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Karen McDermott

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Oct, 2019

Stories (78)
Comments
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381 Followers
140 Following

78 Stories

2304 karma pts

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Who Just Phones People

Submitted to Contest #115

I was unfastening my bra when my phone decided to crawl across my dresser, making alarming noises that I don’t recall it ever having made before. Someone was calling me. In 2021. It must be an emergency. Who died? I peered at the screen. Jeremy. Well, Jeremy, you’ve just lost yourself a bunch of points. I turned my music down and answered the call, managing to turn the tail end of my annoyed sigh into a breezier “Hiiii.” “Hello Lou. So you think it looks bad out there? Looks okay from my window.” I looked out of my one, which was...

21 likes 7 comments 7
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Miss May

Submitted to Contest #111

I jerked my right elbow to remove his hand from my left breast. “Nope. Not tonight,” I told him, pulling my book closer to my nose. A shield to prevent further attacks. Adam rolled over onto his back with a huff, then gave me that wounded puppy look that, much like an evening on red wine, makes me want to laugh, then cry. Five years married and he wasn’t showing any signs of slowing down. I suppose I should count myself lucky. But then he hadn’t had to go through what I went through today. Unless they had started a ‘bring your kid to w...

16 likes 7 comments 7
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Wobbly Wheels

Submitted to Contest #106

“If you were constantly tuned in to everything that was going on around you or, say, what a wonder it is to have kidneys, you wouldn’t get anything done.” At the time I barely registered it. I was waiting for the father to finish giving his daughter a lesson and for her to put down the can of energy drink she was trying to persuade him to buy her, so I could get to my protein shakes. I filed it away, like so many snippets of overheard conversations I hear when trying to remember why I’ve come to the supermarket. I’d left the trolley par...

16 likes 5 comments 5
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Car Boot Sale

Submitted to Contest #103

Hello stranger! Well, I haven’t seen you in a long, long time. You’re always such a busy bee with that phone of yours going “buzz buzz buzz”. Wish I had that many people who wanted to talk to me. No, it’s alright. Come in, sit down. Yes, there’s fine. Do you want a drink? Only water? I hope you're not on one of your funny faddy diets. We always had problems with you as a baby, you know. You would only eat oven chips at one point and it had to be one particular brand of oven chip. So fussy! One time everywhere seemed to go out of stock of ...

14 likes 0 comments 0
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Bummer Solstice

Submitted to Contest #99

To: charlot49@gmail.com From: missychrissy1982@hotmail.com Subject: BUMMER SOLSTICE Hey Charlie-girl, How are you doing today? Sorry my reply is so overdue – you must be fed up with me saying that! You know how it is though, I’m trying to devote more time to my special project. Hopefully in the not too distant future you’ll be receiving an email from me with ‘book launch invitation’ in the subject line. They say one of the top tips to achieve your goal is to envisage it happening…so please start picking out what you’re going to wear ;D ...

12 likes 2 comments 2
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Always Wear A Hat

Submitted to Contest #96

Rob gave it a last scan to check he definitely hadn’t left a light on or a stained teacup on a bedside table. Satisfied, he shut the door on the empty guest room. His wife, Ali, was fussing in the linen closet at the other end of the landing. She turned when she heard the door close, gripping a lavender coloured hand towel to her chest like a shield. “Is everything okay in there?” she asked. “Yes, all good for…whatshisname’s arrival,” Rob replied. As he drew closer, he noticed Ali’s eyes looking somehow paler than the cornflower shad...

15 likes 0 comments 0
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The Dare

Submitted to Contest #94

“FINE. I’ll give it a go.” If just to make you shut up, I silently added. Marie put down her pad to do one of those stupid little toddler claps where the culprit beats the heels of their palms silently together, fingers splayed. “Yes! Oh, Alyssa, I’m so, so pleased you’re going to give it a try. I just think if you really put your mind to it…” I watched her lips forming the words but I didn’t take in what was being said. My last drop of energy for the day had been spent sealing my fate. I alternating next between looking at her earri...

