Karolina Firman

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Nov, 2019

Stories (15)

15 Stories

272 karma pts

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“Indulging silence ” by Karolina Firman

Submitted to Contest #78

Her father’s house was filled with various different piles, towers and stacks of half-finished hobbies, projects and items for several hobbies. After his retirement, it seemed that Richard was trying to ‘find himself’ now that he no longer had the structure and regime of a 9-5 job.  He had tried stamp collecting, gardening, morris dancing and half a dozen more. It was a nightmare trying to navigate his house, but it seemed to make him happy so she left well enough alone. She had come over to pick him up to go to the local classic car ...

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“What a cliche” by Karolina Firman

Submitted to Contest #77

There were very few jobs in Lindow, so no-one was picky about what jobs were available. You didn’t complain, you didn’t ask questions and you didn’t look too closely at the things that didn’t make sense. So when I found myself in a darkened factory, snowed in thanks to an unpredicted blizzard I resolved myself to be patient and wait until I was rescued. The factory was on the outskirts of Lindow and canned a variety of different vegetables and fruits from nearby towns.  During the day it was a hive of activity with people bustling a...

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“Choices” by Karolina Firman

Submitted to Contest #76

The woods near the old well were dark and deep. There were stories, as there are always stories, that if you had a problem which could not be solved by conventional means you could go to the woods and your problems would be solved.  One dark winters night a young woman made her way to the woods with a problem which plagued all young women. She craved entry into a prestigious university but lacked the funds to achieve this goal. Of course, finding a wealthy patron is always an option but those came with further risks. Many young girl...

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“I don't know why” by Karolina Firman

Submitted to Contest #75

When I woke up I was filthy. Not like a little dirty and some mud, I was absolutely covered in dirt, mud, blood and some things which I don’t care to mention. I was lying in a ditch, wearing what tattered, ill-fitting clothes. I was tired, scared, hungry and filthy. There were these weird scars and scrapes all over my body and my ankle was twisted badly. It was mid-afternoon, and as far as I could tell I was in the middle of nowhere. If it wasn’t for Chuck driving past and seeing me sitting there weeping in the grass I think I would have d...

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“The enemy of done” by Karolina Firman

Submitted to Contest #74

They say that perfect is the enemy of done. This is why at t-minus twelve hours until the end of the year I’m trying to finish making a new chair. I know that it’s not the most exciting goal, but my New Year’s resolution from last year was to improve my carpentry skills.  Which means that three-quarters of a half-decent chair have been squatting in my shed since March. I started making it in a pique of inspiration during the lockdown, and as things got progressively grimmer I lost all momentum. You know how it goes, you decided that y...

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“No thank you ” by Karolina Firman

Submitted to Contest #73

It feels like an extremely privileged thing to complain about but after a certain point being chased after, romantically, is just a hassle. I’m not an especially beautiful person but I do possess a series of traits which some people find appealing. I live in a small town along the coast, one of those tiny towns indistinguishable from dozens of others dotted along the shoreline. Tourist towns, where any newcomers are noticed immediately and after a while, the gene pool becomes more of a puddle. Therefore, anyone who isn’t directly or indire...

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“I would like to thank the committee ” by Karolina Firman

Submitted to Contest #70

  They say that space is the final frontier but really it’s the same as all the other frontiers just colder, emptier and we haven’t figured out who gets to mine what yet. My team and I were part of an advance crew to explore the outer rings of a newly discovered gas giant. Sometimes you can get some rare valuable ores and minerals, mostly it’s a lot of work for not much gain.    Honestly, it’s kind of a pain in the ass. You spend months orbiting a bunch of fancy space rocks only to find that they don’t want tantalum anymore, w...

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“Liar ” by Karolina Firman

Submitted to Contest #67

I am not a liar. It is important to me that you know and understand this, I’m not a bad person and everything I did I did because I thought it was the right thing to do. My best friend in the world when I was eight years old was a gangly, smart mouth girl called Fatima. She was far too smart for her own good and had a wicked right hook that all the boys were afraid of. She was the kind of kid you knew was gonna get into lots of trouble, but the good kind of trouble. Raising hell for people, rather than against people. If you know what I me...

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“Celebrations ” by Karolina Firman

Submitted to Contest #64

When I was a child I read stories about boarding schools. Some of these stories were uplifting Enid Blyton style stories of fun adventures and ginger beer; others featured harrowing tales of hazing and school bullies. When my father told me that I would be sent away to boarding school I was numb. I wasn’t surprised, it’s a cliche but after my father remarried after the death of my mother I knew it was a matter of time before I was removed from the scene. I shared very little in common with my father, and my new stepmother (although by all ...

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“The best cello recital” by Karolina Firman

Submitted to Contest #60

They say romance is dead, but those folks have never been romanced this thoroughly, with this much determination. Sometimes you find romance and love in the weirdest of places, I am living proof of that strangeness.  My partner and I were picking our way around what I believe used to be a Bed and Breakfast when they came across what I can only describe as a deeply haunted doll. I mean, I hated it at first sight. But, it was a touching thing to receive. I mean how many times over the course of your life does anyone give you a haunted...

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“Unmoored” by Karolina Firman

Submitted to Contest #58

A ship this size and this age sometimes just loses power with no warning. We generally call these ‘brown hours’ for obvious reasons, normally the power comes back in an hour once you apply enough percussive maintenance but sometimes it takes a little bit longer.  Like today, the three of us are sat in the depths of the ship as it creaks and whines around us. I can see the fear in Jamy’s face in the dim red emergency lights. We’ve been stuck out in the depths of space for months, a skeleton crew transporting medical equipment, construc...

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“Ghost tips” by Karolina Firman

Submitted to Contest #56

The funny thing about this particular bus stop was that it was haunted as hell. Now I know that that sounds like a crock-of-shit but stay with me on this. There are places in the world which are more susceptible to this kind of supernatural interference. Places where people congregate because they have to because there is no other choice. People don’t go to bus stops for the ambience, well I mean some people do but they’re statistical outliers and we need not include them in our assessment.  The key is important but boring, that’s whe...

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“Between failure and glee” by Karolina Firman

Submitted to Contest #54

Fondant can, and this is critical, get fucked. Disgusting overly sweet playdough that you can only ‘play with’ if your idea of creativity is roll it flat and drape it over things? Wanna make a delicious cake? We can ruin that for you, just add the devil’s spackle. There were three other people in the cooking class, a couple who were clearly using this class as a glue to keep their relationship together (unsuccessfully), and a little old lady is (conservatively) 1,200 years old. Why am I here? Because I am, arguably, the worst baker or co...

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“Wash, rinse, repeat” by Karolina Firman

Submitted to Contest #35

Recently she had been going to sleep to white noise, to be more specific to the sound of an oscillating fan video on YouTube. In the summer months, she would just leave her fan on overnight, but in winter it seemed frivolous to her to sleep under a duvet and have a fan on. Her mother had always told her that if she slept with a fan on she would get sick, so four hours of oscillating fan sound was the key to getting to sleep on time. The only issue was getting up on time. She had overslept so many times, she’d had to set a cascading seri...

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“Presence ” by Karolina Firman

Submitted to Contest #32

Music was leaking from someone in the building. Elsewhere someone was desperately trying not to spread their emotions all over the accounting team. In the cafeteria, one of the cleaners was just getting a hold on their presence. You must understand that this kind of behaviour was not seen as acceptable although it was not particularly surprising, Mercury was in retrograde and it was always harder to hold yourself together when the stars were out of whack. ‘Watch the stars’ her mum had always said, ‘make sure you don’t make any big decisions ...

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