Joe Swanson

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Oct, 2020

Stories (83)

83 Stories

1252 karma pts

?

“Intuitivity” by Joe Swanson

Intuitivity When I received the notice, I set it on the desk with all the others. Applying for jobs has gotten to be an exercise in futility, but one I can’t afford to abandon. Not a joke, not a last-ditch effort to procrastinate my way to a better world. I needed to find work. Not just for the money, which I needed desperately, but I was turning into a bowl of Jell-O fruit salad. I was that grape suspend...

0 comments 0
Read story

“Weathersby's Honor” by Joe Swanson

Weathersby's Honor These roads ain’t what they used to be. Remember when it took half a day to get out here. Usually having to fix a couple of flat tires, wench yourself out of the mud, and hope no one took you for a government man. Good things time have changed. Now you can break the law in plain sight and people don’t even look twice. Not like it was back when I was a kid. People knew what sticking tog...

0 comments 0
Read story

“What's Love Got to Do With It” by Joe Swanson

What's Love Got to Do With It “What am I bid. We have two-hundred and sixty thousand. Do I hear six-one?” The bellicose voice of Harry Rains resonated in the arena. His local art work had been auctioned off, as well as the majority of the furnishings, sofas, chairs, café tables.  The appliances, ovens, pots, pans, some miscellaneous utensils, were all that was left. And then the building itself. Bu...

1 comment 1
Read story

“Yes, We Can” by Joe Swanson

Yes, We Can! “Any questions? If there are no questions, we shall begin. Do I have a nomination for Chairperson… no? If not, I will assume the position... I will preside over the meeting. Now…” He rambled on for a good half hour. It was difficult to hear, so I got only part of what he was saying. We were seated on bar stools around a pool table, that doubled as a meeting table.  The plywood top, usu...

0 comments 0
Read story

“The Switch” by Joe Swanson

The Switch “If you’ll come this way please, we’ll be able to begin.” Her words seemed innocuous, not quite what I was expecting, but then I find that more often to be the reality of situations I find myself in, than the imagined gratifications of external events that I know shouldn’t exist, but sometimes do. I couldn’t help but entertain the question, “Where are the aromas meant to blow your...

0 comments 0
Read story

“Rube” by Joe Swanson

Rube         Rube Goldberg Junior was nothing like his father. He, unlike his father, who had dedicated himself to the peculiarly intricate connections between things, people, and situations, found people to be little more than over rated guests of a planet that deserved better. His theories propelled thought to a level where it did not exist as imagined but took on an identity of the one who observed it....

1 comment 1
Read story

“Paczki” by Joe Swanson

Paczki “Do you remember Grandma’s…whatever they were.” “Would help if you’d be a little more specific.” It is difficult being more specific when you don’t know what you are asking about. Not the first time I’ve been in that situation, and I know it won’t be the last.  It began, I believe, at a gathering of family. Some holiday event, probably Christmas, but...

0 comments 0
Read story

“Apprehension” by Joe Swanson

Apprehension      Those first steps, unremembered as a first word, encouraged by those who have forgotten what it means to enjoy not remembering. It is for those who no longer recall the inconsistencies born of hope, and the failure that provides impetus to try again or quit, that I commend.      It is that time when judgement means nothing as it has been corrupted by time; dimmed memories of what...

1 comment 1
Read story

“Up, Up, and Away” by Joe Swanson

Up, Up, and Away “Do you believe it is possible for someone to do something, and not remember until it is too late, why they did it?” “Don’t see why not.” I remembered Bonner. One night he was bored. He gets fidgety, the only way to describe it. He starts scratching at itches, itching scratches, and generally bringing the whole atmosphere of the gathering to something ...

0 comments 0
Read story

“Truthy” by Joe Swanson

Truthy: “Have you ever told the truth to anyone in your life, besides me. You have told me the truth, haven’t you?” “I can’t get all up in the air about what I did, didn’t do, might do, probably won’t.” All I know is that in that movie where someone is supposed to have shot the president, and didn’t, and the senator behind the whole thing, says, “The truth is what I say it is....

0 comments 0
Read story

“For God's Sake” by Joe Swanson

For God’s Sake “Well, what do you think? I know it’s a difficult question, but then the answer is even more difficult. I don’t think it’s any reason to procrastinate though. You’ll have all eternity to do that. You do believe in eternity, don’t you?” His questions, they seem to intensify with His every appearance. The first one I remember as though it were tattooed on the inside of my eyel...

0 comments 0
Read story

“Grasshopper Soup” by Joe Swanson

                                Grasshopper Soup    “What is that you got in that bottle you’re holding so tight. It might just be killed if you don’t lessen up some.” Bellmore continued speaking as if he were reading the contents on a sardine tin. “Must be mighty important, you got such a death grip on her. Don’t intend to take it from you boy, if that’s what you got in your mind,” Bellmore stood on the ...

0 comments 0
Read story

“There But For Fortune” by Joe Swanson

There But for Fortune “Can I have your attention please.” His words barely audible over the clinking of glasses and the slurping, which although considered by many to be beyond the breach of social etiquette, was, and had been a tradition in the Biltmore family for more than two hundred years.  As far as Sam Biltmore was concerned, “Etiquette be Damned!” He had not planned on informing the f...

1 comment 1
Read story

“What Can I Do For You” by Joe Swanson

What Can I Do For You “What is this?” “What does it look like?” It looks like a note, because, it is a note, written on what looks to be the back of an advertisement proclaiming the double decker to be the juiciest burger ever, “Subliminal.” I look from the paper into his steely black eyes, bulbous face, and habitually worn stocking cap, adorned with the rem...

1 comment 1
Read story

“Bombs Bursting In Air” by Joe Swanson

Bombs Bursting In Air I thought it was the sun. It’s daily formal rehearsal, the horizon silhouetting the mountains to the East, a rooster proclaiming a new day open for business, but it is only 2 AM. Our French doors overlook the valley that flows from the mountains. Our usual sunrise experience occurs, depending upon the time of year of course, somewhere between when it gets light and when I wake up.

0 comments 0
Read story

Author bio

Joe Swanson has not written a bio yet!