Kathleen Manarang

Author on Reedsy Prompts since May, 2021

Stories (7)

7 Stories

159 karma pts

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“A Beautiful Death” by Kathleen Manarang

Submitted to Contest #195

I died in a car crash. It’s not what you’d call beautiful. It was gory. It was messy. It was tragic. It wasn’t the way anyone would want to die, nor hope to be reunited with a lover, but it was what fate had in store for me.  Julia broke up with me months before I died. She was ill, and she said to me, “I’m dying, James. You deserve someone you can grow old with – have kids and grandchildren and share a lifetime with. I can’t be that person.” I wanted to take care of her. I wanted to stay by her side until her last breath. I...

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“Jokes are Half-Meant: Musings, Meditation, and the Pandemic” by Kathleen Manarang

Submitted to Contest #113

This is my worst nightmare! What is it? The COVID19 pandemic! It’s what most people would call a nightmare – Well, isn’t it? People are anxious and scared everywhere! Maybe we would be more hopeful if we focused on the number of recoveries rather than the deaths from the virus. Yeah, okay, but I mean! We’ve only read about smallpox and Spanish flu in history books. Like, no, that’s history, it can’t happen to us. Like we’re so scientifically advanced to be hit by any pandemic! Well, now we’re part of history, too! Laughs. ...

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“The Murder of Vincent Berry” by Kathleen Manarang

Submitted to Contest #105

Part I: Miley “Could you tell me what happened?” She peers at me thoughtfully. The bespectacled female on the other side of the table.I look at her smugly while I place my feet up on the chair in front of me. I’m wearing my favorite black, leather boots and skirt. I take a pen from the plastic container on the table and twirl it around my fingers. I throw my head back, lick my large, candy cane lollipop, and answer, “I’m a fighter. You fight me, I fight back. That’s what happened.”She adjusts her spectacles and makes some notes on her c...

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“Empowerment” by Kathleen Manarang

Submitted to Contest #104

I come from an era of what I would call a “bridge” generation. An in-between, a time when the old is slowly being replaced by the new. I went from cassette tapes to compact discs to mp3s, mp4s, and whatnots. From playing from Walkman to Discman to Windows Media Player to Spotify. Saving data went from diskettes to CDs, to USBs, memory cards, and finally to external hard drives and Google Drive. It was a time when desktop computers and dial-up internet were only starting, eventually coming to a tech boom of laptops, iPads, smartphones, DSL in...

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“The Golden Beach of Dreams” by Kathleen Manarang

Submitted to Contest #103

Maggie reached the magical town of Namaskara by nightfall. The Golden Beach of Dreams was said to be located deep within the heart of town. Her Waze app stalled as her phone lost all network signal when she crossed the boundary between the city and the town. Doubt and fear started to creep in, but she pushed the feelings away.It was even a miracle that she found the town at all. Namaskara was said to be visible only to those who were seeking it. It came up in her Google search as she was looking for ‘outrageous, unique places to go on a solo...

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“Killer Squad” by Kathleen Manarang

Submitted to Contest #96

We all have shadows. That dark side. The parts of ourselves that we have repressed, judged, and shunned, to be accepted by society. And it is, for the most part, unconscious, until we have put it into light and integrated it.  It’s funny how the Universe set them up on my path. I would have never chosen them to be my friends. Each was different, but each belonged in a category that my ego stubbornly refused to identify with, but that which my shadow kept on projecting. In a twist of fate, they became my batch-mates in medical training.&...

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“One More Bite” by Kathleen Manarang

Submitted to Contest #95

“Should I take one more bite?” Cara asked herself. A moment’s hesitation, then, “Okay, I think one more bite won’t hurt.” And she took another bite of the red velvet cheesecake. She looked around the pantry. No one was there. No one was watching. No one heard her, or so she thought. Unbeknown to her, the millions – or even trillions – of cells and organs in her body were listening. They were communicating. And they were going haywire. The gastric smooth muscle cells were the first to react. “What did she say? One more bite! We’re alrea...

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