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Kathleen March

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Jan, 2020

Stories (398)

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1494 Followers

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398 Stories

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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....

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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

The Battle of the Ebro

If you don’t think about it carefully, my worst Christmas might not seem all that bad. If you do, on the other hand, give my story some thought, you’ll realize that it’s a horrible one. You might even wonder how I survived it, although it wasn’t quite that horrible and maybe I’ve just exaggerated a little bit. Yes, just a little. Maybe. The real horror is the fact that I can’t forget that Christmas and relive it far too often, and what was originally there, the ones who were there, are a full-blown nightmare. Reality pales in the wake of a...

1 like

Heart-Shaped Peppers

So much has been written about food, and in another life I’m sure I was, or could be, making a living through food. I could have been a photographer of exotic markets with exotic fragrances and myriad colors, where you could taste the air. Maybe the next time around. I left part of my heart in a little place called San-Antonin-Noble-Val in the Tarn-et-Garonne department in Occitanie. Even the British ex-pats in that town didn’t ruin my photographs. Maybe the next time I could be a travel writer who focuses on food. Not just fine dining, be...

3 likes

Rambling Snows

The first snow of the season always surprises me, although because I live in the north, the snow always arrives, sooner or later. It’s different if it comes in the early morning than if it comes at night. At night, the flakes give the impression that they are concentrating very hard on the ground, trying to erase the spiky green-brown of the lawn. They concentrate so hard, it seems they’re trying to penetrate the frozen soil, trying to dig into it, bury themselves. Of course this never happens. I’ve seen many first snows, but am not sure i...

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The End

It’s so tempting. I really like the idea. It’s logical. It makes a lot of sense. I really want to do it. The big question is not why, but how. It’s the how I can’t get a handle on; the reason is quite clear, at least to me. I know, I know. When a person needs to make a life-changing decision, or take a step forward into uncharted territory, nothing should be done lightly. After all, one misstep and all the effort would be for naught. Naught means zero, nothing. I have never liked doing things that are useless or worthless (which might be the...

1 like

It Takes Two

I’m a translator. Some would call me a word engineer or a language architect. I’m not being flippant; it’s other people who use those terms. I just say I’m a translator, but not literally. Most people don’t get the point; it’s an in joke. Well, I had to do something after retiring early so I could see the world! Which I did, in a way. Speaking in a more professional tone, which is the one I should by rights be using here, I will tell you that I spend most of my working hours translating. From Galician to English, to be specific. It’s not...

3 likes

Can’t Sleep

Can’t sleep… can’t sleep… oh why does this happen to me?Tickticktick of a heart somewhere near or far. I only know it’s a heart ticking because of something I read…. Oh, Edgar, I would have loved you more… than her. You would not have had to write about your nightmare. You didn’t mean to, I know that, but your heart, the one you had to write about, is my obsession too. And my eyes won’t close because the sound clicks like clockwork and I cannot bear tiny, repetitive sounds. It’s not a condition, a disorder. It’s just that they drive me nuts....

2 likes