Masha Kurbatova

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Sep, 2019

Stories (39)

39 Stories

2578 karma pts

?

“sand” by Masha Kurbatova

   Owls screamed in the cold, wet night; Danny was following them. Two more birds to tick off, and he’d have seen every avian species in the northeast. He descended deep into the forest’s bowls, searching. His broad shoulders brushed pine trees. His boots shuffled pine straw. He hummed.      Magic brews in frog ponds. Danny didn’t know. His pale round face greeted its twin – the moon – and watched not his feet. Ro...

0 comments 0
Read story

“how the passenger princess lost her crown” by Masha Kurbatova

A month before heartbreak, we were in the car. My phone was hooked to the speaker by an umbilical cord of pink wire. Melly drove – I didn’t have my license yet. “I’m gonna play a cover. It’s funny,” I said. A whiny man’s voice screeched from the stereo. “Can you play the original version? The Kate Bush one?” she asked.“Aw, come on. The original is overplayed.”“This one sucks. No offense.” “Mm. Okay,” I obliged.Su...

3 comments 3
Read story

“it's time to move” by Masha Kurbatova

   I read somewhere, perhaps an internet forum for women who dread falling prey to sociopaths or pathological liars or narcissists, that you can only pretend to be someone else for three months; afterwards, the timer dings, your cracks show, and like a bloodied chick, you emerge once more from your false shell. Though of dubious origin, this statistic is comforting to me. I, like Barbie, cycle through friends and outfits and jobs and haircuts and breast-to-waist ratios, but eventually both the doll and I tire of being astro...

0 comments 0
Read story

“wait around a while” by Masha Kurbatova

Ana gets married in flip flops. Twenty minutes before the ceremony, she’s sweaty, red-faced, with anxious rats chewing holes in her stomach, with bare feet in the church basement, rummaging through the residue of her bridal party, kicking aside empty gift bags and garment bags, and where are they, the little white shoes? Nowhere. Escaped. They were pricey, they had heels just tall enough to wobble, but you get m...

1 comment 1
Read story

“all the things she said” by Masha Kurbatova

Work was ghastly. Roman needed a break. No better time than the winter holidays, when cheer sloshed through the city, unbearably wet and merry, like the snow melting on asphalt and mixing with confetti left behind by endless parades. He’d go up to the little cabin, he decided, up in the mountains, relax away from the forever-smilers and the always-happy. Clear his head.  He’d given his boss a note. The ma...

17 comments 17
Read story

“in my room” by Masha Kurbatova

15 minutes until Adeline’s holiday performance, and she was curled up somewhere in a little ball. No one could say where exactly. Caroline, twin sister, PR manager, sat on the couch, smiling with just her mouth, not her eyes. Sometimes Adeline pulled through last minute. Sometimes, she didn’t.  A dozen people were scattered in Nikolai’s living room, a scrappy holiday post-tour party. There were the backstage technicians, the bearded and pot-bellied lighting specialists, the tour manager locked up in the bathroo...

21 comments 21
Read story

“girls who eat caterpillars on the playground” by Masha Kurbatova

I. It was halfway through LIT 201: INTRO TO AMERICAN LITERATURE that I realized I hated American literature. Every book we read ended the same way: our plucky main character gets on a train and thinks wistfully to the past, then brightly to the future. It’s a cheap metaphor, the train, a symbol for progress, forward movement, Westward expansion, rfonwards & upwards, etc. And American stories are just like that, strai...

12 comments 12
Read story

“teethfallingoutdream.org” by Masha Kurbatova

   I woke up stinking and sweaty, hot under my armpits and between my thighs, my mouth drained of moisture. It happened again, the teeth dream. I was climbing the stairs of a rickety lighthouse, talking to someone pretty. It’s a horrible feeling, putting your fingers in your mouth, your nails confirming what your tongue already knew: the hardest, most stable structure of your body is wobbling. You just want to g...

12 comments 12
Read story

“my ugly little husband” by Masha Kurbatova

I’m lying in bed, just me, next to my ugly little husband. Aw, I’m being mean, aren’t I? He’s not that bad, just hairy around the neck and soft in the belly, and his face isn’t too symmetrical. But I’ve seen worse. And I’m used to it all, the way his nose folds into his lip, his hair sticks out by the ears. It’s comfortable, comforting, like the horrible wallpaper at Grandma’s house. It’s just that tattoo that bothers me...

10 comments 10
Read story

“acrobat” by Masha Kurbatova

Derek is an empirical, sciency person who listens to only facts. But I guess death makes believers of us all. I thought he never listened to me either, yet certainly some things have gone through. How else would he remember where to hire a paranormal investigator?  Paranormal Investigator: Where do you notice the greatest level of activity? Derek: By the closet, definitely. That’s where sh...

10 comments 10
Read story

“come to atlanta! ” by Masha Kurbatova

   Irina lives alone now, which is ideal. Except last night, when she watched a psychological thriller, some dream-sequence cinema with melting wax heads and ants crawling from orifices and twisted whispering voices. She couldn’t tell you the plot. She couldn’t tell you what it all meant. But she couldn’t sleep after. The scary little movie scenes wormed into the backs of her eyelids. She regretted living so far from Jake then, but by morning, she doesn’t. It would have made her feel like a child, cr...

80 comments 80 WINNER 🏆
Read story

“macaroni salad” by Masha Kurbatova

The great thing about being successful: no one could question your actions anymore. Instead, every action became a tip for success. Before the book deals and the interviews, how many times had she been made a jester for liking cold, starchy salads drenched in mayonnaise and onions? But now, every sloppy forkful of macaroni salad seemed the mark of a great poetess. She’s feeding her muse. If paparazzi were around...

7 comments 7
Read story

“russian sage” by Masha Kurbatova

I hate Russian sage. Such an ugly little plant, faded purple, as if you’d taken something decent and put it through the wash too many times. I hate that planted so much of it around the house without asking me. The smell gives me a headache. The smell reminds me of the summer my mother was in love with Lenny. I told you about Lenny, I know I did, and I told you about the sage too, the beaming bushes around the hotel’s pe...

16 comments 16
Read story

“"naomi," or 1 million butterflies pinned to a wall” by Masha Kurbatova

I don’t know much. That’s what college was supposed to fix. I read big books with big words, Susan Sontag, Karl Marx, Arendt, Foucalt, Nietzche, Sartre. Each flip of the page was a hand on my shoulder, twisting me in a new direction. I graduated dizzy and confused, uncertain what anything was, whether anything was real. Ask me what I read for my senior thesis and watch my eyes dim and fog. They only taught me...

36 comments 36
Read story

“back in the pulse” by Masha Kurbatova

The world is burning, and of course it’s only my ex-fiance that can save me. His knuckles grip white around the steering wheel. His eyes are a snake’s, focused and unblinking on the road ahead. It’s the first unclogged stretch of highway we’ve encountered, and he’s flying through. It’s bound to get worse the closer we get to Boston.  “Can I put some music on?” I ask.  ...

18 comments 18
Read story

Author bio

masha! 22! she/her! my instagram is @dogenthusiast if you want to connect more!

Winning 2 stories 🏆

Contest #63
come to atlanta! – read story
Contest #39
sole mate – read story

Shortlisted 2 stories ⭐️

Contest #46
dead cat – read story
Contest #44
the end of the tour – read story