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Nina H

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Jun, 2023

Stories (46)

Comments

Library

86 Followers

27 Following

46 Stories

1579 karma pts

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Frederick, Never Fred

Nina H

Submitted to Contest #309

Frederick J. Tuftman was never late a day in his life. Even his birth was two full calendar days before his due date. Every project he was assigned since grade school was meticulously completed and turned in no less than two days early as well. This efficiency carried through high school, college, and eventually at his current (and first) job. “Frederick J. Tuftman - Junior Project Manager”, as his desk plate gloriously read. He ordered it himself the minute he landed the job one year, three months, and seven days ago. Not that he’s counting...

4 likes

Something Brewing

Nina H

Submitted to Contest #290

Trigger Warning: domestic abuse The stainless steel lock clicked abruptly in the front door, and Kathryn was bolted back to reality with a little jump.  “Whoa, you ok, Kathryn?” Mark asked from the next table. Both had been wiping down tables in the small coffee shop getting ready to close up for the night.  “Yeah, I’m fine. Sorry. I think I zoned out. I’m almost done,” she replied hurriedly.  “It’s ok, we’re in good shape. Why don’t you head out and I’ll finish the rest,” Mark offered and stepped closer.  Kathryn instin...

8 likes

Cold Hearted

Nina H

Submitted to Contest #290

Liza gently twisted the cold, plastic cap from the equally cold plastic orange container. She shook a small green pill into the palm of her hand and smiled. She finally found a way to get Jacob to take his pills, after trying every other method she could think of. She crushed them into his milk, and he spit it out. She mixed it into chocolate pudding, and he threw it on the floor because “it had crumbs” in it. She tried bribing with sweets, time-outs for refusing, and stickers on a chart. But now, finally, she was able to convince him to tak...

5 likes

Elf Unshelved

Nina H

Submitted to Contest #281

   My twisted legs are jammed up into my face, my right arm stuck behind my head, and my hat has been covering half my face for what feels like forever. Darkness surrounds me, with no way of knowing when I’ll get out of here. Will it be today? Tomorrow? The glimmer of hope that it could be any day now is the only thing I have to look forward to. I look to my right and see an equally mangled body, pressed precariously against the side of the box we’re trapped in.      “How are you doing over there?...

9 likes

Lost and Found (and Notarized)

Nina H

Submitted to Contest #277

I’ve always wanted to be a nun. Growing up Catholic, I admired everything about them. I’d sit in Sunday school and dream of spending my evenings drinking tea and reading Bible passages. I imagined them meeting on sunny mornings and taking slow walks through gardens, pointing out the different hues of yellow and purple in God’s flower creations. Watching the birds, feeding them tiny seeds, and marveling at their ability to fly and sing so beautifully. I longed for their simple modest clothing, habits hiding their hair. Did they have gray hair...

15 likes

Willoughby

Nina H

Submitted to Contest #276

When you die, you die. Your once warm, pulsating heart putters out, your once ballooned lungs leak air, and the unit that had operated as a whole perfect machine of parts and pieces ceases to be. The blood inside your veins stops moving. The electricity in your brain fizzles. And then it’s just a matter of time until the rigor mortis, the decomposition, the “dust to dust” exit from Earth. It’s science.  Or so I thought.  I was raised Catholic, and brought up with the ideas of Heaven, Hell, angels, and the afterlife. If you were goo...

11 likes

The Trappings of Fall

Nina H

Submitted to Contest #274

The memory spider inside my brain spins her webs, silken threads of moments. She spins a colorful October of red, orange, and yellow. The colors fall around me, they float down the street, they hide under my feet. My October web smells of leaves, campfires, and sweet candy. My October web looks like glowing Jack-o-Lantern faces, full white moons, yellow glowing eyes of a black cat in the alley.  A sound makes my October web vibrate,rattle, and shake. It’s the sound of a child’s cry. A scream. I can’t get the scream out of my memory web....

13 likes

The Secret

Nina H

Submitted to Contest #273

   The whirling winds gusted thrashing hands through the last leaves holding strong to their branches. The evening air was Fall crisp, not winter bitter just yet. Katherine and Nicole swung their arms in unison, speed walking through their quiet neighborhood just as the sun was setting on a week of soccer practices, piano lessons, and softball tryouts.      “Well of course Madeline is going to make the team. She’s the only one who can actually hit the ball out of center field,” Nicole said matter-...

