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Jonathan Page

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Jul, 2023

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1023 Followers
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150 Stories

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The Barber’s Pole

Weekly Contest #215

Oscar sits in his barber’s chair, reading the Trentonian on his iPhone, cataloging the day's stories for the early rush. Oscar pays special attention to the stock charts and the upcoming highway projects. People love to talk about making money—and to complain about traffic. The bell rings and Michael walks in. He is a tall, well put together, trader type in his early thirties, wearing a crisp white button-down and expensive men’s Oxford shoes. Oscar yells, “Maria, Maria. Customer. Get in here—I need a wash.” Oscar packs the espresso filter...

25 likes 8 comments 8
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Garita Del Diablo

Weekly Contest #215

Methoughts I saw a thousand fearful wrecks; Ten thousand men that fishes gnaw’d upon; Wedges of gold, great anchors, heaps of pearl, Inestimable stones, unvalu’d jewels, All scatter’d in the bottom of the sea. Some lay in dead men’s skulls, and in the holes Where eyes did once inhibit, there were crept – As ‘twere in scorn of eyes – reflecting gems, That woo’d the slimy bottom of the deep, And mock’d the dead bones that lay scatter’d by. Richard III, Act 1 Scene 4 On San Clement’s Day, my lagoon front building project encounters an unexpec...

16 likes 2 comments 2
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The Grotesque

Weekly Contest #215

My scaly flesh is hard as stone. A natural armor. I have always had a tough exterior. But I fear I have reached the point where I will petrify completely and be arrested in an eternal prison of stone if I do not cast off my armor before it is too late. I feel my soul, like a firefly trapped in a jar, buzzing about, and smashing against my concrete ribs—encased in a dark stone prison. I feel my essence suffocating and gasping as I become solid. Evil words echo from the flying buttresses and stained glass. The dust of betrayal flies from men’...

20 likes 5 comments 5
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The Haunting at Barr Camp

When I wake up in the dead of the night, I hear a door slam shut in the lodge house. I shoot up in bed. My hair is damp with sweat. Floorboards creak. Or is it just the groaning of the lodge in the winter storm? Lights flicker in the foyer, then the bunkhouse. Could it just be a surge? I struggle to swallow and clench my jaw as I hear the hinge of a cabinet. I forget to breathe and hold my breath until my face grows warm. Maybe it is just my imagination. Then I hear the scrape of cans being pulled off the shelf and taken to the kitchen tab...

18 likes 18 comments 18
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A Train to Nowhere

Weekly Contest #214

Wednesday, July 3, 2002 The summer of 2002 started like this: an eighteen-year-old boy on a Kawasaki Ninja motorbike rocketed down 14th Avenue at about sixty miles an hour, popping a wheely, right as a girl with a white Jeep backed out into the middle of the intersection without looking. We were sitting on the porch at 14th and A in Belmar, NJ drinking SoCo & Limes on the rocks when it happened. When the motorcycle was suddenly stopped by the white Jeep, the boy riding it was not. We watched him sail through the air like a punted football...

17 likes 13 comments 13
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The Flying Fazzinis

Weekly Contest #214

“Don’t do this!! I’m begging you. It’s not too late!” The thing about a double homicide is that somebody has to die first, and whoever goes second is going to kill the buzz by begging pathetically for their life. Happens every time. The Ringmaster had recently contacted me about a special mission involving Bobby and Rene—and I felt a little inexperienced to be doing a double on my own—but after tonight I was feeling more comfortable with the assignment. Bobby nonchalantly put the silencer of his H&K USP 45 to the girl’s head and blew her b...

28 likes 10 comments 10
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Please Don’t Leave Me

Weekly Contest #214

Selena and I were dancing hand-in-hand and singing at the top of our lungs out on our porch at the Presidential Suite of the Playa Del Carmen Resort, just feet away from the Caribbean Sea. There was a bottle of champagne in tow and a heap of menthol cigarette butts littered by the landing. After exhausting Pat Benatar and Rihanna, we were up to Pink: “da-da-dot-da-da… please… please… don’t leave me…” and the palm trees were two-stepping while the ocean was drumming a steady syncopated beat. The sun was setting below the surf, and I thought...

