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Tanya Humphreys

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Mar, 2021

Stories (104)
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88 Followers
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104 Stories

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Christmas Bear

Submitted to Contest #227

The bear dreamt of sunshine warming his thick black coat. He dreamt of splashing into the great river and pouncing upon a fat salmon, its juices slick and oily on his tongue. He dreamt of his mate and his cubs and as he slept, tears ran down his muzzle. Equally sad were the dreams of his world as he knew it now. All his ten years he wished the humans would go away, and they did, mostly, but in their wake, they left a toxic wasteland, and the joke was on him. Mostly, though, he dreamt of the girl. She’d become the beacon that brought him out...

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Mortis

Submitted to Contest #226

The colt with the ashy colored coat stood upon sturdy legs at four months old and watched with keen interest as his mother was led from the stable once again. At just three months old, the wee horse had accepted the fact that its mother was led away often and knew she’d return before the sky grew black. He had at one month old freaked out as she was led away- bucking his sort of wobbly legs and crying shrilly. He'd been beaten then. With a wooden pole, hard enough to hurt but not so enough to leave scars. His mother leaving became a routine...

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Desert Clouds Like Ghosts

Submitted to Contest #221

An interesting thing finally happened after a very long time of nothing at all happening in the life of little Penelope Winston. She sat in the dusty dirt in front of her family’s covered wagon, her little zombie rag doll named Sycamore to her right, and a potato peeler in her hand. There was a dog on the horizon. The wind picked up and a dozen dust devils whirled about the outskirts of her family’s camp.  They looked like pale translucent ghosts dancing those whirling waltzes she’d spied her parents participating in when she was ver...

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The Sentinels

Submitted to Contest #220

Germaine Velacourt closed her eyes and concentrated on slowing her breathing, purging her mind of the anxieties of the day. Long inhale, a count of three, long slow exhale. Within five minutes, the countenance of her face matched the calmed down, steady beat of her heart. She opened her eyes, and as they grew accustomed to the dark, the bayou sang to her like a heartbreakingly melancholy choir: in turn, she focused on the chirruping tree frogs, the contented trill of a sated screech owl, the shrill barks of a momma grey fox accompanied by ...

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A Delicate Existance

Submitted to Contest #218

Fall, New York state, 2023… More rain coming. I could smell it in the low-lying clouds above me and feel the extra weight of moisture on my wings; that fine condensation was wearing me out. I needed to rest and dry my wings, but the instincts of my ancestors made me panicky and loathe to sit idle for too long. Then suddenly… Warmth, and brightness. Motes of mist danced in the air before my eyes, sparkling reds and golds and brilliant blues. The damp steam rising skyward amplified the scents of the greenery: the sweet corny scent of the milk...

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Parker's Revenge

Submitted to Contest #217

The entire town was cheering in the square. Banners of every color waved. Horns, lutes, and flutes sang out. The celebratory cacophony was was punctuated by screams of terror as an enormous black warhorse with shaggy booties trampled one too slow to get out of the way. More screams as blood geysered up and splashed the laggers. “HO HO HAAAA! Get out the way ya idjots!” the lead knight bellowed. The next cried out, “Make way for Prince Maddox! DRAGONSLAYER!” A hundred of the prince’s stiff-backed men marched through the crowd on horseba...

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The Candlelit Attic

Submitted to Contest #215

I glanced at Monsie for a split second before my eyes darted back up to the only window in the house that ever glowed. Against a navy-blue backdrop spangled with stars, the illumination flickered as gusts of summer breeze played across the windowsill indicating the window was open, the light, candlelight. Monsie was fat. He’d grown up under the floorboards of Gilly’s Sweets. I had not been so fortunate and had spent my first couple of years in a barn. Not only were scraps hard to come by, but my siblings and I spent a great deal of time fl...

