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George Georgerfrost@gmail.com

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Nov, 2019

Stories (291)
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291 Stories

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Another Passenger on a Train

Submitted to Contest #261

It has been said that “thank you” may be the hardest word in the English Language to say.  I don’t know if I agree, but it certainly has caused me some hardship in expressing my gratitude at times.  I know for certain it is not social etiquette that prevents us from expressing our gratitude, but it has more to do with how we decide to express gratitude appropriately.  Too often we fall short of the true depth of our gratitude and leave the impression that we are really not grateful at all for something that has been done witho...

11 likes 16 comments 16
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The Truth About Adrian Henson

Submitted to Contest #260

The Office of Special Investigations or OSI showed up at my office one day asking me what I knew about Sergeant Adrian Henson. The officer flashed a badge identifying him as an OSI agent. “What association do you have with this individual?” He asked me and my blood ran cold.   “I don’t know him very well.” I lied suddenly feeling as if the weight of the world had landed on my chest.   “How long have you been enlisted in the Air Force?” He asked, opening a spiral notebook. “Three years.” I answered after swallowing hard.&n...

8 likes 4 comments 4
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Naked Angel

Submitted to Contest #259

“If you take your own life that God gave you then you will suffer greatly with the eternal flames of Hell.” Sister Dominique said soberly to the sixth grade class in front of her during Religious Instruction which was scheduled after lunch.  What I heard as these words came from her lips was, “You mother is suffering right now in those eternal flames of Hell.”  We never talk about it at home.  There is guilt and shame and I am told not to mention it.  It would upset my father is what I am told by Marsha.  Marsha is h...

12 likes 7 comments 7
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Bend in the Road

Submitted to Contest #258

When I found the photograph, I could not believe it.  Time had suddenly become liquid as I floated back fourteen years ago to a time and a place so very different to where I was when I found the photograph.  I had promised Carter we’d keep in touch, but that promise was as empty as the other ones I made back then. I have trouble remembering things sometimes. The doctors told me that I can blame it on the explosion, but I don’t like to think about that either.  The photo was stuck in a book titled The Road to Kabul.  Back ...

17 likes 4 comments 4
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Yorick: A Tragedy in Three Acts

Submitted to Contest #257

ACT I  It is several years before the great tragedy of Hamlet takes place at Elsinore between his father and his brother Claudius which results in murder and usurping of the kingdom when Claudius marries the widow Gertrude and the whole rigmarole. Before his unexpected passing, Yorick had a front row seat of all that was rotten in Denmark.   l  YORICK: (Soliloquy, starts seated at a table with a table of fine material covering the table.  On the table is a chessboard set up for a game) Hello, come on into the chambers of ...

14 likes 2 comments 2
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Summer Special Olympics 1990

Submitted to Contest #256

We got on the bus at our Yuba City headquarters in July 1990. As assistant coach of the volleyball team, I would ride down to the University of California of Los Angeles with the twenty participants on the “C” team on a bus with comfortable seating and air conditioning. For many of the athletes, this would be their first trip to Los Angeles.  The C-team was made up of special athletes who were considered “low functioning” since some of them were unable to speak and could only make sounds that served as verbal communication.   ...

9 likes 5 comments 5
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Recipe for Murder

Submitted to Contest #255

In the history of humankind, murder has always been associated with jealousy, that green eyed monster.  Starting with the brothers Cain killing Abel over the envy of who had God's favor, the recipe of murder has changed very little since then.  Having dedicated myself to culinary mastery , I thought my envy of Evan Broche was unique in its origin, only to find that there was nothing novel in my motivation to rid myself of such a gifted rival.   Pacing my twelve by twelve cell for the hundredth time, I find myself in the t...

