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Jack Kimball

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Jan, 2023

Stories (54)

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143 Followers

124 Following

54 Stories

2253 karma pts

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Snowblind

Jack Kimball

Submitted to Contest #329

Even though it was two in the morning, Martha Wilkins finally turned off the lights at Enterprise Car Rental. A small Idaho airport, Enterprise waited for the bus when airlines couldn’t land, like now, in a snowstorm. She told Jessie about his Uber fare waiting once he came out of the men’s room.“Where is she?” Jessie asked.Martha threw a thumb at the entrance. “Another reunion gal I suspect. They’re gathering like flies to honey. You should go to the reunion yourself, Jessie. Hoot it up, see some old high school friends.”Jessie glanced back...

14 likes

The Black Box

Jack Kimball

Submitted to Contest #326

Don’t get me wrong, I loved my first wife, Martha. But she passed—bless her heart. My second wife, Fanny Mae? I’d never say I loved her more than Martha, but maybe I did. And it wasn’t just the double D’s, whatever people thought. Or the thirty-five year age difference, her thirty and me sixty-five. No, I needed her—for my son. After Martha died, my boy and I struggled to communicate. But he was a man now, just turned thirty himself. All this sounds harsh, and crude, but nobody can judge me harder then my own self.Anyway, he’d say something ...

16 likes

Promise

Jack Kimball

Submitted to Contest #324

Dr. Takahashi removed his stethoscope from Billy’s back. “You’re good to go,” he said. “I’m releasing you today. But remember, you’re not the hotshot you once were.”Billy, his face drawn and colorless, his stiff gray hair matted to his forehead, hunched forward on the table. His ribs ached when he breathed. “I’m not dead yet.”“You nearly were,” the Doctor said. “You forget that?”Billy didn’t answer. He flinched as he buttoned his shirt and stared at the floor.“You’re seventy, Billy. What would Frances say about you sailing alone?”Billy grunt...

19 likes

Time Wars

Jack Kimball

Submitted to Contest #317

Scientists say that as we approach the speed of light, time slows down for us compared to everyone else. If we actually made the round trip, we’d come back younger than the people we left behind. We might experience only a day, while a year passes for everyone else.****Emily grew up skipping time. Everyone with the gene could do it. She used her power for the little things—jumping past the wait at train stations, fast-forwarding through boring afternoons, or once, when she was in a car accident, skipping straight to the wail of sirens, pain ...

16 likes

Denial

Jack Kimball

Submitted to Contest #314

A gray mare carried a twelve-year-old girl through the town of Evalsne. Horse troughs lined the empty, dust-strewn street on either side of her, and gray pine buildings bore false fronts in the old Western style. Mountains, majestic, but drought-stricken, rose in every direction and formed a kind of hollow where the town lay. The girl rode bareback, guiding the horse with a halter and the pressure of her thin thighs. There was no bit, and her bare feet couldn’t reach the stirrups.She neared a blacksmith shop where flames spiked in a forge. A...

9 likes

Did They Design Us?

Jack Kimball

Submitted to Contest #312

If the adage was correct, ‘I think, therefore I am’, I suppose we had some pride in the method of our demise. This, of course, reminded me of another adage, ‘pride before the fall’, which was ironically just then punctuated by both the thumping sounds of feet on the roof above and the pounding on the door, both of which were the beasts trying to get in.CHU+, my research assistant, hadn’t interjected into the dialogue in days, leaving me only AC& to talk to. But AC& is just not that interesting. He’s in charge of security, which means...

18 likes

The Bautzen Prison Incident

Jack Kimball

Submitted to Contest #311

East Berlin, 1952 Amidst the sound of dripping water and boots on stone, two guards dragged Gestas Milovik down a prison corridor.“Los!” barked the tall guard, and sharp garlic spilled from his breath.In front of a rusted steel door, the second guard rattled his keys and a door squealed open to reveal a wide chamber. The guards dragged Gestas to join two ragged men who were on their knees facing a far green-streaked wall. The guard’s thick hands pressed him down to take his place in line.He stopped breathing for a moment. This was how they d...

