Liam Murphy

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Sep, 2021

Stories (7)

7 Stories

145 karma pts

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“An African Adventure ” by Liam Murphy

Submitted to Contest #247

The year was eighteen-fifty-two, and at twenty-six years of age, my long-planned odyssey to the Dark Continent was about to begin. I, James Havelock, was about to follow in my dear Papa’s footsteps and spend twelve weeks hunting for unknown plant species on the African continent. I am an only child of doting parents. Our family name is renowned in Kent, England and beyond. My patriarchal grandfather Benjamin Havelock had amassed our family fortune from woollen mills where he employed hundreds of workers on slave wages ten hours a day, six an...

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“The Window” by Liam Murphy

Submitted to Contest #207

The Window There wasn’t a window. We, George and Justin La Croix, the owners of the restaurant, couldn’t allow our affluent customers to see or hear the chaotic scenes that went into the prepping of their pricey meals. While our front-of-house staff worked in a calm and measured atmosphere, the kitchens were entirely different. Our restauran...

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“The Half Breed” by Liam Murphy

Submitted to Contest #204

The Half BreedShe was tall and moved in such a way that those watching her approach understood she was to not be meddled with. Part Cherokee Indian and part Mexican, she walked with catlike assuredness. Our small outpost of Graham’s Gulch was not a place that attracted many outsiders since the gold seam was mined out a dozen or so years ago. Strangers, especially lone young females, were greeted with a mixture of fear and curiosity. Fear held the upper hand as curiosity could lead one to a f...

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“Grow Up” by Liam Murphy

Submitted to Contest #139

Grow up” my dad, John, snarled down at me. “Grow up and try being a man and stop behaving like a snivelling cowardly little excuse for one.” John Hardaker, my dad, was a tall brute of a man and that was the only piece of paternal advice I ever got from him. But I was only ten years old at the time and all I wanted to do was run to my mum’s comforting embrace and cry. In my father’s world “only sissies and poofters cried....

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“Broken” by Liam Murphy

Submitted to Contest #115

Broken At last, I had found it. My quest had been to find a working telephone, so I could call my best friend Tony and try to tell him about all of the strange shit that had been happening in the last few hours. My cell phone was fully charged, but I couldn't get a signal no matter what I tried. Now I had found a phone kiosk, and it was empty, so I dialed Tony's nu...

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“A Dreaming of Beyond” by Liam Murphy

Submitted to Contest #113

A Dreaming of BeyondI am not sure when it started for me, or perhaps it was just I became more aware of the phenomenon. I had begun to travel in my nightly dreams. My father, a phycologist, told me, “Emma, you have always possessed an extremely fertile imagination, and you recently suffered a couple of quite traumatic experiences.”I always hated when dear old papa attempted to psychoanalyze me as if a mere male could ever fully understand the totality of femaleness. I was aged sixteen...

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“A Greasy Spoon Interlude” by Liam Murphy

Submitted to Contest #110

A Greasy Spoon Interlude Georgia tucked into her mixed grill with gusto; I had always envied her appetite. It was mid-July and hot as hell. The diner was by the roadside of interstate 55, a lot of miles from everywhere. I had met Georgia in college, where she was taking a master’s in veterinary studies, and I was majoring in biology. I loved her from the mo...

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Author bio

My name is Liam Murphy, and I am a sixty-three-year-old Irishman with an abiding love of the written word. I am committed to absolute gender equality, and I am also a vegan and committed to animal rights and welfare.