Katy B

Author on Reedsy Prompts since May, 2022

Stories (12)

12 Stories

1247 karma pts

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“Despatches From the Home Front” by Katy B

Post Office Telegraphs. Augustine Madlain to Imogen Eley — (Received 3 August 1914) Believe war entry likely STOP Paris in uproar STOP Holiday enthusiasm STOP All very exciting STOP ᛭ Auggie10 October, 1914Dear Auggie,I was so glad to receive your letter last week. Imagine your marching in shirts and ties through the countryside — suppose a cow, for instance, had seen you? What must the poor creature have thought? And I don’t think it’s fair of ...

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“Love in the Time of Asthma” by Katy B

The mask swam elephantine and bug-eyed in the dark glass. After several years of passing the auto shop, whose empty windows were the only ones between the drilling fields and the motel left unboarded, Tommy still struggled to recognize the reflection as his own. He stopped absently to observe himself. It was dawn. The sun pink as a freshly peeled blister behind its film of dust cast downtown into streaks of gray shadow and warbled rose. It accentuated the muffled slurp of the mask, the clouds of dirt rising from the...

26 comments 26 SHORTLIST ⭐️

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“The Ungentling” by Katy B

Bill’s disappeared upstairs with the little sickly girl but me I’m here to see the blind woman. I hear she did it on purpose, tore donkey tail out of the earth and smeared its milky sap directly in her eyes. It must of stung her hands and face bad and maybe left marks on her fingers. Near Santa Fe, men, women and children are always getting possessed of this sort of ecstasy and seem like taking pleasure in swallowing poison and fire and stepping on scorpions and suchlike. But it ain’t superstition like the government try to tell me in the...

85 comments 85 WINNER 🏆

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“Car Sickness” by Katy B

[content: death] From her position in the back seat, face pressed indifferently against a box of Krishna figurines, Emily watched the sky cut in and out between the dark concrete serpents of the interstate. She had always hated snakes and highway snakes were the worst: sleek and fat, doubled back on themselves, swallowing their tails. Emily thought, what if I swallowed one too, and suddenly she could feel it writhing cold and alive from her navel up through the back of her tongue. “You’re just car ...

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“The Disciple” by Katy B

She’d suspected the past several hours it would happen at the river. Little pieces of it had been settling on top of her head all day till they formed something long and sharp and heavy so that she thought everyone must be able to see it. First thing Wednesday morning she found herself standing outside the CITGO with a pack of Marlboros in one hand and three-dollars-fifty-six-change clenched in the other, the paper wilting and the coins slipping in her sweat. She was staring at a man in a dark sweatshirt and dirty beard getting on a bike ...

42 comments 42 SHORTLIST ⭐️

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“A Tale of Two Mountains” by Katy B

The beach was ash, a loose volcanic dust that slid treacherously under combat boots already filled with sweat, when suddenly the verdant dimpled butter pat that was Mount Suribachi disappeared. Instead, Ashkii was digging his bare heels into the fine loamy sand spread against the cliffs and riverbeds of Shiprock, New Mexico. The peaks of Tsé Bitʼaʼí towered over all in distant benediction. Junipers clustered like sheep in the folds of rocky hills. Smooth stones radiated heat in the sun; in the shadows cast by striped rock formations they ...

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“Energy Crisis 2023” by Katy B

Summer Bummer: Pyrotechnics delayed at 247th annual Fourth-of-Palooza July 3. Gregory Balkema, 28, lost his life this afternoon stunt-driving for South Haven’s most patriotic event of the year. Fourth-of-Palooza, which normally features two nights of fireworks, experimented this year with the addition of jet-propelled truck racing. Balkema drove his stunt truck “right into a fireball of gasoline, on purpose,” according to South Haven native Brendan Kowalski, 59. Kowalski added, “I gu...

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“Old Fishermen Never Die” by Katy B

Cold salt water laps the beach, baptizing the goose tongue and goldenrod with spray. It stings my hands in places that have met with sharp rock and lobster claws: a good clean sting like ointment. The motorboat I moor onshore sputters to life. I am soaked with sea and fog before I have even reached the Pemaquid, tied further out so as not to run its keel aground. The lobster traps clank as I push past them to the engine. I wince at the high-pitched squeal, a testament to its manufacture date. The orange rubber overalls transform ...

66 comments 66 SHORTLIST ⭐️

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“Resurrection” by Katy B

Sonoran summers… Eight lanes of pavement boil and pop across the Mexico–United States border, and eight lanes of vehicles crawl slower than a walk, halting for several minutes at a time. Their passengers cool themselves by running the heat with the windows up. They roll them down only for vendors walking fearlessly among them, selling ice water, claiming it is clean. Shrubby trees wither tawny and crisp all through the unbearably blue-sky day. Then the sun sets without warning and it becomes almost chilly. Fires fli...

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“How to Win a Game of Chess Without Really Trying” by Katy B

Disclaimer: There is no easy way to win a game of chess. But that’s only if by “winning” you mean hunting down your opponent’s king until he is gasping for air in a solitary corner, his vision fading into the black and white static of the board as your opponent (John, Meera, or Jeremy) commits seppuku by resignation. Only gradually will you return to the hard seats and smudged tabletops of your school’s B-grade lunch counter. You'll blink in a daze at the face of your opponent who, you must remember, is your friend in real life.<...

137 comments 137 WINNER 🏆

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“The Hummingbird” by Katy B

“I’d be an atheist, but then I’d have no one to be angry with,” Horacio lisped. His delicate fingers brought the cigarette closer to his face, then back near mine with a languid, fluid motion that reminded me of fishing lines over Lake Chapala. I’d recently gotten into the habit of swallowing the bait, although I could see the hook perfectly well. “Socialists are always atheists,” I responded. I flicked the ash off the end and wondered if I was bored with him. “I've heard you say it yourself.”

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“A San Miguel Roadrunner” by Katy B

Maria could tell almost before waking that Santiago was sleeping next to her. From the street came the sound of distant sirens, a noise that had become a comfort to her by familiarity, and she felt the early morning sunlight filter through the curtains onto the bed. With a groan, she rolled onto her back and glanced to her left. There was Santiago, his suddenly long and lanky body sprawled over the white sheets, face dark and expressionless. Maria watched him breathe softly through parted lips. The sun lit up his sweaty head like an angel...

15 comments 15 SHORTLIST ⭐️

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Author bio

Currently reading: Audubon Field Guide to the Southwestern States "The Story of Architecture," Witold Rybczynski Please leave a comment!!! B.S. in English & Mathematics Favorite writers: Flannery O'Connor, Katherine Paterson, Cather, Hemingway, Dostoevsky, Auden, GM Hopkins, Elinor Wylie Favorite movies: Napoleon Dynamite, Spirited Away, Secondhand Lions, The Muppets Christmas Carol, Babette's Feast

Winning 2 stories 🏆

Contest #204

The Ungentling – read story

Contest #149

How to Win a Game of Chess Without Really Trying – read story

Shortlisted 4 stories ⭐️

Contest #210

Love in the Time of Asthma – read story

Contest #198

The Disciple – read story

Contest #154

Old Fishermen Never Die – read story

Contest #146

A San Miguel Roadrunner – read story