John Steckley

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Aug, 2019

Stories (254)

254 Stories

5430 karma pts

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“Doing the Night Shift” by John Steckley

Submitted to Contest #109

Every weekend, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, I do the night shift – from midnight to eight o’clock in the morning. It would perhaps be more accurate to say I do the graveyard shift. This is not of the scary Stephen King type with lots of rats and a big voracious creature. I am working in an actual graveyard. There’s not much real work to it, patrolling the grounds, cutting the lawn with a motorless push mower sometimes, digging a grave very occasionally if someone is being buried on a Saturday or Sunday, pretending that I am t...

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“The Family House that was not a Home” by John Steckley

Submitted to Contest #108

           “Does your vision slow down when you get older?”  George wondered with spoken words on that fateful day. Objects in his old house were appearing to move when he looked at them in passing. They would stop that seeming motion when he put his full focus on that apparent movement. It was happening more and more often these days. George asked himself whether his aging brain was processing images more slowly than his eyes were passing messages to it.  H...

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“My Name is Billy Irons.” by John Steckley

Submitted to Contest #107

A man is sitting at the bar of a locally popular night spot. He has barely touched his first beer. He is thinking, ‘Well, it’s Friday night at my favourite pub, and I am sitting alone at the bar. I would like to meet some woman, and start something, even if it is only for a little conversation. But how do I impress someone quickly. I am, admittedly, quite ordinary in looks, job and generally in conversation.  My best words are written, not spoken.  I need a new strategy. Here comes someone. She’s comi...

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“I see it almost every day.” by John Steckley

Submitted to Contest #106

I see it almost every day. That is not surprising in that it is at the intersection where I cross the road to get to my bank, my pharmacy, and my favourite pub. It is a sad sight. Once it graced the corner with its lifelike beauty. Now it is a rusty wreck, like it had been constructed hap-hazard fashion from the twisted remains of a Ford pinto from the early 1970s. It stands in a small grassy area (too small to even be called a ‘parkette’), accompanied by a few trees that have seen better days. In a way the two of u...

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“Through my grandmother's eyes.” by John Steckley

Submitted to Contest #105

I am sitting in the front row of the church, my grandmother Wanda’s coffin straight in front of me. She is the first person close to me that has died. I am 14, named Dorothy after a great aunt, and had hoped that she would be around for many years to come. I was raised a school, all I have to do is conjure up one of her stories, like the one of her grandmother seeing through someone else’s eyes, and my mind is taken away to another place, one that fascinates me much more than the classroom does.Mom often said of her mother-in-...

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“Are You Coming Tonight?” by John Steckley

Submitted to Contest #104

Two male colleagues are leaving their office building late on a Friday afternoon stop, as one, name Fred, the taller and more muscular of the two, asks the other, named George, “Are you coming tonight?” George’s Internal Voice “No, no, no. I don’t want to go to the office party.” George’s External Voice “What are you talking about Fred?” Fred “The party to celebrate the boss’ birthday. I’m surprised you don’t know about it. Everybody has been talking about it.” George’s Internal Voice “It was all I could do to ignore it.” Geor...

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“Look for a sign” by John Steckley

Submitted to Contest #103

It was the oddest thing. I turned on my computer, to start my day’s work at home. And the screen didn’t show the picture of somewhere or something exotic. There were just words there instead, written in big letters. They read, “Look for a Sign: You’ll know it when you see it.” I thought, ‘oh great. An advertisement, for some ‘upgrade’ or ‘premium’ or other. I hate upgrades and premiums. I like my computer the way it is, the way I understand it. So I quickly turned the computer off. Then I cou...

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“He Just Couldn't Wait!” by John Steckley

Submitted to Contest #103

It was a strange coincidence. My wife and I had just had our first real opportunity in over a year to go to our favourite local British pub. You have to thank Covid for the delay. By real opportunity I mean not sitting out on what passed for a patio, but was really just a slice of the parking lot, surrounded by a two cord fence. There you could get drenched if it suddenly started raining, as we did twice. The large umbrellas provided surprisingly little protection when there was a wind and horizontal rain. And a...

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“Widow's Walk” by John Steckley

Submitted to Contest #102

           She was a mysterious woman that sparked my curiosity.  It is not that I was interested in her in ‘that way’, as I am far too old and she far too young. It is just that when I go for my nightly walk, I see her at the same place on the very small balcony that juts out of a dark old two-storey house. Where she is standing used to be called a ‘widow’s walk’, an old-fashioned term that readily conjures up a story.  It is rather like ‘widow’s peak’, a vee-shaped ...

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“Mirror in the Hallway” by John Steckley

Submitted to Contest #101

Mirror in the Hallway It was Saturday morning, eleven o’clock. The doctor that Alice and Jim were seeing was doing his bit as an ‘after hours’ doctor. The problem plaguing both of them was a wax build-up in their ears that affected what they could and could not hear in their conversations. They would have to be in the same room when they spoke to each other. And their television was set up loud enough to be heard outside their house. And when they were driving, the sound of the radio was as loud as a teenager’s blas...

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“It's an Ill Wind” by John Steckley

Submitted to Contest #101

Rob was a incurable optimist. His favourite saying, that just about everybody that he came in contact with at some time or other would hear at least once was “it’s an ill wind that blows no one any good’. When someone was foolish enough to ask him where that expression came from, he would explain to them at great length that it was ‘older than Shakespeare’, appearing in writer John Heywood’s collection of English proverbs of 1546.He had heard the proverb first from his mother, Cecile, from whom he seemed to have inherited his optim...

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“Strangers on a Train” by John Steckley

Submitted to Contest #100

Strangers on a TrainThe train was steaming across the wide flat lands of the Prairies at an impressive rate. The time was nine o’clock in the morning, and the dining car was almost full. Two couples approached the porter asking to be seated for breakfast. He told them that there was only one table left, not making any suggestions as to what they should do.Bill said ‘Well, I’m hungry and want to eat now. Let’s sit together. What do you say?” The other three nodded their heads, and said ‘yeah’ all at the same time...

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“On a Summer Road Trip with 'the Girls"” by John Steckley

Submitted to Contest #99

On a Summer Road Trip with ‘the Girls’ From the time that they actually were ‘girls’, these three women, Lydia, Sarah, and Sydney (her parents didn’t know whether they wanted a boy or a girl, but they liked the name) had always referred to themselves as ‘the girls’. In their mid-forties they even had the two words tattooed on their left forearms, all doing it at the same time at the same tattoo parlour. That way no one would chicken out. They had become close friends as teenagers, and became well-known at their high school for t...

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“A Contested Family Tradition” by John Steckley

Submitted to Contest #98

A Contested Family Tradition A Family Get-Together on June 12th “Well Barb, before grandad and grandma arrive, I think it is time to tell you about a long-standing ritual we have in this family. Although maybe I should call it a long kneeling tradition – ha ha. It is one experience that everyone in this room shares. It just wouldn’t be a complete family get-together without it. You might think that it is a little strange. But it has a good story behind it.” As Dave uttered those last words of his announcement to...

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“A Message from Mars” by John Steckley

Submitted to Contest #98

A Message from Mars A Preoccupation            Where did this idea begin in my life – that Martians would come to earth? It probably came first from reading so much science fiction as a boy. I was particularly drawn to stories about Martians. On the table beside my bed from the day that I received it as a birthday present, until now, there has been a copy of Ray Bradbury’s Martian Chronicles. I’d read through it several times before I turned 12.    &n...

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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.