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J.R. Geiger

Author on Reedsy Prompts since May, 2025

Stories (38)
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26 Followers
22 Following

38 Stories

709 karma pts

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The Unraveling

Submitted to Contest #313

This story only took me about 15 minutes to write on my break, give or take. It just "popped" into my head. It literally demanded to be written. I hope you enjoy reading it because I really enjoyed writing it. *** The rain lashed against the large plate glass window of the Blue Moon Diner, blurring the reflection of the flickering neon sign that proclaimed "EAT." Inside, the air hung heavy with the scent of fried onions, stale cigarette smoke, and the faint, underlying aroma of forgotten dreams. Evelyn, a waitress whose smile was as worn as ...

1 like 4 comments 4
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Summertime Crush: The Prequel... or Jason, A Boy Who Just Wanted A Friend

The scent of pine needles and damp earth, a fragrance that promised adventure to other children, only whispered of isolation to 7-year-old Jason. His world was a kaleidoscope of muted colors and distorted sounds. His body’s imperfect composition, a collection of flaws, made him a target. His legs, though capable of movement, were clumsy, his gait a perpetual shuffle. His face, well, it was the kind that made other children point and laugh, made adults whisper and look away. He sat on the rough-hewn log, a small, hunched figure at the edge of...

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Jack Macintosh: The Silent Harvest Conclusion

Submitted to Contest #313

“Are you there, God? It’s me… Jack.” The thought, half-prayer, half-sarcasm, didn’t quite escape my lips. My brain was firing on all cylinders, despite the .38 pressed against my temple. The afterimage of the flashbulb still swam in my vision, but the outlines of Sheriff Brody and Thorne’s enforcer were sharpening in the gloom. Brody, the bulldog, the man sworn to uphold the law, was poised to break it into a thousand pieces with my skull. The enforcer, a gaunt shadow with eyes that seemed to suck the light out of the air, held the gun. “Dro...

2 likes 2 comments 2
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The Peculiar Plight of Poor Edgar, the Pixel Poet

Submitted to Contest #312

Oh, the tales I could tell, with a flick and a flair,Of a writer named Edgar, beyond all compare!Not old Edgar, you see, with his raven so grand,But contemporary Edgar, with tech-tool in hand. He lived in a loft, where the pixels did gleam,A digital poet, lost deep in a dream.His quill was a keyboard, his ink a bright screen,And his muse, a machine, quite a marvelous scene! "My next masterpiece, oh, it must be so new!A story so wild, and so utterly true!But my brain, it is dry, like a desert so wide,I need a new helper, right here by my side...

12 likes 9 comments 9
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Jack Macintosh: The Silent Harvest

Submitted to Contest #312

Special Historical Note: This story is a work of fiction, but there really was an 1800s dispute between Cedar Falls and Waterloo (both in Iowa) over which town was the Black Hawk County seat. Waterloo residents carried out a “midnight raid” in the pre-dawn hours of March 6, 1855, stealing official county records and documents from the Cedar Falls courthouse—effectively shifting the county seat to Waterloo. In the end, Waterloo’s de-facto takeover of the county seat during the raid was subsequently ratified by the Iowa Legislature before the ...

5 likes 6 comments 6
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Summertime Crush Part III: Rebirth and Redemption

Sarah opened her eyes to the gentle sway of branches overhead. Her body felt light, invigorated, as if the years of illness had simply melted away. This wasn't the dull ache of a dying body; it was the vibrant hum of life, a feeling she hadn't known in decades. Sunlight dappled through the leaves, warm on her skin, and the air smelled of pine and damp earth, a scent that now felt intrinsically part of her. She looked around. The forest was lush, vibrant, alive in a way it never had been before. And then she saw him. Jason stood nearby, not t...

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The Reflection II: Dax's Pilgrimage

The white walls had faded for me. Not in reality, for their starkness was etched into a part of me that would forever remain, but in my mind, their suffocating presence had receded. I was no longer trapped in that six-by-eight-foot crucible. The healing had been slow, painful, and relentless, just as my reflection had promised. It had culminated in a series of difficult, tear-filled sessions with therapists who understood ghosts, not as apparitions, but as the lingering echoes of unhealed wounds. One bright, almost offensively sunny morning,...

