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John Steckley

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Aug, 2019

Stories (254)

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254 Stories

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Tiptoe Through the Tulips

Submitted to Contest #86

Melody walked through her garden very slowly and carefully that day. For reasons that she knew only too well, it was absolutely necessary for her to tiptoe through the tulips at this moment. The explanation is a long, and occasionally complicated story. Here it is. In her teenage years Melody had become a flower child, a hippie. Her given name was Priscilla, which she changed when she turned 16. At 18 she literally charmed the pants off of a very successful businessman in his mid-thirties. She wasn’t attract...

18 likes

City Lights

Submitted to Contest #85

1978 First Impressions I have arrived. Here I am, a small town kid who just got a good job, my first job that wasn’t working for friends of my parents. I am an employee at Woodbury’s Financial. And it’s in the big smoke, the city. I did not ever think that this would happen. I have to admit that I am a bit intimidated. Everyone seems so sophisticated, so big city. I wonder whether the people I am working with are going to think of me as the very opposite, almost smelling like I come from a small to...

10 likes

March 13, 2020 to 2021

Submitted to Contest #84

It all began with the Toilet Paper Crisis It all began on March 13, 2020. That was the day when we were told that there was no more toilet paper to be had. Where I live that is a highly valued commodity. It is kind of a long term hospice that specializes in taking care of younger people (no one over 60) with disorders that will probably eventually end their lives over a span of at least 10 years. My parents have money, so they could afford to have me kept here. I have severe emphysema, and am 40 years old.&nbs...

5 likes

Shark Beach

Submitted to Contest #83

Shark Beach I am sitting in a very friendly open-air bar by the beach of the first tropical island that I have ever visited. I feel like I am in the set for a Jimmy Buffet video, even though I do not drink margaritas and don’t wear flip-flops. The general good feeling that the people in this place have produced for me, makes me think that I can ask the question that has been buzzing in my mind ever since I checked into my cabin by the beach. As I ask the bartender for another scotch, neat, I say to him. “So why do they c...

8 likes

One Friday Unlike the Others

Submitted to Contest #82

It is late Friday afternoon, 4:56 or 16:56 to be precise. It is almost what my co-workers call ‘quitting time’. They are beginning to talk about subjects that are not work-related. There is smiling and laughter. I can tell that they are making plans as to where they are soon going to go to eat, drink, and, as one co-worker puts it “be merry.” They will not include me in their conversations along these lines. Nor will they even think of inviting me to come along. As in the past, no one will say, “Hey Andrew,...

14 likes

A Thirty Year Old Crush: A Story of Romance and Deception

Submitted to Contest #81

This is my story. It is thirty years now since I graduated from high school in this part of the city, and left for a job offer across town, never to return until now. What had been what seemed like a going nowhere job at a hardware store became a career that has just led to an executive job back ‘home’ where I grew up. I need the familiar now, as my second wife and I divorced a year ago.It is funny how certain memories are triggered when you return to the places you once saw nearly every day. After moving in close to wher...

8 likes

Nano Waves: An Hypothesis

Submitted to Contest #80

Beginnings Fred had become involved with science as a teenager both because it was something that he was good at, and because there was a certainty and a kind of security in experiments and supported facts. Plus he felt no such security in talking to strangers, or even people he knew, but not well. That had remained true throughout his life. So the fact that he would soon be broadcasting live on television, with networks around the world picking up across the world, was quite intimidating to him. What if he just froze and could n...

8 likes

To These People We Are the Aliens

Submitted to Contest #80

“To these people we are the aliens, intruding into their world.” Every media, print, television, radio and social began their story with those words, or a translation thereof. They were repeating what had been reported by Pierre, one of the first two human scientists to encounter ‘these people’. The earth would never be the same again. A Boy Falls in Love with a Mountain The path and purpose of Quebecois scientist Dr. Pierre Aroussen’s life began with his first excursion into full-length novels with his reading of Jules Ve...

8 likes

Is it who you know?

Submitted to Contest #79

I can tell you this. In my small town, the old adage ‘It is not what you know, but who you know that matters” certainly applies. And I would add to that “It’s not what you submit to local writing and art contests, but who you are related to that matters.” Regarding the latter, I think that Maggie Cutler submitted something from her daughter’s finger painting session in kindergarten in her winning entry this year. Mayor Cutler, one of the judges, must have liked her granddaughter’s artwork a lot, or at least liked her.&nbs...

3 likes

Who is that Strange Man?

Submitted to Contest #79

Have you ever felt like someone you don’t know is watching you? I know that sounds a little paranoid, and I would probably assume that a person asking me that question was leaning that way mentally. But to rearrange slightly an old saying, ‘You’re not paranoid if someone you don’t know is actually watching you.’The first time I noticed this was when I was in a doughnut shop, blue Covid mask on and shouting what I wanted in a bagel. You might think that asiago is easy to say and be understood, but the server thought I said, ‘As you ...

5 likes

A Lost Art Found

Submitted to Contest #78

In her years at school, now long past, Agnes worked hardest on, and achieved her best marks in penmanship. It was an accomplishment that she had been proud of, then, as she still is now. In present times, however, she believes that, with computer technology being the main vehicle of writing, penmanship is a lost art. And she feels lost along with it, that both her and her handwriting are creatures of the past. Unsurprisingly, she had become an elementary school teacher, and had taught many children how to write, a task that b...

7 likes

An Unusual Pet - The Story of Bob and Tiger.

Submitted to Contest #78

Bob was out for a walk, taking his pet Tiger with him. The two of them took a lot of walks. It kept both of them fit. They were both getting on in age, and very much needed the workout. And Bob worked from home, and, with the exception of Tiger, lived alone. Bob liked it best when they didn’t encounter anyone on the way. The stupid questions and idiotic comments that people would often ask and say to him brought out the sarcasm in his soul to its fullest. Yesterday, someone asked for his pet’s name, which Bob ...

9 likes

Dancing in the Snow

Submitted to Contest #77

It was 1974 when I first encountered my unusual friend. I was interning at a big hospital that served as a kind of ‘dumping ground, for many odds and sods of people’. Those were the exact words that were said to me by my supervisor. This was his way of telling me who my patients would be, and the low opinion he had of them. He would have pointed to my friend as an example had he even taken any notice of him. Fortunately, for both my friend, and for me, he did not. My friend is a short man, but sturdy, dark, and wea...

12 likes

The Whole Truth

Submitted to Contest #76

“Do you, Andrew Q. Jones, promise to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?”“I do so swear. It is important to me.”Andrew Q. Jones is a key witness for the prosecution in a trial concerning a murder that took place late on a Saturday night, in a back alley behind a local bar, where he, the accused, and the victim had all been drinking quite a bit. It was a small town, so all three were well-known to many, and the murder was the talk of the town. It had been a long time since such an exampl...

7 likes

So what time do you think this is, young man?

Submitted to Contest #76

“So what time do you think this is young man?” “I strongly believe that it is one o’clock, old man. That’s what the clock on the wall tells me, although it doesn’t speak out loud. And I have found it to be pretty reliable in the past, so I will trust it now.” “So you come home late, and your mouth is filled with sarcasm, eh boy.” “No, I left a lot of my sarcasm at the party, old man. I didn’t know that I would be needing so much when I got home. Otherwise I would have kept quiet when I was there.” “I think that you have an in...

15 likes