17 likes 2 comments 2
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My Favourite Volume Is Silence

Submitted to Contest #91

It was the quietest she’d ever known the place. “Perhaps I ought to volunteer to do stocktake more often,” Shannon thought to herself, thumbing the stubby antennae of her radio as she surveyed the non-fiction area. By day, the place was filled with the chatter of foreign language students on phone calls, lost children playing parkour with the local history section and the rattle of the lift going up and down. On the rare occasions it was fixed. She looked at the post it note on which she’d scribbled her first zone for the night: ‘sport...

41 likes 19 comments 19
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Something in the Water

Submitted to Contest #88

“Hi Lenny.” “Hello,” I replied to the lank-haired guy in horn-rimmed glasses, sitting about three rows from front. The host, Jerome, had picked him as he’d the one being most insistent with his hand-waving. Jerome was probably grateful that someone looked more nervous than he did. I shot a glance at him before turning to listen to the question from the audience member. He was holding the mic at arm’s length, like it was a snake about to bite him. “Um, so, as I’m sure a lot of us are wondering, but, err, how is it you get your ideas for ...

17 likes 4 comments 4
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The Magnolia Tree

Submitted to Contest #86

Trigger warning: emotional abuse, gaslighting “First sign of spring, that is.” I looked up from checking the time on my phone to see whether I’d make the bus. “I’m sorry?” I asked Leigh Street’s answer to Chris Packham, swallowing my annoyance while I watched the bus going by over the tops of the neighbours’ fences. “There, look.” I followed the direction of my neighbour’s hand. Indeed, the skeletal magnolia tree was now dotted with little oval buds, glistening with dew. “Lovely,” declared Mr Critchley, as though he’d planted th...

28 likes 10 comments 10
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Smokescreen

Submitted to Contest #84

There are some people who see celebratory events as just that. I see them as a task. A chore. A to do list item, pencilled in between doing some exercise and doing the laundry. During lockdown, I ended up adding things like ‘brush teeth’ just to feel busier, more accomplished. To bring structure to the uncertain number of days stretching out ahead in bewildering vagueness. Hal’s birthday. Last year it was such a piece of cake (cake being the only thing I actually missed about the date). Instead of getting washed and dressed, wondering whe...

17 likes 1 comment 1
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Radishes

Submitted to Contest #81

“Sir? Excuse me. Sir?” I blinked back the tears that were beginning to prick my eyes, causing the broccolis and carrots to judder and blur before me into a psychedelic haze. When I could trust my features not to betray my emotions to my interlocutor, I began to shuffle round. I was expecting someone of my height or taller, as was more often the case these days, due to my danged stoop. I only saw a row of cauliflower where a head ought to have been before I dropped my gaze to see concerned grey eyes peering up at me. “Y-yes?” I asked the...

26 likes 11 comments 11
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Betty

Shortlisted for Contest #78 ⭐️

People don’t seem to notice Betty much in the daytime. But when night falls she glistens blackly, slithers up my arm, crawls across my neck, to perch on my shoulder with her whiskers tickling my earlobe. You know how sometimes a laptop pop-up when you’ve watched too much of a series in one sitting asks if you’re still there? When I feel Betty’s saliva pooling on one of my collarbones I know it’s time for us both to go to bed. She watches as I brush my teeth, fascinated. I have no qualms undressing before her now, having long ago given up try...

55 likes 31 comments 31
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Caresoul

Submitted to Contest #77

Max was only three weeks into his new job at Caresoul, but had already seen and heard enough to know he did not want to stay. The irony that working for an organisation dedicated to helping people manage their mental health was causing such a detrimental effect to his own was not lost on him.“Goodbye Max! Have a careful evening!”Max jumped in his seat and quickly tried to convert the motion to an enthusiastic farewell salute to Alyssa, who flashed him a toothpaste ad smile while securing her bike helmet. Of all the staff he had been introduc...

23 likes 9 comments 9
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The Moon on a Stick

Submitted to Contest #75

When I saw this Reedsy prompt, I decided I would tell the tale of how I became a writer.I was seven years old when my father, Tom, got a promotion and my mother, Debbie, told my sister and me that we would be moving to Hamley Court. Kelly took the news typically stoically, her only concern being whether that would mean her having to change schools. After Debbie reassured her, my mother began describing the house. Interior decorating plans were of no interest to me, but my ears pricked up at the mention of a garden. I had questions.“Does this...

26 likes 16 comments 16
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