Gregg Voss

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Aug, 2022

Stories (28)

28 Stories

609 karma pts

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“The Peculiar Warrior Origin of D.B. Cooper” by Gregg Voss

Submitted to Contest #263

I swear, if I ever get out of this, I’m going to make sure I’m a rich man.           Seattle or no Seattle, I’m going to be rich, rich, rich. Filthy rich. Come to think of it, maybe instead of Seattle, I’ll live in an apartment in Manhattan, or a mansion in Palm Springs.           Wherever the hoity-toity reside.           England had been so close. But no way that cratering Flyi...

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“The Peculiar Warrior Origin of D.B. Cooper” by Gregg Voss

Submitted to Contest #263

I swear, if I ever get out of this, I’m going to make sure I’m a rich man.           Seattle or no Seattle, I’m going to be rich, rich, rich. Filthy rich. Come to think of it, maybe instead of Seattle, I’ll live in an apartment in Manhattan, or a mansion in Palm Springs.           Wherever the hoity-toity reside.           England had been so close. But no way that cratering Flyi...

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“Traffic” by Gregg Voss

Submitted to Contest #262

Time. Temp. Time. Temp.           12:07 p.m. 98 degrees.           12:08 p.m. 99 degrees.           Withering mid-August heat billowed from the Capitol Drive pavement and obscured Park State Bank’s Irish-emerald sign, blurring the tiny, jaundiced Lite-Brite bulbs on the marquee that served as a courtesy to the drivers passing below.        ...

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“And Never To Return” by Gregg Voss

Submitted to Contest #260

Sensitive content: Religio-horror.The plated sterling silver cross glinted in the jaundiced full-moon light that crept through the Venetian blinds. A tornado whirl of Thomas Merton books and a paisley comforter and black-leather slip-ons and a colorful tapestry from Lascaux, along with dozens of other items, commenced with a throaty roar in Monsignor Padraig O’Shea’s grand two-bedroom, one-bath rectory apartment, grand for a priest of notoriety.           He was alone, and yet he was not...

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“Paradise Lost” by Gregg Voss

Submitted to Contest #248

Sensitive content: Language. There was the world, an amorphous form of fallen humanity traveling a great and wide highway careening toward hell.           But there were also those who were enlightened, those who had found the truth and built their dwelling on that granite cornerstone. Because of that, disaster would not venture near their tent.           There was room for all in the kingdom, Pops had drilled into my head with count...

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“The Shootaround” by Gregg Voss

Submitted to Contest #240

The fire sun overhead warmed the intermittent breeze, which brushed against Jimmy’s cheek in a sultry way that sparked mortal desire, and in turn, his need to be desired.            There she was, at the free throw line, knees slightly bent, the basketball balanced perfectly in her right palm.            Her shooting form was…eloquent.            Better than his, i...

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“Chasing Down Ben” by Gregg Voss

Submitted to Contest #239

All possibilities exist somewhere in the universe. Somewhere beyond the next hill, perhaps. Somewhere beyond the sun, or even beyond God.             Somewhere like Prestonville, Illinois, at 2:46 p.m. on June 17, 2022, on the cracked concrete stoop of a weathered ranch house off downtown, the façade’s coffee paint peeling because of the fire sun, a forlorn roof shingle dangling over the attached garage.             All of ...

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“The Beat and the Bass” by Gregg Voss

Submitted to Contest #236

The vibration of a bouncing basketball is the core of music, the primal gateway to karmic sound that transcends the universe. For Jimmy Trost, the music was present in every pass, every shot attempt, every rebound, every point scored. It was a choir that might move him to tears if it wouldn’t have made him seem weak in the faces of his varsity players.             The rhythm of movement by ball and players alike equated to the individual components of an orchestra.   &nbsp...

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“Horse” by Gregg Voss

Submitted to Contest #235

A fully inflated basketball weighs about twenty-two ounces, give or take, with a circumference of around 29 inches. The air inside, measured in pounds per square inch, is what makes it bounce.             That said, how could this saffron ball, with its black lines and smooth dimples and blocky Wilson logo, feel so heavy to Jimmy, almost as if it was a boulder?              The ball wasn’t any different than any of the...

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“Ball Pressure” by Gregg Voss

Submitted to Contest #234

There was silence in his classroom, then, as Jimmy allowed the enormity of what Kay-Kay was suggesting engulf him like a mid-summer Sahara sandstorm.              Was there a way back? She had suggested as much.             Jimmy didn’t believe in time travel or parallel universes. He also didn’t believe in the physics theory that he had heard from one of the Barton School’s science teachers that all situational possib...

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“Zone Defense” by Gregg Voss

Submitted to Contest #233

The boos cascaded like rushing rapids onto the blond hardwood.             They splashed back up, wave-like into Jimmy’s mouth and nostrils, damn near wetting his hair already coated with sweat.             The boos were for him.             All him.             Damn, I love this game, he thought.  &n...

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“Redemption Time” by Gregg Voss

⭐️ Shortlisted for Contest #231

I wasn’t praying.             The thought had crossed my mind, but with some people, prayer just doesn’t work.             “You’re destined to be one of the greats, glory to God.”             Pops. Him and the same garbage he had poured into my head since I was old enough to pick up a basketball.            &nb...

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“Basketball As An Assumption” by Gregg Voss

Submitted to Contest #230

0:10.3 left             Rising heat billowed from the collection of huddling men-children. Coach knelt in front of his five chosen players who leaned forward on red-padded folding chairs awaiting instruction, ignoring the heat and the blaring “Cotton-eyed Joe” and the juvenile multi-syllable chants of, “Overrated!” and “Season’s over!”              Braden Cowley was one of the five seated and stared down at the blond h...

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“Catching the Westbound” by Gregg Voss

Submitted to Contest #215

Near Glasgow, Montana Left foot. Right foot.              Breathe.              Then run like hell.              Only my legs won’t move in any other direction but toward that old man, sitting there in his lawn chair behind an off-white clapboard farmhouse, the extinguishing flame of the westward sun behind me lighting up his hazel irises.  &nbs...

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“CEO” by Gregg Voss

Submitted to Contest #210

Menlo Park, California Artemis Hoover leaned forward in his chair at the head of the burnished conference room table, folded his arms, and said, “I’m not shy. I’ll address the elephant in the room.” His eyes bored like two red lasers into Tap, Inc.’s CEO Amy Jameson, who sat at the opposite end of the table next to a television monitor with the social media network’s red T app logo.  She hadn’t even had the opportunity to begin her quarterly earnings update. “Amy, are you an alien?” came the simple question from Hoover, a heavyset m...

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Author bio

I'm a writer of words -- for a major East Coast marketing and PR firm by day, for a Chicago suburban magazine as a high school sports reporter by night, and in between, lots and lots of fiction, I'm the author of the paranormal short story collections The Valley of American Shadow and Calling Fire From Heaven, both available on Amazon.

Shortlisted 2 stories ⭐️

Contest #231
Redemption Time – read story
Contest #158
Maiden Voyage – read story