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KA James

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Jun, 2024

Stories (16)

Comments

Library

45 Followers

50 Following

16 Stories

494 karma pts

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Seeking Shelter from the Storm

KA James

Submitted to Contest #332

He had not crossed the invisible line marking the edge of the pack’s territory, so technically, he had not made the critical decision to disperse and strike out on his own. Not entirely yet. At just under two years old, the adolescent wolf was on the cusp of his full maturity. It was early September, and his natural instincts were telling him that along with summer’s waning, it was time to seek out his own territory and begin the search for a mate. Those same instincts though, were also cautioning him that the going could be hard, the huntin...

11 likes

The 'L' Word

KA James

Submitted to Contest #290

Mike sits on a stool in the middle of the stage, a beer on the floor, and thumps the microphone on the stand in front of him to both make sure it’s on and to get the attention of the not-too-meager Wednesday night crowd.Welcome, welcome ... To open mic night, here at Sandy’s Sandbar.Yes, my name is in fact Mike, and I realize that there is a very bad joke built in there, some might even call it a Dad joke, involving the next meeting of the amateur autopsy club. But believe me, there’ll be enough lame humor coming directly from my material wi...

9 likes

"The best way to predict the future is to create it" *

KA James

Submitted to Contest #285

Damn cellphones were going to be the death of me. The last five years had seen a steady decline in the number of people who stopped to use me. At first, it had been almost like a bad joke, until their reception started to improve. I remember when I first came out, I was billed as cutting-edge because I had push buttons instead of a rotary dial. Now, with their little handhelds, people don’t even have to get out of their cars. They sit there, or get out and lean on the side, mocking me.But that fateful day when history was changed (maybe), it...

16 likes

A Noble Death

KA James

Submitted to Contest #281

The end has got to be close now. My end … the end of a life. I still had hope not that long ago, but beaten down, tortured, abused and humiliated, not anymore. I lie here in the dark and can only wonder what I have done to deserve this cruelty, and wonder what comes next. This makeshift graveyard is so cold. By the few dim lights, I can see the hundreds, maybe thousands of others, just like me. More are brought and dumped here every day. We cling to life with whatever little bits of energy we have left.Three, maybe four weeks ago, I’ve lost ...

15 likes

Peace & Quiet

KA James

Submitted to Contest #279

Journal Entry 1 – Where is Everybody?I could start off by simply stating the obvious. I am currently thoroughly confused.Everyone besides me seems to have disappeared. It has been days since I have seen another living soul, just how many days, I am not sure. My concept of time seems to have been altered, although I have no idea how that could be done. My surroundings are familiar, yet so many things seem strange to me now. My emotional responses don’t seem to always be appropriate. I try to examine one odd feeling, and another manages to com...

15 likes

Caroline, I Think

KA James

Submitted to Contest #276

My sister-in-law got a conversation starter card game from a Secret Santa gift exchange at work, and it seemed that the family was going to have to suffer the consequences.It was the holiday season a few Christmases ago. OK, quite a few years back. Since the family was all mostly gathered in town already, we were having a pre-Christmas get together at my brother’s house. All the kids were in bed, or at least upstairs, and the adults were sitting up just drinking and bullshitting, when sister-in-law Debbie pulled out her new game.Skipping ahe...

18 likes

Said the Spider to the Fly

KA James

Submitted to Contest #274

Their introduction was a meet-cute, kind of, at a Halloween party.Will Travers, invited by a friend from his accounting firm job, had decided to go at the last minute. Halloween parties weren’t really his thing, but he didn’t have any better plans, so he had stopped at the local drugstore, bought a cheap kids makeup kit, and thrown together a passable Dracula costume.His first sight of her, from the back, had come when his friend and host Benny had pointed her out, standing behind him.“Now that’s what I call a sexy spider.”“There is absolute...

20 likes

Bad Reflections

KA James

Submitted to Contest #272

I am not a well person. That isn’t easy to admit, even though I understand that it is important to acknowledge that as fact. I am convinced that it all started the night of the storm.After the lightning strike and subsequent power surge from the night before, both washing machines at my apartment complex were on the fritz. It was a minor miracle that we had lost power for only a few minutes. And thank God my expensive surge suppressors did their job. As a combined freelance writer / web designer, I rely heavily on my computers for my livelih...

