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Teacher Mom

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Feb, 2025

Stories (16)

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16 Stories

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The Orchard of Memories

Teacher Mom

Submitted to Contest #300

The desert stretched endlessly before Eida, a barren sea of dunes shimmering under the merciless sun. Heat rose in visible waves, distorting the horizon. Beside her, Tal stumbled, his frail body drained by the fever that threatened to consume him. The sand shifted treacherously beneath his uncertain steps, as if the desert itself were trying to pull him down."Just a little further," Eida urged, though she had no way of knowing if this was true. The grit of sand had worked between her teeth and into the folds of her clothing, an ever-present ...

0 likes

Marvin the Magnificent (and the Price of Wonder)

Teacher Mom

Submitted to Contest #299

The sun hung low in the sky, casting long shadows across the cracked pavement of the park. Marvin stood at the edge of the fountain, the faint smell of stale popcorn mingling with the scent of freshly cut grass. His fingers trembled around three juggling balls, smooth, round, and heavier than they had any right to be."Come on, Marvin," he muttered, glancing at a small group of children sitting cross-legged on the grass. A couple of parents lounged nearby, only half-watching, their faces illuminated by the blue glow of phone screens.He tossed...

6 likes

Theo Whimble and the Avo-King Prophecy

Teacher Mom

Submitted to Contest #299

Theo Whimble had always felt a little pitiful behind the library desk. Filing away ancient cookbooks, shushing children mid-snack, and once getting pelted with a rogue plum during Food Literacy Week, it was a quiet life, full of laminated cards and expired dreams.That all changed the day he opened Ye Olde Recipes & Revelations: Volume 5, and a single sentence glowed gold on the page:"He who mashes the green shall rule the scene."Theo rubbed his eyes, thinking he was still half asleep. He'd been in a bit of a rut lately, questioning wheth...

3 likes

The Lie That Became the World

Teacher Mom

Submitted to Contest #299

Vincent hesitated, his thumb trembling just above the glowing "Send" button.The excuse was airtight, a runaway greyhound, bleeding paw, tearful child clinging to his leg like he was some street-corner saint. He even tossed in a quote from the kid, "You're my hero, mister." It was pure fiction, obviously completely made up, and he knew it.He tapped the button, sending the message into the void before he could rethink it.The email zipped off to his editor, who'd been waiting, no, begging, for his column three days ago. Vincent exhaled, leaned ...

4 likes

The Silence Between the Notes

Teacher Mom

Submitted to Contest #298

It was always there. The music flowing like a river beneath the streets. It drifted through alleyways, curled around lampposts, soaked into cobblestones like rain. The city pulsed with a thousand private symphonies, flutes of joy, strings of longing, brass heavy with sorrow. Mira felt them all, not through ears, but through the marrow of her bones.But she didn't belong to it.To Mira, emotion wasn't a sound. It was vibration. Pressure. Texture. Like brushing fingertips across a stranger's soul. The world around her hummed, but she could never...

6 likes

The Ink Remembers

Teacher Mom

Submitted to Contest #298

Rain tapped gently against the dusty windowpanes, a patient reminder of the world outside. Inside the cramped shop, Elias hunched over his oak writing desk, the tip of his quill poised above ivory parchment. The scent of ink, earthy and sharp, mingled with the faint sweetness of dried lavender tucked into a clay jar nearby. His gnarled fingers trembled slightly as he dipped the quill into the vial, the ink inside shimmering with a dark violet hue that never quite dried the same way twice.He whispered the name aloud, as was his custom. “For M...

7 likes

Buried Promises

Teacher Mom

Submitted to Contest #295

Margaret stood in Daniel's study, dust gathering on the bookshelves she couldn't bring herself to clean. Six weeks since the funeral, and she still couldn't call it "her study" despite her sister's gentle encouragement to "reclaim the space."Her fingers traced the spines of his chemistry textbooks, stopping at the gap where his journal should have been the one the police had never returned. She'd stopped asking about it after the third time the detective had given her that look pity mixed with impatience and suggested grief counseling instea...