23 likes

The Quarry

Jack Kimball

Submitted to Contest #308

I’m parked in the same overgrown field where Marty’s ’66 Mustang sat ten years ago. But I don’t have a Mustang. I have a ramshackle rusted Ford, and it's now the only home I have left. A sleeping bag is in the back seat, boxes are everywhere. Now that I'm back in my hometown, my mind drifts to my mother. I would guess she's still in the old house, but I don't have the courage to go see her.Ahead of me, bulldozers knock down trees. A real estate sign says, ‘Lakeview Estates—Waterfront’. I know the flooded quarry is beyond the tree-line and th...

37 likes

Blue Roses

Jack Kimball

Submitted to Contest #307

"BLUE ROSES" is a contemporary Gothic tale of guilt and transformation set against the ancient backdrop of Puglia, Italy. This atmospheric story weaves together elements of psychological horror and magical realism, exploring themes of atonement, family loyalty, and the price of immortality.______The Real Estate Commission circled like vultures. I'd drained escrow deposits of over three million dollars—money meant for new homes, for retirements, for my friends' futures, and worst of all, my sister's life savings. The investigators were asking...

16 likes

Farewell Address

Jack Kimball

Submitted to Contest #306

Farewell AddressRain tapped the windowpanes in soft pulses. The sound of a lone siren rose and fell faintly in the distance. Inside, the Oval Office lights were harsh.The president sat at his desk with his sleeves rolled up. In his hand was a printed copy of George Washington’s Farewell Address from 1796, double-spaced and underlined in blue ink.He started to read from the document, but then looked up to finish what he’d memorized. “The name of American, which belongs to you in your national capacity… must always exalt the just pride of patr...

14 likes

SINGULARITY

Jack Kimball

Submitted to Contest #304

May 2025I remember the breaking heat, a late spring reminder of the summer to come. After parking, I made my way to the Pentagon, trying to ignore my gnawing anxiety about the weather. The article in The Times was on my desk. It broke hot as well. Like the weather, it had its own early message.OpenAI was buying IO, a startup run by Jony Ive—the man who helped develop the iPhone. Six and a half billion dollars. This gave me pause. As the Chief Technology Officer for the National Security Agency, the NSA, I knew every coder’s career in the wor...

15 likes

Five Minutes Left

Jack Kimball

Submitted to Contest #297

My eyes are closed, and I keep them closed, not wanting to wake up. What was my last thought before sleeping? I already know the answer, the same as every night: Please—not the dream. Not the one where the clocks bleed, not the one where she won’t wake up.Today, like most days, my head throbs—another self-inflicted wound from a night at Jake’s: the shots, the beer chasers, and was there cocaine on a woman’s room vanity? And was there a guy named Andrew? Or was it Andy? I tell myself today will be different, today I’ll stop drinking.A familia...

16 likes

Against the Current (Idaho Territory - 1885)

Jack Kimball

Submitted to Contest #296

The boy was nine and his father was dead. Abe found him by the rocks where the trail turned north, his face streaked with dried tears and dirt."Got a name?" Abe shifted the Sharpe's in the crook of his arm. He kept his distance, letting his voice do the reaching."Nick."Abe studied the lengthening shadows. The temperature would drop twenty degrees once the sun slipped behind the ridgeline. He could backtrack to Boise, maybe make Warren, but either way that was three weeks of walking, no way he would last. He just didn't have the strength. "I ...

14 likes

Compliance Protocol

Jack Kimball

Submitted to Contest #296

The bank of diagnostic equipment blinked and hummed in Harold’s garage-lab. He crouched at the center console in a wall of consoles. The screen cast an eerie green, a waveform which pulsed like something alive. Something hungry. And the signal was there—buried in the digital noise.His cellphone buzzed. “Dad, stop being paranoid. Mom’s fine. Everyone’s fine. You’re the one acting strange.” They think of me as a retired curmudgeon, he thought, at first for leaving his cell phone at home, refusing to watch TV, ignoring social media. But who say...

20 likes

The Dream Thief of Cusco

Jack Kimball

Submitted to Contest #295

“Dreams are dangerous things to steal,” my grandmother cautioned, smelling of roasted corn and burning copal in her shop on the The Plaza de Armas. “The ancients knew dreams needed to arrive willingly, like a warm caress in the night when you’re sleeping comfortably. When you force them…” She trailed off, her eyes distant.“Not so dangerous we couldn’t steal more, and keep the best for ourselves,” I said, thinking my grandmother could do better.She grabbed my wrist, her weathered hands surprisingly strong. “Don’t be an idiot, Morfeo. Is your ...

16 likes