FIVE

by Kara Bright Kilgore

A young girl learns about time in her classroom in terms of hours, minutes, and seconds. She has to leave class early today. Her mother is picking her up to visit her grandmother in the local hospital's intensive care unit. As she waits on the steps, she meets a curious man with dreadlocks, a man who prays with only one word. They converse about saints, family, and unspoken words. Before her mother's car arrives, he gives the girl a strange gift, one that proves invaluable as she grapples with death, identity, the many ways that time can shift and stretch, and the unspoken five.

9 pages, Kindle Edition

Published April 26, 2017

About the author

Kara Bright Kilgore hails from Savannah, Georgia. Her work has been featured in literary journals such as Break The Spine, Best Fiction Of The Web (UK), Down In The Dirt Magazine, Colored Chalk, Pressure Press Presents, The 11th Hour, and Port Cities Review. Her short piece entitled, “Into The Chemical Air” won second place for best new fiction in the 2007 Georgia Literary Festival. She also read “Edible Red” at the home of Sidney Lanier for the 2010 Crossroads Literary Festival. Her newest piece of short fiction, “New and Sharp, With Many Teeth,” is under contract and will be published by mid 2018. She was recently honored to read it at the Lost Keys Festival a few months ago, a festival that honored her favorite poet, Seaborn Jones.

Reviews

[Jeff · Rating 5 out of 5]

A writer to watch

"Five" is a wise story. It is grounded in love and explores the mysteries of fate along with the tricky poetics of human connection. This a potent combination. The young heroine is easy for the reader to inhabit and the author -- Kara Bright Kilgore -- is a writer to watch.

[Clint Putman · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Five" is a wonderful short story about time and unspoken words; about loss and remembrance. Kara Kilgore tells the story of a young girl visiting her grandmother and learning to say good-bye. The real beauty of the story is the poetry of the words. In places, the story reads like a narrative poem.