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John Steckley

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Sep, 2021

Stories (71)

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28 Followers

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71 Stories

1432 karma pts

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It Was Four O'Clock in The Morning Once Again.

Submitted to Contest #315

It was four o’clock in the morning once again. And once more Stella was wide awake and unable to go back to sleep in her bed. So now she was sitting in a chair in the backyard with a bench in front of her, a cup of coffee upon it. She was staring into the distance way ahead of her. This had been going on for several weeks now. Her father and grandfather had both worked as engineers driving the early morning trains to the station nearby. When she was just a girl, she would get up very early to wave to each one of them when she knew they w...

1 like

To AI or Not to AI

Submitted to Contest #312

Alex had long been something of a rock star with his novels, a series of masterpieces that had begun when he was just 18 years old. For four years after that he added another novel in the series every year. It was his main income. He worked at a library, but his stories brought in much more money. An article in the local paper said that he was an A1 writer.But then, like many a aging rock star he began to lose his a chunk of his creativity. He had left his many readers hanging, with people asking him when the next one was coming out. Pe...

12 likes

His Best Theft

Submitted to Contest #310

An old man walked into my book store yesterday. He shuffled slowly forward with a book held close to his heart like it was some kind of paper pacemaker or friend. “Mister Brown, Sir,” he said in a voice a little above that of a whisper, “I have written a book, and I would like you to sell it in your store. I have been working on, it for years, and now it is finally done. No local publisher seemed interested in it, so I self-published a number of copies. It contains a revealing story concerning something that happened repeatedly in our to...

9 likes

Jessie's Beginning

Submitted to Contest #309

Jessie’s Beginning “I do not know why I am going to this high school reunion. I was only there for my final year, and I have not seen or talked to any one of my fellow students of that year over the last 10 years. My family had moved from far away from where I got all my previous education to get to this place, where my father and mother both got a better job. I did not grow up with the other students, so I was not perceived as being ‘one of the old gang’. I hope that the people who were in my class have name tags on so I can call them by...

6 likes

Whose Voice is it?

Submitted to Contest #308

Whose Voice Is It? One early Saturday night, the local police received a call from someone whose words were spoken particularly slowly and sounded like the stumbling speech of a very old man. He said that someone was being beaten up in the nearby popular bar, the Tobi Jug, in the men’s washroom. The two fellows hitting him was stealing the man’s wallet. The person who picked up the phone was a rookie police officer, who did not ask the caller any important questions such as how he knew this if he wasn’t in the washroom himself. He just too...

9 likes

A Secret Society Until

Submitted to Contest #307

A Society Kept Secret Until It was early Friday evening. One by one a group of older men, all seniors in their late sixties to early eighties, climbed up the outdoor stairs to the second floor of a building that housed the business of one of their senior members (senior in length of time of involvement, not in being older than most others). It had been his idea to meet there, and so far it had been a secrecy success. Each man carried with him a bag filled with something . They were very careful in their handling of it so that it wo...

3 likes

At the Intersection of Life

Submitted to Contest #305

At the intersection, I can go to the right and head straight home as I always do, or I can turn left where I have not gone for many a year. It would take me to a place that had many good memories. It was there where I went adventuring in the woods, seeing wild birds, even eagles, and where along with my elementary school friends, we would pretend that we were Robin Hood and his merry men. I was Little John, as I was the tallest of the group, and my name is John. However my good times ended there when I was a teenager in high school, and I sw...

12 likes

There are no stories in this place.

Submitted to Contest #304

“There are no stories in this place”. Edith had heard her husband Ralph say this an uncountable number of times ever since he retired. Part of his excitement of no longer working for a living was that he would have plenty of time to write short stories and maybe even write a novel or two. But that had not happened. She often saw him in the living room, sitting on a comfy chair, a pad of paper on the table before him, a pen in his right hand, while he stared at the fireplace. He might write down a title, but nothing or just a few sentence...

5 likes

Breaking the Rule

Submitted to Contest #303

Now that Fred was nearly retired, he decided that he should enroll in a course in history at the local community college. He very much wanted to keep his mind active, as he had too many friends of his age who became what we would call (but not to their faces) ‘brain dead’ after they had retired.It was quite difficult for him to enroll in the course. The administrators of the local college were very strict, and created very inflexible rules for a number of things. As he had never gone to college before, he had to have an appointment with the ...

6 likes

I Don't Understand

Submitted to Contest #302

I Don’t Understand Our newly elected mayor (I did not vote for him or would ever do so) has proposed that the old town music hall be torn down and replaced by condos (the growth and greed industry of the 2020s). I don’t understand why he would want to do this. The music hall has for a long time been a place where a number of generations have enjoyed the music that has been played there. For me, I got to play the drums there several times when I was in a teenage band known as the Exciting Eccentrics. It is where I met my future wife Ellen...

7 likes

The Place Keeps on Haunting Me

Submitted to Contest #300

The Place Keeps on Haunting Me Even though it has been a few years since I was last there, the place still haunts me quite regularly. It is in all of my nightmares. While it does not seem completely logical for me to ‘blame’ the place, just because several things that happened there provide the persistent pictures in my frequent nightmares, blaming the island is what I have done. The Nightmares of the Island Once, as a 12 year old boy, I took out the family canoe to paddle to the island of my future nightmares. I did this without telling ...

8 likes

Passing Down the Family Magic

Submitted to Contest #299

Sam had learned all that he knew about magic from watching his grandfather perform on stage. As a child he had attended several of Grampa Jim’s magic acts and was always amazed at what the old man could do. There was one magic trick in particular that he did not believe possible. It happened with the waving of a wand. An unbelievable image appeared. He really wanted to learn how to do that particular trick. Grampa Jim said that he would first teach Sam the basics of his magic, before he would teach him his most amazing trick. Sam was eager ...

8 likes

They Met in a Strange Way

Submitted to Contest #298

The two men met on Saturday in a strange way. They had been walking down a sidewalk on the same side but going in opposite directions. It was mid-April, but the sidewalks were still not completely clear of ice and snow. The ice was nearly invisible. When each of them suddenly saw the other coming, they both shifted quickly to the road side of the sidewalk. This caused both of them to crash into each other and fall onto the sidewalk. Both of them felt that he was mainly responsible for the accident, not feeling that it was right to blame...

13 likes

Finally a Split Second Decision

Submitted to Contest #297

It is nine o’clock sharp on a Saturday morning, and Jason is taking his regular route at his regular time for his regular breakfast at his usual place. He has done this every Saturday for over a year now, ever since his wife left him on his own. He can talk and listen to the people serving him at the restaurant, and catches bits of conversations coming from customers seated nearby, otherwise his Saturday would be speechless, both with his not talking to and not hearing anyone speak to him.Jason Speaks to Himself Silently‘Here I am doing exac...

5 likes

Doing the Wrong Thing Right

Submitted to Contest #296

The town election for mayor was going to take place within a few days. Bill certainly knew who he was going to vote for. There was no doubt in his mind as to who that should be, and definitely who it should not be. He was driving to his best friend Bob’s house to help him with his election campaign, knowing that such help was very much what Bob would want. Bob had done so much for him in the past. He had assisted Bill in getting his first job, which had led him to the fine position he held now. Not only that, but he had introduced Bill to hi...

15 likes