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Jonathan Page

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Jul, 2023

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131 Stories

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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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The All-Consuming Fire

Weekly Contest #209

Here is what I want to tell you: on a cold winter’s morning in Ford Lakes, I saw something so strange, that I could never tell another living soul. And I never have. Until now. But I think you need to know—the whole thing—I think it’s important. If this story is to be a book that contains the net of all my deeds, you’ll want to know the history of my condition. I know, I know. Only fools search out danger and go in for lost causes. My mother always said that. And she said it to you too, not just me.&nb...

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Isle of the Pink Lotus

Weekly Contest #208

The Artic cyclone howled with the unquenchable contempt of a wrathful Viking god—a sentry at the gates of Eden! I could have never known that just past the gale was an island Shangri-la so beautiful, that if it were possible, it could draw envy from the City of God! As I steered around the eye of the storm, I took no thought of turning back—the success of the mission was everything.The murderous storm heaved the sea upward and upward into a rising mountain of icy breakers that pulled on the creaking frame of our ship as if an angry...

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The Cowardly Simon

Weekly Contest #208

The Sunday I first met the author I had my heart set on finding a Cowardly Lion. Sandy had her heart set on a Barbie “The Movie” Doll instead. On Sundays, after church, Sandy and I would run down to the Big Toy Store. But, this Sunday, Sandy kissed me on the lips. And this was where all the trouble started.I was cast in the role of the Cowardly Lion in Mrs. Anderson’s school play based on The Wizard of Oz. After that incident at rehearsal where I froze up and forgot my lines, all I wanted to do was be courageous and not m...

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