Jeremy Stevens

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Jul, 2023

Stories (19)

19 Stories

369 karma pts

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“The First Deadly Sin” by Jeremy Stevens

Submitted to Contest #249

This is it: either I get this job, or we move. Jonathan Carson had graduated in June with a Master’s in School Administration from the (very esteemed) University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He had a thick portfolio with laminated pages containing his “artifacts” of achievement (edu-speak for evidence) during his year-long internship, replete with personal initiatives (including the inaugural community parking lot sale where he generated $750 in revenue), transportation issues (including his suggestion, that found fruition, in an alter...

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“Persuasion” by Jeremy Stevens

Submitted to Contest #248

This is a sensationalized story based, quite tragically, on a funny/not funny true occurrence.****“Running out to buy juice.”“You just bought juice yesterday. Try again.”“What can I say? The boys like-a the juice, eh?” Silence; yet another Saturday Night Live reference —and a pretty good mimic at that— wasted on the ignorant. The kitchen sink’s faucet disguises the glug! as I pour out the remaining juice. “Think I’ll get some more Eggos while I’m at it.”“There are three boxes in the freezer, cupcake. Maybe say you’re getting something we nee...

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“I'm With the Banned” by Jeremy Stevens

Submitted to Contest #247

This story contains leftist political hot-buttons. Do not proceed if you are easily offended.“Do you promise you won’t leave me?”“Baby, how many times I gotta say it?”“More times than you have.”“I promise. I’m not going to leave you.”“It’s just
everyone I’ve ever loved has left.”“I am not everyone.”“And if we do this
”“Ssshhh
you talk too much.”“Just, go slow, ‘kay?”“You got nothing to fear.”-----“And you met him, where?”“At the dugout
”“I mean, where, the first time?”“Online.”“Where online?”“CuddlesClub. He said he was fifteen though
”“And ...

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“Just When You Think You Know Her” by Jeremy Stevens

Submitted to Contest #241

I was always the first to bed. I would ask if she’d like to join, but she’d always have late night things to take care of, things she couldn’t get done during her busy day. Tabitha had a tough job, and I often commended her on how well she was able to balance work and home. I knew she loved me. It was our mutual respect for each other’s space that had kept us so close, for so many years.Or, so I thought.We met at the fundraiser. She was part of the production, and I was, well, a benefactor. Don’t get me wrong here: it wasn’t a black-tie affa...

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“Where the Answer Blows” by Jeremy Stevens

Submitted to Contest #240

I’m not talking ‘bout moving in, and I don’t want to change your life, but there’s a warm wind blowing the stars around, and I’d really love to see you tonight.All the feels, that song gives me. I switch off the transistor —yes, I said transistor, all I can afford— and, having mopped the floors, I step out for a cigarette. There is indeed a warm wind, just as the song said, a warm spring wind that disseminates the potpourri of evening rain and mown grass and Bradford pear; perhaps it is blowing the stars around, I do not know, for I am surro...

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“The Road Well Traveled” by Jeremy Stevens

Submitted to Contest #239

OneAll you feel is heat. Unrelenting scorch. Around you there is buzzing, perhaps cicadas, but all you see is dust. Dust and stone; not cicadas. You want to look up, but you cannot. You fear the condemnation, the shame, the scowls of disapproval, and you have no strength to look up, anyhow, for heavy is the head.Conviviality and camaraderie to deception and manipulation to incarceration and institution to vilified recluse. Heavy is the head that bears despair.And a...

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“My Dearest Partner in Greatness” by Jeremy Stevens

Submitted to Contest #237

Walking up her steps after work; her front door is open, and the screen door allows for the cross breeze through the high-ceilinged living room where she works from home. The slough of my shoes on her WELCOME! mat announce my arrival; she jumps up excitedly, as though her “working” from home in the living-room lounge chair were just a pretense. (For I know she has an upstairs office, though I hadn’t been upstairs yet.) She practically skips across the floor to greet me, a prance, wearing a smile that says you are the reason for this beautifu...

