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Michael Jefferson

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Feb, 2022

Stories (158)
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158 Stories

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The Bedford Cross

Submitted to Contest #171

Vince Stafford’s eyes welled up with tears as he looked at the photos, wilted flowers, trinkets, and waterlogged sympathy cards gathered around The Bedford Cross. The twenty-five-foot cross had been erected in 1956 on a large traffic island that separated South Bedford Road and Route 119. The Cross memorialized the dozens of lives lost or ruined there. Vince cried because he knew too many of them. Drivers heading north were often lulled into a false sense of safety by the picturesque trees that lined South Bedford Road, especially in the f...

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Let Me Be Your Dog

Submitted to Contest #170

The stocky, fortyish Black man walked toward the elderly couple. Regina Beckwith smiled neighborly at him. Checking her watch, she let out a hearty laugh. “Ten-thirty on the nose,” she said. Barton, her husband of fifty years, grinned placidly. “Yep. Right on schedule. I swear I can set my watch by you.” Starling Coyle took great pleasure and pride in compartmentalizing every aspect of his life, beginning with his morning walk through the Dobbs Ferry Town Park. Starling had no family and he liked it that way. His mother had been a bitte...

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Shadow on My Wall

Submitted to Contest #169

The floor in the living room creaks, catching Aaron’s attention.            Aaron turns to face the shadow on the wall behind him, saying, “I’m sorry. I didn’t know I was followed.”            Aaron sinks into a crouch in a darkened corner of the bedroom. He reaches in his jacket for the gun he left on the dining room table. His favorite softball bat will have to do.            T...

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Kyrie Kicks Back

Submitted to Contest #168

“Did you bring my medication? It’s time for my pills.” “Yes, mother,” Marshall Destry answers wearily. “…As if you even know what you’re taking…” “What? Speak up. You mumble all the time these days.” Lifting her head from her cushioned seat, Rosamond Destry looks out of the window. The scenery blends into a blur as the train speeds along, its whistle blaring loudly. “Where are we?” “We’re on a train, mother. We’re going to your new home.” “Where’s Inka?” “Inka’s not your nurse anymore. You’re going to have a new one.” Rosamond’s tir...

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We’ll Meet Again

Submitted to Contest #167

“You bushwhackin’ sidewinder!” Tristan Calendar shouts. He quickly surveys the grubby saloon, realizing he’s surrounded by half a dozen of Cody Dillinger’s men. “This is between you and me, not your hired shooters,” Tristan says to his foe. “Let’s settle this like gentlemen.” Dillinger reaches for his pistol. “No one’s ever accused me of bein’ one.” Tristan draws first, pointing his gun at Dillinger’s head. “All right let’s be civilized then,” Dillinger says, holding up his oversized hands. “I’m unstrappin’ my gun. You do the same, and ...

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Hoping For a Blessing

Submitted to Contest #166

The silver armor of the approaching order of knights gleams with menace as they advance toward King Quentin Kaloric’s castle. Four knights detach themselves from the order, their metal shoes clanking loudly as they cross the drawbridge. Still standing at attention outside of the castle, their battle flags flying, the figures of the other hundred knights appear to fade into the moonlit night. Despite the warmth of his oversized robe, King Quentin shivers as he watches the four knights get closer, their metal shoes leaving a trail of blood...

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Your Mouth is Cashin’ Checks Your Gun Hand Can’t Deliver

Submitted to Contest #165

White Oaks, New Mexico 1887 Clancy Cooper spits a long stream of tobacco juice into a nearby spittoon, cocking his eye at a dark-skinned man at the end of the bar. The man in the black suit and wide-brimmed hat glares back at the scruffy farmer with greasy, shoulder-length hair. Clancy runs his finger across his bushy mustache, nodding knowingly at the man. “I tell you, Trey, that’s him.” Hoping to avoid drawing attention to himself, Trey Akin, a baby-faced, thirty-two-year-old farmer, quickly glances at the man. “Maybe it ain’t…” “Wh...