33 likes

The Timeclock Punchers

KA James

Submitted to Contest #271

Their chance encounter happened, appropriately enough, in front of a clock, a rather famous timepiece rather than an old-fashioned timeclock with punch cards like the one that they used to meet in front of every morning.Ralph had been orbiting the information counter, checking the departure screens as well as admiring Grand Central Station’s brass and opal masterpiece clock, when he caught the shock of red hair passing by, peeking out from under a hat. His eyes did a double-take as he saw his old work companion lumber past, but his mouth did...

22 likes

Cold Roasted Dragon Heart

KA James

Submitted to Contest #270

You have just slayed the fire breathing behemoth, the ageless and fearsome dragon that has terrorized the countryside for decades, if not centuries. And while the villagers were initially grateful beyond measure, they have since grown somewhat petulant concerning the huge, pungent pile of rotting dragon flesh that still lies half submerged on the banks of the Crystalline Coast. No one ever worries about what to do with such a carcass when their more immediate concern is if their home will be torched from the skies at any moment. But give it ...

16 likes

Careful what you wish for II or The Perfect Cup

KA James

Submitted to Contest #269

OK, I’ll just cut right to the chase. I found a magic glass ball buried at the beach. I was out with my metal detector, a new hobby designed to get me out of my apartment more, looking for any old junk that might have washed up when I found it. But this story isn’t about the finding, it’s about the what happened after I found it and cracked it open. Now you may sort of recognize me. I recently had a bad experience…well, mostly bad…where I was dabbling in some weird ancient mystical crap that I had found online. I had been searching for insp...

17 likes

careful what You wish for

KA James

Submitted to Contest #266

You, yes you, the supposed writer, illustrious creator of thrilling adventures as well as chronicler of romantic dalliances, equally capable at short story or novel length, you who are the magnanimous master of intrigue and the veritable reincarnated Vonnegut of satire; or perhaps, are you the imposter extraordinaire, lucky if you can manage to string two coherent sentences together, create a believable character who, when they speak, doesn’t sound like their dialogue came straight out of a ‘60’s TV melodrama, or even pen a decent adjec...

23 likes

The Crafting of a Prophet

KA James

Submitted to Contest #264

The rains came often enough in the spring, always in mid-afternoon, but lasted not long enough and were usually too violent to be of any real benefit. Full of wind, lightning and loud with booming thunder, the brief but torrential downpours often managed to wash away soil more than provide any real saturation to the fields. The blistering sun always followed the storm, drying and cracking the now muddy top layer of claylike earth.The village had been in slow decline now for years, weather patterns changing as is their ilk. The previous winte...

11 likes

Luxuriating in the Cool Dark Night

KA James

Submitted to Contest #262

Midsummer, and we’ve left the longest day behind, the dreaded solstice interminable, but still we must contend with day after day of the warmth. Twilight, the heat lingers well past the setting of the sun, radiating leisurely back to the ether from those objects, from the very land itself, that sat baked in light in the hours from dawn ‘til dusk. Even the clouds, when present, cannot completely repel the illumination and thermal rise of the daytime. On this evening, not a puff of a breeze as the daylight succumbs, the air stagnant, providing...

11 likes

A New Friend?

KA James

Submitted to Contest #260

Claudia and her mother and father lived in an old house, in a normal neighborhood, on a nondescript street, Meadowburne Lane to be exact, in a small midwestern town so ordinary that most people driving through immediately forget the name of it before they have passed the town limit sign on the way out. At least, that’s the way it had been on Meadowburne Lane before the accident. Since then, life on the lane has occasionally become a little less mundane.Claudia and her mother both remember the night of the accident well. They remember it, but...

10 likes

Author bio

KA James (my friends call me Jimmy), I am a near retirement age chemical engineer, living in the PNW. Writing has been a hobby of sorts, an escape as well, and possibly even a kind of self-therapy for many years now, but mostly just for my family. I started with sci-fi, YA style that my kids would like. Somewhere along the line I switched to primarily horror stories though. The kids are older, and they seem to enjoy them as well. My spouse claims I get a little too gruesome at times, that I need to write a story once in awhile where nobody dies.
The few half-serious attempts at sharing my work over the years have essentially lead nowhere, and that was always fine and mostly expected. Here's hoping that, along with a good deal of effort and constructive feedback (always welcome), my fortunes improve. If not, I'm still having a good time doing this.