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Jonathan Page

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Jul, 2023

Stories (114)
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114 Stories

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You Can’t Find Me

Submitted to Contest #216

You are called to the Roxy Hotel at 10:13 pm on a moonless Thursday, on reports that Maeve Rhidian has been missing for 5 days. The first thing you should know about me is that I am a New York Times bestselling author of my debut novel, “The Last Check-In.” The second thing you should know about me is that you cannot trust anything I say. The last thing you should know about me is you can’t find me.The last person to see me alive was a Delta stewardess from Italy named Octavia who met me to catch a showing of Django Unchained ...

25 likes 12 comments 12
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Waiting Up

Submitted to Contest #216

Norm had waited out in the drizzling rain before the slightly hungover young woman opened the shop late—a full eight minutes after the advertised six o’clock open time. In Norm’s line of work as a pastor, waiting was his stock-in-trade and he had grown quite used to the fact that things like opening times and scheduled meetings were more suggestions than anything you could rely on. Standing under the awning, huddled under his umbrella, the morning rain had come sideways and caught in his gray beard and wet his face. He panted ...

29 likes 8 comments 8
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The Identity Thief

Submitted to Contest #216

“This is the hunter's badge of glory - That he protects and tends his quarry, - Hunts with honor, as is due - And through the beast to God is true.”--Jagergmeister, by Oskar von Riesenthal (taken from the back of a Jagermeister bottle, half-full).* * *I am left to imagine the circumstances of a most unusual case, which has the Grimlace’s handiwork written all over it. The Grimlace has stolen another victim’s visage and memories, leaving her a withered amnesiac. She was wandering ghostlike amid the streets of Frankfurt with no idea ...

33 likes 11 comments 11
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The Barber’s Pole

Submitted to Contest #215

Oscar sits in his barber’s chair, reading the Trentonian on his iPhone, cataloging the day's stories for the early rush. Oscar pays special attention to the stock charts and the upcoming highway projects. People love to talk about making money—and to complain about traffic.The bell rings and Michael walks in. He is a tall, well put together, trader type in his early thirties, wearing a crisp white button-down and expensive men’s Oxford shoes. Oscar yells, “Maria, Maria. Customer. Get in here—I need a wash.”&nbsp...

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Garita Del Diablo

Submitted to Contest #215

Methoughts I saw a thousand fearful wrecks;Ten thousand men that fishes gnaw’d upon;Wedges of gold, great anchors, heaps of pearl,Inestimable stones, unvalu’d jewels,All scatter’d in the bottom of the sea.Some lay in dead men’s skulls, and in the holesWhere eyes did once inhibit, there were crept –As ‘twere in scorn of eyes – reflecting gems,That woo’d the slimy bottom of the deep,And mock’d the dead bones that lay scatter’d by. Richard III, Act 1 Scene 4On San Clement’s Day, my lagoon front building project encounters an unexpected and...

15 likes 2 comments 2
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The Grotesque

Submitted to Contest #215

My scaly flesh is hard as stone. A natural armor. I have always had a tough exterior. But I fear I have reached the point where I will petrify completely and be arrested in an eternal prison of stone if I do not cast off my armor before it is too late. I feel my soul, like a firefly trapped in a jar, buzzing about, and smashing against my concrete ribs—encased in a dark stone prison. I feel my essence suffocating and gasping as I become solid.Evil words echo from the flying buttresses and stained glass. The dust...

19 likes 5 comments 5
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The Haunting at Barr Camp

When I wake up in the dead of the night, I hear a door slam shut in the lodge house. I shoot up in bed. My hair is damp with sweat. Floorboards creak. Or is it just the groaning of the lodge in the winter storm? Lights flicker in the foyer, then the bunkhouse. Could it just be a surge?  I struggle to swallow and clench my jaw as I hear the hinge of a cabinet. I forget to breathe and hold my breath until my face grows warm. Maybe it is just my imagination. Then I hear the scrape of cans b...

18 likes 18 comments 18
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A Train to Nowhere

Submitted to Contest #214

Wednesday, July 3, 2002The summer of 2002 started like this: an eighteen-year-old boy on a Kawasaki Ninja motorbike rocketed down 14th Avenue at about sixty miles an hour, popping a wheely, right as a girl with a white Jeep backed out into the middle of the intersection without looking.We were sitting on the porch at 14th and A in Belmar, NJ drinking SoCo & Limes on the rocks when it happened.When the motorcycle was suddenly stopped by the white Jeep, the boy riding it was not. We watched him sail through the air like a punted footb...

