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Tanya Humphreys

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Mar, 2021

Stories (105)
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88 Followers
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105 Stories

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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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The Starling and the Fisher

Submitted to Contest #198

Rolly looked up through the leaves of the elm at the small, dark, tee-shaped figure soaring graceful figure eights high above against a backdrop of fresh, fat spring clouds. The hawk sent a cry down to earth, high-pitched and slightly raspy. Rolly’s siblings shivered all around him and emulated frightened turtles ducking into their shells.The six baby starlings that surrounded him whispered amongst themselves as if afraid the great hawk in the sky could hear from that far away. Maybe he could. His sister Serry whispered, “It’s him. It’s the ...

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Torry, Son of The Wendigo

The natives looked around the dimly lit cavern, they furtively sneaked peeks towards the ceiling under lowered dark lashes. Torches flickered around them as if blown by a breeze…but there was none. A low keening howl sounded outside and around the cave…but no wolves ventured nearby. The natives, adorned with all things nature- hawk, owl, and wild turkey feathers, pearls and carnelian beads, jet black breast plates made from the sternum bones of wildebeest- they spruced themselves up, their clan’s version of formal attire, dating back two th...

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Backhoe Blues

Submitted to Contest #193

Solomon attacked the yard with an iron toothed rake, scraping and pulling at the scraggly weeds, adding them to the mountain of crap behind him. Sol fanned his reddened face with his wide brimmed fedora, leaning on the rake. His sandy brown hair bunched into damp tufts on his head, and his two-day stubble shimmered golden highlights in the early springtime sun. Sol’s tee was soaked to near see-throughness. “Hey buddy. That’s gonna take ya a week if ya keep on like that.” Sol’s next-door neighbor, Brian, was peeking over the fence between...

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Blossoms

Submitted to Contest #191

I eyed the grain of rice suspiciously. It smelled old and moldy, but I didn’t care, I was a rat after all and the greenish hued grain would make a chewy snack…I didn’t need the grain, I found plenty of things to eat. I was intrigued by the man who’d been brought to this place the day before. The man had placed the grain on the old fruit crate that served as the man’s table, one of four items of furniture in the twelve-by-twelve-foot hut that served as the man’s prison cell. There was another fruit crate and two flat futon like beds on oppo...

8 likes 1 comment 1
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Deany and Freddy Deliver

Submitted to Contest #180

The crunch-clunk was so loud it not only reverberated through the floorboards and up into Sandra-Dean’s sturdy USPS approved shoes, but up her thick calves as well, disturbing the lilting chorus of the David Bowie tune she’d been singing along with.“Fuck!” The word bounced tinnily off the steel walls of the mail truck ‘I’ve heard that noise before.’ She inhaled damp mountain air deep into her lungs while searching for a safe indent to pull over on the narrow one lane road.Early that morning, a butterfly had landed on Freddy’s windshield, rig...

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The Giant Acorn

Submitted to Contest #173

Mila shuddered as she clung to the cattail over hanging the river. She was a rabbit and could swim if she wanted to; but she was frightened of what lurked just under the surface. Vlad the Chomper floated as still as a bumpy green log, only his bulbous, lichen-colored eyes glared upwards at her. She knew that under the water his one hundred gnarly pointed teeth stuck out from his long, grinning, alligator snout.Mila’s long back feet scrambled against the grassy bank, found hold, and propelled her upwards. She sputtered with fur...

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Lightning Head

Submitted to Contest #172

Dawn eyed the darkening sky and smiled; stormy weather was the best. That she was headed to the seventeenth tee box on the golf course didn’t matter. In fact, she felt invigorated by the power of nature and felt that she was playing the best game of her life because of it.June had stuck it out with her then said, “Hey Babe. Check that out.” She pointed to the sky over the fairway behind them. Flat bottomed clouds like charcoal brickettes were amassing even as they watched, the wind picked up and tossed the scorecard from the clip on Daw...

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To Make Believe

Submitted to Contest #171

Warning: violence, gore and racism Through the porthole Herman observed two dozen silvery-white flying fish skim the waves as the sun sunk into the horizon and the infinite sea turned a kaleidoscope of fantastic purples that glittered like gemstones. Though painfully beautiful, he sighed regardless. He blinked back more tears, wondering what it would feel like to dive into the hypnotic, churling, waves. He turned as the cabin’s door opened. His Aunt Danika came into the cabin. She had a pigeon nestled in her hand. “Hello...

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A Good Boy Runs

Warning: some blood and gore Since the time I was able to walk I also started learning about the jungle, our ways…and their ways. The first thing I recalled thinking was that we are all humans and what a wonderful thing that was to be. That happy aura-fog that surrounded my baby mind had cleared as my desire-to-be-bigger-mind developed. I prayed stupidly for instant bigness as I stood on our playground, a mere ten years old, frozen in terror as the big boys came on a-runnin. Our playground was a tamped down earthen field, from my small...

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Marley, the Angel of Death

Submitted to Contest #169

Warning: some people die.The two nurses on night duty stood in the doorway of the children’s ward as still as snowmen, and just as cold. The older one was taller, thin as a rail, and stooped in the shoulders from a lifetime of bending to the gossip of the other nurses in St. Nivelles Memorial, the other was a plump young brunette with a dimpled face more suited to giggling than fretting.With mouth barely moving, the young nurse, Evangeline, whispered, “That one’s a goner. Sad…so young he is.”“Aye. The prime of his life. But Marley ...

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The Engineer Sisters

Submitted to Contest #168

The young boy sat slumped on the bench outside the train station. He sat in between a hatless man dressed in black, and a large scruffy tan and black dog of many breeds. The boy did not look up as a whistle blew. The man stood up, tall and straight as a flagpole. Over the white collar he wore, he forced a smile to his face, the deep lines at his eyes crinkled with kindness. He bent and took the boy’s small hand in one of his large, knobby knuckled ones and gently pulled the boy up. The dog looked up towards puffs of pale...

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Parasite

Submitted to Contest #167

Deep in the earth I awoke at last. My time had come.What time? I have no idea.Time for what? Time to live.Why? The only thing I know for sure is that I was awakened to wreak havoc upon mankind.And what an unsurmountable thing that may seem like for one so miniscule as I, barely the size of a mustard seed, eyeless and alone. My kind has existed since the beginning. To survive, we buried ourselves deep in the earth. While man built and destroyed over us, I slept…and waited. Build, destroy. Build, destroy…build, destroy.&nbs...

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Suitable Vocation

Submitted to Contest #166

Warning: a bit of gore and battle violence The sword in Starrin’s gloved hand seemed to weigh a hundred stones. He looked over at his leering rival’s sword, it dripped with bright fresh blood. The fat black flies circling Rahvie’s head made Starrin’s stomach flip flop. The last thing he needed was to upchuck his breakfast, here, in front of both their fathers, having hesitated so long was bad enough. Rahvie would be eager to rush back home and tell all the other kids of Starrin’s debacle of a day. In the eyes of the ...

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The Path of Blame

Submitted to Contest #165

Frankie looked her dog in the eyes, eyes the same deep sienna brown as her own, and said, “Okay Audrey, today we will find complete happiness in the solitude of nature.” She tied back her long sandy blond hair.Audrey whined and stood up as her harness was fastened under her belly, the tail that curled over her back wagged like mad, wiggling her butt along with it. For a moment she forgot her manners and leapt straight up on legs like springs- like Tigger- until her eyes were level with Frankie’s. The dog said, ‘oh boy oh boy oh boy...

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