18 likes

The Secret Ingredient

Nina H

Submitted to Contest #273

(Jump to Recipe) [Link has been disabled] It’s getting close, my friends! The holiday season is closing in on us faster than my Aunt Trudy can say “fruitcake” and throw back a cocktail! So what does this mean for those of us doomed to put a smile on our faces while we welcome the in-laws, cousins, black sheep, and freeloaders? It means we scour the internet looking for the best recipes to impress even your mother-in-law, who is arguably more judgmental than an entire panel of Supreme Court Justices.  You may be wondering the secret of ...

12 likes

What I’m Grateful For

Nina H

Submitted to Contest #261

   Welp. Here we go again. You can’t see it, but I’m rolling my eyes right now. Why? Because it’s time once again to write the yearly essay of “What I’m Grateful For”, and then have my teacher paste the Quality Copy (not the Sloppy Copy! Never the Sloppy Copy!) to a piece of brightly colored construction paper, before hanging it on the classroom wall for Open House Night. It’s the same every year. Even now that I’m in 4th grade. Pretty much an adult. Or at least a teenager.      When I was in Kind...

9 likes

At His Will

Nina H

Submitted to Contest #260

     One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Breathe.      My chest tightens as it fills with air, breathing in the nauseating combination of odors filling the room. The unmistakable smell of blood. Whose blood was it? The smell of alcohol, burning in my nostrils. The dank smell of some kind of chalky smoke. That smell makes me sick, and my stomach turns.      I need a window. Fresh air. But of course this room has no opening to the outside.    &nbs...

15 likes

Fooling Fate

Nina H

Submitted to Contest #257

   I sat in my car staring at the time. It was 8:47am, so I had 18 minutes until my interview. No, not 18, 13 minutes! Dang it, math was my downfall. Would always be. I gathered my folder, purse, and keys as I stepped from my car into the mostly empty parking lot of Dodson High School.      During the summer months, it was mostly administration that had to continue showing up while the students and teachers enjoyed their summer vacations. This was my first job interview after staying home for a ye...

8 likes

Pitched In

Nina H

Submitted to Contest #256

   Brady’s mom never missed a sign-up, much to his dismay. Another soccer season loomed over his ten-year old head, as he laced up his cleats and secured two shinguards neatly into place.      The enthusiasm that five-year old Brady brought to the game had fizzled, sputtered, and ultimately gone out over the years, like a sparkler at the end of the thin metal stick inching closer to tender grasping fingers. It had been a fun game back then, with giggling teammates and practice sessions filled with...

10 likes

By the Shores of Lake Fairview

Nina H

Submitted to Contest #254

   It has been said that “misery loves company”, and this author has to agree with the sentiment. When wallowing in the thick, dark, muck of despair, who wants to be in the presence of someone glimmering with the stardust of happiness? The sharp contrast in feeling cutting like a blade into an already aching heart?      And this is why it comes as no surprise that Mr. Robert Gerhardt was seen having dinner with a certain recently widowed teacher in our very school district. The details surrounding...

15 likes

There’s A Chance

Nina H

Submitted to Contest #253

   “Number 10, please,” I said to the suited man across from me as I narrowly squeezed through the closing elevator doors. Out of breath from running, I checked my phone for the time and tried not to draw more attention to myself panting for air. I leaned into the handrail at my side as the man nodded to me and pressed the circle that read “10” next to the now closed doors.      The suited man was looking me over, presumably trying to assess my rush. I self-consciously patted down my hair that I w...

12 likes

Author bio

I live on a mountain, but not the kind in Heidi. There are two grocery stores here, a post office that is often open, and a train car visible from the main road as an “attraction”. It could be a caboose. I’m not really sure.
I work in a school, and as a news photographer. But not the cutting-edge kind, more like the warm fuzzies kind. Though I recently snapped a shot of a Church’s expired gambling license at their Instant Bingo booth for their summer picnic fundraiser. That *could* be my big break if they don’t renew it. Stay tuned…
I paint bricks to look like books in my spare time. But then I end up with a pile of really heavy artwork that I end up giving away.
I coach my kid’s soccer teams, but we don’t often win. I DO have a clipboard, a whistle, and all sorts of official looking coaching things.
I was a self-published author by the age of 7, writing a heart-felt non-fiction piece about my sister contracting chicken pox. You may have read it. Actually, you likely did not. It was a stapled-together booklet I made from cut up computer paper then hid in a drawer.
I look forward to reads of my stories, and reading yours. I love comments and suggestions, as I try to grow as a writer.
***
If you’d like to talk books or writing, find me at
NinaHerbst@mail.com

1 shortlisted story ⭐️

Contest #212

Resigned – read story