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Jonathan Page

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Jul, 2023

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149 Stories

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Zero Occupancy

Weekly Contest #371

At 11:11 on a Tuesday morning in January, six people were seated in my Chesapeake Room discussing how best to kill me.They did not use the word kill. Bankers prefer language that has already been embalmed. They spoke of foreclosure, nonperforming debt, asset disposition, and an orderly transition to zero occupancy. On the screen at the end of the table, my four hundred oceanfront windows disappeared beneath three towers of blue glass. Where my atrium had stood for forty-two years, the developer had placed something called an experiential arr...

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Candela

Weekly Contest #371

At 12:47 in the morning, a woman dressed in white crossed the filling-station parking lot, and for eleven seconds I believed she belonged to me.I had one hand on the summons and the other on the door when the likeness changed. The eyes were hers, but the mouth belonged to a young man, and beneath the mouth appeared the smooth, untroubled chin of a child. The three faces passed through one another until there was no face at all.I remained behind the wheel.Almost is a word the living use to console themselves. An almost-kiss. An almost-victory...

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No Fixed Address

Weekly Contest #371

Katia Khrabrov arrived at the Woodrow Wilson Service Area shortly after two on Sunday morning with half a tank of gas, an overfull bladder, and Jessica’s last words rattling around inside her head. You’re thirty-eight years old, Katia. You can’t keep acting like you’re twenty-three. The green sign placed her at milepost 58.7 on the northbound Turnpike, between Exits 7 and 7A, almost eighty miles from Atlantic City. Distance did nothing to improve Jessica’s argument, but it generally made Katia feel as if she had won.She parked her gray Mazda...

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Inward Gravity

Weekly Contest #371

Eighty-one-year-old Professor Bernard Hamilton sat in his study in Princeton, but his mind was with Helen in West Windsor in 1997, beneath the red letters of MOVIES AT MARKET FAIR 10. The professor stared at the light cones and at the Morris-Thorne metric he had written across his chalkboard, the equation curving space around the throat of a wormhole. Helen handed young Bernard a paperback copy of Contact by Carl Sagan from her Staff Picks for the week. Einstein-Rosen bridges were inherently unstable, and without exotic matter the inward gra...

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Kompromat

Weekly Contest #371

Eight hours after Dr. Goldman removed my left testicle and replaced it with what he called a prosthesis and I called a fakey, I was walking the halls of Hackensack Memorial in a hospital gown with my ass hanging out. Dr. Goldman had told me to rest. He told me not to climb stairs, not to lift anything, and not to make any important decisions until the anesthesia and pain medication had worked their way out of my system. I gave him my word. Then, at eleven thirty-seven that night, my phone buzzed with a message from Sergeant Dan Gelbin. Room ...

9 likes 2 comments 2
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Midnight at the Dorian

Weekly Contest #370

At eleven o’clock on New Year’s Eve, the grandfather clock—named Galileo—began to strike.Pino counted all eleven chimes. As the last one faded from the lobby of the Hotel Dorian, he had one hour left. Two people beneath the Dorian’s roof had to fall in love or else. At present, the lobby was empty. Of all the guests staying for the holiday, only two unattached guests remained: Craig and Lisa.Craig was an angry insurance defense lawyer. About six feet. Fat. Bald. And hopelessly disagreeable. Lisa was a banking executive for Citibank. She wore...

22 likes 6 comments 6
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Grifters Inc.

Weekly Contest #369

--Hineni he’ani mima’as. Here I am, impoverished in deeds and merit. But nevertheless, I have come. I’m no good. I’ve done wicked, wretched shit. I know what I have done. But it is easy to forget. On Rosh Hashanah I was at the mall and Rabbi Eli was with some schoolboys, teaching them the practice of Tashlikh. They were throwing coins in a fountain. Imagine that. Joyfully throwing money. The lot of them should have been locked up. But it was symbolic of throwing away sins. It got me thinking. That Yom Kippur, I decided to tally all my sins....

