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Joe Swanson

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Oct, 2020

Stories
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150 Stories

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Flying High

I had a brother who was 18 months younger than me. When you are close, but not quite in the same sphere of maturity, you remain in the atmosphere of a nature’s trick, competition. Survival of the fittest, even though you know nothing about it, has its hand up your shirt and you are unable to do little but become its puppet. My parents both had jobs that removed them from the responsibility of being able to care for their children. The duty fell to my grandmother, who although she could not speak our language, managed to communicate her inten...

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A Shot in the Dark

“Why am I wearing this shirt?” “I thought maybe it reminded you something important, birthday, anniversary. It has a certain sentimentality attached to it; it suits you. ” “Nice of you, but it really isn’t my style. Chartreuse? I haven’t seen one like this since the eighties.” “Everything that goes around come around. I’m sure you’ve heard that. And besides its your color.” “I didn’t know I had a color, but if you say…what is this hole, here by the pocket?” “Oh that, I wouldn’t worry about it. No one will even notice it. Actually I thin...

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Negative's Negative

The old Pentax camera was at the bottom of a box of odds and ends. Apparently someone cleaned out the bureau and just threw everything in the box, its value marginal, its presence a nuisance. The camera like so many things have become obsolete as they have been dwarfed by technology. We no longer need many of the things once necessary in capturing images, making phone calls, flying across the country, the world. Many of the things that have claimed to be an improvement have literally simplified one’s personal involvement in the process. Th...

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Laughter and Tears

“I want to thank you all for coming. I offer these one night stands to hopefully increase your ability to provide the best photos possible for one of the most memorable moments in people’s lives that they wish to preserve for the rest of their lives.” Oscar’s one and only introduction to Photography 101. Oscar Brand taught photography at the U of M for over thirty years. He retired several years ago; semi-retired actually. He was never one to sit around doing nothing. If he had one flaw it was he didn’t know how to relax. It wasn’t that he...

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Grand Canyons

“Take a step back. A little to the left. Bee, would you mind moving to your left, and Roger, to your right. Will those in front stoop slightly and those in the rear stand on your toes and take a step back. Christmas pictures only come once a year, let’s get this right.” I don’t remember what was said after that. Screaming, crying, people begging God for an instant replay in hopes of reversing what had just happened. Apparently God wasn’t listening, because Bee and Roger never got developed. They were standing on the edge of the biggest slas...

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Black Whole

“Where you goin?” “Does it matter?” “Probably not, but then I’m not the one that’s leavin.” That question that nags us as if it were a pimple on our soul we don’t want anyone to see. When you feel you’ve got nothing, and worse nothing left to lose, all you can do is throw up your hands and say…what? I’m done, I’m going to quit, drop out, all those things have been tried before, and it changed nothing. OK, I’ve got nothing, nothing left to lose, so why not shoot for the moon? It is a solution to a problem that no one knows exists, and yet...

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Trippin

“Rows and flows of angel hair, ice cream castles in the air, I’ve looked at clouds that way,” the lyric that sets the standards for the delusional subjectivism. We’ve all looked at a dimensional phenomenon and took comfort from the familiarity of what we conjured from a psyche ripe for exploitation. The tree with a face, the ice cream container whose cover having been removed, reveals the face of God. It is not that we need an excuse to be considered crazy, but our pointing to the sky and screaming “duck,” doesn’t help. I too have observed...

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Perfect

The sky cloudless, the air carrying the scent from exotic gardens, mermaids rummaging through Davy Jones locker, and on the horizon the Jolly Roger’s three sails billowing with the bravado of ancient assumptions. Imagination is a wonderful invention attributed to whoever wants to claim liability, as most often it disappoints, as it is far easier than complying with exorbitant demands of a Mad Hatter. Campgrounds, nothing like the boulevard we pitched our tents on in WWII, Korea, Vietnam, the Middle East. We leave our dreams of chaos and seek...

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Do You Even Know?

“Do you even know what kind of plant that is?” “Does it matter? I just like the way it looks.” “It looks like the kind of thing that could kill us in our sleep, and our murders would remain an enigma in the eyes of our judicial system. No one would be able to say anything for certain, except that we were dead.” “You become so dramatic when you think I should not buy something, whatever it is, but aren’t able to convince me why I shouldn’t.” He has always been like that. Yes, the plant isn’t by Good House Keeping standards one you take ho...

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Aspen and Me

“You had a Grandfather many millennium ago who lived amidst this grandeur, until they cut him down. I don’t mean to disturb your sensibilities, but sometimes the truth is the only way to see the significance of the life we have inherited.” He often began his stories that way. He did not know any of my ancestors, nor could he have. His name is Ralph, he’s an Aspen, I’m a Redwood. We both have scientific designations, but I’m not interested in the mechanics of identification. I know who I am, and that’s enough. He gets his insight from the c...

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Airplane Mode

I have begun to feel although 1984 has come and gone, much like the millennium fright our computers experienced, it has lasting implications that, like my dog, having left the confines of our algae laden pond, attempting to rid himself of the unwanted associations he has inadvertently befriended, refuse to remain unmemorable. No matter the amount of his nervous revolutions, he cannot free himself, from not only the memory of, but the physical aspects related to the experience. I find myself relating to his experience more of late. Being bom...

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Horseradish

“You’re telling me if you had one book to take with into the unknown, with no chance of returning, no chance of ever having the opportunity to chose another book, you’d choose a book no body has ever heard of, let alone read… Horseradish?” “You, I know, have read extensively, have a background in literature, and know all about the innerworkings of what a book is, what it is supposed to do, and what it does. I don’t know anything about any of those things, but I do know that the purpose of any art is to connect a feeling you have to that of ...

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And the Rains Came

“Here, you read for a while. My eyes aren’t what they used to be, and your light is terrible. Forget to pay the electric bill?” “You old people have a way of excusing yourself from things you don’t want to do, and blaming it on the ailments of age. Seems like the kind of thing that one day will come back, like the wolf story and bite you, Little Red Riding Hood.” “Read! Everyone’s a philosopher these days.” “Where were we?... you?” “And the rains came.” “You sure? That doesn’t seem to fit. You messing with me again?” Her eyes are losin...

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Can Nothing Become a Something?

The Ott Building, the one on the James and Clyde intersection, that is where he went to work. I told him after he got back from the desert war that he needn’t work. He’d earned his keep. He’d given up friends, some family had given up on him, and he could no longer hear. Something to do with an explosion near him, blew out his hearing drums. I ain’t much good at that sign language, been trying though. I think it’s like learning a different language. You get too old, your mind got enough problems keeping track of the words you know, let alone...

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Impossible to Know

“I was wondering if you’d have any suggestions.” Being a Librarian, although stimulating, challenging, and sometimes beyond the pale of reason, does not make one a mind reader. Everyday I am asked to recommend something that will cure or kill an ambition or lack of one, with little to no knowledge of the person or their needs or wants. “Suggestions about what precisely?” “ I just left the clinic and they told me I had…here you look. I can’t say the words, let alone read them. Something to do with my state of mind. That is why I went. Som...

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