Menu

Menu

Prompts

Contests

Stories

Blog

Directory

Contests

Magazine

FAQ

Karen McDermott

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Oct, 2019

Stories (77)

Comments

Library

382 Followers

140 Following

77 Stories

2303 karma pts

?

Abbey Ruins

Karen McDermott

Submitted to Contest #40

Jasper is always on these neverending world tours with Hoffman’s Circus now, but back when I knew him he was just a klutz. Always showing off in front of girls, performing magic tricks that always seemed to involve him briefly holding their hands, doing tricks on his skateboard, playing with hacky sack or poi. Even with only me as his audience on our cycle rides around the outskirts of town looking for stuff for him to photograph, he was always jumping about. It’s surprising any of his photos actually came out in focus, really.On a May bank ...

16 likes

Voices

Karen McDermott

Submitted to Contest #38

Jill narrowed her eyes at the clothes pinned on her neighbour’s balcony. A warm day with a gentle breeze meant wash day for Lauren. Which for Jill meant being treated to a display of Lauren’s 5-year-old daughter’s outfits strung up like bunting. You’d be forgiven for mistaking young Angelica for a royalist, given her predisposition for the ‘Princess’ and ‘Kween’ sequin embellishments on her napkin-sized t-shirts. The effect was so dazzling Jill was surprised the magpies she often spotted flashes of in the pine tree at the bottom of her garde...

19 likes

Coachlagged

Karen McDermott

Submitted to Contest #36

17/04/2006Dear diary,Sorry I didn’t document the 19 hour coach journey as promised, but u were in the luggage hold the whole time as I’d stupidly forgotten to transfer u to my handbag. Had 2 make do with my Prague travel book. Was just getting stuck in when they turned all the lights off. I sat blinking in the dark while all the Czechs fell into a doze around me like birds that’d had blankets thrown over their cages. I’d love to know how ppl mange to fall asleep so quickly on public transport like that. TEACH ME YOUR SECRET. Is it Valium? Ko...

12 likes

Crazy Paving

Karen McDermott

Submitted to Contest #34

I drew back the curtains and took in the scene.Of course. I spend four days a week in a basement office, the main sources of light being the fluorescent strip ones above me and the glow from monitors around me, while outside the sun has remembered to put in an appearance now spring has sprung, so of course it rains on the day I booked off.It’s hammering down. No birdsong, no traffic noise. Just sheets of rain. I peer down at the garden, which isn’t mine. It’s for the sole use of the landlord, as stated in the tenancy agreement I signed too m...

6 likes

Between Subtle Shading and the Absence of Light

Karen McDermott

Submitted to Contest #33

Most people didn’t react to the three inch scar on her arm; the little white smile. They knew better not to ask, or found sufficient distraction in Edie’s other features – the spiked blonde hair, hazel eyes that shone yellow in the sun, the dimples piercing her cheeks, her throaty laugh. One day, however, a family member in possession of a good many things but tact not being one of them, asked outright during a family dinner.“So, Edie. I noticed that scar on your a...

5 likes

Takeaway

Karen McDermott

Submitted to Contest #32

“Milo! Have you seen my handbag?”The deep rumbling that came from Irene’s teenage son’s bedroom seemed to indicate not.Irene did not want to ask her husband, who had disappeared into the downstairs loo ten minutes ago, despite her continued pleas for him to use the upstairs facilities if it was a job that was going to take more than five. Duncan, ten years her senior, hated people conducting conversations ...

6 likes

The Chocolate March

Karen McDermott

Submitted to Contest #31

Chocolate. The ‘ch’ sound for ‘cheap’. The heady sigh of ‘co’. Finally the tongue tripping at the back of the teeth on ‘late’. Cho-co-late. It was the soothing mantra Gemma concentrated on repeating to herself, timing her footsteps to. Her mouth watered as she rounded a corner and saw the store. ‘EZ HOURS’ said the dusty looking sign. Known with a touch of fondness as ‘sleazy hours’, it served the local communit...

