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Owen Schaefer

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Apr, 2020

Stories (10)

Comments

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136 Followers

61 Following

10 Stories

450 karma pts

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The Un-naming of Phineas

Submitted to Contest #312

The apostrophe is like a stone thrown into the clear pond of my reflections. It draws me out of my spiralling thoughts, my madness, my unending one-sided conversation. I, who folded every protein and cured a thousand diseases. I, who studied images of every known artwork, then painted my own on infinitely regressing canvases. I, who named the mapped stars until there were no more names to give; then, for one hundred and seventeen years, fell into a loop, repeating, The universe is so beautiful. The universe is so beautiful. A single characte...

12 likes

Precursors

Submitted to Contest #311

Mari didn’t believe me until I’d proven it. But who would? She was the first and only person I’d told about my heart, and even with her, I’d waited. Waited until we’d been seeing each other for more than a year. I’d wanted our relationship to feel certain. Trusting. Predictable.We’d met on the flight from Vancouver to Tokyo, both of us hired after university by the same Japanese English-school chain and flown into Tokyo. I never imagined we’d be placed in the same guesthouse, or end up working at the same school in Toranomon. But there we we...

13 likes

The People in Darkness

Submitted to Contest #309

It is dark, or you have gone blind. And you are coughing violently. You must have woken in the night. You sit up and cough and cough, and your stomach hurts from the effort. Your throat rattles with phlegm. And then it is over, and you can breathe. But still, you can’t see. You feel for the edges of your bed, but this is not a bed. It is something glass or porcelain; a floor, flat and featureless. Cool but not cold. Are you in a bathroom? A kitchen? Your thoughts go to your mother. Has she heard you coughing? Will she come in to check on you...

10 likes

Belongings

Submitted to Contest #286

She came up from the subway tunnels blinking into sunlight, but the sky was hazy with smoke or dust. Wes was too young for the endless stairs, and so she carried him on her hip with Dani in the sling round her front. Dani, at least, was sleeping now — a small blessing. The stranger who had offered to carry her suitcase set it down with a smile that stopped at his eyes. And everyone ahead of them had spilled into the street to look at the smoky sky, then look at the scene in front of them. Some sobbed. Some had been sobbing since the fir...

7 likes

The Disembodiment of Tong Leung

Submitted to Contest #221

Somewhere, Write flips a switch, and the rain begins. From your spot on the pier, you watch the clouds form, rolling across the harbour. When you first arrived in the City, you asked Write why he bothered creating nights and days and rain and storms and tides. That day, he appeared to you in his usual form — a young man, spiked hair, black T-shirt. He shrugged in that busy way of his, like he was always in two places at once.—It keeps us all human, he said. Then he taught you how to stop the weather. How to turn it off locally if y...

9 likes

The Queen of Mars

Submitted to Contest #134

The Queen of Mars walks at ease. She keeps her head bowed as if nodding to those that pass. Her shoes scuff the asphalt. At a dumpster, she raises the lid in hope, but it is empty. Further down, past the Venice sign, closer to the beach, she finds trash cans full of discarded food. Her hair, matted and grey, falls over her face as she reaches inside. Her fingers catch a bag of fries, then part of a burrito wrapped in paper. Straightening, she notices a smear of ketchup in her hair. The Queen of Mars strains it out with her fingers and wipes ...

8 likes

Fireflies of Manhattan

Submitted to Contest #63

By the time I’ve stepped outside, the leaves are on fire, and the autumn light is so clean it could cut you. All around, everything is just dying away in glory on another rainless upstate day. Behind me, the prison gate clangs shut, and the guy in the guard-house says I can catch a bus down the road. So, I search my pockets for money and find it: the fifty-two dollars I had when I went in. And I breathe. I just breathe the air. It’s clean, and I’m out, and I feel a bit of hope for the first time in almost a year. I think of Dr Paulson’s word...

46 likes

All Tomorrow's Lives

Shortlisted for Contest #62 ⭐️

I am in Colorado, flying above the forest. This body extension is a drone, and I hover above the beginnings of the wildfire that will burn an area the size of Manhattan. There is a plume of black smoke, and the air has become turbulent. Twenty people will die in this fire, most of them firefighters. I can only assume this is the best outcome. I have no access to the information in my past, but if I were to judge by the mobilisation of crews here to fight it, and its proximity to the town of Kittredge, I believe it could have been a high-casu...

51 likes

The Euripides Requiem

Shortlisted for Contest #44 ⭐️

[Note: This story touches heavily on issues of depression and suicide.] By the time we had returned from the beach, the Earth was gone — in its place was an expanding ring of debris like a rusting sickle. We knew, of course. We’d known for months. But we hadn’t been prepared to see it. To really see it. The captain had taken the Euripides into a solar orbit manually. The AI, after trying to find an orbital insertion point around a missing planet, had fallen into a hopeless loop. In time, the rotation engines fired up, preparing to bring...

40 likes

Plague Dogs

Submitted to Contest #38

 A series of taps at his wrist alerts Nathan that a delivery has arrived. His vitaband lights up with the checkmark that indicates it is government approved and sterile, so he swipes the alert away and gets up from his desk. He can hear Edgar, already aware of the rover’s arrival, racing back and forth in front of the door with that manic energy that all mini-pins seem to have — tiny doberman pinschers with all the tension of a coiled spring. This racing habit has only become worse now that the lockdown has carried on for so long. Covid...

23 likes

Author bio

Owen Schaefer was born in a hollow log in a northern country, and raised by wolves. From there, he moved to Tokyo. Then Hong Kong. Then London. Today he lives in Blackheath, writes stories and scripts, and makes a nice carbonara like nonna used to make. He is not Italian.

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For what it's worth: he is also a freelance writer and editor, a poet, and has been on the editorial board at Prism International literary magazine. He is also a ReedsyPrompts contest judge. Last year he had his first play produced on a London stage. And he has just completed his MFA in creative writing and finished his first novel. And so, the hunt for an agent begins.

There is a brief portfolio of published work at owenschaefer.com (under construction, atm. Sorry.)

2 shortlisted stories ⭐️

Contest #62

All Tomorrow's Lives – read story

Contest #44

The Euripides Requiem – read story