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Kathleen March

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Jan, 2020

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Birds (No Time, part 11)

He had sensed a profound darkness in her, but could not figure out what type of darkness it was. He also did not know what he should do with this discovery. He wanted to help, but didn’t know how nor if he should. An image came to mind: the Phoenix. The Phoenix led him to the Simorgh, which he’d read about in a story. Of course he had the volume Thirty Birds. It was only a facsimile, but it served the purpose. Attar of Nishapur, who was Sufi, had published the poem in 1177. He thought perhaps the story of the birds’ journey might help her, ...

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Darkness (No time, part 10)

It’s always darkest before the dawn. She thought about the phrase, not knowing it might have been coined by clergyman Thomas Fuller mid-seventeenth century, in his 1650 book A Pisgah-Sight of Palestine and the Confines Thereof. That wasn’t unusual, since almost nobody knew about that book. It might also have come from an Irish folk saying, the darkest hour of all is the hour before day. What she did know was that it was a very dark evening that surrounded her as she walked back to her place after the long discussion with him had led her to t...

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The Lock (No time, part 9)

Haunted: Collaborative International Dictionary of English says this is an adjective meaning (1) Inhabited by, or subject to the visits of, apparitions; frequented by a ghost. (2) a location, frequented by a ghost or ghosts. (3) Obsessed (by an idea, threat, etc.). Another source defines the adjective as referencing a place or person frequented by ghosts, or having experienced unsettling memories. Yet another source includes the feeling of Nostalgia and the act of Reflection. It continues: On the emotional spectrum, "haunted" can imply a ...

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We’re not alone now (No Time, part 8)

I think we're alone now There doesn't seem to be anyone around I think we're alone now The beating of our hearts is the only sound Look at the way We gotta hide what we're doin' 'Cause what would they say If they ever knew - Tommy James and the Shondells, 1967 You could whisper down a well. You could write a letter and keep it in a drawer. You could inscribe a curse on a ribbon of lead and bury it in the ground to lie unread for thousands of years. The point is not to find a reader, the point is the telling itself. Anne Carson She and h...

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Not Right (No Time, part 7)

“Something’s not right,” she said, or rather thought. She was very nervous about feeling that way. She had left in a hurry, hoping he wouldn’t notice how upset she had been. With herself, not with him. For being too curious and disrespectful of his home. She was only supposed to be taking care of the cat, not poking into dusty corners. “Something’s not right,” he thought. He was concerned, worried that something was wrong. The look on her face as she was leaving was a troubled one. What had happened while he was gone? She was uncomfortable,...

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The Cat (No Time, part 6)

He was going away for three days. Could she come and stay with his cat, Sonnet? She’d be happy to. She had nothing else planned. She arrived early. He was in a hurry to get on the road. He had a meeting of some sort, although he hadn’t provided any details about what kind of gathering it was. He wasn’t one to do that. Not that he had anything to hide; he just wasn’t talkative, especially about personal matters. She was left with all his books and the cat. Sonnet was a lovely Maine coon, mixed colors, and it wasn’t clear if the cat was male...

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The Lie (Part 5, No Time)

“In order to escape accountability for his crimes, the perpetrator does everything in his power to promote forgetting. If secrecy fails, the perpetrator attacks the credibility of his victim. If he cannot silence her absolutely, he tries to make sure no one listens.”― Judith Lewis Herman, Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence - From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror She had been hoping to prepare herself for what she was going to do, because there was no way around it. Maybe if she read a couple of things that addressed her situat...

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Darkness my friend (Part 4, No Time)

She couldn’t sleep, was tossing and turning constantly before her brain declared itself fully awake. As she began to swam out of her daze, she became aware of a song that insisted on occupying her thoughts. It had always been one of her favorites, even years after it first appeared in 1964. It persisted, glued to a scrapbook in her mind, urging her toward emotions that had changed somewhat (some) or maybe had not changed at all. The emotions were shifting now that she’d begun to think about her motives for physical activity, sports of almos...

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No Time, part 3

Bzzzbzzzbzzzzz. O abellón. O avellón. O abe… She was drifting off to sleep, having said what had needed to be said for years. She could return to her years of silence. Unfortunately, the darkness that surrounded her refused to remain silent. A soft, infinitesmal buzzing appeared at the edges of her consciousness and could not be blocked by a swat from the hand. She thought there were no bees this time of the year, so the bzzbzzbzzz must be coming from a different source. But what source? All she could see at that ungodly hour was air the co...

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No Time (part 2)

Author’s Note: I’ve decided to place her and him (or She and He, which are their real names) from “No Time” - my previous story - in an abandoned school. Don’t ask me why. I guess I’m hoping they might learn something there, even though the building is quite strange and even though there’s no learning going on there anymore. No teachers, no chalk (chalk? ), no posters on the walls, not even cast-off notebooks. There is only a large collection of dusty desks for both students and teachers, plus a few water fountains that are now encrusted wit...

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No time

“We don't have time for this” She blurted it out while she pulled herself into a position that would allow a straight shot to the front door. There was an explanation: “We’ve got to get to the gym.” There had been other explanations in the past: “I want to go kayaking.” “We need to climb Mount Katahdin.” “I want to try ice climbing.” Some things she actually did, but others were simply wishful thinking. There was a pattern to her behavior. She always had to rush to an activity, a lesson, sometimes even a competition. She had to keep m...

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I say hello

It has occurred to me to undertake a project: Write a story in which grief shows itself in an unexpected way, or becomes a tangible object. It was grief I was describing in a story I wrote just before this one, “You say goodbye…” I hadn’t expected to call what I was feeling at the loss grief, because nobody had died. Not literally, anyway, although my oft-mentioned writer Rosalía de Castro referred to the viudas de vivos, widows of the living in her poetry. Women left behind to tend to fields and home while loved ones embarked for the unkn...

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You say goodbye, I say hello

Start or end your story with a character letting go of something, or deciding to keep it. The book I was using to encourage myself to write suggested this prompt, and I began to cry, convulsively. It was a mystery. Out of the blue tears came, my shoulders sagged and shook, and I broke into many sharp pieces. My reaction mystified me, but then, suddenly, I understood: the pain I was experiencing lay, not in having to choose between keeping something or letting go of it, but rather in the stark realization that I could not choose one of these...

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Moura

Today I got to thinking about the Peruvian writer José María Arguedas again, and remembered his words: “con toda honestidad, no puedo creer que un río no sea un hombre tan vivo como yo mismo". In his novel Ríos profundos [Deep Rivers], the main character, Ernesto, a boy of fourteen, must leave a place in the sierra and must go to a tree to bid farewell. The scene is heart wrenching and the reader knows the white boy has an indigenous mind, his language and world are Quechua. I found a quote somewhere that says: “the árbol (tree) functions as...

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Threshold

Prospective Immigrants Please Note Either you will go through this door or you will not go through. If you go through there is always the risk of remembering your name. Things look at you doubly and you must look back and let them happen. If you do not go through it is possible to live worthily to maintain your attitudes to hold your position to die bravely but much will blind you, much will evade you, at what cost who knows? The door itself makes no promises. It is only a door. ~ Adrienne Rich I have long been a reader of Rich’s wor...

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