J Acheson

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Dec, 2019

Stories (3)

3 Stories

54 karma pts

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“Doña Lebrón and the Tobiano, April, 1989” by J Acheson

Submitted to Contest #51

“They call it a tobiano,” the girl says and we both look at the pony. Sun dapples the plantain leaves, big broad leaves curling up on the sides, forming the sole shape of enormous shoes. Banana trees and their leaves, larger still, line the road below, but those palms don’t have this odd shape where it narrows and then gets broad again.“Yes, I remember now.”Everything had changed and nothing had changed. Forty years collapsed into a single moment as I see her with the pony among those trees. The animal walks toward us, maybe...

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“Pavel and Winnie, September 1939” by J Acheson

Submitted to Contest #50

“Imagine,” Winnie says looking out at the gloom that evening near Bleecker Street. “Imagine that there are two kinds of time.”I sigh, not really able to imagine time in any form, waiting for him to go on.“You’re seated on a large stone in the middle of a mountain brook.”           Outside the streets are slick with fog that had rolled in late in the day. A sheen of wet grim on the black road, a few damp huddled figures l...

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“O'Kelly's, October '38” by J Acheson

Submitted to Contest #49

There was the shop sign just as I remembered it as a child. I must have come here with my father, though I have no specific memory of being here with him, or of walking this particular stone alleyway north of the river. The board was fashioned in the shape of an old cavalier boot, the kind you might see in the cinema version of the Three Musketeers. Above and along the eyelets was the name O’Kelly and near the instep a date, too faded to read.           The ...

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Author bio

I have 4 writing projects going. A rewrite of a novel first composed 1999 to 2005. It is set at the start of the Arab revolt in British Palestine, 1936. The 2nd proj. is fictional memoir concerning my mother and her first love affair. The 3rd is a less serious rock n roll era novel about authenticity in pop music. I invent a band that self destructs at the height of it's short rise in noterierty and a journalist finds out the accepted story is not what it seems. And 4th project is this!: a collection of the short stories generated here. Three so far. Maybe 12 altogether? They are/will be 20th C. historical, to varying degrees (I teach history). I am inspired by the late Stefan Zweig. He's worth looking up and reading, imho.