John Steckley

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Aug, 2019

Stories (62)

62 Stories

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“The Graveyard Vigil” by John Steckley

“Don’t do anything on a dare.” That’s what Tom’s older , and acknowledged much wiser brother Frank had told him more than just once throughout his life. But this dare, Tom hoped, would win him some of the respect he had long lacked from his fellow 15 year-old classmates at school.The dare wasn’t for Halloween night, as they figured there would be too many people there in the night, especially other teenagers. So Tom and his buddy Stan were going to spend the entire night, eight to six in a local...

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“Messages in an Old Manor House” by John Steckley

I am the founder and leader of a group of writers. There is a steady membership of 10 of us. Every other Monday we have a meeting in which people read and hand out copies of short stories they have written since the previous meeting. One of the pleasures of being part of this writers group is the different approaches and styles that each of us takes: the beginning of one romance after another, supernatural stories with ...

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“The Grandfather Tree” by John Steckley

The two boys walked towards the remains of a once much bigger orchard. Only a few of the trees still produced apples. One of those fruitful trees was the one they were headed for. One of the boys, Tim, called it the grandfather tree. His friend, Emerson wanted to learn all about it, and why he had given it that name The field and the farmhouse beside it had been in Tim’s family for generations. It would...

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“A Bit of a Traveller” by John Steckley

A Bit of a Traveller The year was 1969, and the graduating class had decided to put objects into a time capsule, which was buried on in the far corner of the property owned by the high school. It was where some of the students went to go to smoke. There was a large bush that they could hide behind, and not get caught. The plan was to dig the time capsule up and revisit it every ten years,...

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“A Turning Point and Back Again” by John Steckley

A Turning Point and Back Again The Turning Point Still after 25 years had passed Sam could see and hear that dreadful moment in the biting senses of his mind. Sarah was his first love, his only love ever. The two of them had been going out for months and they were just about to graduate from high school. Her parents were very conservative and strict, and monitored her activi...

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“The Last Glacier” by John Steckley

The Last Glacier? It had the tragic beauty of a rare animal about to become extinct, or of a fire sparking brightly only to fizz out in the only source of home heat in the middle of winter . It was the last glacier on earth. For thousands and thousands of years it had lain in a valley that could not be seen at as it was covered with layers of long frozen ice. Now the valley was visible. And the glacier was shrinking, alone, without fellows in its demise. From not far away a solitary scien...

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“One of those Small Towns” by John Steckley

It was one of those small towns in which sons regularly became just like their fathers, grandfathers and so on. And daughters became their mothers, grandmothers and so on down the line. And if you couldn’t point to the stone memorializing one of your ancestors, in one of the three town cemeteries—Methodist, Anglican and Catholic, or point at a decades-old two storey office building and say, “That is where the o...

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“What to Do when Stuck in an Elevator and the Power is Out.” by John Steckley

Johnson worked the graveyard shift for the computer company that he worked for. He worked nine to five, but it was night to morning. His company had clients from all over the world, so it was good for their business to have someone they could talk to, and be trained by at all hours of the day and night. There were several companies in the 12 storey office building that he worked in that provided similar service in different areas of business, so he wasn’t alone there, but he certainly felt that he was,...

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“The End of a Family Tradition” by John Steckley

The End of a Family Tradition The Conway family had been living summers by the lake for five generations – first camping in tents, and then in the lake-wide population of 12, nearly identical cottages. And everyone with a cottage on the lake was related in some way. There was a culture to the lake that had developed long ago, and was still strong in the 21st century. There was a pr...

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“He Introduced Himself as Charlie.” by John Steckley

He Introduced Himself as Charlie He introduced himself  to us as Charlie. He was older than most of us, had a goatee and was balding up the centre, with both sides right and left puffed up. And he wore an old-fashioned suit like something out of a picture of your great-grandfather.  But it was obvious from the start that he loved writing. We are a writers group that have been together for...

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“A Secret Society” by John Steckley

A Secret Society “So it is Thursday night again, the night of Thor”. George then did his often exhibited imitation of the Nordic god, acting like the mop that he just picked up with his right hand was a bolt of lightning. Tina laughed lightly as she did every Thursday night when he said and did pretty much the same routine Then Tina replied, “So you and the boys will be ...

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“Regrets, Yep I have one big one.” by John Steckley

Regrets: Yep, I have one big one. A bunch of the guys decided this Saturday to go to the local bar for karaoke night. We all of us are old men, living in the same retirement home. Against the usual pattern of such a place, we are all of us single, all of us but me were widowed.  A couple of us, not me, still had decent singing voices, so this seemed like a good idea. After two people in a ...

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“It has been Three Weeks.” by John Steckley

It Has Been Three Weeks. Lily thought to herself, almost like speaking it was so loud inside her head. “It has now been three weeks since my dear Roger died. I am walking down a familiar sidewalk alone. There’s going to be a lot of that from now on. It will certainly be a long time, maybe never that I will find his like again. Our relationship wasn’t very long, but it was so powe...

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“In a Dark Moor with the Beast of Bodmin” by John Steckley

In a Dark Moor with the Beast of Bodmin I am in the midst of a misty moor. It is the kind of place that fills my mind with scary images, of Dartmoor, with huge ghostly dogs like the Hound of the Baskervilles and of escaped prisoners hiding, ready to pounce on unsuspecting travellers. And this is Bodmin Moor, where, in a Daphne Du Maurier classic, Jamaica Inn, a fanatical fictional gang-le...

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“The Answer is in the Sky” by John Steckley

The Answer is in the Sky So I was back in the tree house again, Lord over all I surveyed. Well at least the backyard anyway, where I sat alone over an uncut lawn and a garden that had needed weeding for quite sometime So many happy times I’ve had here. So much looking up at the sky and letting my imagination run like a wild horse in a meadow as I watched the clouds and gave their shapes names. Named the b...

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Author bio

I am a retired college professor who researches and writes about Indigenous languages and cultures. My specialty is the Wendat/Wyandot language.