John Steckley

“Dad's Words” by John Steckley

Submitted to Contest #120

The two brothers, Steve and Earl, were sitting together in a downtown bar. Both had knocked back rather quickly several shots, with not a lot of words spoken in between. It had been a long time since they had done anything like this, the two of them being alone together. Usually when they were in the same room, it was at rather large family get-togethers in which they only exchanged a few polite words before parting company. They were clearly nervous now. The waiter could see that each time he brought them their drin...

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“A Far Distant Sound” by John Steckley

Submitted to Contest #119

It had moved mountains. That is what you could truly say about the earthquake that had caused the unclimbable ring of giants to shift the position that they had held for a few thousand years. As a geologist who had done work in the area when he had been a graduate student, Frank could not be more pleased by the acceptance of his research proposal to investigate the effects of the motion that had disturbed their long rest. What would make it especially interesting was that the mountain chain had been in a tight circle, now with...

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“Under a Leaf” by John Steckley

Submitted to Contest #118

           In an old town hall half-filled with 50 to 60 people who are members of the local speakers club, a white-haired man wearing an ancient tweed jacket, a well-worn white shirt and faded brown pants begins his speech. The audience has no idea what his presentation entitled “I was on a walk one day” is going to be about. “I was walking one day through what I call the ‘alien forest’. I have not said this out loud to anyone before, as I didn’t want to answer any question...

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“The Big Change” by John Steckley

Today is much the same as the seven days that preceded it. I know exactly what it is that I have to do. I’m part of a crowd rushing to get to the place where we absolutely have to go. I really do not know what the hurry is. We will get there in time, whether we rush or not. This isn’t quite the change that I thought it was going to be at the beginning, but then, I didn’t have much time to think about it when the big change took place.             Okay, now we are here...

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“Trick or Treat” by John Steckley

Submitted to Contest #117

Trick or Treat It was the busiest week of the year for him, especially when the last day customers crowded the place in a frantic fashion, grabbing the first likely purchase they could find. They wouldn’t be discerning shoppers at that time.  You see, George ran a candy store, a very old-fashioned place in many ways. There was even an old model dial phone beside the cash register. It was in a small building, about twice the size of your average burger truck. It had very thin walls. So much so that when there was hail, it sounded l...

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“Missing a Long Time” by John Steckley

Submitted to Contest #117

Missing for a Long Time The phone rang. Tom, a young officer picked it up and tried to say, “Hello, Police Station Number Five” with as much authority as he could muster. It was his first week of work, and he wanted to sound as professional as he could.The reply was short and straight forward, which was a good thing, as the connection was weak. The male voice on the phone simply said, “Sarah is missing.”“How long has she been missing?”“I am not sure. We haven’t seen her for a while.”“Where did you last see her?”“On Fleetw...

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“Forbidden to the Tongue but not Forgotten in the Mind” by John Steckley

Submitted to Contest #116

I was eight years old when she forbade me to do it. My grandmother Martha was then a widow in her early fifties. I am not sure about her exact age then. When she saw me standing behind a tree in the backyard, she made her way quickly over to me, and said in no uncertain terms. “I absolutely forbid you to ever mention what you have seen today. As long as I live, I don’t want anyone in the family to say they heard you talk about this. Do you understand, Donald?” I hesitated for maybe a second and a half, and she s...

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“A Strange Phone Call” by John Steckley

A Strange Phone Call  Anthony was calling his wife Priscilla to tell her that he was going to be late coming home from work as something had come up at work that he needed to investigate. He disliked having to do that, but this something was very important to him.  As soon as he turned his device on, he received a strange series of loud unfamiliar sounds, followed by some word that sounded something like ‘lands rate’ to him, said rather quickly and with some kind of weird accent of which he had never heard the like. When h...

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“A Call Interrupted” by John Steckley

Submitted to Contest #115

Two people are talking to each other on their cell phones. They have been doing this for a while now, perhaps half an hour, which is unusually long for them on the phone. They are boyfriend and girlfriend, Jimmy and Sue. Jimmy has been telling Sue how depressed he has been since he went to his high school graduation reunion, the fifteenth such of his class. It was for some of the classic reasons that many people don’t go to such events that his depression had struck him as hard as it did. He had listened to classmate...

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“Tom's Techno Talk” by John Steckley

Submitted to Contest #114

Tom’s Techno Talk  Tom could communicate well with other people through the computer or even on the phone (never with Facetime). But when it came to making public presentations, he was hopeless, and he knew it only too well. Tom was aware that sometimes at conferences with multiple presenters at the same time, people who went to his talk did not do so just for the information that he presented as much as for a laugh at the way that he screwed up his presentation, counting up the times he said such things as ‘what I really m...

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“Some Dreams Come True” by John Steckley

Submitted to Contest #113

I would never have thought when I was a young woman taking psychology courses at university that I would end up like this – the proprietor and only staff of Madam Brianna Rue’s Dream Schemes. Here I sit, dressed for the part, like you would see in a movie, with a crystal ball placed on a small circular table, my chair across from that of my client-believer. Psychology degree, no related work, long term employment as a cashier in a supermarket, replaced at 45 by self-service. My new ‘career’ began at a party. A drunken young w...

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“When is it going to rain?” by John Steckley

When will the Rain Come? There was amble rain in April and May, but then it stopped completely. As the days of June passed people in the small agricultural town of Bolton began to worry. By the end of the month, they were very worried. Gardens began to dry up and the corn and hayfields showed no promise of growth. And the reservoir, upon which the people of the town depended for water, began to have a lower level. This had never happened before. The memories of even the oldest residents could not recall such ...

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“I just can't believe it!” by John Steckley

Submitted to Contest #111

Two well-dressed doctors are sitting in a posh bar, one would not dare to call it a public house, a pub. They have ordered their drinks, which arrived shortly thereafter, and they have just now both of them taken a soothing sip of their beverage. One of them then uncharacteristically thumps the expensively wooded table with his right hand closed tight in a fist. Then he says, not loudly, but in a forceful clear tone. “I just can’t believe it!” “What’s that George? What is it that you can’t believe?” “Well, Frank it is ...

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“Time Flies, But Sometimes It Crashes.” by John Steckley

Submitted to Contest #110

There was no conceivable way that either of Angie or I could say with any truth, “We have plenty of time” because we certainly did not on this occasion. But neither of us likes to rush through getting ready. It makes our minds forget some of the things that we should either do or bring with us. We did surely want to get to the airport on time so that we could meet up with and say ‘goodbye’ to our daughter Vivian before she left for her vacation in Paris. She had been busy on the weekend with her preparations for the trip, so...

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“hand in hand in the diner” by John Steckley

Submitted to Contest #110

           As a matter of a habit shared with many in town, he pulls off the road, and into the always occupied parking lot at a place known locally as ‘the diner’. It looks a lot like the famous painting “Nighthawks’ from the 1940s, with nearly wall to wall, floor to ceiling windows, but it is almost always crowded, not the nearly empty lonely diner of the painting. And it is early afternoon light. He had a quick and unsatisfying breakfast, and is hungry now.   ...

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