Marte Van Der Linden

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Aug, 2019

Stories (51)

51 Stories

1760 karma pts

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“The lab journal of J. Nesbitt, M.Sc.” by Marte Van Der Linden

Submitted to Contest #36

PhD final year, oh please, let this be the final year year 4I really shouldn’t be writing my personal thoughts in my lab journal, should I? Oh well. It doesn’t matter. No one will ever read this anyway. This is doomed to fail.17 October 2019: First experiment using a live test subject Goal of the experiment: To stop a mouse from dying. It was supposed to be antibiotics research. I was going to improve the current treatments for tuberculosis. My dream was to make a small contribution to medicine. How did it go from antibiotics research to thi...

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“Like magic” by Marte Van Der Linden

Submitted to Contest #35

You think the world is dull, but that’s because you have never peered into the nooks and crannies where magic still lingers.Look hard enough, and you can see the cracks where it bleeds through into our world. You might hear the steady drip-drip-drip as it seeps into the foundation of reality. Close your eyes and you might even feel it swirling behind your mind. It’s everywhere, hovering just out of sight, like a shadow in a bright beam of sunlight. All it needs to become visible is a slight shift in perspective.Consider something as mundane ...

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“Sparking something” by Marte Van Der Linden

Submitted to Contest #34

To: hermes@olympians.comFrom: hephaestus@olympians.comSubject: Your order is ready [nr: 45031]Hey Hermes,I finished the work. Pick-up details below.Best,Hephaestus---We have completed the work on your item, nr 45031. You may pick up your order from Monday 10 am. Please visit our website for information about opening times.***Hephaestus:HeyDid you take anything from my workshop earlier?Hermes:Just my sandals. Why?Nice work on the wings btw.Hephaestus:See anyone else while you were there?Hermes:No. Why??***To: MailingOlympusFrom: hephaestus@ol...

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“On the receiving end” by Marte Van Der Linden

Submitted to Contest #33

Just after midnight, Jen was called to the captain’s study for the sixty-seventh time in a week.“On my way!” She stifled a yawn and looked around for her coat. Curse all officers. It had been exciting at first. Adventure, excitement, new cultures. Every ethnographer’s dream. But lately the captain had taken to summoning her at odd hours in order to pick her brains. The captain was one of the most experienced and decorated in the fleet. He had fought in the Three Years’ War and won a stunning victory while outnumbered five-to-one, but the pro...

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“Rosie's tale” by Marte Van Der Linden

Submitted to Contest #32

Right at the back of the library was a dusty shelf full of strange books that most people ignored. Sometimes a scatterbrained academic or a hipster with no sense of direction would take a wrong turn on the way to 19th century history or vegan fusion cuisine. Then they would catch sight of the strange dust jackets, and perhaps stop to read the titles and the blurbs. They invariably moved on, shaking their heads and laughing to themselves. Why on earth would anyone read that? The librarians only kept the books because it was wrong to destroy b...

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“Airing out” by Marte Van Der Linden

Submitted to Contest #31

Here we go again. Why are humans so disgusting?Shirts, socks, skirts. Jeans, jumpers, jackets. Stained and smelly and utterly disgusting. I’ve seen everything. Ketchup, wine, grass, mud, blood, vomit. You name it, I’ve washed it.It’s endless. The laundry basket is not so much a bottomless pit as an overflowing sewer. They just keep chucking filthy clothes in with the expectation that someone will pop up miraculously to scrub them clean.That’s me. Hurray. What a great life I have.I don’t mind so much when it’s kids. They don’t know any better...

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“The Traveller” by Marte Van Der Linden

🏆 Winner of Contest #30

On the last day of February, at nine minutes past seven in the morning, I received a phone call from myself. I, the recipient of the call, had a mouthful of toothpaste and could only produce a handful of incoherent sounds. “It’s really me,” said I, the caller. “I mean, you. Oh, this is confusing from this end as well as yours.” I spat out my toothpaste. “What?” “Listen, it’ll be all right. You’ve got about five minutes until it happens. Quarter past seven exactly. Get dressed and pack a bag — not the suitcase.” “What? What’s going on?”...

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“Two of us, under the bed” by Marte Van Der Linden

⭐️ Shortlisted for Contest #29

There was something under my bed.It scuttled and pattered and thumped, and it was definitely not the pipes or the wind or any of the other things dad told me made noises in the night. Thump! Bigger than a mouse, I thought, but smaller than a dog. I rolled closer to the edge of the mattress. If I was very careful, I could lean down for a look while being safely cocooned in my blankets. Another thump. A couple of dust bunnies came drifting out from under the bed. My nightlight was nowhere near bright enough to see anything else and I didn’t wa...

