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John Rutherford

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Mar, 2023

Stories (36)
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284 Followers
605 Following

36 Stories

2580 karma pts

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Brote und Wurst

Submitted to Contest #299

“Hello, am I speaking with Joseph Brummer?”The haughty woman’s voice, spoke with a high-class English accent, only a well-educated foreigner could articulate. Joe came from a working-class background, and the accent alone sent him back years to an unconfident boy. Aware of the limits of his basic upbringing, completely inexperienced and unfamiliar with the background of how this woman could pronounce his language (not hers) with such elocution and perfect pronunciation. Joe embarrassingly thought, he was still blighted, sometimes dumbfounded...

10 likes 3 comments 3
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Ilkbahar - Spring

Submitted to Contest #298

Neptune was proven right about the blind spot, but how long would the oversight, the lack of perception last? The attacks on Pluto and his dysfunctional family had ceased for now. Kubbeli Evler as predicted became a safe haven, and the new home for the nomadic tribe of stray cats. The sightless eyes of the mountain – les yeux de la montagne, had servants to hunt and find, and it was only a matter of time before Pluto and the seven cats of Kubbeli Evler would be discovered. The group arrived during the zenith of summer, as the burning furnace...

7 likes 7 comments 7
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Saat!

Submitted to Contest #297

What concept of time has only been made by humankind, for humankind – Ba; but not for beast? The concept of time: does it truly exist, and who created it? Only Ba could make sense of the abstractions of time – Saat; and try to philosophize its nature. Only Ba would try to control it, as they try to control all things in their world. Even the poets amongst Ba would try to measure its infinite puzzlement with beautiful, sad and execrable, yet endless emotional words and context. Ba will always considered Saat as a foe, an enemy to be feared be...

28 likes 13 comments 13
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Braess

Submitted to Contest #296

Braess was a paradox, a lingering rhetorical question like; was God being ironic in commanding Eve not to eat fruit from the tree of wisdom?Braess the fox cub; born the same night as his mother’s death; Bella Renard. Born alone to fend for himself. Fortunate to be reared and nurtured by an unusual community of seven stray cats, and a dog. A cat community cobbled together by the compassion of Pluto and Luna, with a mission to protect each other, to survive the many threats, and share the perilous dangers facing the vile gang; jaws of death. F...

22 likes 11 comments 11
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Magic Garden

Submitted to Contest #295

There was once an apartment located in Leninsky Prospekt, Moscow, where lived a family, who owned two dogs, and a small cat. One dog, a dalmatian named Cherry, and another a Jack Russell Terrier named Bella. Outside the apartment block was a small park, the park had two children’s play areas with swings, and slides. Plus, a court to play football or basketball. The park benches were situated at equal distance along the two pathways, which led to the four entrances of the small urban park. There were many trees, and a brick building to house ...

31 likes 12 comments 12
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Flirty Rabbit

Submitted to Contest #294

30th September 2023Dear Mr. Spada                                                                                      &nb...

33 likes 28 comments 28
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Go!

Submitted to Contest #293

The huge psychological relief of looking out of the aircraft window on the Bangkok airport taxiway and seeing the next landing aircraft with the dark green tail, the familiar logo of a palm tree and crossed swords, was one of those moments in life, when miracles do happen for insignificant people like me. Someone had looked after my family and me. Especially since I had been so foolish. It was an ambitious plan, and not without its obvious risks. The logistical problem can only be summarized as follows. A family spread out in different parts...

42 likes 33 comments 33
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Lycanthrope

Submitted to Contest #291

Ketu was in the fourth house on the astrology chart when Lycaon was born into this world. It normally signaled finality; endings, but this was different. This was an advent of change, a transformation, and a transcendence from evil sources and the beginnings towards a general expansion of evil. It was old evil returning from the ancients. It represented a renunciation, a rejection of the current ambivalent fragile balance, the status quo, and it brought about malefic, harmful and destructive forces. Neptune, the psychopomp cat, the guide for...

