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Jonathan Page

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Jul, 2023

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123 Stories

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The Christmas Truce: Letters from the Western Front

Weekly Contest #212

The Christmas Truce[Christmas Truce of 1914 (World War I)]“The thing started last night – a bitter cold night, with white frost – soon after dusk when the Germans started shouting 'Merry Christmas, Englishmen' to us. Of course our fellows shouted back and presently large numbers of both sides had left their trenches, unarmed, and met in the debatable, shot-riddled, no man's land between the lines. Here the agreement – all on their own – came to be made that we should not fire at each other until after midnight tonight. The men were all frate...

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The Best Way to Not Be Loved Back

Weekly Contest #211

“Yet but three come one more. Two of both kinds make up four. Ere she comes curst and sad. Cupid is a knavish lad. Thus to make poor females mad.” --A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Shakespeare * * * Marissa was a girl who loved a boy who didn’t love her back. At twenty-four she had already found five different ways to not be loved back. Of course, there was one way she liked the best. That was the way she loved Brian Murphy. These were Marissa’s methods, in the order she stumbled on them, and in the order she used them on Brian. ...

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Cupid’s Arrow

Weekly Contest #211

I sit beside the fire and think of all that I have seen,of meadow-flowers and butterflies in summers that have been;Of yellow leaves and gossamer in autumns that there were,with morning mist and silver sun and wind upon my hair.I sit beside the fire and think of how the world will bewhen winter comes without a spring that I shall ever see.-- J.R.R. TolkienThis Maide was sole ador'd, Venus displeas'd,Might in this Virgin onely be appeas'd:The people in the street to her would bow,And as she past along, would Garlands strow.Venus at this conce...

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First Duck

Weekly Contest #211

Well, what ah want y'all to know is that ah was the youngest runner in that there race. The next youngest? Well, they were a whoppin eight years old, which is more than four times mah age. Ah know, ah know, ah might be a bit of a prodigy, if ya catch mah drift.They are a strange looking lot. Some have thin tapered ankles comin’ outa there sneaks like a flagpole. Others have thick plump ones, meaty and round, which is the kind Fredi had. I'll own up to it, I've got a little thing for them feet, but don't go passin' judgment.Ah ...

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The Bryant Library at Roslyn Harbor

Weekly Contest #211

'Twas in that season of the year,When all things gay and sweet appear,That Colin, with the morning ray,Arose and sung his rural lay.Of Nannie's charms the shepherd sung:The hills and dales with Nannie rung:While Roslin Castle heard the swain,And echoed back his cheerful strain.--Roslyn’s Castle, 1776 (Scot’s Tunes)"We the undersigned, inhabitants of Hempstead Harbor, Queens County, Long Island, State of New York, finding a serious inconvenience in our village, particularly in our Post Office arrangements, from the similarity of names… do the...

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The Album of Eventual Memories

Weekly Contest #211

As a reporter, what you call a coincidence, I recognize as an anonymous tip in want of a headline, and the persistent appearance of the eighty-something bohemian-looking Madame Lieberman in the background of all of the photos for my most groundbreaking stories of the last year demanded an explanation. Covering the news can be a bit like chasing after the wind, there’s just so much of it that it can be a real chore to distinguish the choice gusts from the beastly drafts, and when you do happen upon a first-rate breeze it’s absolute murde...

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Missive in a Photograph

Weekly Contest #210

Brendan was laying on the couch with his son Brady, relaxing. Brady turned to his father with mischief sparkling in his eyes. "Smell my finger," he giggled mischievously. Brendan obliged without suspecting what lay ahead. As he took a whiff, an unpleasant odor invaded his senses. "It smells like poop!" he exclaimed in disgust. Brady burst into laughter before confessing that he had placed his finger in his bottom - an act that would make any parent cringe at its grossness. Brendan scolded him gently and asked where he had learned ...