10 likes 1 comment 1
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Marshall Pat Garrett Comes to Call

Submitted to Contest #254

July 1881McSwain Ranch House Marshall Garrett came to Maxwell Ranch on July 10, 1881, to talk to Pete Maxwell.  Maxwell was well-known to Marshall Garrett due to his loyalty to the Regulators.  While he had reservations about the most famous outlaw in the territory, Billy the Kid, he knew if he could get him to surrender for his most recent murder of Joe Grant. “So, you are gonna bring the Kid to justice, marshall?” Pete stroked the gristle on his chin.  “Governor Lew Wallace is putting one of the biggest bounties ever on his...

11 likes 3 comments 3
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Stopwatch

Submitted to Contest #253

Coach Harper Brauer was given a new stopwatch to help record the times of his runners on the track and field team. Harper had been hired two years before to guide the Pleasant Valley High School to a state championship.  The Hyenas had been state champs twenty years before when Coach Brauer was one of their best milers, but that was a long time ago.  Since that championship, the track and field team continued to wind up last in the conference.   He toyed with the stopwatch when he found it in his box in the teacher’s loun...

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The Midas Touch

Submitted to Contest #252

There is a lesson in the story of Midas king of Phrygia about wishing for something and then finding out that it was not really what you wanted. The Greeks used this as a life lesson about greed and an insatiable appetite for luxury.  The king learned quickly enough that having a golden touch was not a blessing.  It was a curse. Barney Jackson was dejected when he walked out of Cashman’s Bar and Grill, his favorite watering hole.  His gait was unsteady as he approached the wishing well in front of the bar. He stopped and stare...

14 likes 3 comments 3
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Is It True?

Submitted to Contest #251

Sky Ranch Retirement Community Santa Rosa, NM June 2002 Grady was the only one who was awake in the recreation room at Sky Ranch Retirement Community.  He was watching reruns of M.A.S.H. on Channel 12.  No one, not even God Himself, dared disturb this sacred nightly viewing ritual of the antics of the 4077 MASH Unit.  It was a known rule within the community, written in stone, that no one should venture into the recreation room and disturb him.  No one, no matter how many dozens of times he had seen the episode. &nb...

7 likes 4 comments 4
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Turkey in the Straw

Submitted to Contest #250

Elliot D'Blanca was a career diplomat in the United State Department.  Like his father and his father before him, serving his country in a diplomatic capacity was what he was born to do. Educated in the terms and meanings of the diplomaticese  language, Elliot moved in the elite inner social circles reserved for ambassadors and heads of state. Involved with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) at the Hague in Brussels, Elliot was hosting a gala for some of the top brass who occupied offices at the NATO Headquarters, strict...

11 likes 6 comments 6
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The Day I Met Billy Smith

Submitted to Contest #249

January 23, 1947Somewhere in New MexicoLost!Craning my neck in all four directions, north, south, east, and west, I didn’t see a single living thing in any direction I chose to look in, let alone any sign of human inhabitation. The sun was setting around a mesa in the west leaving long shadows in the dirt and rocks.I sat on the floorboard of my truck and emptied the stones from my work boots. In less than an hour the entire world would be dark with nothing to light the landscape other than the stars and crescent moon. I was su...

14 likes 7 comments 7
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Persuasion

Submitted to Contest #248

Kensey McQueen’s body was found floating in a marsh between Eagle River and Chugiak on October 2, 1977 just before the first freeze of the season.  Working as a patrol officer for the Anchorage Police Department, I heard about the fate of this poor eighteen year-old who had just graduated from Chugiak High School, Class of 1977.  There were those who saw this cold case as an accident along the road connecting the two communities.  Back then things were pretty desolate.  Eagle River had one stop sign and Chugiak didn’t hav...

16 likes 9 comments 9
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South Fork of the American River

Submitted to Contest #247

I had been a group counselor at a juvenile boys’ rehabilitation for substance abuse in the Rincon Valley in Santa Rosa California known as R-House for about ten months when I volunteered for a summer excursion that included a white water rafting tour down the American River.   I must admit I was quite apprehensive about making my first white water rafting trip with a group of teenage adolescents who had been court ordered to R-House due to their criminal offenses that included substance abuse.  The program at the facility was ...

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