26 likes 12 comments 12
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Symphony on the Streets

Submitted to Contest #290

This is a story about stray cats, or stray animals in general. The narrator tries to explain their lives from an eyewitness or philosophical viewpoint. The word Ba has a collective meaning for human beings and their world.************************************************************Venus stretched out her furry legs and paws, with the feeling of absolute freedom and happiness. These are words to describe a state of mind in the Ba world, a comparable feeling Ba might experience. Although Ba goes to great lengths, to find it, teach th...

35 likes 21 comments 21
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Capricorn's End

Submitted to Contest #289

This week’s story follows on from the previous week - Tempête du Cygne Noir. The scene commences in the police station interrogation room. Wicked (Mr. Ramstein) was being questioned by Detectives Melcom and Metzil about the murder of Cygne Noir.************************************************************“If you don’t come clean Mr. Ramstein, your freedom and future will end here tonight!”“Sounds like you are a popular dude around here. Everybody calls you Wicked – right? That’s apt! Right now, with us Wicked, you are the Wicked Witch fo...

23 likes 10 comments 10
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Tempête du Cygne Noir

Submitted to Contest #288

The wind whipped the layers of storm clouds ever nearer the seashore, and the deadly scene on the sandy beach. The flashes of lightning highlighted the clumps of bodies, heaps of flesh and clothes, lying prone, face down in the sand. Dead bodies vulnerable to the sweeping heavy rain that came closer with every second, and with every gust of wind. The sea was growing, the constant tidal waves inflated in size, as the down drafts of wind pushed the waves higher. One could see the wind pressure from above pressing down, squeezing into the water...

37 likes 20 comments 20
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The demise of Camellia Sinensis

Submitted to Contest #287

He was daydreaming, gazing out the window looking down at the old habour area of Colombo. With imagination one could easily visualize in a bygone day, the busy habour in the 19th century full of ocean-going wooden vessels loading and unloading their precious cargo – loading of the heavy wooden tea chests – full of cuttings from the bushy shrub named camellia sinensis. Destined for a teapot and the additional pouring of steaming hot water to make the delicious and refreshing golden nectar - tea. Destined for the white linen tables and fine ch...

24 likes 8 comments 8
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A crate too big, too heavy, too far!

Submitted to Contest #286

It wasn’t a single suitcase containing my family’s worldly possessions that created the epiphanic moment in my life. It was a wooden crate, a homemade crate, made with love and consideration to handle with care, a miniature pedal car. A birthday present. It was symbolic of so many changes at that time in my life, changes in many lives. A time of upheaval, which would never ever return to the previous pattern of life for so many; ever again.The surrounding support, comfort and security of a close family would be sacrificed, for higher ideals ...

33 likes 16 comments 16
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Doctor RED

Submitted to Contest #285

It is getting close to the eve of Y2K, and in the land of the clock-watchers all was not well.Across all the land, the towns, the cities, the whole populace was stirred, in an uneasy feeling which pervades their every waking second. It prolongs into every minute, every waking hour, the uneasy feeling hovers close to their every conscious thought. There is a general feeling of anxiousness that verges on clinical depression. The thought of entering the unknown, for people who are control freaks governed by precision, clock-watchers by nature. ...

32 likes 16 comments 16
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The Conch

Submitted to Contest #284

Grantham, Lincolnshire, UK circa 1843“You’re dirty, you need a bath to wash away that colour. It looks like mud!” My cousin said, jerking away her outstretched arm in disdain. It was her idea, her request to compare our uncovered skin– side by side. Now the realization of the difference in skin colour, horrified and frightened her like being next to a diseased leper. Just the touch of my outstretched arms, my coffee-coloured arm, my dusty tan coloured skin, meant she might receive a tropical disease. Worst. Her alabaster white porcelain skin...

34 likes 16 comments 16
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