Writing Updates

I gave a friend The Damned Saint, and Elemental Mazes can't hold my attention right now (going from Adult to Middle Grade writing is really hard sometimes for me). So, I am working on a new short story. While working on a few others, short stories take me some time because I want to make them full, without bogging down with details. Here are the three I am working on. They won't be more than 50k words.

Concept: Semyaza is a fallen daughter of God, she is tasked with creating hells for souls assigned to her. She must make it seem to the soul they are still alive, their miseries their punishments. It was going fine for eons, before she was assigned a soul that would forever change her very infernal grace. She finds herself walking beside them more and more, comforting them, trying to lessen their damnation. Until, she realizes she is in her own hell, and she makes the plot to release the damned soul early. To save them from being corrupted and damned to her existence of forever remaining in hell.

Concept: We were twins. We are close, inseparable. Even across the states. My brother moved to South Carolina, when he got married. But letters went back and forth. He worked on plantation and I worked my farm. Then came that fateful day that I knew would happen with the fighting going on in our infant nation. I had planned to work my land that fateful April 12th like I did every morning. I had been sending my brother letters, even after that December 20th, decision for his state to secede from the Union. But that April day changed a lot for everybody. Even I and my twin. And that is the day I died. My body just hadn’t caught up to my soul. My headstone should have stated February 15th, 1837- April 12th, 1841. But it doesn’t.

Concept: Katrina Richards ran from home as soon as she graduated high school, becoming a world renowned Archaeologist and Historian in just ten years. Then her younger sister had twins at fifteen. To save the twins from being abused and neglected or spending any time in the system, Katrina moves from Los Angeles back home to a small town in Iowa. She adopts the twins and starts a new career as a high school teacher. Enter James Carlton, Mathematics teach since he was twenty two, former teacher of Katrina Richards. James and this small town are about to turn Katrina's life upside down. And it all starts with James and Friday Night High School Football.

Unexpected Redemption A Flash Fiction Story

Unexpected Redemption

A Flash Fiction Story

Katherine Rochholz

All Rights Reserved

I woke with a start, someone was banging on my bedroom door, “UP LAZYBONES! It is your first day of high school!” I heard my dad yell. I was confused as hell. Was I dreaming? My dad had died ten years previous and I hadn’t been in high school for twenty, let alone just starting high school. I felt a ripple of energy and after a shudder looked down at the book that had fallen off my chest when I had sat up. Falling asleep with a book was a habit since I had learned to read, except it wasn’t the book on cardiovascular surgical advancements that I had remembered falling asleep with. It was a copy of The Odyssey, I hadn’t read that book since I was fourteen… I jumped up and looked into the mirror, “holy fuck,” I was fourteen again.

There was a ripple of energy again and a message appeared.

‘Here is your redo, don’t abuse it. ~Fate’

I dressed mechanically, I was fourteen and not the award-winning surgeon of my future. I sat down at the breakfast table in a daze, hash browns with cheese sat in front of me, something I hadn’t ate since my father died. I looked up and just watched him.

My dad, he was smiling as he flipped pancakes from the pain a very amateurish flourish, they always fell at a weird angle. I looked at the grey in his hair, the blisters and calluses on his hands, all from working three jobs to save and provide for me. The reason why I had gotten a part time job and pushed myself. I went into heart surgery to save people like my dad; until I lost sight of it all and give into greed. I blinked when he spoke.

“A reorder of hash browns?” He was smiling and held the pan out to give me some more, I looked down to notice I had finished them. I nodded, as I was realizing more than a few things. I would have to fight the hierarchy of high school again, work myself up to the top of the pyramid, wear the jersey of a star athlete, put a cowboy hat and jeans on, instead of the suit and tie I had worn for the last decade in my memories. I realized I was back in the middle of cowboy country and not Manhattan. But for this chance to save my dad? To become the version of myself I had wanted to see in the mirror before I lost everything to the green of greed? It would be worth it to fight for it again. For I wasn’t going to waste this chance at unexpected redemption.

Hidden Miracles A Flash Fiction Story

Hidden Miracles

A Flash Fiction Story

Katherine Rochholz

All Rights Reserved

Christmas… ‘Ugh…’ I shuddered as I walked the malls looking for some signature gift from one of these many capitalistic vendors. Why was I here? If I hate it so much? Well, it started with my past ringing my door bell, three days ago, a very hungry past, in the form of my only child I had give up fifteen years prior.

Fifteen Years Ago

I had crossed the first finish line of my first high school track meet, I was a sight, with my hair falling out of my ponytail and over my sweatband. I was on top of my fifteen-year-old world and smiling as if happiness was all I had, or would ever, feel. Little had I known just what would shatter me just hours from that moment. If I had, I may have ignored the offer to go for pizza with the team. But that night I was shattered, and nine months later I gave away the only person I would ever unconditionally love, all to protect them.

Present

I shook my head from the memories of the past as I walked into a tech store. It was right next to the fitness center I went to; I was taking Krav Maga lessons, mostly to flirt with the instructor, even though she always kicked my ass each class.

I looked at the touch screen tablets and phones, I end up with a tablet/laptop combo system, and a cell phone. I shook hands with the agent, even against my aversion to the touch of strangers. I was happy enough to ignore it. For I now had my daughter in my life. I wept for her, I felt bad for being so happy. She had been kicked out by her adoptive parents for being different, for not being the ‘boy’ they had raised. So, I gave her a home when she found me. I accepted her without thought.

I was about to leave the mall when I walked by a pet store, a little of puppies, a new beginning, and the signature gift found. Now just to get custody of my daughter, the magic of everyday, and hidden miracles within this world’s hate, brought me back my child. The only human I would ever love unconditionally.