Menu

More apps built by Reedsy

Assemble a team of professionals

The writing app for authors

Writing courses, events and memberships

Get your book reviewed

Weekly writing prompts and contests

Menu
Prompts
Contests
Stories
Blog

Jonathan Page

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Jul, 2023

Stories
Comments
Library
883 Followers
7219 Following

123 Stories

5669 karma pts

?

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...

20 likes 2 comments 2
Read story

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 ...

36 likes 17 comments 17
Read story

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...

35 likes 14 comments 14
Read story

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...

37 likes 23 comments 23
Read story

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...

27 likes 3 comments 3
Read story

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...

41 likes 21 comments 21
Read story

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...

45 likes 19 comments 19
Read story

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 ...

56 likes 27 comments 27
Read story

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...

46 likes 20 comments 20
Read story

It is Written

Weekly Contest #310

“Write it,” Casey said. “Deadline’s midnight.”“But boss, once I write it, it goes to print. And then, there’s no going back,” I said.“What’s the problem, Gordy?”“It’s just the finality of it all. This man’s going to wake up. His wife will hear. His colleagues. There’s no walking that back,” I said. “He isn’t even the big bad.”“He’ll still have a choice. That’s how this works.”“I don’t know if he does, boss. They mean to kill him.”“Peter’s living large in an Upper East Side tower, paid for with stolen retirements. No minimizing it. He’s fundi...

34 likes 21 comments 21
Read story

The Quartzite Dream

Weekly Contest #309

Sofia was ushered toward airport security and the Terminal C departures, with only the clothes on her back to her name.Just moments earlier, she'd frozen on the United Airlines check-in prompt: “Number of bags?” Everything she owned was in those two bags.“Ma’am, just enter two,” the agent said gently. “The tags will print.”“Right, right,” she muttered.At the counter, the clerk asked her to place the bags on the conveyor belt. Sofia lifted the first, fingers tight around the leather handle.“Can I have that?” the clerk asked.Sofia hesitated, t...

35 likes 15 comments 15
Read story

The Painted Ones

Weekly Contest #307

The land of Granby is seared. Scars of blood and ash paint its skin with the pain of forgotten offenses. Burn marks carve the landscape into a demented chessboard of oblong red and black rectangles so misshapen and haphazard that in one place they dissect a river on a jagged diagonal, like a ripped sheet of paper. And those old battle scars have ripped Yudi’s life apart too, disconnecting her from her old reality, just as suddenly, and just as violently.All Yudi had wanted was to win the science fair for the sprouting orchid she’d developed ...

44 likes 7 comments 7
Read story

The Big Catch

Weekly Contest #306

FADE IN: EXT. SEAPORT DOCK - DAY (ESTABLISHING).A FISHING BOAT docks on the pier at dawn. Fish are dumped off the boat and weighed dockside in a bin with a scale meter.The camera pans to where a large plume of black smoke hangs in the air inland off the bay.A MAN DRIVING A FORKLIFT drives a large crate of fish down the pier while seagulls hover. The forklift disappears into a bay door of the fish market compound. INT. FISH MARKET - DAY.Inside the fish market, WORKERS break down pallets and set up a fish stand. THE MAN WITH THE CLIPBOARD mark...

34 likes 21 comments 21
Read story

The User Agreement

Weekly Contest #306

“Welcome to ReWrite®. By using ReWrite you agree to these terms of service. The user acknowledges and accepts the potential hazards and risks involved in memory modification, including but not limited to injury, amnesia, and death.” I am sitting in a sterile white waiting room in a medical gown. My hand trembles as I hand the last remaining picture of my son, Leo, to an attractive young woman, named Circe. “It is okay,” she says with a smile. Her eyes are aquamarine, and her hair is a metallic orchid color that shimmers as she speaks. Those ...

43 likes 38 comments 38
Read story

The Final Game

Weekly Contest #305

“You know what? I quit,” I said. It was Game 6 of the NBA Finals, and the ball was mine. I took off like a rocket on the inbound pass and had the jump before the defense could react. The announcer said, “Knicks answer! Oh me, oh my! And we’re all tied up. Thunder MVP, J.R. Hart with the ball… and he’s making a move.” As I crossed half court, every eye in the stadium locked on me. “Can the Thunder take back the lead, folks? If Coach Nysted wants anyone on the fast break, it’s J.R. Hart.” 2:42 on the clock. The crowd was on its feet. This was ...

38 likes 18 comments 18
Read story