W. R. Barker

Author on Reedsy Prompts since May, 2020

Stories (3)

3 Stories

44 karma pts

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“Mechanic's Muse” by W. R. Barker

Submitted to Contest #231

I wanted to use artificial intelligence to write this story. I want to be a writer, but I’m not one, not yet at least. Google Bard, on the other hand, is everything but flesh and bones. It (I’m tempted to say he, which perhaps betrays a fault of mine and my kind, that need for instant taxonomization that our new Bard doesn’t share with you or me or its Elizabethan counterpart) can write a story in half a second, albeit lacking any distinct voice. Perhaps its voice is that voicelessness itself, which any user of large language models is now k...

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“Farewell, Father Felix” by W. R. Barker

Submitted to Contest #102

Content warning: homophobia, child sexual abuse I understand that I will never see Father Felix again. I will never again hear the gaiety in his laugh, see the brilliance of his smile, hear the great charisms in his sermons, or eat any of the bread that he has turned into God. We have loads of bread at the church. That is where we go to think about God. God is the one who made our mothers give birth to us. He did the same thing to their mothers. Father Felix’s job is to turn the bread into God so that we and all our mothe...

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“A Sun Much Brighter” by W. R. Barker

Submitted to Contest #42

The last thing Thomas heard was the pinewood dock cracking beneath the weight of his little four-door and the lake rushing up to meet him. He must have been knocked out when his head hit the dash. Probably good in hindsight, he figured. Now, Thomas was awake again. He wasn’t in the lake anymore, and would likely not make it back, he thought. There was a feeling of finality to the place he now found himself in, a sharpness that called him to focus. A looming sense of responsibility for himself. When Thomas looked down, he could hardly recogni...

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