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Frances Goulart

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Jul, 2024

Stories (47)

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22 Followers

3 Following

47 Stories

647 karma pts

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GETTING TO EMPTY

Frances Goulart

GETTING TO EMPTY Maybe eating spinach worked for Popeye, but I am a 10-year-old American boy, I am no sailor, and I hate spinach. And pretty much anything else that looks or tastes like spinach! So this is why it’s there is real kitchen combat every night in our house. If I don’t “clean my plate”, my mother says, I can’t have dessert. And there won’t be any screen time for me (no phone, no iPad, no TV) either. “A growing boy like you, Timmy, needs a good diet to be healthy," she says.” A good plant-based diet.” Plant-based just makes me...

0 likes

MIDNIGHT CALLERS

Frances Goulart

Submitted to Contest #332

MIDNIGHT CALLERS Knock knock knock! Now, who or what could be knocking at the door at this late hour?It was still cold, although the snowstorm had largely swirled to a stop, and just a flurry of snowflakes were drifting lazily past the big front window. Jezebel looked up at the clock. It was nearly midnight. The small paw was pointing to one, and the big paw was pointing to 12. That’s how Jezebel knew how inexcusably late it was to be knocking on anyone’s door. And who, or what, would be knocking at their door in the middle of winter? In...

4 likes

HELLO I MUST BE GOING

Frances Goulart

Dear Janys: I am writing you this letter, Janys with a Y (if that’s your real name), in the form of an old-fashioned snail mail, actually typed on an old-fashioned Royal typewriter (rescued from the attic), because doing it this way makes me, Scott, feel more in touch with reality. Reality, as I understand it, where people who care about each other (unlike people named Janys) don’t tell lies, lots and lots of lies, a dizzying amount of bald-faced falsehoods!. It is time to say goodbye to you, Janys, even though, from your point of view (wh...

1 like

DAPHNE

Frances Goulart

Submitted to Contest #329

DAPHNE It isn't often that you find yourself having a conversation with a tree. Especially a moderately tall laurel tree. But today that is just what I was having right there in the middle of the Sawtooth Botanical Garden in Ketchum, Idaho. On, of all days, Arbor Day in late April! Late afternoon shadows were beginning to gather, and I had skipped lunch because a staff meeting had dragged on at the university, and I needed some fresh air. But how could I even consider heading for home? Dinner could wait. It was Arbor Day, and here I was (ho...

6 likes

YOU CAN CALL ME KITTY

Frances Goulart

YOU CAN CALL ME KITTY “Up there. Way up there. Look, Mr. Kendall!”“Where are you pointing, miss? To the top branches? Anything is practically invisible at this time of night. And have you just been to a funeral, if you don’t mind my asking? All dressed in black like you are.”“ Pay attention. Yes, of course, I’m pointing to the top branches. Don’t you see them moving? There’s something up there. Something that wants to get down.”“Miss, it’s nearly midnight, there’s barely any moonlight to see by. My shift is almost over, and if it’s not a r...

1 like

ORCHID OVERBOARD

Frances Goulart

Submitted to Contest #325

“Ollie? Olivia? Ozzie”. The young girl in the striped sailor suit stared at the beach towel in her hands with the big embroidered” O” in the corner. . What did the “O” stand for? For her name? What was her name? There was a cool ocean breeze brushing her cheek. Her cheek felt hot and her head felt heavy. Where was she? And would it help if she knew? She needed help. Where to begin? How to save herself? She looked down at the beach towel again, where the big “O“ was embroidered. Next to it, was stitched an elegant purple orchid. That must...

10 likes

THE DIG

Frances Goulart

“Edwin Adams, whatever are you doing out here? It’s midnight. It’s near freezing. I had to wake up the cat and put my heavy winter socks on to come out here. What in the world? Have you gone mad? Why are you digging a large hole in the backyard?”“What business is it of yours what I’m doing out here, at midnight, noon, or any other time of the day? Mind your own business, Sylvia Meisner. I don’t have to explain my every move to you. And watch it. That’s my jacket and my tools you’re about to step on.”“Edwin, it’s pitch dark. Do you have insom...

1 like

FAMILY SECRETS

Frances Goulart

Submitted to Contest #321

FAMILY SECRET “Don’t rush me, Damien. Give me a minute... Just finish your soup. How is it ? “It should be the bomb. It’s New Orleans Chicken Creole.” “ The soup sucks, Steve. Too spicy, and where’s the chicken? And don’t change the subject. I don’t understand why you can’t just come out with it. Give me a clue while you’re warming up to it. Do you realize we haven’t seen each other in 3 years? What an example of brotherly love, huh?” “Yeah, imagine three long brother-free years. But let's not shit each other. It was three long year...

