Richard Hartmann

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Oct, 2019

Stories (5)

5 Stories

104 karma pts

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“All The Difference” by Richard Hartmann

Submitted to Contest #120

Sara closed the tattered album and set it aside along with the hopes that the faded pictures would transport her and her brothers back to a time where they were together long enough for a family picture. Their faces were so young and innocent and their father smiling and strong, the patriarch of the family, and it felt too long ago to be them. She wanted them to remember their father that way, not like the last year – those were his last wishes, or maybe his final fear. Their father chose this p...

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“No Way Home” by Richard Hartmann

Submitted to Contest #98

Opening lines are benign by nature, jump-starters looking for simplistic responses, but when the man sat on the barstool and asked Daniel Pierce where he was from and what he was doing in Costa Rica, Pierce scanned the room, and exhaled. Uncomfortable seconds clicked off as he looked in the man’s eyes, took in the crisp flowered shirt, store-clean running shoes, the untouched drink, and toothy grin; he decided the man was trying too hard to look like a tourist to be somebody trying to look like a tourist. Sylvester, his friend, and ba...

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“El Juego de los Diablitos” by Richard Hartmann

Submitted to Contest #93

Patrick came to get lost, in the crowds and in the beer; it helped that everyone was wearing masks. His came from a little man in a shack, the floor covered in curled slivers of wood, sitting on a too short stool, a wooden hammer and a chisel nicking out balsa wood chips, removing all the parts that weren’t a frowning old man with tusks and what would soon be devil’s horns. There was a painted sign on his shack that read: Indigenous Art For Sale. The man smiled at him and handed him the mask. He would blend in perfectly, ...

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“Madison” by Richard Hartmann

Submitted to Contest #46

Madison slipped the last letter into place, each word selected for precision and economy, sentences cobbled together with a touch of poetic license depending on what was left on the table. “Only missing three vowels,” she said as she tapped the wooden block with the ink-stained mallet and stood back. Nothing left to do. Besides to do it. She stood silently. The iPAL on the table vibrated and a smiling mermaid HOLO shimmered to life and with a flick of her tail, sent pixelated drops of seawat...

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“Useless, Upgraded Or Integrated” by Richard Hartmann

Submitted to Contest #20

“Dr. Philips, we understand futurists are driven, impatient if you will, racing others and themselves, to reach for,” she looked at her fellow panel members, only to find them shuffling papers. She continued, “But we have a responsibility to consider legal and ethical considerations that can’t hope to keep up with technological advances.” “My work is in the early stages, I too want to approach this cautiously.” &nb...

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Author bio

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