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Jack Kimball

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Jan, 2023

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148 Followers
123 Following

55 Stories

2275 karma pts

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St. Regis Showdown

Weekly Contest #190

After boarding the Boeing 737, I take my window seat in first class and try not to be noticed. Pretending to fidget with the tray table, I hide behind my EarPods (Taylor Swift in a resounding beat, ‘…and even though you want to, please try to never grow up,’ goes on and on). Now undisturbed in my shell, I check out the other passengers: a well-dressed man across the aisle in a cowboy hat drinking some kind of brown liquor on ice; sitting in the two seats in front of him is a middle-aged cashmere clad couple, both reading from i-Pads, th...

18 likes 20 comments 20
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Mr. Big Modernizes "The Tiger, the Brahmin, and the Jackal"

Weekly Contest #189

Warning: Light violence and profanity.‘Mr. Big’ is a covert investigation procedure used by undercover police to elicit confessions from suspects in cold cases (usually murder)._______People think the worst of me, but I’ve got my reasons. And sure, the girl got me back to the world, but she should’a known you don’t go after a con. Once upon a time, in a land long ago, a tiger was caught in a cage. He paced and paced and thought long and hard on how he could get out. One day, a Brahmin woman, who was a rare beauty and high caste, di...

16 likes 15 comments 15
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Gabriel's Horn

Weekly Contest #188

The old man knocked tobacco out of his long-stem pipe. “I would like you to solve the mystery of happiness,” he said, pointing his white eyebrows at me.The only thing I hoped to solve was finding my way out through the labyrinth of corridors in my uncle’s estate. Hell, I barely graduated from State three months ago. And the only thing my Creative Writing major did was land me a waiter gig at The Ram’s Head Steakhouse in town. Solve the mystery of happiness? I knew Uncle Clarence was some industry titan—but really?He kept right at it though. ...

32 likes 43 comments 43
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Cats!

Weekly Contest #187

“I know you think I’m crazy, but I’ve found myself.”He’d gone over and was in real trouble; I mean Jack Nicholson Shining trouble. And when he said crazy I heard a whisper in my ear—you are NOT a trained psychologist. Yes, beyond my capability to help, way beyond.Yet, I grew up with my kid brother; I took care of him all the way through high school. Our dad worked at the mill double time, and Mom passed when we were both kids. So it was up to me, Dad said, when he wasn’t around, which was always. It was the little things I remembered more th...

49 likes 56 comments 56
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Tragedy

Weekly Contest #186

The Abbey Theater is alive. It is the season of ‘deeper thoughts and emotions’, the season of Yeats and Lady Gregory, the season of plays. And there on stage, with deeper thoughts and emotions, in welcomed applause, stands Sir Edward Forester, the playwright, the director, and the reason for the full house.The stage is set as a gentleman’s study, a library, a table, a grand fireplace, two souls. The one, old Sir Edward is a man aged in a most beneficial way, gray bearded, distinguished. He’s joined by his nephew, blood of the same ...

27 likes 14 comments 14
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Henkin’s Mellified Honey

Weekly Contest #185

According to Wikipedia, for at least 2,700 years honey has been used by humans to treat a variety of ailments through topical application. The contents of the mellification process however would turn the honey into ‘sort of a confection reputedly capable of healing broken limbs and other ailments. This confection would then be sold in street markets as a hard to find item with a hefty price’. “Do you think he’s ready?” The only care remaining in Ann Henkins was for her son, John Jr., who everyone called Little John. She wanted to p...

17 likes 21 comments 21
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A Meadow

Weekly Contest #184

Tom stared unmoved through the cottonwood trees behind his ranch; his Sony fifty-five inch high definition TV monitor tumbled end over end, cartwheeling like a glass spewing boulder down the steep North Dakota gully, finally settling on the banks of the frozen Red. “I’ve had enough Martha,” he said out loud, fingering his blue turquoise bola, speaking to beyond the river; to the family plot, the snow-covered meadow where three generations of Scotts were buried.With a steady drip, the techno world had finally spilled over the top of his frust...

16 likes 7 comments 7
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Flaws

Weekly Contest #183

We'd been dating for about six months when Linda looked at me with a final decision in her eyes, resolute firmness in her voice, and said, "I can't see you anymore." She was standing in the foyer of her tiny single mom house, her five-year-old son, Blake, sleeping in the other room. I was getting ready to leave and putting on my cool single man's p-coat, collar turned up. I was thirty-seven and never married. Linda was thirty-nine, recently divorced, and married twice. I say resolute firmness because she was firm and resolute every ti...

15 likes 8 comments 8
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Breakout 2.0

Weekly Contest #182

Slinging low over the trees, the Bell V-s80 Valor helicopter angles in, a lethal locust descending in a joyless moon. Rotors tilting to hover configuration, she banks into the landing strip. General Huxley Longfellow, in fatigues, steps to the tarmac and salutes the two aids on the ground. Running low, they dash to a Quonset hut a hundred yards away. As they enter the room twenty men stand to attention while four civilians huddle at the end of a long conference table. The general, after a lifetime in the military, recognizes when t...

11 likes 4 comments 4
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Mountain Rescue

Weekly Contest #181

“Here. Careful, it’s hot.”I take the soup in the green plastic cup, steam rising, blow on it, then use my camp spoon to skim the yellow broth off the top. In another day we’ll be out of soup, out of fuel, and down to nothing but four Clif Bars: one chocolate chip, two white chocolate macadamia nut, a peanut butter. I hate peanut butter. Until the rescue, I’m thinking maybe go with half a bar each day. There has to be a rescue.Phil and I are lying in our snow cave, and we have been, three days now. Body heat in the tight space keeps us warm, ...

23 likes 11 comments 11
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