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Kathleen March

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Jan, 2020

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150 Stories

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Turn, turn, turn

She appeared out of nowhere, saying nothing at first, but then made gestures for me to come closer. I wasn’t afraid, although perhaps I should have been. She didn’t resemble anyone I’d ever seen before, however, so it was hard to tell if she was a fairy godmother (a character only for children), a genie, a leprechaun (highly unlikely because I’m not Irish, plus I don’t believe in them), or a moura. A moura is a being from Galician mythology and might very well exist, so I think the figure that stood before me is likely to be a moura, whose i...

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Means to an End

Dear Diary,No, that sounds stupid, sounds like something a kid would write, and by kid I mean somebody immature, childish. So no. No Dear Diary. No diary of any sort. Besides, journal sounds so much more elegant; it’s a word with potential. Children don’t keep journals; adults do. I’m an adult, but you don’t need to know how adult I am. I mean, my age doesn’t matter. I don’t need legal consent to speak Or write).Because I am an adult, and thus am very mature, I have set myself a challenge. It’s an idea I ran into while reading a magazine in ...

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Believe

My name is Cassandra I’ve got a friend - let’s call her - Olivia - who’s quite interesting. She reads a lot, always has, and her imagination has led her to pursue more than one pathway, which is a nice way to put it. One of those pathways has been stories and writing, so I don’t know what to think in this case. She won’t tell me if it’s a true story or not, says it’s my job as her friend and critic to figure it out. That’s why I decided to see what you think. The following story is told from Olivia’s point of view, not mine. Not mine at al...

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Fluttering

Hope is the thing with feathers… ~ Emily Dickinson No, it’s not, I want badly to scream back, because the thing, the poem, keeps flitting through my mind when I need to concentrate. No, it’s not, I repeated. Maybe to myself. Maybe to someone else.  It’s invisible. Or nothing. Or lost. (Like me?)  I can tell I am getting anxious, because anxiety is a feeling I know well. It’s like there are two of me, on opposite sides of an issue. Unable to agree. Positive and negative. Black and white. Yes and no. Some have c...

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Plaid or Tartan?

The woman was of indeterminate age, and from a few feet away she could have been anywhere from thirty to eighty. As impossible as that might sound, it was true. There was nothing about her that would have classified her as anything but ageless; not the color of her hair, her clothing, the weight or shape of her body. And before this sounds impossible, I can tell you it is not. A woman dressed in jeans and a handmade cardigan, wearing sport shoes and a floppy hat is a cross-generational thing. At least it is in Maine, where I’ve lived for a n...

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The Battle of the Ebro

If you don’t think about it carefully, my worst Christmas might not seem all that bad. If you do, on the other hand, give my story some thought, you’ll realize that it’s a horrible one. You might even wonder how I survived it, although it wasn’t quite that horrible and maybe I’ve just exaggerated a little bit. Yes, just a little. Maybe. The real horror is the fact that I can’t forget that Christmas and relive it far too often, and what was originally there, the ones who were there, are a full-blown nightmare. Reality pales in the wake of a...

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Heart-Shaped Peppers

So much has been written about food, and in another life I’m sure I was, or could be, making a living through food. I could have been a photographer of exotic markets with exotic fragrances and myriad colors, where you could taste the air. Maybe the next time around. I left part of my heart in a little place called San-Antonin-Noble-Val in the Tarn-et-Garonne department in Occitanie. Even the British ex-pats in that town didn’t ruin my photographs. Maybe the next time I could be a travel writer who focuses on food. Not just fine dining, be...

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Rambling Snows

The first snow of the season always surprises me, although because I live in the north, the snow always arrives, sooner or later. It’s different if it comes in the early morning than if it comes at night. At night, the flakes give the impression that they are concentrating very hard on the ground, trying to erase the spiky green-brown of the lawn. They concentrate so hard, it seems they’re trying to penetrate the frozen soil, trying to dig into it, bury themselves. Of course this never happens. I’ve seen many first snows, but am not sure i...

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The End

It’s so tempting. I really like the idea. It’s logical. It makes a lot of sense. I really want to do it. The big question is not why, but how. It’s the how I can’t get a handle on; the reason is quite clear, at least to me. I know, I know. When a person needs to make a life-changing decision, or take a step forward into uncharted territory, nothing should be done lightly. After all, one misstep and all the effort would be for naught. Naught means zero, nothing. I have never liked doing things that are useless or worthless (which might be the...

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It Takes Two

I’m a translator. Some would call me a word engineer or a language architect. I’m not being flippant; it’s other people who use those terms. I just say I’m a translator, but not literally. Most people don’t get the point; it’s an in joke. Well, I had to do something after retiring early so I could see the world! Which I did, in a way. Speaking in a more professional tone, which is the one I should by rights be using here, I will tell you that I spend most of my working hours translating. From Galician to English, to be specific. It’s not...

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Can’t Sleep

Can’t sleep… can’t sleep… oh why does this happen to me?Tickticktick of a heart somewhere near or far. I only know it’s a heart ticking because of something I read…. Oh, Edgar, I would have loved you more… than her. You would not have had to write about your nightmare. You didn’t mean to, I know that, but your heart, the one you had to write about, is my obsession too. And my eyes won’t close because the sound clicks like clockwork and I cannot bear tiny, repetitive sounds. It’s not a condition, a disorder. It’s just that they drive me nuts....

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The Page

I’m a work-study student at my university. That isn’t unusual in itself, since almost every campus has dozens of students working in all the buildings and departments. The hourly pay isn’t great, but the money really comes in handy and it’s very convenient to work right where we have classes. The jobs make for good contacts with faculty and staff, which can result in decent letters of recommendation. We also might have opportunities to discover some of the inner workings of groups on campus. Those bits of information can cover a range of thi...

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Guidance

There is a bookstore in town that is known for its oddness, although it’s surprising how few people even know it exists. It’s not the only one, but it’s the strangest. For one things, no hours are posted anywhere. The owner just sets up a sign with an arrow on Maine Street. The arrow points up a street perpendicular to Main; it’s one way, going in the direction opposite the sign indicating there’s a bookstore nearby. The sign attracts only the attention of foot traffic, however.  That is fortunate, because there’s no sign for the book...

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Su casa es...

Not mi casa es su casa —- I never say that because it's in Spanish or Mexican and turns out too kitsch when it’s inserted into a conversation in English. It's as if they think the user were showing off his or her Spanish, all five words of it. With only five words, you're going to reveal far more than you can hide. But if you want to go at it, to discuss big things in a big way, let's go out in the parking lot. We'll see then who knows the most Spanish!This story I’m going to tell you is serious, though. By calling it serious, I mean it actu...

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Raising Hell

The topic of discussion was for the course that was titled:  Myth and Truth.  ENG. 444  Fall 2020, 2021, 2022, etc. I was there as a journalism major, so I'm in a way reporting on my own class, sort of autobiográphical, isn't it? I thought maybe you'd like some realia from the class? You know, so you can pay better attention pr pay attention better. Following is an excerpt from the syllabus (professor's name redacted) that was distributed. SYLLABUS November 19 Real Exam or Warm-up? You will form 4 groups of equal num...

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