John Steckley

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Aug, 2019

Stories (161)

161 Stories

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“The Little Drummer Boy” by John Steckley

Before the Christmas PartyI don’t usually go to these all-musician gigs. They’re usually boring, people talking about the same old things. How close they once came to fame. How many famous musicians they have met. That kind of thing. And you usually don’t see many drummers at these kinds of gigs, either. There are far too many drummer jokes, and we kind of feel picked on when we are outnumbered. “What do you call a drummer who breaks up with his girlfriend? Homeless.” “...

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“Inherit the Wind” by John Steckley

I just like to keep to myself, not bothering anyone, no one bothering me. I have been that way ever since an extremely embarrassing incident my last year of high school. I was on the stage in a minor part in a serious play, a drama that owing to this incident became more of a comedy, a farce.   Recently, I have had a pushy lawyer pursuing me on my cell phone, on my landline, on both my e-mail addresses,...

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“Parading Big Cookies” by John Steckley

For the town’s annual Santa Claus parade there was each year a strange new entry in the parade. For many adults and even some kids it was the highlight of the event. What would it be this year?  No one but the planner and the maker of the entry knew what weird and wonderful piece would grace the parade in any given year. There has been some big mistakes. The nine cats dressed as reindeer (with tied on antlers, ...

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“Condemning the New Guy” by John Steckley

Condemning the New Guy.I didn’t really know him. No one in our high school class did. He had moved into our small town in August just before school started. It is late November now, and we are still calling him ‘New Guy’. The rest of us had all grown up together, so he probably would be New Guy for quite some time.I was surprised to see him at the Friday night school dance. As far as I knew, he had not been to one before. He would be easy to spot as he is rather tall. When he sat down beside m...

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“Rites and Rights of Passage” by John Steckley

“Call me when you have a real problem buddy.” Arthur couldn’t think of a good response to that statement from one of his best friends – Fred. So he quickly made up a story of how he was in the middle of creating his latest painting, and he didn’t want the paint to dry before he finished what he was doing. So he had to hang up.  There was no such painting at this time. After they both hung up at...

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“From Dawn to Dusk” by John Steckley

The sun was rising into the clear blue sky. In the soft sands that crept down into the cool waters of the lake, two people sat next to each other, hand in hand, looking across the water. Their faces appeared happy enough, what you would expect from such a scene. However, inside both of their minds and hearts there was turmoil, distilled by an unasked and unanswered question. Ten years ago, they had sat at the s...

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“Telling a Secret and Telling a Lie.” by John Steckley

Sam walked over to me with a very serious look on his usually smiling face. He put his hand on my right arm, which is a serious gesture on his part. He is not a touchy, feelie kind of guy, more of the fist-to-fist and high five kind. “We’ve been friends for a long time, right George?” “Of course Sam, we’ve been buddies since grade school. You know that. And from there to high school, an...

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“The Venusian Marketplace” by John Steckley

It was only Phil’s second trip to Venus. His first such voyage had been during the early days of interplanetary exploration. The ship he had skippered had been the first to land and make contact with the inhabitants of the planet. He figured they found him and his crew just as strange to look at, as he and his crew viewed them. The Venusians were similar to humans in that they had one head, four limbs,...

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“Not Just Another Competition” by John Steckley

It started out as just another competition between the two of them. They were long time rivals since they were in public school. But Mark began to realize that in this instance it was going to be so much more. Mike had been talking, bragging really, about his ability in a canoe. He used the term ‘master paddler’. Mark could not take much of that, so he was drawn in, questioning out loud whether Mike was really ...

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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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Author bio

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