: surface, hold, launch. That is all there is. That is all ther...

6 likes

Return to Sender

Erbil Shaban

Submitted to Contest #302

Eleanor’s mornings had followed the same rhythm for years. Tea. Crossword. Good morning talk shows. A glance at the clock around ten, when no one ever called. She wasn’t lonely (or so she told herself) just long-accustomed to silence.This morning was different.The envelope was an aged-white, slightly crumpled – folded in the middle – and dirtied by years of dust and pocket lint. The corners rolled inwards; the flap peeling from retired old glue. There was no name on the envelope, only an address and an old stamp.When Eleanor opened the door ...

6 likes

Author bio

I am a filmmaker (writer, director, editor and producer) and my production company is called Shot Caller Pictures. Known for works such as 'Death and Faxes', 'Seeing Clearly', and 'War Cares Little'.

I am here for two reasons:

1. To practice writing in prose and to experiment with short ideas.

2. To get some of that sweet award money so that I can fund (like 5% of) my short films. Maybe even adapt some of my stories here into screenplays.

I never thought of myself as a prose writer, but I've been writing and pitching scripts for 10 years, and they've been getting more and more literary, so it's a welcome challenge.

Script writing is often matter-of-fact, as concise as physically possible on the page, and all written in the present tense. They are easy to overwrite and have a lot of rules to follow; essentially functioning as blueprints for production, as Stanley Kubrick would say.

But rules were made to be broken, only AFTER you've understood them.