29 likes 11 comments 11
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How to Kill a Dragon

Weekly Contest #368

I have been called haughty, depraved, and reclusive, generally by people who have never met me. But it is not wrong to judge yourself superior if you are, nor to do terrible deeds when they are warranted. As for the third accusation, solitude is not always a choice. A reputation hardens with time. People learn to keep their distance until isolation settles into the bones.Kora was a little thing, with bared arms and a bone necklace. Her black hair had been shaved close on either side, leaving a narrow crest from brow to neck. In her fist she ...

37 likes 21 comments 21
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De Esta Salimos

Weekly Contest #367

“¿Vamos a salir de esta?” Camila asked.It didn’t feel like it, but Dayana nodded and touched her shoulder.“De esta salimos.”She turned before Camila could see that she did not believe it and followed the boots ahead of her.La Loma de la Muerte lay less than a day’s journey ahead. Dayana could not see it through the canopy, but every warning she had heard ended the same way: once the climb began, there was no turning back.Thirty people moved in single file through the rain. Mateo led them with a machete in one hand, cutting through vines and ...

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Truth or Nothing

Weekly Contest #367

I packed my things into a banker’s box. My framed law school diploma. My trial advocacy prize from graduation, with my name – David Hogan – emblazoned on the black acrylic. My Title 2C Criminal Code. The New Jersey Court Rules with “ROCCO” printed in indelible marker on the spine. The tools of the trade.Rocco came around and stood with arms folded behind me.“Jesus, kid. You’re going down hard,” he said. “It’s admirable of you to take a fall like this.”I just looked over at him, saying nothing.“Got everything?” he asked.“I think so,” I said.“...

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Ghosted

Weekly Contest #366

Do you believe this bitch? Roxy Reign’s new video dropped this morning. There she is with her so-called main squeeze, twerking in the dude’s face, then role-playing a shopping spree like they’ve been together for years. This punk calls himself Jett Luxx. After that, they cozy up in a bubble bath built for two, drinking champagne and wearing chain jewelry—and not much else. A montage of rap clichés. Total garbage.It’s been like, what, five weeks since she ghosted me? Bitch sure moves fast.In my head, “Love Is a Battlefield” opens my “Fuck You...

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Best Man’s Speech

Weekly Contest #365

I stared at the crowd and told the biggest lie of my life.“Standing here today, I can honestly say: Sean and Alli are meant to be together.”Amid the warmth and pomp of the tuxedos and gowns, centerpieces, lights, and smiles, there was a solemn note of finality that hung in the air.My eyes stung as I looked over my shoulder at the proud couple. Sean had that unshakeable grin that weathered every storm. I wondered if it would weather this one. Alli flinched at the sound of my voice. Sean didn’t notice. He never noticed much when it came to us....

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The Margaritaville Murders

Weekly Contest #364

The Hedendorfs were playing Margaritaville by Jimmy Buffett on their dock at 9:30 a.m. on a Saturday morning. George and Helen were drinking peach margaritas made in the outdoor blender beneath their themed tiki hut, while their high-school-aged kids, Bill and Raven, splashed and screamed in the lake. Russ, the eldest, just back from NYU for the summer, sat on the tree swing reading Anthony Horowitz’s Marble Hall Murders and minding his own business. True to form, the Hedendorfs displayed a ZFG attitude while effortlessly disturbing everyone...

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The Homicide Department

Weekly Contest #364

At exactly 5:03, Detective Merve Pereira was sitting at the Big Tiki Torch trying to get a head start on putting a dent in his sober state of mind.The Big Tiki Torch was a bar located next door to the Pennington Fire House. It was small and dark and decorated with tiki torches and other refinements that created an ambiance you might find at a shore bar or on an island, assuming the island had recently gone bankrupt and been abandoned by everyone except several angry fishermen.The decorations were old, and whatever passion had created the bea...

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A Highway with No Traffic

Weekly Contest #363

“If the stars should appear one night in a thousand years, how would men believe and adore; and preserve for many generations the remembrance of the city of God which had been shown!”-Ralph Waldo Emerson A Highway with No Traffic Not a single star pierced the night. Quinn had been walking since before sunrise, his pack digging harder into his shoulders with every mile. The high-voltage lines hummed overhead, occasionally hissing at him.Desert dust coated his throat, turning every breath shallow and raw. Smoke burned his eyes and nose and tur...

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