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Jonathan Page

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Jul, 2023

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129 Stories

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The Sacrificial Lamb

Weekly Contest #357

Ernest strode in, put his hands on the back of a leather armchair, leaned in menacingly, and stared into Prosecutor Hank Abner’s eyes with unmitigated contempt. Prosecutor Hank Abner was a former military man. He wore his suits pressed, shirts starched, and face stern. People around the office called him Captain and saluted with a clipped “Oh Captain, my Captain.” Not in the literary sense of being a rebel who spurned authority, but in the sense that he was the authority. “What is this?” Prosecutor Hank Abner asked. “Cannon has something he...

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Taking Measure

Weekly Contest #357

I have always had a weakness for endangered things.Churches full of empty pews most Sundays. Cemeteries whose visitors never knew the names on the stones. Old taverns that had somehow hung on to their roots for decades after everyplace else turned into a sports bar. Places that once held communities together, and when they were gone, kept their memories intact.Cuff & Collar belonged on that list.When I arrived, I took up a position in the corner and began inspecting the imported fabrics on display. Years of practice had taught me how to ...

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The First Juror

Weekly Contest #356

It was an overcast November morning in the port district of Newark. Clouds pressed down on the living world like anvils. A haze filled the Newark streets. The air was the color of cinder dust and gloom. The headlamps of my car could not pierce the brume.I traveled in silence down Rt. 78 West turning off onto Doremus Avenue. Part of me wanted to start on a new adventure and see how good of a lawyer I really was, but the better part of me wanted a clean resolution, a smoking gun that proved Frank was the guy, so I could get back to the course ...

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Blood Debts

Weekly Contest #356

Rui “Ray” Chang was an immigration and real-estate attorney in Fort Lee with a tiny office above a karaoke bar a stone’s throw away from the George Washington Bridge. But by night, Ray sipped human blood out of a flask and gambled in Chinatown. Texas hold ‘em was his jam.It was a brisk evening in late March when Ray first began to remember things. For years he had lived with retrograde amnesia. But he had no idea why.Ray was meeting with the pastor Ki Yun Yi of Pongno Presbyterian, a Korean church in Palisades Park that was being foreclosed ...

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Statistically Unique

Weekly Contest #356

My billionth birthday was a real drag. I am a numbers guy. You know. I am all about the data. So, numbers carry a lot of meaning for me. A billion. Jeez. That’s a big one alright. I had an ongoing debate with myself where I considered the possibility that I may be the oldest living being in the entire cosmos. Wouldn’t that be something?Here I was in a middling galaxy circling a wimpy black hole, investigating some promising planets in the outer reaches, but sure to find the same result I’d found every time before. It was unsettling, to say t...

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Little Mercies

Weekly Contest #355

The deceased boy rested in his casket. The guests paying their respects all thought the same thing: Sam’s face looked wrong. And they were right. It looked nothing like him. All his life, Sam had looked possessed. Black beady eyes that were half here and half there. Tics and scratching. It wasn’t just the drugs. He couldn’t stand it in his own skin. He was always high. Sammy was a real honest to goodness addict. And real addicts mean it. No one knew the boy either. Not his mother. Not his sister. No one. Save one. It was almost like—no, it w...

25 likes 8 comments 8
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Howling at the Moon

Weekly Contest #348

Ryan used to think the whole werewolf thing was stupid.Not scary—just wrong.The idea that something inside you could take over—that it needed a full moon, or a curse, or some external trigger—always felt backwards. If anything like that existed, it wouldn’t come from outside. It would already be there—waiting for the right conditions.He said as much once, freshman year, half-drunk, arguing with Dan and Sid in the common room while someone played a horror movie no one was watching. Dan and Sid were cozied up with Lisa and Jenny under a heap o...

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Your Life is in Danger

Weekly Contest #343

Your life is in danger. Say nothing to anyone. You must leave the city immediately and never return. Repeat: say nothing.McKenzie’s hand went still around the brittle paper. Oddly glossy.Her friends were laughing about something—Spotify numbers, someone’s disastrous hinge date—but the room felt suddenly airless.“I’ve got to use the bathroom,” she said.She did not go to the bathroom.She walked straight out of the restaurant, turned onto Pell Street, lifted her skirt just enough to run, and sprinted.A black Escalade swerved onto the block too ...

