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Jonathan Page

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Jul, 2023

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131 Stories

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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...

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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 h...

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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...

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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 ...

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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 daughter was le...

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Love Beyond the Envelope: Strangers on the Spooky Trolley

Weekly Contest #212

“It’s funny how we become the way others perceive us.It starts with families, goes into school, social media, everywhere.No wonder everyone’s on antianxiety meds and desperate to be happy.We don’t know who we are anymore.”--Jennifer Probst, Love on Beach Avenue***You can be grooving along in the same old groove, like a broken stylus on a turntable that repeats the same song in a loop, when suddenly something shakes things up—and without warning the music stops. Daniel Marimu had been in his groove. Grooving. New job as a buddi...

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Beyond the Boulder: Mythic Letters of Sisyphus and Atlas

Weekly Contest #212

Dear Atlas,Greetings, my celestial friend!Another day, another uphill journey. I’m eager to get down to business! The boulder gets heavier, but I'm certain "today will be the day."Lunch was a feast of wild pomegranates and roasted lamb.Pythagoras swung by, talking angles and approaches.Remember, persistence conquers all!With optimism,Sisyphus* * *Sisyphus,Your optimism, it befuddles me.I bear ze weight of ze vorld on my shoulders.Ze vorld casts a shadow, leavin' me alone in darkness.Today, perhaps, is ze day I let it slip.It has al...

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Base A: The Post Office at the End of the World

Weekly Contest #212

The icy waters crackle as the cruise ship enters the harbor off the notched and ragged coast of Port Lockroy. There is a hectic roo, roo, roo from the calling Gentoo penguins, and there is a fussy cow, cow, cow from the snowy sheathbills as they tap the windows of the Post Office. It is ironic that we are located out on the polar shelf—literally set apart from the whole world, and yet, the world comes to us daily. I rise from my bunk drenched in sweat. My veins ache as if tensed by electric current. My head is burnin...

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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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