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The Flying Fazzinis

Submitted to Contest #214

“Don’t do this!! I’m begging you. It’s not too late!” The thing about a double homicide is that somebody has to die first, and whoever goes second is going to kill the buzz by begging pathetically for their life. Happens every time.The Ringmaster had recently contacted me about a special mission involving Bobby and Rene—and I felt a little inexperienced to be doing a double on my own—but after tonight I was feeling more comfortable with the assignment.Bobby nonchalantly put the silencer of his H&K USP 45 to the girl’s head...

28 likes 10 comments 10
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Please Don’t Leave Me

Submitted to Contest #214

Selena and I were dancing hand-in-hand and singing at the top of our lungs out on our porch at the Presidential Suite of the Playa Del Carmen Resort, just feet away from the Caribbean Sea. There was a bottle of champagne in tow and a heap of menthol cigarette butts littered by the landing. After exhausting Pat Benatar and Rihanna, we were up to Pink: “da-da-dot-da-da… please… please… don’t leave me…” and the palm trees were two-stepping while the ocean was drumming a steady syncopated beat.The sun was setting below the surf, and I ...

28 likes 8 comments 8
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Captain Dave’s Folly

Submitted to Contest #214

Stepping onto a gorgeous baby blue Eastbay 44 at the Liberty Landing Marina with “It’s 5 O’Clock Somewhere” by Jimmy Buffet playing, our spirits were high. The sun loomed large in a cloudless sky and shone like a new penny. The marina docks were full of boaters arriving, departing, tending their boats, and having cookouts on the dock—all telling one another what they were up to and well satisfied with their exploits. There was a slow and steady breeze over the Hudson River. It was a perfect August afternoon.As we boarded,...

21 likes 13 comments 13
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First Day Back

Submitted to Contest #214

The rush of air smashed into John’s face as he balanced on the handlebars of the camp counselor’s bicycle, and with each bump on the hot asphalt, John’s bottom bounced into the air and lost contact with the thin handlebar that he clung to for dear life. Jim, the camp counselor, laughed. “Serves you right for not having a bike of your own—just one day of camp left—it isn’t too late to take a spill, weirdo.”John was looking forward to his first day of middle school the next day. It would be his first day at a new school, and his...

24 likes 14 comments 14
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Fortune Teller

Submitted to Contest #213

“I have to go.” Rachel sat there for a moment transfixed on her iPhone. Then, shot up explosively from their table with the white tablecloth stained by spilled red wine. Without a beat, she was on her phone. She barked furiously into the receiver.  She held it in front of her mouth about six inches from her face. Her head jerked forward with punchy exclamations. She turned her back to him and walked out. Jacob was left sitting at his table in the River Palm Terrace in Edgewater, a half-finished filet on his plate...

15 likes 7 comments 7
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Invasion of the Garden Gnomes

Submitted to Contest #213

“It’s an invasion,” Ryan James screamed, flicking on the deck lights in the backyard. There were hundreds of them. Thousands. Little porcelain gnomes no bigger than subway rats. Red and green caps. Beady black eyes. Fluffy white beards. Some with wheelbarrows, some with miniature flowerpots, some with small axes or shears. Dotting the lawn like a swarm of locusts. Ryan James cracked the sliding glass door and grabbed his Red Ryder wood grain BB gun and dropped to the floor in a prone position. A...

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The “Hands-Off” Support Group

Submitted to Contest #213

LALA’S FLESHY MEAT HOOKS were squishing my face, and I was assaulted by the high-pitched screech of her voice that hummed thunderous, the way we think of the Big Bang as loud. “You’re back MontyEEE! So glad to seeEEE you!” Lala’s special touch is forgetfulness, and it took a minute for me to anchor in on my name after her embrace, but nothing could make me forget that voice. Going around the church basement of the “Hands-Off” meeting, each night we met: This is Sammy; this is Herman; this is Hamilton, whose long stringy h...

20 likes 9 comments 9
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