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The Taxi Stand on Roosevelt Boulevard

Weekly Contest #341

Arthur knew the rules of Judge Dear the way a rabbi knew the rules of God: don’t bargain, don’t lie, and under no circumstances imply you have a life outside his courtroom.So naturally, Arthur did exactly that. In one master stroke, he broke all the Judge’s rules.He stood, jacket tugged straight, face arranged into the expression he used when speaking before a room full of strangers—despite being a weekly attendee at Part 57. On the counsel table, his tablet displayed a tidy bullet-point list—GOOD REASONS, BAD LOOKS, GROVELING OPTIONS, MEDIC...

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Chasing the Rabbit

Weekly Contest #340

The aspens were still asleep when my phone buzzed.Pale trunks rose out of the dark like bone. The trail climbed in narrow switchbacks, packed dirt dusted with frost, my breath hanging in front of me in small white bursts. I’d already been out for an hour — five miles of warmup — and my legs had finally stopped asking questions.There’s a point in any long run where your body stops negotiating. It’s resignation. The muscles accept the terms, the mind goes quiet, and for a few miles you get to remember why you loved this in the first place: bec...

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Broccoli Cheese Soup

Weekly Contest #339

The gift shop at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania was the size of a generous walk-in closet, which made it feel less like retail and more like a secret—a place you could pass by without noticing until you needed it.Jon stood just inside the threshold, letting the automatic door hush closed behind him. His jacket still held February’s bite, and the warmth inside began thawing him in the wrong places: his ears, his fingers, the thin skin at his throat.The shop smelled like lilies, the dander of plush stuffed animals, and chocolat...

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Moral Bankruptcy

Shortlisted for Contest #338 ⭐️

The Li Lu Law Library at Columbia was nearly empty, the way it only ever was when winter break had sent the sane people home and the rest stopped pretending they weren’t here to be seen.Professor Jebediah Habl stood at a terminal with his glasses riding down his nose, scrolling through a catalogue entry that insisted the book existed and then declined to say where.“That can’t be right,” he said to no one.A girl at the circulation desk looked up. Early twenties. Hair pulled back. Laptop open beside a stack of returns. She had the unbroken exp...

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Adjourned Without Date

Weekly Contest #335

The snow outside my window hangs as if someone hit pause. A robin with an orange belly rests on the fence post, her head twitching—listening, deciding. The short days might send her south. Or she might stay.My hands won’t stop trembling. Not from the cold—though the cold has teeth—but from the waiting room at the federal building in Newark. “Recupérate, Sophia,” I tell myself. I practice my English anyway—quietly, under my breath—in case they refuse to speak Spanish today.If I miss the appointment, they can dismiss my asylum case. If I go, t...

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The Runaway Wife

Weekly Contest #313

I hate matrimonial cases, especially runaway wives. They always remind me of Tara. Charlie was wearing red high heels, white capri pants, and a top that left nothing to the imagination. The smile on her face was of a woman that knew exactly what she wanted. The man next to her was mid-50s, tan, wearing a short sleeve linen button-down, jeans, and loafers. He put his arm around her as they walked down from Pier A and into the W Hotel in Hoboken. Keeping a safe distance, I managed to get a half dozen shots off with my Canon SX620. I waited in ...

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You've Been Flagged

Weekly Contest #311

“I’m sorry ma’am, you’ve been flagged,” the Bayonne DMV clerk said to Maggie through a bullet-proof glass partition.Sam’s DMV-issued polo hung loosely over his slim frame. A Cornicello necklace dangled around his pencil neck, bouncing off his flat chest as he typed. The poor kid’s spine had a permanent hitch from bending down to examine papers and make computer entries. He peered through the thick glass with bureaucratic suspicion and smoldering contempt, as he repeated, “Your license is flagged, ma’am.”“Flagged? What does that mean?” Maggie...

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