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The Wounded Healer

Weekly Contest #210

“We read to know we are not alone.” – C.S. LewisWe are not alone. The night nurse is standing in the doorway. Benjie is a kind, black man from the Caribbean, who listens patiently, oh so patiently.  Ralph moans in real pain, but the moan is also for effect. It gets worse at night. “Can I have a piece of pizza or some cake,” Ralph asks.“Nuh-na. Yuh are on duh sof’ diet,” Benjie tells him.“Please, please. I’m starving. Maybe a piece of toast and some chocolate pudding?”“Mi could fetch yuh some pud'n...

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The Enchantress of Numbers: Lady Lovelace’s Objection

Weekly Contest #210

“Ada: Forget this world and all its troublesand if possible its multitudinous Charlatans—every thing in short but the Enchantress ofNumbers, my dear and much admiredinterpreter.”– Charles Babbage to Ada LovelaceAlone in my study, I crank the gears of my prototype ‘thinking machine’ for the first time. There is only one question I need answered. Will it succeed? Will I have my answer? The grinding gears go: clang, chang, ching. And the rotating symbols turn—a wheel covered in a carousel of numbers—put in motion by not...

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The Pale Goddess of Our Dreams

Weekly Contest #210

NEW YORK, NY: From the beginning we thought we knew the script by heart. The cryptic clandestine warning given only to those in our highest government ranks. Ominous alien ships casting shadows on city streets from above and attracting throngs of mesmerized pedestrian onlookers, exiting cafes and office buildings. The ships showing instant aggression, releasing smaller pods, which waste no time vaporizing an innocent onlooker. Shrill screams ring out: “Aaaahhhhh!!” Someone points to the ship and yells, “Run!” Ca...

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Letters to a Dying World

Weekly Contest #210

"You loved the herdsman, shepherd and chief shepherdWho was always heaping up the glowing ashes for you,And cooked ewe-lambs for you every day.But you hit him and turned him into a wolf,His own herd-boys hunt him downAnd his dogs tear at his haunches."--"Gilgamesh VI" in Myths from Mesopotamia byStephanie Dalley.A mysterious book appeared on the shelves of every bookstore the world over, translated into every language. Its title hinted at our deepest fears: “Letters to a Dying World.” The author, Actaeon, claimed to be an extraterr...

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May It Please the Court

Weekly Contest #209

When I had picked up the eighty-eight-year-old judge at his townhouse in Marlton, I had assumed that I was driving. I had been wrong. I had also thought we were headed to a Trial Lawyer’s Conference for the New Jersey Association of Justice. Wrong there too. The problem was, I had strict orders from Judge Stein to get his former mentor to the conference on time, and I had promised Judge Redmond’s wife, who literally made me swear on a Bible, that I wouldn’t let the old man drive.It had started in the garage.“So you’ll be ...

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Baptism at the Mission San Luis Rey

Weekly Contest #209

Stefan knew he would make his cousin’s wedding the following morning, despite the pilot’s announcement over the PA system that the flight had entered a holding pattern to avoid the storm. Things always tended to work themselves out for the best. The man seated next to him didn’t take the news so well. Uggghhh, he sighed, and then grunted for good measure—Humph.  A rumble of turbulence jostled their seats. A young stewardess in her twenties was knocked forward a full seat length. Affrighted, she yelped as she r...

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Showdown at the Silver Dollar Saloon

Weekly Contest #209

I had killed once before, so I figured I was already damned—and I’d do what I had to do if it came right down to it. The sirens of the Sheriff’s dark gray Ford F-150 blared and lit up the hollowed-out canyons of the Climax Molybdenum Mine with red and blue bursts. The high country echoed with the whir of the siren. I’d just about navigated the roundabout of 91-S, but I wasn’t going to make it back to Leadville after all, from the look of things.  I stiffened up in my seat and took a few deep breaths. This could be ju...

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Little Green Men

Weekly Contest #209

No one ever believed us about alien night, but they always wanted to hear the story. I’ve told the story so many times now over so many years, that sometimes I wonder myself. But I always call Luke and he confirms it. We were both there. It happened. Just as I remember. It all happened just in the order that I had always told it: the ghostly fog on a clear night. Then the bright pulsing neon lights—green, then blue, then yellow, then red, and finally green again, a deep, penetrating neon green—filling the sky,...

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