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Kathleen March

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Jan, 2020

Stories (404)

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1495 Followers

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404 Stories

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Home Is

"I wish we could stay here forever." ~ AnonymousHmmm. Wonder who wrote that? Wonder where 'here' is? Wonder who 'we' are? Are they lovers, an old married couple - who could also be lovers, when you think about it, and they must have been lovers once or they wouldn't have gotten married. Are they more than a couple, say, a family? All the same sex or a mixture? The same age or far apart in years? Something else puzzles me about these seven words, but I can't quite figure it out.This was the land's end: the last fingers, knuckled and rheumatic...

3 likes

Hot time (L2.18)

Lavinia looked up from the screen of her laptop, moved her head from side to side as she rubbed it with her right hand, leaving her left hand still an inch above the keyboard, as if she intended to go on writing with it. After she had massaged her neck enough, she lowered her right hand, shifted her weight slightly, then sighed, renewed the look of concentration on her face, then continued typing, slowly, one word at a time, as if determined to finish her task. It could have been me there in Lavinia’s place, and in a way it was, because I’m ...

4 likes

A biblioteca secreta (L 2..17)

Lavinia certainly hadn't forgotten about the secret library, known to her simply as a nosa biblioteca, 'our library'. However, she hadn't been able to return for several weeks. One reason was that she had been drawn by numerous threads of her research on Ruth Matilda Anderson, the photographer who had traveled to Galicia five times before the Spanish Civil War. She'd given up on tracing all of Ruth's routes, but had gone to a number of villages, towns, and cities. That had not been either a fruitful or a satisfying endeavor. She guessed the ...

4 likes

Want to play checkers?

My grandfather was not a nice man. That’s how I felt about him, honest to God. He was on the short side of tall, thin, a head of wavy hair he seemed quite proud of, from the way he combed it. At some point, that head of hair turned white, and I personally never saw him with any other color. With the years, he became quite gaunt, and though it’s hard to describe, his body also seemed to turn wavy, I mean, his shoulders turned forward, his back arched a bit, and his hips were set forward. Usually his clothes fit well and were always formal. He...

4 likes

Here

Here I am.I am always here.I am here even if nobody notices.Even if nobody cares.I am where I’m supposed to be.I am here. I read those phrases over and over. I copied them and reread them. They were always in the same place, which is where they were meant to be. I was not worried, since after so many years I felt they had no place else to go or to be. Still, I wanted to know why those words seemed so settled when my thoughts were not.  My thoughts were scattered like common pins when you knock their box off the edge of the table and the...

6 likes

ArtVan

Author’s First Note to Readers and Other Characters: The title of this story was taken from a group in Crossroads, Maine. The group… I didn’t want to seem to be plagiarizing their name, but rather am paying tribute to them for inspiring an interest in art among young people. Who can criticize what they do?  Their website says: “A Mobile Art Therapy Nonprofit in Maine. Established in 2004, ArtVan offers a safe, feedback-oriented environment for youth ages 3 to 17 and adults who may benefit from strengths-based art therapy. At no cost to&...

4 likes

Lewis

The day had been windy, whipping her scarf out behind her and making her wish she’d worn gloves. She hurried to get her errands done, running ahead of the cool gusts to enter stores. Finally, one long swath of air chased her back to her car and she headed home to work on the paper due for Creative Writing in three days. The paper was supposed to include the weather as an important element of the story. It was also supposed to include something from childhood; anything- a toy, a person, a pet. She’d been working on the theme for several days,...

5 likes

No Words

“I can’t say it.”That was what I knew, so it was what I thought and what I said.Because I couldn’t say it.We all have secrets, don’t we? Sometimes our secrets are silly and hardly deserve keeping. Sometimes they need to be concealed, because we think there will be consequences if they are revealed. Secrets have always been the stuff of fiction and poetry and they do have their justification. However, sometimes secrets can be dangerous, because they corrode from the inside out and when we realize that has happened, it may be too late. The dam...

4 likes

Dog Eat Dog*

“A cynical person has a bleak outlook about others, always imagining that people are ruled by their worst instincts.” [https://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/cynical] 1. ADJECTIVEIf you describe someone as cynical, you mean they believe that people always act selfishly. Synonyms: sceptical, mocking, ironic, sneering  2. ADJECTIVEIf you are cynical about something, you do not believe that it can be successful or that the people involved are honest. Synonyms: unbelieving, sceptical, disillusioned, pessimistic  [https://www....

5 likes

Both sides now

If you’re feeling nostalgic about your past, I can understand that, but your feelings probably mean you’ve got something worth missing. Or something worth reliving, which you wish you could do. Maybe it’s an idyllic childhood, or something you believe was good, something you’d like to experience again, some happy moments or a relationship that was worth its weight in gold. Really? Who has things like that to remember and - much worse - to relive? Not me, that’s for sure. Actually, I think nostalgia is very overrated. People want to think t...

5 likes

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...

3 likes

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 ...

3 likes

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...

3 likes

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...

2 likes

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...

3 likes