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Bob Faszczewski

Author on Reedsy Prompts since May, 2021

Stories (164)
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164 Stories

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Not Cleared for Takeoff

Submitted to Contest #265

     Jackson Tillman anxiously waited for the snakelike line to slither up to the airport security desk so he could start his journey to the Chicago sales meeting for which he had made preparations for the last week.      He couldn’t wait to get seated on his flight so he could take out his laptop and finalize the figures on what could become the most profitable contract of his career.  While software sales had softened for his other colleagues due to the continuing inflation, someh...

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Smashing Through the Roadblocks

Submitted to Contest #261

     By confronting a personal health challenge I have broken down roadblocks and made my life far more interesting and fulfilling than I could ever have imagined.      I am a 30-year veteran of the often imploding weekly newspaper industry in New Jersey and a retiree finding new excitement along an alternate route in fiction, non-fiction and science fiction authorship.       The reason for my relative success stems from something that many would consid...

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The Last Turnover

Submitted to Contest #260

          After spending my high school gridiron career on the bench watching spoiled rich kids get all the glory I made up my mind to burst across the goal line of life and even the score with those who had blocked me for so long                  I didn’t realize that running in for that touchdown would run out the clock on my journey.          My teen y...

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Shutterbug Shutdown

Submitted to Contest #259

        On a boring Saturday morning on the outskirts of my home turf in Berlin, Md. I took a hike along a deserted road next to one of the many cornfields in the area.      A large chicken-raising operation long ago had dominated the community for many years, but now only abandoned grow-out houses dotted the landscape. This seemed like the ideal place to search for historical treasures that might help me discover a forgotten link to our town’s past that could provide the ...

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Tale of the Horse Rescuer

Submitted to Contest #257

     A nightmare took over the mind of Harold Thumperton on September 15, 1818 and caused him to toss and turn all night in a restless sweat.  His dream recalled in much too vivid detail the tumultuous sail across the Atlantic that had brought him from England five years before to seek his fortune as a wheat farmer in the rich fields of Maryland’s Lower Eastern Shore.       Over the course of the eight-week journey the ship carrying Harold and his family had run into seas so ro...

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Returning the Volley

Submitted to Contest #256

    As soon as the match began, Irina Ubetekov came rushing toward the net at Wimbledon, returning each serve with more power than she had put behind the thousands she had made during her entire 10-year career.     This tournament meant much more. It would put the final jewel in the crown on her climb up the summit of the tennis world, and she wanted to leave that world with a flourish on her record, avoiding the dreaded “40-Love” at all costs.      For she had made u...

12 likes 1 comment 1
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Smashing Down the Barriers to Greatness

Submitted to Contest #255

      The young man opens the microwave door and, once again, spills the hot drink, barely avoiding scalding himself.  He realizes that, far too often, he has accepted incidents such as this as a normal part of daily life. They have left him stuck in first gear and too readily accepting the derision and mockery of those who either don’t understand his life or consider themselves exempt from human failure.      Those not condemned to suffer with the disorder with the relatively ...

7 likes 1 comment 1
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Tiptoeing

Submitted to Contest #254

          For months the neighbor gossip mills operated at full tilt about the affair, or lack therof, between the ruggedly handsome Jason Hughes and the beautiful and sexy Karen Tollmyer.       Of course, the pair kept throwing logs on the rumor fire when, for four weeks running, the deep, throaty sound of the young stud’s eight-cylinder Mustang pierced the peaceful ‘round midnight air of usually quiet Harpersville.       ...

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Homerun--Through the Timeline

Submitted to Contest #253

           Five decades away from the streets of his youth had done little to dampen Harry’s enthusiasm for the stickball games that had highlighted his teen years.           Like Mickey Mantle, swinging a Louisville Slugger at Yankee Stadium’s home plate, he used to step menacingly up to the manhole cover with his converted wooden broom handle waiting for Joey or one of his other pals to wind up and let loose with the perfect pitch....

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Who Lies Beneath the Headstone?

Submitted to Contest #252

              After the funeral for Fred Harris the line of well-wishers among his family and friends stretched from the living room of his large Colonial home, out into the street and well down the tree-lined block.  Greetings and expressions of sympathy lasted well into the evening.      Since the family had chosen me to help manage the reception, I hadn’t returned to my home until well after 10 pm.      &n...

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What Behind the Door Lurks?

Submitted to Contest #251

      As he opened the door of the darkened building and stepped into the glitzy vestibule, a loud sound echoed off the walls. He then saw before him a long, dark corridor illuminated on each side only by a series of book lights, one every few feet.     John’s girlfriend Jane had texted him a half hour before and told him to join her at the abandoned building, to which she had provided Google Maps directions attached to her text.  Although the place looked familiar to him, its age a...

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Blowin' in the Ether

Submitted to Contest #250

             As I lay on the Assateague Island beach the sun’s rays drenched me in warmth as my mind wandered to far-off places.      I soon fell asleep, and my dreams took me thousands of miles south and west to East Maui's Waianapanapa State Park in the Hawaiian Islands. Back to the wonderful vacations my family had taken there during my teens.     Suddenly, a high-velocity wind blew sand across my face, carrying with it ...

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Returning the Volley

Submitted to Contest #249

    As soon as the match began, Irina Ubetekov came rushing toward the net at Wimbledon, returning each serve with more power than she had put behind the thousands she had made during her entire 10-year career.     This tournament meant much more. It would put the final jewel in the crown on her climb up the summit of the tennis world, and she wanted to leave that world with a flourish on her record, avoiding the dreaded “40-Love” at all costs.      For she had made u...

12 likes 1 comment 1
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Home Run for the Real Player

Submitted to Contest #246

     Stickball had provided some of the most enjoyable times of Harry’s youth. He used to step menacingly up to the manhole cover his gang used for home plate with his converted wooden broom handle waiting for Joey or one of his other pals to wind up and let loose the perfect pitch.       Then he would get a real piece of it and send the rubber ball flying down the block as he rounded the bases. He’d first touch the front door handle of his dad’s ‘57 Chevy, then the tip of the fire ...

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Bringing Back the Glow

Submitted to Contest #245

       For hundreds of years residents of the Northern Hemisphere had romped throughout the summer wearing as little attire as possible in their local lakes and the world's oceans.       In 2929, though, the sun left the planet midway through the season and disappeared behind the haunting and oversized shadow of the Earth’s moon.     Solar eclipses had happened frequently, often more than once a year, several times during our home base’s long histo...

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