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Jack Bell

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Oct, 2022

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26 Followers
15 Following

7 Stories

271 karma pts

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Best Stew Ever

Weekly Contest #362

Josephine was feeling rather on edge. It was almost midnight. Please, please, not tonight, Josephine, she silently prayed. Then, ashamed of her weakness, she snapped her eyes open. Looking down at her busy hands, a veritable blur above the cutting board on the vast white table, she slowed her julienning to a deliberate, speculative chop. Wait… was this carrot soft? She put the cleaver aside and squeezed an orange sliver. Disgusting! She picked up the cutting board heaped with worthless bendy taproot, and hurled it at the rubbish bin in the f...

1 like 0 comments 0
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Darren's Big Trip

Weekly Contest #293

The train was slowing down. Or at least that’s what Darren thought. Was it slowing down? He glanced at the two passengers opposite him. A mother and daughter combination. Or at least that’s what he assumed. They were in the compartment when Darren got on twenty minutes ago. The daughter was about Darren’s age, early-twenties, or so he judged.One thing that wasn’t up for debate or speculation: the daughter was very beautiful. Not in a flash pop-music-video sort of way, but in a lively, personable, intelligent-eyed sort of way. To meet her for...

4 likes 0 comments 0
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Diary of a Scientist

Shortlisted for Contest #174 ⭐️

Saturday, May 26 Getting fired may well be the making of me. Can science, true science, flourish in a large institution? The Melville Neurological Institute talked a good game, always promising me freedom of scientific research, but, when it came to the crunch, they let the bean-counters shut me down. I don’t think I was unreasonable. I recognize the need for institutional bureaucracy—I enjoy a regular supply of clean pipettes as much as the next research scientist—but no bean-counter EVER comes into MY laboratory and tells me what to do...

32 likes 15 comments 15
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The Posy of a Ring

Weekly Contest #173

George Kourkoumelis is mad as a cut snake, and I was hoping this might work in my favor. In his little office out the back of the Kourka Service Station, he looked caged, but not securely. It wasn’t his natural habitat, the office. Right now he seemed to be checking the back of his computer for nits.I cleared my throat. “George, you got a moment?”He spun, arms akimbo, ready for anything—hold-ups, shoplifters, pretty girls—and fixed me with his coal-black eyes. “Adam! What’s up, bud? We’re out of unleaded, sorry. Coffee machine’s backed up li...

27 likes 18 comments 18
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Hearts and Hunters

Weekly Contest #172

Honesty is the best policy, but only by default. It is the least worst option. This applies not only to politics, historical inquiry, business deals and game shows, but also, agonizingly enough, to matters of the heart. Walter Pendrick learnt this the hard way. If, on one very fateful occasion, he’d honestly expressed his feelings, the dreary morass of his later life may have been very different. I Detest You. Three little words—in Walter’s case barely making up three syllables—which, with the possible exception of the second word, trip so...

21 likes 15 comments 15
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Many Happy Returns

Weekly Contest #171

After my breakup with Sally Stukel, I swore off love, laughter, hope, fruit and veg, basic hygiene. Pretty much in that order. What really threw me was the shock of it. I thought we were fine. Came home from work one day and found a note. “Dear Nick…” It was almost poetic. Nick, it turns out, rhymes with prick, dick, sick, thick and even, in a purple penultimate paragraph, hick. Upshot: she’d been unhappy and I’d been “smothering” her. Have to admit, my breath caught at that. Me “smothering” her? I took unpaid leave from work to sink unenc...

10 likes 11 comments 11
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The Plan To End All Plans

Weekly Contest #170

I've got a plan. It’s one that aims to provide me with a whole-of-life roadmap, if that doesn’t sound too grandiose. It's not complete, not fully worked out to the last detail, although the central thrust of it feels very solid. Anyone who knows me is probably surprised by this. I tended in the past to take each day as it comes. Not anymore. I feel much happier, more centered, my mind more fertile, since I got serious about having a plan.What I want to express with my plan, and my surrounding commentary upon it, is the need for the modern al...

7 likes 2 comments 2
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