Manning Bridges

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Aug, 2024

Stories (5)

5 Stories

126 karma pts

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“Measures of Malice” by Manning Bridges

Submitted to Contest #287

Bull's-eye paned windows drove November light into the kitchen of Matthias Aldrich's burgher house. Warped reflections cast warped shadows across the oak table where Matthias was measuring deadly herbs with the same brass scales he used for Lankan cinnamon and Moluccan mace. The scale’s tray cradled monkshood from Jakob Bauer's apothecary—which can mimic death by fever or, in sufficient dosage, actually cause it.Magda, the Aldrich's maidservant, was turning a spit roast pig with precision in the kitchen’s hearth and smoke curled up through t...

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“True North” by Manning Bridges

Submitted to Contest #279

My office exemplifies order. Labeled shelves march along three walls. Their contents arranged by period, region, significance. Every artifact preserves its story in its assigned place—all except one. My hand glides across the empty space on the desk where my father's compass should rest in its worn leather case. Its absence throbs like a missing tooth. The compass survived three wars. My father's fieldwork. My childhood. Then thirty years of my own academic life and archeological digs. Dad taught me how to read that compass on a dig. H...

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“Cold Comfort” by Manning Bridges

Submitted to Contest #278

This story contains descriptions of crimes and physical violence and themes of death. In the ICU, time always moves wrong—too fast and too slow at the same time, like a warped record. The heart monitor struck out its time in precise electronic pulses. Elias, an oxygen masked hooked over his mouth and nose, struggled to breathe in the spaces between. A ragged inhale would race ahead, its subsequent exhale lagging behind the machine's steady count. Outside the window, Manhattan's skyline smashed against an ink-washed sky, November ...

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“The Rehabilitation of Professor Greymane” by Manning Bridges

⭐️ Shortlisted for Contest #277

The fluorescent lights in Dr. Lamb's office stripped away all shadows, leaving nowhere to hide. Her wool caught their sterile glare like fresh snow, while my grey fur appeared dull, institutional—the same color as the tweed jacket I'd worn for twenty years of faculty meetings. A copy of my latest academic paper, "Predator Narratives in Post-Integration Literature," lay untouched on her desk beside a more recent document: "Incident Report #2847: Unauthorized Pursuit of Content Creator."I shifted in the human-sized chair, my frame too lar...

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“Rosary Interrupted” by Manning Bridges

Submitted to Contest #262

You'd think the heatwave would've been my biggest concern that day, with all of Ireland roasting like a potato in the oven. But I was stewing in a secret that, once it came out, would make that scorching summer feel like an easy breezy Caribbean day. I was driving home for my parents' anniversary—on the hottest day of the year with that powder keg of a secret sitting in my closet—about to discover how quickly one family could combust. My rental car groaned as it crawled up the sun-baked lane toward the farm. Our homestead appeared, shim...

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Author bio

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Shortlisted 1 story ⭐️

Contest #277

The Rehabilitation of Professor Greymane – read story