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“A Rose by Any Other Name” by Jeremy Stevens

Submitted to Contest #234

My world was shattered, I was torn apart/Like someone took a knife and drove it deep in my heart.“The eighties put out some great music, but this is not that.”“You’re kidding, right?”“No, not at all.” The evening has worn on me; my patience is done. I snap off the radio. “I think we should just play a game.”“Do-you-want-to-play-a-game?” Her voice is computerized. “Okay, name that movie.”Sigh. “War Games. How about—...

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“My New Pair of Glasses” by Jeremy Stevens

Submitted to Contest #233

Disclaimer: According to the 11th Tradition, "[Alcoholics Anonymous'] public relations policy is based on attraction rather than promotion." As discussed in this story, AA is for narrative purposes only. This story contains pertinent profanity. *** December 31 I am about to do something incredibly stupid. I am about to quit ...

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“The Viper” by Jeremy Stevens

Submitted to Contest #231

It was finally here, the day they’d all been waiting for: our eighth grade end-of-year field trip.  The sun was shining and the birds were singing, and the school bus was agog with excited chatter.  They were so excited.  I tried to be. I was dimly eager about our trip to Darien Lakes amusement park, simply because I’d never been to one, an amusement park, that is, but I was more focused on the water slid...

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“Too Much Information?” by Jeremy Stevens

Submitted to Contest #230

Doink! “Honey, I thought we agreed: no phones, right?”“Right, sorry.” She starts rooting through her bag.Breathe. This spring-break vacation is what you’ve worked for; this has been your focus since your first semester results, a 7% increase from last year’s end-of-course performance but still, pitifully, only 24% proficient. Breathe. Last year, you did not hold this position, so administration should be thrilled with the increase; but still, that nag: the State’s prediction of stud...

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“My Inheritance” by Jeremy Stevens

Submitted to Contest #228

My favorite breakfast as a child was Quaker instant grits and fried eggs, an unusual fare for a Western New Yorker. None of my friends had heard of grits. (“What’s a grit?” I now hear Joe Pesci ask in My Cousin Vinny.) I don’t know how I explained grits to my friends, if I even tried. I’m certain it included butter, though. My mother went to the University of Mississippi and it was there, I suppose, that she became acquainted with grits. (It certainly wasn’t from Caracas, Venezuela, where she spent her formative years.) Mom’...

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“A Cold, Dark Place” by Jeremy Stevens

Submitted to Contest #227

What do you know of loneliness? How familiar are you with the hollow emptiness that holds hands with abandonment, of that crippling ache as numbing as the chill that seeps through the thin windows, that causes the bubble-wrap insulation to crinkle with each frosty breath of December? The beer cans line the wall of the cracked closet in which I now huddle in the far corner; crouched like Gollum, my precious, my nocturnal eyes like saucers in this mineshaft that spans the length of the bedroom without a bed, my radar ears attuned t...

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“A Dead Woman Scorned” by Jeremy Stevens

Submitted to Contest #221

This story contains profanity, alleged pedophilia, and sexual insinuations.I see you, all snuggly; your legs in spoons, your forearm parting those breasts that caught your eye at the church’s Mardi Gras and reverse raffle, when your head nodded with each step that she bounced towards us —us, parents of two, ‘til death do we part— as we refilled our plastic party cups from the half-barrel keg on the muddied church lawn. Having smoked a joint in the parking lot, we were in full flight and everything was funny,

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“Message in a Bottle” by Jeremy Stevens

Submitted to Contest #220

My grandparents’ house was on the crest of the Sandia Mountains, and from their house, as a kid, I would venture out with my Batman utility belt to solve that episode’s conflict, which was never anything more than poking termite hills, examining alien footprints with my magnifying glass, and confronting my nemeses—the cactus, the cholla, the prickly pear—with my lightsaber as I collected desert artifacts for lab analysis. “Murdock to base, over,” I reported into my handheld. “Base. Go ahead, Murdock “ “Found s...

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Author bio

I am a self-published author (The Devil Speaks Louder trilogy). I am a middle grades and high school English teacher in North Carolina. Please visit my website: jeremypstevens.com