5 likes

GORKY OF THE WILD WILD WOODS

Frances Goulart

Title: GORKY OF THE WILD WILD WOODS You think you know everything! You also think you've seen everything if you are one of those two-legged two-armed humans. But you are wrong! For instance, you probably don’t have a single friend who is a ladybug (you can call me a ladybird if you like, many people do, who don’t like bugs generally speaking). And you certainly don’t know one with nine spots on her back, and definitely not one named “Gorky”! Yes, yes, why, you ask, brag about having a human boy’s name, a Russian word that means “bitter"?...

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AUSTIN K. BROWN, NO SECOND BANANA

Frances Goulart

Submitted to Contest #318

AUSTIN K. BROWN, NO SECOND BANANA “You there in the third row. Yes, you, the tall dude with the fro….. Yes, you, son. Come on up here, come on, make it snappy. Time waits for no man, especially in the acting game. You want to be in show business or what?” Or what is right. That’s the way it started. Or I should say continued. My brilliant career as an actor. An actor on the stage. In the theater. In the movies. That’s what I wanted. But this was only community theater, and it was beginning to feel like a go-nowhere trudge. I was beginning ...

10 likes

THE DOPPELGANGER DILEMMA

Frances Goulart

Submitted to Contest #317

THE DOPPELGANGER DILEMMA “IT’S Elizabeth, isn’t it? ? Or was it Liza? You were one of the Kellogg twins, weren’t you? You and Stephen. From Pittsburgh, in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood? ““Pittsburgh? Elizabeth? Stephen? Nope sorry, wrong on all three counts! My name is Madeleine Mallory. I’m from Portland, Maine. And I am neither a twin nor a sister to anyone named Stephen. Actually I was an only child. And I have never been to Pittsburgh. Why do you ask?”“My apologies , Madeleine, I hope this didn’t raise your stranger danger hackle...

8 likes

ALL ABOUT SARAH

Frances Goulart

Submitted to Contest #316

ALL ABOUT SARAH -9,876,543,210,987.65432 ...That is the crazy likelihood, I have figured out, that I, a male human, can find love with a non- human female. Yes, I know that numerical improbability backwards and forwards. Without using one of your fancy calculators. I can see that answer in my head but I don’t accept it. I reject it. Smart people (numerologically smart people) tell me all the time that I am super smart. Well, I am a mathematician. A professor of Applied Mathematics. I am smart with numbers—metric spaces, conic sections...

2 likes

THANK YOU, WALPOLE

Frances Goulart

Submitted to Contest #314

THANK YOU, WALPOLE I am not a man, although I have a broad chest and manly shoulders. I am not a woman, although I have soft lustrous brown hair. I am not a little boy or girl (although I am only two feet tall).I am a dog. And not any dog. I am an English Springer Spaniel. A Springer Spaniel with special skills! I was born talking ….not barking. Don’t laugh. This is no joke. Especially for me. Life as a dog who can talk is not easy, even if he (or she) still can (or will) sit, speak and fetch. Some of my kind might even sit and beg, for go...

2 likes

Revenge has a Ring to it

Frances Goulart

Submitted to Contest #313

REVENGE HAS A RING TO IT “This is the restaurant I was telling you about. The food is good, but the Oceanside view is killer, Am I right?”“It’s fine, Davey. A diner would have been fine, too.” “Ed, come on, let’s chill. I wish it hadn’t come to this. I mean, the reason that we’re here.”“It didn’t have to come to this, Davie. And don’t talk like you’re the injured party. It doesn’t suit you. ““Ed, it’s not worth this much bad blood. It’s not like this get-together is another deal breaker. ““Hey, you’re the attorney here, but it seems to me ...

2 likes

THE SMALL TO TALL CURSE

Frances Goulart

Submitted to Contest #311

7/18 THE SMALL OR TALL CURSEMe, my name is Miggs. I am a little person, a little little person. Most of the time. What do I mean by most of the time? I mean on Monday through Friday I am only 2 feet tall, but on the weekend, I am 7’2” through no fault of my own. Thanks to (or rather no thanks to) the whim of Exos. Exos is a black-hearted sorcerer.I was born in a tiny village and put under a curse by Exos who was no little person himself but very small indeed in terms of character. Exos loved practical jokes. The more senseless and cr...

4 likes