28 likes 8 comments 8
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Captain Dave’s Folly

Weekly Contest #214

Stepping onto a gorgeous baby blue Eastbay 44 at the Liberty Landing Marina with “It’s 5 O’Clock Somewhere” by Jimmy Buffet playing, our spirits were high. The sun loomed large in a cloudless sky and shone like a new penny. The marina docks were full of boaters arriving, departing, tending their boats, and having cookouts on the dock—all telling one another what they were up to and well satisfied with their exploits. There was a slow and steady breeze over the Hudson River. It was a perfect August afternoon. As we boarded, Maria was complai...

22 likes 13 comments 13
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First Day Back

Weekly Contest #214

The rush of air smashed into John’s face as he balanced on the handlebars of the camp counselor’s bicycle, and with each bump on the hot asphalt, John’s bottom bounced into the air and lost contact with the thin handlebar that he clung to for dear life. Jim, the camp counselor, laughed. “Serves you right for not having a bike of your own—just one day of camp left—it isn’t too late to take a spill, weirdo.” John was looking forward to his first day of middle school the next day. It would be his first day at a new school, and his first day in...

25 likes 14 comments 14
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Fortune Teller

Weekly Contest #213

“I have to go.” Rachel sat there for a moment transfixed on her iPhone. Then, shot up explosively from their table with the white tablecloth stained by spilled red wine. Without a beat, she was on her phone. She barked furiously into the receiver. She held it in front of her mouth about six inches from her face. Her head jerked forward with punchy exclamations. She turned her back to him and walked out. Jacob was left sitting at his table in the River Palm Terrace in Edgewater, a half-finished filet on his plate and a single unfinished Ke...

16 likes 7 comments 7
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Invasion of the Garden Gnomes

Weekly Contest #213

“It’s an invasion,” Ryan James screamed, flicking on the deck lights in the backyard. There were hundreds of them. Thousands. Little porcelain gnomes no bigger than subway rats. Red and green caps. Beady black eyes. Fluffy white beards. Some with wheelbarrows, some with miniature flowerpots, some with small axes or shears. Dotting the lawn like a swarm of locusts. Ryan James cracked the sliding glass door and grabbed his Red Ryder wood grain BB gun and dropped to the floor in a prone position. A .174 ball bearing cracked the quiet suburban ...

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The “Hands-Off” Support Group

Weekly Contest #213

LALA’S FLESHY MEAT HOOKS were squishing my face, and I was assaulted by the high-pitched screech of her voice that hummed thunderous, the way we think of the Big Bang as loud. “You’re back MontyEEE! So glad to seeEEE you!” Lala’s special touch is forgetfulness, and it took a minute for me to anchor in on my name after her embrace, but nothing could make me forget that voice. Going around the church basement of the “Hands-Off” meeting, each night we met: This is Sammy; this is Herman; this is Hamilton, whose long stringy hair looks like drip...

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The Porcelain Village

Winner of Weekly Contest #213 🏆

My clay hands are becoming solid porcelain. I have always had potter’s hands. The throwing water absorbs the moisturizing oils of the skin. Leaves the hands rough. The clay paste dries and cracks the skin. Leaving it red. But now my hands are hardening. In the bisque firing, my hands harden like porous greenware. The cremated carbon and sulfur escape, exhuming my soul from the earthen clay, little by little, drawing it back to its source. The soul stews out in a boiling whistle, agitating out from between the minerals lodged in the ridges a...

145 likes 91 comments 91
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How Do I Make You Feel?

Weekly Contest #213

If I had not been struck in the head by a baseball during the Yankees game and got knocked clean out, none of this would have ever happened. I thought it ironic that there was an art display of jaguars in the lobby, because jaguars are solitary hunters who live alone in their own bounded territories. They blend into their surroundings. They prefer the cover of night. They are rulers of a little space. I feel nothing as I head into the MetLife Building to see the Human Resources Director. Walking through the revolving doors. No clammy hands...

32 likes 12 comments 12
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Oops, There Goes Another Rubber Tree Plant

Weekly Contest #212

“Next time you're found With your chin on the ground There’s a lot to be learned So look around Just what makes that little old ant Think he'll move that rubber tree plant Anyone knows an ant can't Move a rubber tree plant But he's got high hopes He's got high hopes He's got high apple pie In the sky hopes” --Frank Sinatra “When the sheep had all gone, the dragon had demanded that the people sacrifice a young maiden to him each day. Saint George found that all the young girls had now been killed and only the King of Egypt’s daug...

19 likes 15 comments 15
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