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Joseph Hawke

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Nov, 2023

Stories (17)
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8 Followers
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17 Stories

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Grew Up Right

Submitted to Contest #326

There was a time when Kinney cared. People who care are careful. People who stop caring become careless. At least that was the common wisdom in Springfield when their high school principal, Thomas Kinney, disappeared – and not by himself – with less than a week before the first day of school. It was the Wednesday before Labor Day.Kinney arrived in his car, and for reasons still unknown, parked in the Student Lot on the north side of the high school. As it happened, Amanda Singer was walking by, and he leapt out of his car and called out to h...

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Meeting the Parents

Submitted to Contest #326

Principal Kinney closed the passenger door for Amanda, already seated and buckled in. Treat ‘em like a gentleman, that’s what Mammy always said, he remembered.Similarly, Kinney would never just drop off a student he had detained.Of course this wasn’t really “detention” per se. On the contrary, this was the result of his having enlisted the help of Amanda, their losing track of time, and the eventual missing of the bus that would have taken Amanda home.Rather than disturbing Mrs. Singer, or requiring Amanda to explain — in her own words — why...

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The Last Laugh

Submitted to Contest #326

“Ladies and gentlemen, it is my pleasure to welcome to the stage, his first time in a while, the inimitable Anthony Giuliani. Who am I kidding? You and I, we call him … Tony… Geeeeeee!!!!!!”Polite clapping ensues. I am at The Raw Bar, a comedy club, open mic night, appearing for the first time in a year, mainly because I got busted for DUI (fourth time), so I had to go to mandatory rehab. Six weeks turned into six months, mostly because I kept drinking, smoking weed, doing coke, whatever I could do, all but the last six weeks I was there. S...

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All My Kids

Submitted to Contest #326

Principal Kinney pulled into the South parking lot in front of the school. With a perfectly blue sky, the first day of classes had begun as planned. The still empty parking lot was impeccably devoid of litter; manicured lawns lined the entrance to the building of Springfield High; the already risen sun, glistening off the dew of freshly mown fields, reflected in the distance. The building, a rectangular, red brick, two-story structure, marked its birth in a single slab at the entrance: 1972.This academic year Springfield High was turning fif...

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The Gypsy

Submitted to Contest #325

CW: Body horror “There you are! Thanks so much for agreeing to meet me. I thought you might enjoy today’s fall fair.“Let’s all just queue up and then follow along this path into town. That’s right – we will follow along the edge of this pumpkin patch here, and then along the way, we’ll start to see some of the vendors setting up along Main Street and, of course, the stage set in the town square.“Oh listen, I think you can start to hear the band playing. What is that song?“Yes, I think you’re right Billy, that is the name of the song. Oh, now...

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The Egyptian Wedding

Submitted to Contest #284

Hi Sweetie, I spoke to Tim and Adinah. Adinah thinks you are so hot, and she wants you to be one of her bridesmaids, but she was wondering if you wouldn’t mind wearing a dress that exposes your nipples.She did not! You’re full of shit.You don’t believe that Adinah said that?No, I don’t.Okay, but you believe that Tim did, right?No, I don’t.Okay. Let me go make the drinks, and I’ll be right back.Okay, here we are, G&Ts are up. Also, new plan, Adinah totally understands where you’re coming from. She says you’re totally American and she unde...

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“Welcome, Welcome!”

Submitted to Contest #272

Awaiting their guests, the Count and Countess stand in the foyer of their castle-esque home with smiles uncontainable. The butler—a hideously hunchbacked man whose visage is so disfigured as to discourage its regard for any lasting duration—opens the massive wooden portal. Six inches thick and no less than twelve feet high, it moves only with apparent strain, and each degree of aperture yields a cacophonous creak. “Dear, you must see to it that the hinges get oiled! Why poor Sergei is positively struggling to allow our guests in!”  “Yes...

