John Merino

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Oct, 2021

Stories (4)

4 Stories

420 karma pts

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“The Natural Machine” by John Merino

Submitted to Contest #174

The foul breath of technology choked everything. Sunlight was the color of urine from bad kidneys, and every day was lived underneath the churn of the new engine. Fumes spilled from East to West, oozing over California and then reaching down through the length of the Pacific in a striated arch, until the winds of the southern hemisphere caught them up again in a sharpened line of clouds that skewered the whole of South America like a rusted fishing hook, pushing into the continent at Chile and poking out at the border between Uruguay and Bra...

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“Made for Breaking” by John Merino

Submitted to Contest #161

“It doesn’t matter what happens later. It doesn’t matter how you got here. Just think about how good you feel! You can already feel the beautiful acceleration can’t you, the vertiginous thrill running up from your toes into your groin, like taking your foot off the gas pedal and gliding over a hump in the road at top speed? It’s a feeling you haven’t felt since the old, experimental school days. It’s the feeling of true freedom Mike, of traveling past the limits of your feeble biology, escaping the police-state of worry you’ve lived in since...

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“Ordinary World” by John Merino

Submitted to Contest #126

Ordinary WorldBy John Merino I haven’t tasted whisky in ten years. Warmth is reaching up from my insides, a pleasant burn that pushes against the late December air sliding across my bare arms. The flavor isn’t pleasant, but it’s a discomfort that’s all my own, a bitterness I’ve chosen to taste. This bar patio is my home for the next few hours. I don’t know where I’ll go or where I’ll sleep when they close, but right now this seat is mine, this drink is mine, the table and the a...

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“Sleep Story” by John Merino

🏆 Winner of Contest #117

"Now blessings light on him that first invented this same sleep: it covers a man all over, thoughts and all, like a cloak; 'Tis meat for the hungry, drink for the thirsty, heat for the cold, and cold for the hot. 'Tis the current coin that purchases all the pleasures of the world cheap; and the balance that sets the king and the shepherd, the fool and the wise man even. There is only one thing that I dislike in sleep; 'Tis that it resembles death.”- Don Quixote“I have to practice staying alive and preparing to die at the same time.”- Christ...

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Author bio

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Winning 1 story 🏆

Contest #117

Sleep Story – read story