RJ Holmquist

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Dec, 2021

Stories (16)

16 Stories

1062 karma pts

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“Milk-Fed” by RJ Holmquist

Submitted to Contest #274

The town of Gourd’s Hollow was gaunt and undernourished in nearly every aspect. It’s rickety streets laid out like a soothsayer’s tangle of oracle bones and its bedraggled buildings stood lean and haggard, much like the people that lived in them. The whole of it was hunched at the edge of a seacliff and mist rising from the crashing waves below hung everything above with a constant pallor. But there, right on the cusp of world’s end—where the roar of the sea filled your ears—grew the only thing in Gourd’s Hollow that could be called hale and...

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“Morpheus and the Dreamers” by RJ Holmquist

Submitted to Contest #260

“You take the blue pill... the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill... you stay in Wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes.” — Laurence Fishburne, The Matrix***“Row, row, row, your boat…” Morpheus, the god of dreams, hummed absently as he puttered around his Mount Olympus penthouse. It was one of those tunes that got stuck in his head when he was thinking about nothing, but he didn’t mind, it was a tune with a good message after all. A knock sounded on his f...

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“ Field notes from Roscommon Brecken: Amateur Biologist, Professional Time Traveler. ” by RJ Holmquist

Submitted to Contest #247

 Field notes from Roscommon Brecken: Amateur Biologist, Professional Time Traveler. Entry 1Geographic Location: Amazon Rainforest Chronologic Location: January, 1825I was unsurprised to discover today a new species of small, brightly colored frog who exhibits an extraordinary relationship with the time field. I say “unsurprised” only because I had come to this forest expecting to find something unknown and wonderous, but in truth the particular talent displayed by these jewel-like creatures has me utterly confounded. I ha...

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“Christmas Campout” by RJ Holmquist

Submitted to Contest #229

“Christmas Campout.”These are two words no ten year old kid should ever have to hear put together in a sentence. They should never be used within six months of each other. They belong at opposite ends of the solar cycle, at opposite ends of any sane kid’s philosophical paradigm, at opposite ends of the universe, where they can never be combined to form the worst kind of holiday misery. Dad spoke them in a moment of crisis, his arms convulsed around grocery bags filled with frosting and charcuterie cheeses. It was December 24th and bits ...

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“Chronocroissants” by RJ Holmquist

Submitted to Contest #228

Marcel’s tall white chef hat leaned slightly askew as he turned from the red glow of the oven to face me. “Voila, here we are,” his french accent was smooth as the steam wafting off the pastries he pulled fresh from the inferno, “now you are only a few bites from the truth you seek.”“You are certain they are safe?” I eyed the confections.Chronocroissants he had called them and he’d promised me they were the key to seeing the past, to finding the answers I needed.“Safe?” Marcel gleamed his teeth and tilted his head, “come now Mr. Proust,...

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“Shucked” by RJ Holmquist

⭐️ Shortlisted for Contest #221

Finally I was dead. This was the moment I had waited for my entire life. To be clear, I did nothing to hurry its arrival, nothing egregious anyway, despite the fact that my husk of clay wasn’t always what I’d call "amenable" to keeping itself alive. Nonetheless, I really did do my best as long as it was my duty. I fed it, exercised it, gave it multi-vitamins when I remembered and generally deferred from the things it craved that would clog its arteries, fog its brain and otherwise break down its fragile fickleness. But all along I knew time ...

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“The Bourne” by RJ Holmquist

⭐️ Shortlisted for Contest #206

The BourneBOURNE: (noun) 1. a limit or boundary 2. a goal or destinationExcerpt from the personal log of Commander Alfred Livingstone Earth Year 2492—“I have always been afraid of death. The fear has driven me, kept me moving, forced me to explore. I have always felt that if I stop searching, stop pushing the boundaries, stop discovering, death will catch me.Earthside, death feels so near. The ground I walk on is made from bodies decayed eons before, the greenery and breathing things all around me rely on the death of something else to ...

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“The Idiom Archipelago” by RJ Holmquist

🏆 Winner of Contest #194

Day 1: The Sundering SeasWelcome to The Pudding, my little ship hung with true blue sails. She is bravely buoyant upon the sundering sea as she bears me questing for proofs among the Isles of Idiom. Aboard there is a crew of only me and my beagle Salty. I steer the ship on the heaving waves and Salty listens to my meanderings, understanding my moods with his plaintive eyes. You are here too, though you understand much less and exist only in the corners of my reveries.I am charting these waters and the isles they swaddle. I am good with a pen...

