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John Steckley

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Sep, 2021

Stories (59)

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27 Followers

1 Following

59 Stories

1186 karma pts

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Inspiration in the Park

Submitted to Contest #283

The wooded area in the local park was my favourite place to go to when I was but a lad, living a short walk away. I spent many hours on my own there, but I did not for a second feel that I was alone. I felt welcomed there every time. The trees were my best friends, particularly the cluster of cedars. In fact it was a place that gave me confidence in myself. When I was ten years old, I felt the attraction of becoming a writer. No one knew that I had that feeling, certainly not any family members or friends. And ...

7 likes

The Coldest Day Brings a Happy Ending

Submitted to Contest #281

Ralph leaves his home to replenish his very diminished supply of coffee. Even though he is wearing his very warmest clothes, he still begins to shivers all over as he leaves his house. There are several reasons for that, only one of which is the very cold temperature he encountered when he stepped out of his house. There is a loneliness that makes the mind run cold alongside the body. “Why does it have to be the coldest day of the year on my birthday. It is like the weather gods know what day it is and they curse me ...

6 likes

The Last on Earth

Submitted to Contest #279

Just Before Well it seems that the doom and gloomers were right all along. We were told that large chunks of the remains from the explosion of Mars were headed directly towards us and would eventually strike earth. The exodus began with the billionaires paying for flights to the moon, which had been made habitable a years before. A few such flights crashed, something I did not mind at all. Then a profitable moon shot business began to transfer the general populace in slow moving but quite functional vehicles. This b...

11 likes

To Tell or Not to Tell

Submitted to Contest #278

Sheriff George was not happy about what he was about to do, but he had made a promise. Ralph, the man who had hired him originally, and who was his predecessor as police chief was in the hospital, soon to die, probably only to live for a week or so at best. Ralph had called George on the phone and made him promise to see him there. And George would not break a promise to the man whom he respected so much.When he got to the hospital, he stalled a while in front of the elevator, before he pushed the fatal button. When he r...

11 likes

From Being Horrible in French to an Expert in Wendat: The long and Winding Road of Becoming a Linguist

Submitted to Contest #276

I never did well in French in elementary or high school. I was no doubt a source of amusement to my fellow students when I had to say something in French in front of teacher and students. One year I was forced to take a summer course in the language. The main thing I remember from that class was that there were people even worse in the language than I was, something my classmates and my family would not have thought possible. Failing French was one reason (along with physics and a few other courses) why I failed grade 11 my f...

10 likes

Following a Black Cat

Submitted to Contest #275

Here I am sitting in what once was my grandfather’s chair in the backyard, drinking coffee, eating a doughnut, but being totally alone, not even a single squirrel in sight. It’s been a long time now that I have been alone. No wife – she died in a car crash five years ago. No son – he moved to Australia ten years ago, and won’t answer my calls. No brother, he is in ‘the home’ for the aged, and never speaks when I visit him. No pets in my life either, our last dog was in the car with my wife in the car crash.&nbs...

13 likes

Waving Goodbye

Submitted to Contest #274

As a university professor of psychology, I know that many fears that we have are creatures of a negative imagination that we cannot shake. They are mental creatures you do not like to tell others. It takes a lot of nerve for me to present this story to you as an example of my own irrational fear of being drowned by incoming waves of high tide on a beach that faces the ocean. But I want to let you know that no matter how intelligent you are, you can still be influenced, even ruled by the irrational. The history of my great fea...

12 likes

A Day Ahead of Him

Submitted to Contest #273

It was just an ordinary day in the making for George – nothing the least bit new or different would happen. But that was the way he liked it. He would get up early in the morning as he did every day of the working week. He needed to do so in order that he could eat his favourite breakfast, which took the chef a while to prepare just the way he wanted it. But first he would dress up in his best clothes, as he felt he would need to continue making a respectable impression on the people who would be seeing him throughout mos...

15 likes

We Have Something in Common

Submitted to Contest #271

Two young men in their late twenties, George and Frank have just been hired by a large company which sells seeds. They both are working in the warehouse engaged in labour that requires a lot of heavy lifting bags of seed on their part. The two of them were already fairly strong, one reason why they were hired. At first they didn’t talk much to each other, they just quietly did their work, speaking only when they needed some help from the other. That started to change when George made a sarcastic remark about the for...

14 likes

In the Kitchen in the Dark

Submitted to Contest #270

It was very late at night, and the two of them were standing motionless in the kitchen. She stood in front of the stove, with her back to it. George was a few steps back, facing his wife Gwendolyn, and the stove behind her. It had long been their favourite place in the house, with so many good times there, and so many memories. They had once talked about having sex in the kitchen. A couple they knew had told them about their experience doing that on one occasion. But they had just laughed it off as a joke. ...

14 likes

An Opportunity Found

Submitted to Contest #269

I, Jeffrey Winter, have given up as a writer. Publishers never look twice at anything that I have ever submitted to them. Sometimes, I swear, it is like they never even looked once. That was even true of the one publisher here in town. After three rejections, I decided I did not want to go through that pain again. I guess that I will have to be content with being a teacher of English at a community college, someone who may inspire one of my students to become a successful writer. It is possible, and I will finally be...

9 likes

A Note to Self

Submitted to Contest #268

It was Note to Self, as he called it, from deep in his past. His first look at it was a shocker.Jason Talks to Himself Two Weeks Earlier “I wish that people were not so quick to tell me what I should do with my life, especially concerning my writing. Way too often I hear words such as ‘You should write a novel. You should write short stories. You have the imagination for both. You should not waste your talent by confining it to commercials. I am making a good living writing for television and radio commercials...

11 likes

An Accidental Friendship

Submitted to Contest #267

A bearded man of senior age stood alone and still, in a remarkable ancient church, now a well-preserved historical site. Early in the 19th century it was built by a sect of Quakers who called themselves ‘Children of God’. The old man looked around like he was trying to capture living memories of its history with his eyes. His thoughts rang loud in his mind like he was a one man crowd. He had been to this sacred place two times before, both of them wonderful. One time he was with his paternal grandfather, Ebenezer, who was...

8 likes

Breaking a Big Break

Submitted to Contest #266

Edward had just turned 60 and he was very, very close to a big break in his career. He had been a college professor for some 30 years, and he had been informed that his department led by the current dean who was soon to retire was looking to him to take over that senior position. One positive aspect of this big break would be that he would be paid significantly more than what he had been getting as a mere teacher. He could retire earlier, something both he and his wife Edna wanted him to do so that they would spend more time t...

13 likes

A Surprise to His Family

Submitted to Contest #265

A Surprise to His Family Frank was known to all as a tough and manly sort of fellow. In high school and in college he was on the varsity football team, and put fear in the eyes, hearts and minds of quarterbacks, halfbacks, and even those hardy guys whose main job on the forward line was to stop the attacking Frank. It came as no surprise to anyone that after he graduated from college in the policing program, he became a police officer, that every wrongdoer in town feared t...

6 likes