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Joe Swanson

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Oct, 2020

Stories (289)

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289 Stories

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In Plain Sight

Joe Swanson

    “You should see this!”     “You can get arrested for doing something like that.”      “Funny, but it’s nothing like that. Have you ever noticed how oblivious people have become to their surroundings? I can see the street and the path along the river from here. This telescope allows me to see their faces, as if they were as close to me as you are. They look like zombies. They move like people, but they seem to be unaware of others and…everything arou...

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Horizontal Vision

Joe Swanson

    That arc that refutes the promise that if you travel long enough and far enough, you’ll come to a place where you can look over the edge. And see what? No one will dare say as the last one who tried has never been heard from since.     The idea is intriguing. Edges are always enthralling, as are beginnings and sometimes endings, hardly ever bottomless pits where the addictions that haunt us live.     I remember once being chased by a God who said he wanted to show...

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Luke Warm

Joe Swanson

    “So you are the infamous Luke Warm. Heard great things about you boy. Is it all hyperbole, or are you all they say you are? In my business I meet all kinds of people who wear only left shoes. Problem is you have to take them off at one time or another, and then you got…well let’s just say you can only hope you don’t have an odiferous demeanor, if you get my drift.”     I knew from our initial spontaneous introduction that it was going to be, would be, far worse than suggested.&n...

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Gravitational Gravitas

Joe Swanson

    “I feel as lite as a feather.”     “You high?”     I believe it is just the times we live in, the response. When you say something about feeling good, there is someone who has been programmed to say or do something that makes you question your feelings. Raining on parades has become the new leisure activity for millions.      I can’t help but think we have slid so far down the proverbial rabbit hole that the light is no longer something to aspi...

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The Personality of Chocolate

Joe Swanson

    “I’m looking for something different, not the usual-usual. Something Showing I care, I refrain from using the word love, because that is as nebulous as the description of chocolate. It leaves out, as there is no way to adequately capture the essence of the word, the emotional supposition involved. It has become more than cocoa seed growing from the Aztec history of South America, into a mental phenomenon that encapsulates the individual and the masses search for perfection, within the singular word, cho...

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Deadly Sweet

Joe Swanson

    I have begun to feel more like Howard Hughes must have felt near the end; the walls closing in, the floor turning to a vile swamp, and the air no longer fit for a raven to breathe. I suspect it has something to do with Valentines Day, or Sweet Tooth Monday.    I remember making valentines when in school. Cutting hearts from construction paper, writing something insanely stupid in my best handwriting, and taping a sticky sucker to it.    We had valentine boxes at school...

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A Heart Made of Faded Cardboard

Joe Swanson

    “I found this box in the basement when I was cleaning out some junk to make room for my…well, it doesn’t really matter. Let’s just call it therapy if we need find a reason for everything.    I don’t remember it being there the last time I cleaned. Seems like the kind of box I’d remember. Do you remember any box that you or someone might have stashed in the basement?”    “What kind of box?”    “ It is a box shaped like a heart. Like a candy...

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Do You Mind

Joe Swanson

    “Do you mind? I just need to pop in here for a minute. You are welcome to come with me. This won’t take long and I hate to leave you here on the street in the cold while I’m inside where it’s warm. Come along. It won’t take but a minute.”     I had no interest in entering a confectionary store. I have diabetes and am also susceptible to things that can kill me. I most times avoid the possibility of being tempted beyond my ability to decline, but I’ve been known to...

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Hey! Remember Me?

Joe Swanson

    Hey! Remember me? I have to wonder sometimes. I used to go to the park, sit on a bench and watch the ducks go by. When there were no ducks, I’d talk to you. Rememberin me now? I’m the guy who used to talk to you when I was younger about we bein so poor that I had only one boot. Had to share with my brother. I used to try to offer up the pain, frozen feet, fingers, ears, or some kind of thermia they called it, when you start to shake, and can’t quit til someone slaps you with a h...

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My Move, Our Move

Joe Swanson

    It seemed like the end of my world when they first mentioned the necessity of leaving. I understand, it’s just that when you’ve spent your entire life in a place, with people you know, starting over is beginning a life I am not prepared for.     My environment has dictated who I am, what I do, what my plans are; it makes decisions for me. I am not different from others that are forced to leave, what we lose may appear to be different, but our loss is the same.     &nb...

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Bogu?

Joe Swanson

     Are You there Bogu…?    I know I’ve asked before, but this time I’d appreciate an answer. Are You there Bogu?     All of Your signs I admit are wrapped in a sense of irony, if I understand then correctly, but what I need now is direction.     It is not that I’m at a fork in the road, I’m way past that. Forks are fine for Irish poets, or those who live on Walden Pond, but I’m neither. I just got off a boat, which was supposed to be my...

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Potato...Po-ta-to

Joe Swanson

    Love has an affect on people, it allows them dismiss the obvious while pondering the impossible, or perhaps just the unlikely. The understanding, or illusions of reality necessary to circumvent conflict are often underestimated, as purveyors of faith have a unique ability to lie to themselves so believably, it is impossible to question their sincerity, only their ability to reason.    “It says, right here…look, God created the heavens and earth and on the…”    “You do reali...

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Happenstance, or Evolution?

Joe Swanson

    You know how it is when you feel yourself growing out of something; like when you were a kid and your pants seemed to have shrunk when you weren’t looking. That’s how I been feeling of late. Can’t figure out if it’s because I’m growing out of something, or into it.    It’s not the first time I’ve had to wrestle with myself over this issue. The problem is, In my dreams, I always wake up or change the subject before I find an answer. It is not like what’s right or wrong, good or b...

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The Congregation

Joe Swanson

    “Brothers and Sisters, Sisters and Brothers,” his anticipated greeting to the assembled. The cadence, the projectory, now a drone that had been dampened by age. He was tired, he was bored, a lifetime of promising hope.  He awoke every morning for the past several years feeling he had failed to deliver on the promises he expected himself to deliver.      “We are gathered here today during this time of renewal, Spring, Easter, rebirth, rejuvenation, anticipation…” and then ev...

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The Drawing Room

Joe Swanson

    “Would anyone care to talk about your experience on Goat Island?     Don’t everyone volunteer at once. We discussed this before we went. You were to sketch, scribble, whatever way you chose, depending upon talent that you possess, to describe, record, the impact the environment of the island had on you. Anyone like to step up and show us what you experienced?”     As straightforward as the requested assignment was, they all espoused a similar reluctant response.&n...

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