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Kathleen March

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Jan, 2020

Stories (385)

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Library

1482 Followers

903 Following

385 Stories

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São Bento (L2.12)

Lavinia was still feeling more than a little anxious about her decision to leave academe as she had known it and to embark on another search for the right direction. She instinctively went to Santa Escolástica in San Martiño Pinario, to meditate on the matter. Or to have a conversation, despite the holy woman’s usual silence. It was a comfort just to sit nearby. Or to come near and see how poorly painted the altar beneath her was, at floor level.Lavinia might have first come to the saint through the poem by Rosalía de Castro that bore her na...

6 likes

Like Cracked Porcelain

Hannah stopped brushing her silky brown hair and put down her brush. She was supposed to be getting ready to go to the movies, but had suddenly decided to make a crazy quilt. The idea came out of nowhere, but like many of her ideas, once it came to her, she had to follow the path, or - more precisely - paths an idea always laid out for her. She insisted on doing things as they should be done. The only drawback was her tendency to overdo some things. Nothing really major, but still she could get caught up in her ideas. It was the atten...

8 likes

Eat Your Heart Out

Della was so happy! She’d been thinking about leaving her job of several years, a job with security, insurance, and a retirement plan. Of course she wasn’t giving retirement much thought. That was years away. She didn’t want to retire until she had to go to assisted living or they took her to the hospital. Then came the changes. Or the lack of changes. For a number of years cooking, after that studying the history of foods and cuisines, had served as antidote to the colonial and nineteenth-century history classes that had become re...

8 likes

Winners Don’t Quit

Shanna and her friend Vi had spent the last two hours in a café on the Cantón Grande of A Coruña. They had come that morning to see the Castelo de San Antón and had decided to go for coffee before returning to Bertamiráns. While enjoying their coffee, they both discovered how much they wanted to understand the ideas surrounding the three ways of writing Galician. As they had read the rules and arguments since arriving in Galicia-which-was-also-Galiza, they had become more and more troubled. It wasn’t at all like the way English speakers de...

8 likes

Who’s Sorry Now? (L2.11)

Who’s sorry now Who’s sorry now? Whose heart is aching for breaking its vow? Who’s sad and blue Who’s crying too Just like I cried over you? Right to the end Just like a friend I tried to warn you somehow You had your way Now you must pay I’m glad that you’re sorry now. ~ Connie Francis Lavinia had taken a position as an advisor to the Administration in the section of Cultural Affairs. The site she was assigned to was the General Library in the Pazo de Fonseca. Her favorite, or nearly favorite, building in the city of Santiago de Comp...

9 likes

Home is Where

I hope I'm safe. Hope nobody notices that I'm here. I had to risk coming, though. It's been a long time, but I had to come. We all have debts that, sooner or later, must be paid. It has taken twenty years, two whole decades, for me to do it, but better late than never, as they say. As my conscience says. I wish it didn't.These are my streets, or they were once. They were my world, the center of my universe. Once I knew every crack in the sidewalks, every metal plaque, every shop window framed in peeling paint. I knew the little sign indicati...

7 likes

Three's Company

Sybil SpeaksI know I only existed on the periphery of your girl's gaze, Andrea. Maybe not even there, but it wasn't your fault. I'm pretty sure that, even on the edge as I was, you knew my name. You thought it was an odd one, and I admit it has many meanings. No, I'm not referring to the young woman with endless personalities, which must be a scary condition, but that Sybil wasn't known to anybody back then. Only later would she have a book written about her and even a film - no, two films - made about her. She was a very tragic figure, plus...

5 likes

Nightmare Trespass

PROLOGUE She was standing in her bedroom, aware that she had to both clean and organize it better. Funny how it was easier to clean than organize. A lot of things refused to find their proper place, it always seemed, despite her best intentions. They created a miniature chaos in more than one area. Her mind never shut down. She struggled to focus at times. The disorder was not as bad as she’d grown up with, by a long shot. Still, she needed more places to be able to rest her eyes in the room. She needed peace, as sixtyish as that...

5 likes

Blue

She was a professional translator, whatever that meant. Most people didn’t actually know, and she too often wondered about what it truly meant to translate. She’d taught courses on it, had given a few papers and published a few articles on translation. All that sounded so far away to her now - far away, not because being a translator wasn’t a noble profession, but because tying it up in all those academic frills seemed to be so vain, not to mention useless. She had no appetite for thus things any more. This translator was in reality a pers...

9 likes

Cemetery of the Living

Part II knew - more or less - what a quintana was, but what I knew was definitely less than more. I never bothered with tracking down the origin of the word, because I knew the place that was a quintana in Santiago de Compostela. You might say I was content with my ignorance, although ultimately I had to find out. (I just googled it. A quintana apparently was one of the roads in a Roman camp where people sold food. So… like a market square, maybe.)About feeling happy with not knowing the history of the word nor the place with that name ...

5 likes

Into the Water (2/2)

II (Read Part I first) The poem ended, its final lament for the lack of rain twisted into the curve of a moan rushing to split the horizon… ~Sher Wright The above fragment from her poem was barely uttered, and the skies opened up. Huge, posh rain drops started to assault the pavement, the fields, the ocean, the shore of the miserable pond that had been reduced to muck. The people could not believe their eyes or their skin; what’s more, their brains had forgotten how to say “wetness.” They feared they’...

8 likes

From the Frying Pan… (1/2)

Drought. That was what they called it, what was happening. What was the true definition of a drought, though? How many days did an area have to go without rain for one to be proclaimed? Prolonged shortage of water supply, below-normal precipitation. Can last for days, months, years. That’s the list of the main features. Of course that’s the one associated with climate. There’s another drought, though. It’s the one that’s a metaphor for creative production, like art, literature, composing music. Writers seem to be most afflicted with per...

8 likes

Can’t buy you love…

Once upon a time money didn't matter. Things like water did. Eventually, money did become important. During the period that it did, there was an enormous group of people who believe that, never doubted that. They had no reason to question the importance of money and the importance of having enough, or a lot, of it.The people who believed in money were certainly not bad people. They just hadn't gotten out into the world as they say so they could learn things. It wasn't their fault, but most importantly, they were ready to get out and mee...

11 likes

The Payoff

"She's perfect.""I agree. She's perfect. The best one for the job.""Exactly. She's the best fit out of all the ones we've considered.""There's just one problem.""What? That can't be!""She doesn't want the job.""How do you know?""I just know. She's not interested in fame and fortune.""Even if the fame and fortune were handed to her on a silver platter?""Not even then.""I don't believe it. Everybody has a price, ultimately.""Then let's figure out what her price is and offer it to her.""Right. She's the best person for the job, man or woman. We...

8 likes

Write Your Heart Out (L2.10)

"It's not fair, it's just not fair." Lavinia was sitting on a terrace in the medieval part of Santiago, the casco vello. She didn't know the woman sitting there by herself with a glass of something unidentifiable but was a blond-colored liquid. There were other small dishes on the table at varying stages of being consumed. What Lavinia thought was that the person she'd heard had been sittting at the table for a while and was settled in to be there for a bit longer. Waitpersons didn't push you to leave after you had eaten and drun...

6 likes