Jonathan Blaauw

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Jun, 2020

Stories (21)

21 Stories

2984 karma pts

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“Fear Knot” by Jonathan Blaauw

Submitted to Contest #51

I count him braver who overcomes his desires than he who conquers his enemies; for the hardest victory is over self – Aristotle Phrygia, Western Anatolia, 850 BCE The Phrygian King was dead. The council of elders called a hasty assembly to discuss the tricky matter of succession. The monarch had died suddenly, leaving behind no heir. Such a thing had never happened before and Phrygian custom made no allowance for this eventuality. The lobbying for power had already begun am...

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“Crime in the Time of Corona” by Jonathan Blaauw

Submitted to Contest #50

The world had changed almost overnight. One minute everything was fine and dandy and the next – thanks to a bat in some far off place nobody had ever heard of – people lost their minds and started buying up all the toilet paper. Joey supposed you could say everyone had gone bat-shit crazy. And that had just been the start; things had gone from bad to worse since. Joey didn’t need the local news, with its constant reports on the dying economy, to tell him that. Like so many others around the world, he found himself out of work and in desperat...

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“The Execution” by Jonathan Blaauw

Submitted to Contest #49

London, May 19th, 1536.The endless wait was agonizing. Gerard sat alone in the dark, his troubled thoughts and his burdened conscience his only company. The coming dawn would bring with it an ordeal the very thought of which made him feel ill. The execution was scheduled for first light. While Gerard silently bemoaned his fate, he was painfully aware that he’d brought this on himself. The time for denial had passed, he was about to come face-to-face ...

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“Stop-Starters” by Jonathan Blaauw

Submitted to Contest #49

The waiting room was crowded. John shifted uncomfortably in his seat. He did not want to be there. But he had no choice. After his latest drunk driving arrest, the court had ordered him to see a counselor. And to stop drinking, of course. The former he could do, albeit with ill grace. The latter, however, was beyond him. He could no more quit drinking than he could stop breathing. He’d tried everything – rehab, therapy, AA - nothing had worked. The problem, he supposed, was he simply had no desir...

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“It's the Thought That Counts” by Jonathan Blaauw

Submitted to Contest #48

Second-hand stores are uniquely magical places, especially for teenage boys like Benjamin, who fancied the endless shelves of discarded junk, the boxes of dusty books, and the racks of ancient clothing might just conceal hidden delights and secret treasures, just waiting to be discovered by anyone with the time and the inclination to search, such as he. For this reason, Oddz ‘n Endz was Benjamin’s second favorite place in the world, after the library, of course. Both held for him a mysterious allure; a sense of impend...

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“Dream No More” by Jonathan Blaauw

Submitted to Contest #46

The old apartment was dusty with disuse and the stale air gave the place an unmistakable feeling of abandoned neglect. George wandered from room to room, opening windows as he went, examining the artifacts of a life once lived, an existence all but forgotten. The stranger who’d lived here had been his father. George had been born and raised in London. His parents had divorced when he was young, and his father had moved to New York to seek fortune and fame as a writer. George knew this only from...

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Author bio

Writer living in Johannesburg, South Africa. Several publications on Listverse.com https://listverse.com/lvauthor/Jonathan%20Blaauw/ Hope everyone is having a safe, happy 2022 so far.

Shortlisted 1 story ⭐️

Contest #55

Into the Icarian Sea – read story