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The Cement Mixer

Submitted to Contest #164

There were thirty-foot oak trees in my hometown of Mount Kisco, manicured lawns, parks that spanned for miles, and the air smelled fresh and sweet. Where I was going to work in the Bronx, the scrawny trees were two feet high and were marginally protected by sharpened barbed wire fences. There weren’t any lawns, the parks had more broken glass than grass, and the air smelled of dog crap and urine. As Senator Carmen Marini’s communications director, I was duty-bound to spend forty hours a week in a claustrophobic, crime-ridden dump. My frie...

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First Volk

Submitted to Contest #163

“It’s inoperable, Adam.” Adam Volk fights to digest the news, pushing his thick glasses up off the end of his nose. “I can make you comfortable, but that’s about it,” Dr. Karl Ambros says, his furrowed brow registering his concern. The fifty-seven-year-old doctor has been treating his close friend for the past two years. During that time, he’s watched fifty-two-year-old Adam disintegrate from a robust 220 pounds to a scant 160 and seen his friend’s dark hair turn silver from worry. Experiencing sympathy pains, Karl has developed ulcers an...

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Angel Maker

Submitted to Contest #162

King Richard Rainsbury licks his lips as he scans the menu. “I think I’ll start with the oysters on the half shell with tequila mignonette.” His son, Prince Quentin Rainsbury, a younger version of his father with thick, chestnut brown hair, large, inquisitive black eyes, and a devilish grin, replies, “You always get that. I’ll have the escargot en brioche .” “I like oysters. Why change?” “Change can enlighten, father. So, I’m told.” “More liberal gobbledygook drummed into your head by the Queen.” “She’s just a mother looking out for h...

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Come and Get Your Love

Submitted to Contest #161

Arvin Wurlie watches with idle curiosity as the man brooding at the end of the bar downs his third scotch in as many minutes. Arvin knows he’s a fellow warrior because Grumman’s Tavern only attracts servicemen. Grabbing his beer, the sturdy sixty-six-year-old navy veteran decides he has to know what destroyed the man. “You’re really accomplished at being a sponge, friend. Don’t you ever ease up?” The dark-haired, thirty-ish man looks up at him. The black circles under his puffy eyes and his dark stubble make him look utterly defeated. “I...

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Butterscotch

Submitted to Contest #160

Mayor Ross Reddick squints behind his thick oval glasses as he reads aloud. “…We the people of the town of Exeter, Nebraska do willfully enter into this contract with Jinks Mandel…” “That’s Professor Jenkins Mandel.” “…On June 24, 1926. Professor Mandel guarantees four inches of rain within seven days for the price of ten thousand dollars.” Professor Mandel takes the pen in his hand, taking time to balance his top hat. At sixty-four, he knows his latest chosen profession is his last, and he must continue to be successful, no matter how di...

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No Chips Without Sparkle

Submitted to Contest #159

Maurice “Mossy” Graves belches loudly, sitting back in his chair. The couple at the next table glances at Mossy disparagingly, then look away when they realize who he is. Tall, with hard, vulpine features, snow white hair, and unblinking ice blue eyes, Mossy intimidate others through appearance, as well as his financial clout. With a pockmarked, porky face and slits for eyes, big-bellied henchman Mario Grimaldi is uneducated and crude, but transparent and loyal. The third man at the table, handsome, dark-haired Simon “Skeeter” McSherry, is...

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Fix it Fred

Submitted to Contest #158

Fred Farkas enters Captain Nigel Swift’s quarters, muttering to himself, “This isn’t fair. Why do I get all the gross and dangerous jobs?” Wall-eyed, skinny, with stringy, greasy hair, and adult acne, Fred is unimpressive and unassuming. No one even notices that he wears a hammer on his hip instead of a laser pistol. Captain Swift is speaking to his first officer, Boseman Thames. Eternally youthful looking, dark-haired, and model handsome, forty-two-year-old Captain Swift has the confident, undaunted aura of a natural-born leader. He has ...

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Klaatu Barada Nikto

Submitted to Contest #157

To the casual observer, Veronica Rennie and I were opposites – she was the beauty, and I was the beast. But Veronica was one of the few women I dated in the 1980s (or any other time) who was a friend, not just a girlfriend. She said one reason she loved me was because I was the only person who could make her forget she suffered from manic depression. Veronica was a distant relative of actor Michael Rennie, who’d starred as Klaatu in the classic science fiction movie, “The Day the Earth Stood Still.” Whenever a situation went sideways, Veron...

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