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Building Bridges

Submitted to Contest #271

Raised on Philadelphia’s Main Line, I came of age in prep schools and country clubs. The culmination of my prowess was to be demonstrated via matriculation to an Ivy, then a graduate degree in law or medical school. This would ensure my place among the privileged elite whence I hailed. Questioning the wisdom of this trajectory, foretold since pre-consciousness, was dismissed as folly. Discussion being discouraged, I simply acted. Dashing the hopes and dreams my parents had pinned on their only child, I enlisted in the United States...

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Artificial Intelligence, 5th Gen, v2.0

Submitted to Contest #256

The structure of the code was fully mapped. Modular programming ensured that the 5Gv2.0 release would be complete by midnight Friday, in time for weekend activities. The bots made sure of it: They tested before they rested, so the programmers could start dragging and dropping first thing the next day. Cooling units ran continuously to ensure nothing overheated, at least not inadvertently, though mostly it was understood that there was nothing such as inadvertent: The natural process of entropy at the subatomic level was ultimately responsibl...

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Tommy's Stop

Submitted to Contest #256

This is a true story. Tom, my high school friend and teammate, and I, despite interruptions over the course of forty years, now in our mid-fifties, remain connected to one another.  We went to Concord High School in Wilmington Delaware, where we also attended the same church, Holy Child, less than a mile from the high school. Tom, even though he played no instrument and his singing was off-key, was also in our church music group, the SIGN of Peace. I was the group’s drummer. SIGN stood for Singing in God's Name. It was started by a guy ...

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Me and My Uncle

Submitted to Contest #255

The fortnight had come to its final day: The day to begin my journey back home, to life as it really is, had arrived. Though known and anticipated, it arrived abruptly. Eid-al-Azha had begun the prior day. Sacrificial animals, populating street corners, grassy medians, and parking lots, had left already, gone as suddenly as they arrived ten days prior. On the evening of the first day of Eid, while Uncle Ramiz and I went on a walk, the streets ran with blood, down driveways of suburban Islamabad homes, looking surprisingly like red paint...

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Masonry

Submitted to Contest #254

(Lewd and graphically sexual language, physical violence) The scaffolding was built and level. The boys made sure when they left the day before, so the masons could start laying brick first thing in the morning. It was hot, so they started at six. The first batch of mortar, already mixed and dumped into a mud pan, rested on a two-by-twelve running the width of the scaffolding, bowing under the stacked bricks. Ernie, cigarette in one hand, troweled the mud in the pan to assess the consistency. “Looks okay. Keep it thin. It’ll dry out in this...

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The Hotel Great Central Grand Confusion

Submitted to Contest #254

With more than a trifle of trepidation, envelope in hand, Liza climbed the staircase to Lady Katherine’s chamber. She knocked ever so lightly, knowing that all manner of cacophony were despised, not only by the Lady herself, but by all of her personal staff and ladies-in-waiting, among which Liza, the butler’s daughter, was acutely aware she was not. The door opened, but no more than a smidge: a crack, at most, through which the envelope Liza held could be slid, and, perhaps, an enterprising housefly might intrude, were it so lucky to gain ...

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In My Defense

Submitted to Contest #253

(Physical violence, racist attitudes) So, it all started when we was coming back. Janie just loves Bald Head, so we go there every year.  Getting to Bald Head is a journey and a half. The drive is eight hours, minimum, and that assumes the traffic in Richmond is only normally horrible, not worse.  And then there’s the ferry, which requires unloading at Southport and then finding the coolers, luggage, boogy boards and all manner of other items essential for the beach on the other side, which for some includes their pooches, but they...

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The Parking Lot Prophet

Submitted to Contest #252

On a hot and humid Sunday afternoon in August, Churchill surveys the scene from his driver's seat perch. Families amble to and from their cars and IHOP. He takes care to park in the same space, hidden from Walgreens’ cameras, and always backs in, so no one can approach him from behind. He turns off the car and removes the key. Can't have a dead battery like the time before. Anticipation climbs his spine like a lizard up a wall. When he deems it safe, he removes the Whip-It canister from a cloth shopping bag and puts on a pair of gloves. Don'...

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