9 likes

The Wind Remembers

Teacher Mom

Submitted to Contest #295

Lena pressed her palm against the rain-speckled window of the seaside cafe, watching waves curl and break against the rocky shore. The air smelled of salt and freshly ground coffee, the soft hum of conversation blending with the distant cry of gulls. She tapped her pen against her untouched notebook beside her espresso. The words refused to come.She glanced at her phone, another email from her agent: Lena, your publisher, is asking about the manuscript again. Any progress?Her stomach clenched. Three years since her debut novel had been savag...

19 likes

Letters Across Time

Teacher Mom

Submitted to Contest #294

May 15, 2024Dear Future Me,Do we finally have things figured out? I'm sitting here in my apartment, rain tapping against the window, wondering if I'll ever stop feeling like I'm just pretending to be an adult. I'm questioning everything—my job at the publishing house that once felt like a dream, my relationship with Daniel that's growing increasingly distant, all of it.If you could respond, what would you say? What decisions would you unmake if given the chance? The apartment feels emptier since Mom's visit last weekend. She kept asking abou...

6 likes

Unfinished Reflections

Teacher Mom

Submitted to Contest #294

I told myself I wouldn't say goodbye this time.The letter arrived on a cold, unremarkable Tuesday morning, its edges yellowed with age, the handwriting unfamiliar yet somehow known. "Your presence is requested at 214 Ashgrove Lane. Unfinished business awaits," it read. Evelyn stared at the words, her pulse quickening as forgotten memories stirred beneath years of careful burial.She set the letter down on her kitchen counter, hands trembling slightly. Seven years had passed since she last thought of that house. Seven years spent methodically ...

15 likes

Reflections Unseen

Teacher Mom

Submitted to Contest #293

Lena sat on the train, the rhythmic clatter of the wheels lulling her into a trance. The blurred landscape outside mirrored her restless mind, formless shapes rushing past, never still enough to grasp. She traced the faint outline of her reflection in the window, noting the shadows beneath her eyes, the tightness around her mouth that hadn't been there five years ago. She'd hoped the motion would bring clarity, but with each passing mile, understanding felt further away.For years, Lena had run from the emptiness that followed her divorce, be...

7 likes

Endless Loop

Teacher Mom

Submitted to Contest #293

Evelyn’s breath quickened, the air in the cabin suffocating, as though the world around her had thinned. Her fingers dug into the armrests, feeling the worn fabric with its subtle roughness beneath her fingertips, but the pressure couldn’t anchor her. The hum of the airplane engines sounded distant, like the world had slipped into another dimension. The faint scent of recycled air, tinged with a hint of coffee and sanitizer, filled her nostrils. It should’ve felt routine, but everything felt off, like she’d been here before, caught in this m...

9 likes

The Unfinished Portrait

Teacher Mom

Submitted to Contest #292

Daniel ran his fingers over the cracked surface of the old canvas, the scent of aged oil paint and mildew thick in the air. The antique shop's dim lighting barely reached the corners of the room, casting the painting in uneasy half-shadow. This was nothing new. He had spent years salvaging forgotten art, breathing new life into the discarded.But something about this piece unsettled him."Beautiful, isn't it?" The shop owner materialized beside him, an elderly man with eyes that seemed to catch and hold too much light. "Not many people can see...

8 likes

The Red Symphony

Teacher Mom

Submitted to Contest #292

Adrian had always felt something missing, a silence lurking beneath the music that defined his life. Each note he played was precise, honed by years of discipline, yet empty, like a symphony missing its final movement. Music was his identity, his refuge, but also his burden.And there was never any red.His world was deliberately colorless, rich mahogany, deep navy, pristine ivory. His father's study stood as a monument to order, a world of muted tones, controlled and calculated. Red had no place in it. Passion had no place in it. Adrian had l...

7 likes

Ink of Secrets

Teacher Mom

Submitted to Contest #291

The fragment trembled between Jonas Halloway's fingers, its edges crumbling like dead leaves. In the suffocating quiet of his basement office, grudgingly granted by the university after last term's heated confrontation with the board over his "unorthodox" research methods, the parchment seemed to pulse with its own heartbeat. Generations of scholars had searched for this text, and now here it was, ink impossibly wet after centuries.Professor Chen's warning echoed, "Your obsession with these texts is becoming dangerous, Jonas. The board is co...

12 likes