3 likes 2 comments 2
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Jack Macintosh: The Litchfield House Mystery

Submitted to Contest #310

The cold, fall rain lashed against the frosted glass of "The Written Word," each drop a tiny percussion on the mournful soundtrack of a typical night, here in Cedar Falls, Iowa. Inside, the only light came from a single, dusty lamp on my desk, illuminating a half-empty mug of lukewarm coffee and a stack of overdue bills. I, Jack Macintosh, purveyor and part-time private dick, was nursing a headache as thick as a first edition. Business had been slow, and the only company I’d had all day was the phantom scent of old paper and the creak of the...

21 likes 17 comments 17
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Midnight Prose

Submitted to Contest #310

The gargoyle above Blackwood Manor's oak door seemed to leer at Sarah, its stone eyes glinting in the dim gaslight. She shivered on the porch of Professor Alistair Finch’s mansion. It wasn't just her creative writing professor who had suggested she join his exclusive writers’ group; it was her classmate, John. He'd spoken of its unique ability to "unlock potential," his quiet intensity making her believe him. Sarah, a freshman at Briarwood College, had struggled with her essays. But since joining Professor Finch’s group, several weeks ago, m...

11 likes 8 comments 8
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The Ballad of Mr. Snuggles

Submitted to Contest #309

The dust motes danced in the perpetual golden haze of the saloon, a million tiny specks of the American West caught in the solitary beam of sun slicing through a grimy window. Josey Wales, a man etched from granite and gunpowder, sat hunched over a scarred poker table, his eyes, usually narrowed to flinty slits of determination, now wide with a profound, almost childlike, despair. He wasn’t looking at his cards, nor at the grizzled faces of the men across from him—a bounty hunter named “Rattlesnake” Pete, a one-eyed prospector, and a perpetu...

12 likes 6 comments 6
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The Reflection

Submitted to Contest #309

The white walls pressed in, a sterile embrace that offered no comfort, only a stark, unwavering presence. My finger traced the faint, almost invisible seam where two panels met, a ghost against the unyielding surface. Six feet by eight feet—this was my world. A bed, a sink, a toilet, a shower—all bolted down, all gleaming, all devoid of personality. No pictures to gaze at, no books to escape into. Just the relentless, unyielding white. I shuffled towards the mirror, a smooth rectangle of polished steel. It wasn’t glass, I knew that. They wou...

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Summertime Crush Part II: Sarah's Return

Sarah’s tires crunched on the familiar gravel of the old camp road, a sound that resonated deep within her, stirring not just memories, but a profound sense of finality. Years had spun by since she last drove this path, enough time for the world to reshape itself, for her once-bright blonde hair to mellow into a distinguished silver, now thin and brittle. Each breath was a conscious effort, each step a testament to sheer will. It was the stark, undeniable truth from her doctor—a prognosis of limited time left—that had finally propelled her h...

3 likes 6 comments 6
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Summertime Crush

Submitted to Contest #308

The scent of pine needles and damp earth still clung to Jason, even after all these years. He sat on the decaying porch of what used to be his mother's cabin, the one at Camp Crystal Lake. It was a ruin now, a skeletal reminder of a past that haunted him more than any ghost. He ran a calloused, scarred hand over the splintered wood, a faint, almost imperceptible smile playing on his lips. He wasn't smiling because of the horror, the bloodshed, or the endless cycle of vengeance. He was smiling because of Sarah. Sarah—the name, even in his own...

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Bite Me, I'm Dracula!!

Submitted to Contest #308

The thick velvet curtains, smelling faintly of dust and despair, parted with a theatrical flourish that even after centuries, still felt a little dramatic to Dracula. He blinked, adjusting his eyes to the sheer audacity of the afternoon sun. It wasn't the searing, flesh-withering blaze of old, thanks to his latest UV blocking contact lenses and SPF 5000 (blood-infused, naturally), but it was bright enough to make him squint. He stepped out onto the cobbled street of Sighisoara, a faint sigh escaping his lips. "Sunlight," he muttered, "the or...

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Principal Ares: A Sandcastle, A Food Fight, A Talent Show, and Unicorns

Submitted to Contest #305

I stood on the stage in the gymnasium of Olympus Heights Elementary. My perfectly tailored suit felt like a straitjacket. This was it. My new domain. My new war zone. See, a few months back, after a particularly spirited disagreement with Athena about the proper way to conduct a siege (she insisted on “strategic withdrawal” while I favored “indiscriminate slaughter”), Zeus, in his infinite, infuriating wisdom, decided I needed a “time-out.” Not just any time-out, mind you. A mortal time-out. And not just any mortal time-out, but a “character...

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