Chapter One (Once Upon A Time) For one very long second, I wanted to believe this was someone else’s life—anyone who wasn’t named Beau LeFrancois. Anyone who wasn’t me. Pause . . . Rewind . . . Play . . . It’d been a long day at school, which was basically every day and any…
Category: Uncategorized
Chapter 1 from “Ricochet”
Tati A story starts like this and ends like that. But sometimes we can only guess when a story really starts and wonder if it ever really ends. My story starts when Priya and I spit into our matching tiny plastic vials. We spit until they’re full—mine, slightly yellow-tinged; Priya’s, clear and frothy. “You so…
Life on the Fringes
https://amberjackpublishing.com/life-fringes-kathryn-berla/ Life on the Fringes by Kathryn Berla Author of Dream Me “I’ve been on the fringes of your social circles, envying you from a distance. Sometimes you let me in for a better view. Usually, I only get a glimpse.” –Dream Me Just like Babe—the main character of my new novel, Dream Me—my childhood was spent in…
The Power of Collective Memory
https://amberjackpublishing.com/power-collective-memory/ The Power of Collective Memory By Kathryn Berla Author of The House at 758 Sitting by the window of a train, fields of yellow flowers blur past me. Houses whose occupants I’ll never know but whose lives I imagine for the brief few seconds before my view is transformed once again. A traveler across continents, like…
Ramblings on the Usefulness of Species
I recently read a comment on a blog that maligned the common wasp, comparing it unfavorably to the bee which everyone loves. The commenter was asking for respect for the wasp which she pointed out was not only not bad, but was vital. She worried that the wasp’s bad reputation might lead to its extinction….
The Orange Dog
The best dog I’ve ever known doesn’t have a name. To the man who occasionally feeds her she’s just a whistle. To my son who adored her, she became Orange Dog for the color of her coat. I should add that I haven’t seen Orange Dog in over a year. I’m not even sure in…
Teen Angst in the Sixties
Angst: a feeling of dread, anxiety or anguish (Dictionary.com) Teen Angst: when teenagers, for any number of reasons combined with their hormones and stress from school, get depressed. Contrary to popular beleif (sp), some teenagers actually do have it rough and have to deal with shit most adults don’t have to. Other teens don’t and…
Lions and Tigers and Bears
Here’s to the creatures large and small, of the air and land and sea (as the song goes). Here’s to the creatures that I most love and to the ones that I cannot abide. Here are my preferences and prejudices when it comes to the Animal Kingdom. There is no logic. All creatures are Nature’s…
The Wave (originally published June 28, 2012)
The morning hours just before I wake…it’s when I have my most vivid dreams. Perhaps it’s because I’m so close to waking that my dreams still lay on the surface of my consciousness. There’s no opportunity for them to be fuzzied and muddled into obscurity by another sleep cycle. This one has moved me in…
Bob is Good (originally published June 20, 2012)
What do you want to be when you grow up was a question I heard frequently when I was young. I’m grateful that the question was asked of me. It presumed I had the ability to determine my own fate—a presumption I didn’t always believe myself. And at various times in my life I had…