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Joe Swanson

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Oct, 2020

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150 Stories

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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 purpo...

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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.”     &n...

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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 ...

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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 lo...

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A Critics Critique

    “Is there a difference between a critic and a critique?”    “I think it’s a matter of semantics. Some say potato, some Paw-Ta-tow, some critique, some criticize; gives people something to do but worry about important things, like survival.”    “So, in your opinion, there is no difference between critiquing something, and being a critic of that same thing. Interesting. Critiquing to me, means examining something and then giving your opinion as to how you feel about what...

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Imfamous Truth

    “I got the news today, oh boy,” the words, the song, reminding me that truth although necessary, should at times be tempered with empathy, possibly half-truths. Not just any partial truth, and not just partial truths that challenge the entirety of truth, but half-truths that are implicated by the whole truth. Truth is not always what we should hear when we don’t want to hear it, or at times, we need to hear it when it is softened with just enough deception to allow us to mislead ourselves, without realizing ...

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Reciept of Honor

    “Did you see the review?”     “It wasn’t what I expected.”     “Nothing is what we expect. You should be proud. Most people can’t say they received even one review.”     “Yes, I suppose, but then I didn’t expect this review, as I didn’t enter any contest where a review was warranted.”     “Didn’t you tell me you entered a poetry contest?”     “Well, yes. But it was a joke. I sent my grocery store rec...

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Coroner Cafe

    When they mention the Coroner Café, the word seedy comes to mind. Seedy? Dingy, seamy, sleazy, all adjectives used to describe the remnants of a past time. A time when you could be, and were, scrutinized with the skeptical eye of pawn shop proprietor.      It wasn’t because of the name, which was the Christian family moniker of Bartholomew Coroner, a devoted father, husband, and underworld figure referred to, in the annals of renowned crime families as, “Death.” If you were i...

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What About Bob

    “What are you doing? We have to be there in half an hour.”     “Be right there. Just jotting down a few thoughts.”       “We are going to be late, because you are writing down a few thoughts to use in a story that you won’t’ let anyone read? What is the point? What is this new marquee of yours about?”     “We are supposed to write a story about one of the reviewers who look at our stories and decide if they have more merit than o...

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Screaming at the Sun

    The light, now spring, changing, its ability to root out the darkness, becoming discernable. Branch tips swelling, bark shedding its chameleon dullness, becoming vibrant in the suns warmth; life seemingly once again worth living. The swelling ocean waters crashing onto the wood strewn beach, salt spray caressing the agates blooming colors, exposing them to the hunt. Mushrooms reaching towards the official blue of April, in search of permission to perform. Spring, the season of birth, growth, a remi...

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FINI!

    Billy Bob was the boy’s name. I found that out later from his obituary in the Gettysburg Gazette and Shopper. He had peddled for all he was worth up the hill. The harder he peddled, the madder he got. He was going to give that General guy a piece of his mind. And he wanted that ten bucks he was owed or he’d never see that suitcase again. He knew of caves that had no bottom. He’d thought if and when he would have to kill someone, he’d throw their worthless body down into the hole.&nbs...

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Obtuse

     The day I was hit by a car, I remembered as I flew angelically towards the boulevard, and a rather large sycamore, it was lucky that I’d forgotten to pick up milk on my way home from dance class. I normally go to dance class on Tuesday evenings, but because of the recent basement flooding and lightning strikes that left the building engulfed in darkness each night, it was determined we should meet at the VFW hall on Wednesday, as Bingo night was cancelled due to the untimely passing of Wilbur, the Ball Mast...

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Heaven's Gate

    “Do you remember that movie about a young guy who ran away from his memories of youth, and became the opposite personification of who he’d been raised to be? It had that guy in it who played the crazier of the tree guys in the movie Easy Rider. I think I heard he died, but can’t be sure.”    “Dennis Hopper?”    “Yes, Dennis Hopper. Do you remember that movie?”    “Flashback! Yes, I remember it. Happened to watch it a while back. ...

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Remebering to Remeber

I remember the undeclared Korean War. I remember Americas young dying in Vietnam, their death toll plastered nightly on the six O’clock news. I remember when the national guard of the United States of America fired bullets into a crowd of students protesting an undeclared war in Asia. I remember parades of people wearing hardhats bosting American flag decals, chanting “love it or leave it.”  I remember when they found the bodies of the Civil Rights voting advocates in a hillside in Mississippi. I remember the 16th Street bombing that ki...

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Height of Ambition

     What we are, and what we are not, may come down to our perception of a line on a door jamb. Not just any line, but one dedicated to recording our growth, maturity, freedom. It allows us to forgive childhood while giving us counterfeit credentials to move beyond where we have been wished to remain.      There is no end to demarcation between the past and a future, as it is an arbitrary illusion attributed by others with no specified intent, but leaves a perception of impene...

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