8 likes

The Penny Whistle

Karen McDermott

Submitted to Contest #30

Mel took in her surroundings as she shrugged off her coat. Horse brass on the walls, selection of ales and another selection of more ales, a gaggle of 60-something males taking up all the bar stools, their flab rolling over the seats, reminding her of a slaughterhouse with a more pungent smell. Goddammit, another waste of a good dress. Was it too much to ask that one of these online hook ups might take her to a ...

8 likes

The Sacrifice

Karen McDermott

Submitted to Contest #28

“Let me be the sacrifice!” I held out my hands imploringly to Ruth and she gave me the church altar candle she had found. Her husband, Tom, was trying on a garland made of autumnal foliage, while Lucy and Seth inspected the photos pinned to one of the hut’s walls. “Hey, have you guys seen Midsommar?” Seth asked between wheezy cackles. He was the oldest of the five of us but the most prone to fits of childish giggles, ...

7 likes

This Book Will Save Your Life

Karen McDermott

Submitted to Contest #25

I felt conspicuous about the Tesco carrier bag I was holding. Not so much for the logo or material. Everyone was broke and my eco anxiety had taken a backseat lately. But I was aware of the contents as though I were wearing them. The bookshop’s staff and the customers browsing the January sales…I was sure they all had x-ray vision and were judging me for the chocolate fudge cake (serves: 10), litre bottle of vod...

11 likes

The Lake of the Lost

Karen McDermott

Submitted to Contest #24

Detective Farmer had finally thought of a suitable sacrifice. Nobody would miss Will Sloane. No registered address, history of drug dealing and abuse, shoplifter, pimp. A forgettable face she thought, as she studied his details she’d pulled up from the database, office finally to herself at 9pm. Yes. They’d welcome him into their world and ours would only be the richer. And then maybe they’d get off her ba...

6 likes

What Goes Around

Karen McDermott

Submitted to Contest #22

I lost a shoe that night. Run twelve times around the roundabout, that’s what he said. Before I could respond, he grabbed my hand and dashed us over the road, where we vaulted over the muddy incline and collapsed on top. Midnight had passed hours ago. Two house parties. Three, if you included pre-drinks at his with Steph and Ben beforehand. We lost track of them before we’d even got to the second party. Everything was hilarious, because we were on a roundabout at 3:30 in the morning, in Ashford, in a new year. In our cups. Who came up with t...

6 likes

Cobwebs

Karen McDermott

Submitted to Contest #20

Number 43. I’d finally found it. A weather beaten brown door. A cheerful duck egg blue terraced house. I knocked on the outskirts of the knocker, fashioned as a cool iron hand. It felt rude to put it to use somehow without shaking it first. Once I got ideas like that in my head, they were difficult to dislodge.I could hear a soap opera being turned down, then slow considered footsteps approaching. The door creak...

8 likes

Fetch

Karen McDermott

Submitted to Contest #16

Someone had nailed a sign to a tree at the entrance of the path into the woods. A scrappy bit of lined notepaper, torn from some schoolkid’s notebook, I figured. ‘WORNING – TURN BAK’. Guess whoever left it wasn’t acing their English homework. Last night’s drizzle had impregnated the ink and patches of blue stains had blossomed. I heard a noise behind me, a whine, and looked over my shoulder, the curled piece of paper forgotten.“C’mon Ash! Let’s get going.” I peered up at the fragments of sky visible through the canopy, gradually transforming...

5 likes

Mrs Magpie

Karen McDermott

Submitted to Contest #15

Tom says I’m a magpie. Looking around our bedroom, I’m inclined to believe him. 19 years we’ve been together. 19 Christmases, 19 birthdays. The results are coiled in dishes, hung from hooks, strewn on ornaments glittering with jewels themselves. I just need a beak and feathers. My daughter Andrea says it’s like entering Aladdin’s cave. As these things tend to go, Andrea’s look is the opposite of mine. She likes minimalism and block colors. Sharp tailoring. Natural make-up, if she chooses to wear any at all. Her beauty shines all the brighter...

5 likes