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“Heirlooms” by RJ Holmquist

Submitted to Contest #192

The TimepieceJim Coyfield clutched his battered pocket watch as his worn out body wracked itself, his diaphragm heaving, his trachea spasming, his lips forced open in a ragged “O.”  Three hundred years the watch had passed from Coyfield to Coyfield. And now, there was no one left, no one he could give it to, no one he could tell the secrets.Old man Coyfield coughed again and bloody phlegm splattered the moldy carpet of his desolated trailer.He was the last and the worst of the proud Coyfields. Last because his progeny had been too ...

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“Flightless” by RJ Holmquist

⭐️ Shortlisted for Contest #190

There was a time when men could fly— Bobby pressed his makeshift goggles to his freckled sunburned face, the ones he’d rigged from transparent artifacts he’d found floating on the salt flats.—a time when people sped from continent to continent faster than the wind—Bobby shoved his hands into gloves made of ancient vinyl he’d harvested himself from the buried city. —skimming over empty oceans, gliding over barren mountains, traversing the endless deserts without even touching the sand—Bobby puffed his cheeks out and climbed int...

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“Jack and Hans Tell a Wintery Tale” by RJ Holmquist

⭐️ Shortlisted for Contest #189

It was so terribly cold. Snow was falling, and it was almost dark. ***Two ghostly men walked side by side, the powdery flakes passing through their luminous heads and shoulders before settling on the path. Their feet left no prints as they went. “I like the cold and snow,” one man, whose name was Jack, said to the other, “makes a good setting, but I hate the word ‘terribly.’ We’ve got to change that.”“Fine, fine Mr. London,” the other man, Hans, said with a thick Danish accent, “then what would you suggest?” ***Day had broken ...

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“Selected Lives of Fenwick Fogpaws” by RJ Holmquist

Submitted to Contest #187

1My first life was a disappointment when compared to all my others. It was short, and I spent most of it a lot wetter than any cat would like. I never found out exactly how it ended because whatever got me came at me from behind. Of course, the Fenwick Fogpaws of later lives would never be snuck up on, but first lives are pretty tough on a lot of cats. My “number one” is only worth a mention because that’s when I made my first attempt at understanding.I was a little orange tabby street cat, never even got to be full sized. I thought rain was...

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“Cemetery Side Hustle” by RJ Holmquist

Submitted to Contest #186

“So Grandpa, what’s the best job you ever had?”“That’s easy. Cemetery caretaker. It was my side job during high school. Most fun I ever had.”“Most fun? That sounds more like ‘most creepy’ to me.”“There’s nothing really all that creepy about a cemetery. For the most part, it’s no different than any other lawn that needs to be mowed and watered.”“I think the headstones and dead bodies make it a little bit different, Grandpa.”“Pshaw, it’s no big deal. Sure, the first few times you’re there after dusk, the hair on the back of your neck prickles ...

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“You Must Keep Quiet, Little Ruslan” by RJ Holmquist

Submitted to Contest #185

Gaziantepe Turkey, February 5th, 2023***“You must keep quiet, little Ruslan,” said my mother, “they cannot know we’re here.” I nodded, but I did not want her to go.“I will be back soon with something good to eat. Just stay quiet, and do not move. Will you promise?” I nodded again. She adjusted my mittens and checked that my coat was tightly closed, then stepped quickly out the door.We had stayed two nights already in this room so full of dusty things. There was hardly any room for us among the crates and boxes, only enough to curl ...

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“The Lesser Light” by RJ Holmquist

Submitted to Contest #184

We moonlings do with great delight our labors for the lesser light.We stoke the waxing, still the waning, trim the lamp of mystic flaming.We guide the searchers in the dark and set the seasons on their mark.We turn the times and tilt the tides, and shine the beams for shadow hides.We watch the whirling world below and count the quickened ebb and flow.We moonlings do with great delight our labors for the lesser light.***Deep inside the moon, I hurried towards the surface, the rhyme of Lunar Labors on my breath. The final fullness soon upon us...

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Author bio

All work copyrighted by the author

Winning 1 story 🏆

Contest #194
The Idiom Archipelago – read story

Shortlisted 4 stories ⭐️

Contest #221
Shucked – read story
Contest #206
The Bourne – read story
Contest #190
Flightless – read story
Contest #189
Jack and Hans Tell a Wintery Tale – read story