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“The Jump” by Marte Van Der Linden

Submitted to Contest #28

Everyone has scars and every scar tells a story. My brother caused a number of mine. I don’t mean that he was violent or anything like that. But he tended to instigate events which always seemed to leave me with scratches and bruises and worse. My most obvious scar is a dent in my forehead. I got it when he convinced me that the bathtub was a waterslide, which resulted in me hurtling face-first into the tap. I think I was four or five. There are other scars, other injuries, that have faded away and are no longer visible on the outside. It’s ...

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“Talking on trains” by Marte Van Der Linden

Submitted to Contest #27

I had come to the decision that it was time to do something reckless. People have different definitions of reckless. Some climb tall buildings without any ropes. Others drink themselves into an early grave. A few wrestle crocodiles. Me, I got on the 15:37 InterCity to Vienna with the intention of speaking to someone.It was the perfect train for my reckless endeavour. The journey would take more than four hours and the train was just busy enough. Plenty of people, but not to the extent that it was standing room only. I would have to sit down ...

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“Upper Morecambe’s Science Fiction Festival All-Ages Costume Contest” by Marte Van Der Linden

Submitted to Contest #27

According to a particular genre of movies - the kind involving copious explosions and bad guys with no shooting skills - a visiting UFO should fly past the pyramids of Giza and Stonehenge before landing in either downtown Manhattan or a cornfield with a scarecrow and a creaky windmill. The movies got it wrong. The first UFO to visit Earth actually landed on the outskirts of the village of Upper Morecambe, Gloucestershire, England, where it parked itself neatly behind Miss Peabody’s honeysuckle-covered cottage. The little white fence that sep...

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“A force of nature” by Marte Van Der Linden

Submitted to Contest #26

The lecture hall at the Academy of Sciences had never been so full. A great man of science was due to lecture on the latest scientific marvel, which was rumoured to be a newly discovered force of nature. Among the earnest young women and the gentlemen in powdered wigs sat a man who was so ordinary and average-looking that he seemed out of place. Grey eyes, brown hair, average height, simple clothes. His hands were folded in his lap and he was looking at the stage with a mild curiosity that was very different from the feverish excitement arou...

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“Creation” by Marte Van Der Linden

⭐️ Shortlisted for Contest #25

He had spent too much time recently thinking about dark matter. How long had it been since he had done something strange, something creative that would twist and turn and blossom and grow? If he carried on like this, he’d burn himself out and disappear. A flash of light, a burst of heat, and then nothing. Like a spark rising from a bonfire.As a student he had crackled with energy. He had spent his days bouncing off the walls and reading everything he could get his hands on. Hardly an hour went by without him learning something new. He had wr...

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“Lethe” by Marte Van Der Linden

Submitted to Contest #24

A marriage between a scion of the ruling family and a gardener’s assistant was not the sort of thing that was likely to be met with approval. In fact, the grand duke had expressively forbidden the match, and had even gone to the trouble of posting guards outside his nephew Rupert’s room. Which was why Rupert was climbing out the window in the middle of the night. He twisted his hands into the ivy that covered the palace walls and dug his toes into the gaps between stones and very slowly made his way down. He wasn’t very athletic. He had alwa...

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“The first case of Vicky Travers, gnome” by Marte Van Der Linden

Submitted to Contest #24

Mr Herbert Billingsley, the curator of the griffinology department at the Central Museum, was murdered in his office at seventeen minutes past two by creature or creatures unknown. Detectives Blitz and Blunt, who were only slightly less dumb than they looked, had no trouble establishing this once they arrived on the scene.They were met by a crowd of excited curators, historians and archaeologists, who filled the corridor outside the office.“We heard shouting,” someone said when the detectives approached.“And crashes!”“And then a scream, a th...

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Author bio

I'm a scientist who likes to write stories! Penguins are my favourite animals. Some of my stories don't age well - check out "The old year and the new": https://blog.reedsy.com/creative-writing-prompts/contests/22/submissions/6063/

Winning 1 story 🏆

Contest #30

The Traveller – read story

Shortlisted 8 stories ⭐️

Contest #42

A life in silence – read story

Contest #29

Two of us, under the bed – read story

Contest #25

Creation – read story

Contest #23

The colours of snow – read story

Contest #22

The old year and the new – read story