Gregg Voss

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Aug, 2022

Stories (23)

23 Stories

503 karma pts

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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. ...

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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 e...

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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 tha...

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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 situat...

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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. A lesser coach, a poor man’s version of himself, one who merely hoped to win, ...

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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. “You will thank me later for all this. Just remember Proverbs.” Com...

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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 a...

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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. He has this kind of smirk ...

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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 ...

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“Crunch Time” by Gregg Voss

Submitted to Contest #208

The god said, Here. – A man who hunts with care May often find what other men will miss. -Oedipus the King There was a voice behind me, familiar, yet somehow suspended in the ether, drowning everything else, as if it were trying to break through some sort of protoplasm. I had heard the inflecti...

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“Pivotal Signals” by Gregg Voss

Submitted to Contest #207

Scott Danner stood exactly five-foot-ten, with a thatch of wavy chestnut hair, feminine lips and a prominent chin, like a boxer, though his wiry frame suggested he had once been a soccer player. He entered the conference room wearing a white t-shirt, navy sport coat, a pair of expensive designer jeans and black brushed-leather Prada Oxfords. His phone was nowhere to be seen, which indicated to Ellen t...

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“Endless Deep” by Gregg Voss

Submitted to Contest #206

At first, the bite felt like a mere pinch near his right elbow, how a mosquito might make its presence known to an outside reveler on a sultry summer’s evening. Here and gone as suddenly as it came. Like a mosquito, or perhaps a biting fly or ant, and Helm’s instinct was to brush the creature away. Go bother somebody else outside. But there was always the possibility it was a wasp or a hornet. He’d never been stung befor...

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“Ace of Reluctance” by Gregg Voss

Submitted to Contest #205

France, Near the Front Lines, November 11, 1918 The cognac was deep amber, in a corked bottle with the brand name Martell scribbled in sky blue across its white label. It sat on a roughshod table that looked as if it had been constructed by a buck private with nothing better to do—four uneven cuts of plywood supported by four legs that bowed outward. Next to the bottle was a wo...

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“Patience” by Gregg Voss

Submitted to Contest #205

There was no air conditioning in the Edmund School office. That was a luxury other districts could afford, like the one in Lawrence where Molly Driscoll had completed her student teaching the prior spring. No, she thought, I’m in rural Kansas, farm country, amber waves of grain, and all that. Grassroots America. Molly pondered this while using her front teeth to massage a canker sore on the tip of her t...

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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 newspaper 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. I am writing my next novel, about high school basketball, in summer 2024.

Shortlisted 2 stories ⭐️

Contest #231

Redemption Time – read story

Contest #158

Maiden Voyage – read story