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Pirate School

Submitted to Contest #214

Matilda watched the boys in the yard as they practiced their chosen skill. Usually, it was one passed down from their fathers and in the academy, they would hone that skill as well as learn the others and the history of their ancestors. Billy Blackbeard clashed swords with Randolf the Ripper. Wee Willy (he would later change the moniker to Big Bill) Watkins was waterboarding Eli the Eel, who himself was attempting to escape his ropey bonds at the same time. Razorblade Bob threw razorsharp knives with lightning speed at a series of straw dumm...

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The Android's Lullaby

Submitted to Contest #213

My heart was beating hummingbird-fast as I inspected the pitch-black cave I’d fallen into. The hole I’d fallen through was far above my head and lightly covered in pine boughs. I held my breath and detected the wolf’s pawfalls- no longer stealthy quiet but stomping in frustration. I smiled with my breath held as it howled in anguish and bounded off. Gradually, my heartbeat regulated, and I grew curious about my surroundings. It was pitch black, I could see nothing, but it did not freak me out. Being a diurnal mammal, I was used to poor ...

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Groundhog Seeking Employment

Submitted to Contest #211

Paige Harper, in her mysterious world, did not hear her brother as he snuck into her room, tiptoeing like Sylvester the cat after Tweety. The basement room had been used for storage until all three people concerned, felt it best that Paige take it as her room. Her mother didn't have to put up with her, her little brother got his own room in the attic, and she got blessed darkness and quiet. Benny was the opposite of his sister. He played sports and ran around with school chums, usually on their bicycles, all summer long. They had a penchan...

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SR5608

Submitted to Contest #210

The tall, thin woman scanned the crowd from right to left, then back again. There were approximately nine hundred and fifty-seven human beings crowded into the town square, give or take a dozen. It was harder to inventory the little ones, they darted in and out and around the main throng. Also hindering the count was the fact that over two thirds of the people wore black- black cloaks, capes, feathers, tunics, smocks, dresses, and pantaloons. She herself had donned a silky hooded cape to fit in. She’d adjusted her skin tone to a light tawn...

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Me and Spitz

Submitted to Contest #209

As I gazed down the dark alley my tail twitched at its end. The fact that I could not control it was annoying to a control freak like me. Life in the streets was hard but far preferred to the neglect and abuse I’d endured throughout my kittenhood. My burns were still scabbed, and my left leg still crooked out at an angle where the woman had thrown an iron at me. There was plenty to feast upon down places like this and as I slunk close to the trash bins at this end, I heard the scraping of tiny claws. I noted the fetid breeze was into my...

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Girl, Georgie...and Archie

Submitted to Contest #206

Georgie stared out the window but in her zoned-out state she was as blind as a person born with no corneas. The lights in the cavernous subway fuselage flickered and dimmed, alarming her from her reverie, for the light was an odd reddish amber, much like the embers in a dying fire. She had been drawn to the subway. It seemed more comforting than the cold, agoraphobic, openness of the streets. She blinked as she took in her reflection. Her skin so pale, her face was a moon, and her brown eyes huge and darkly shadowed. She was horrified ...

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Seven

Submitted to Contest #204

Seven shivered in the straw pile as she listened to the wind howling through the trees surrounding the barn. It was an eerie wailing like the sound of a soul being tortured. Or a wolf caught in a trap.  A night hawk screeched, and another creature screamed briefly and shrilly. She curled up tighter in the dirty, flea-infested straw and wished she were allowed in the house. The log house had lights in the windows glowing welcomingly and the smells of meat cooking in a pot with vegetables. She detected onions and turnip...

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The Eels in my Hovercraft

Submitted to Contest #200

I’ve stopped telling telemarketers about the eels in my hovercraft. Not because the lowly lifeforms of the pits of viable employment would not believe me, but rather, that they would. After all, eels are quite delicious, and extraordinarily hard to catch.  These individuals with earpieces welded to their greasy yellow seashell ears sustain their earthly flesh vessels with rice and rice alone, and needless to say, are quite malnourished. In the gloomy rooms of the abandoned office buildings, where faint watery grey light insists on st...

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