{"id":4297,"date":"2023-06-11T19:18:00","date_gmt":"2023-06-11T23:18:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kathryncolleen.com\/studio\/?post_type=project&p=4297"},"modified":"2026-08-07T17:49:39","modified_gmt":"2026-08-07T21:49:39","slug":"stories-no-quarter","status":"publish","type":"project","link":"https:\/\/kathryncolleen.com\/studio\/project\/stories-no-quarter\/","title":{"rendered":"Stories – No Quarter"},"content":{"rendered":"
Walking through small towns, you notice things. Every town has its own culture, its own set of architectures, gardens, pets and people. She Who Sees and her beloved walk long and often through the myriad of small towns that mark the milestones of their travels.<\/div>\n
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The first time you walk through a new town, you take in only the big things. What kind of houses are here; what kind of stores? The second time you walk through the same town, you start to notice the people and the pets that join you on the streets and greet you from the porches. Walk after walk, the couple noticed more and more detail: smells, decorations, and eventually… eventually you start to notice who lives where, who are friends with whom, and the patterns of life that establish themselves so quickly and comfortably as if necessary to our very human existence. The patterns are the thing. Not because of the patterns but because of when the patterns change.<\/div>\n
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She Who Sees knows this well. Patterns do not change easily. It requires a catalyst; a spark. Patterns change only when the humans involved change at a level deeply fundamental. Something shifts, like earth; tectonic movement beneath the seemingly calm everyday exterior of your everyday friendly neighbor. But shifts of that magnitude do not come about overnight. Something builds up over time. Pressure mounts, almost imperceptibly at first. Something just sort of feels off. Then, bit by bit over the days and weeks and months, it exponentiates. Like a rocket, engines lit, held down by braces and moorings. At some point, something has to give. That is when the shift becomes visible in the town.<\/div>\n
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Walk after long walk, She Who Sees and her beloved came to know the small town. They marveled at the favored architectures. They were fed on the kindness of greetings from porches and yards as the town became familiar with their sight. They noticed the animals. They noticed the decorations. They noticed the patterns of weekly visits among friends, family and secret lovers.<\/div>\n
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Political tensions ran high lately. Many of the town\u2019s inhabitants felt slighted by recent elections they felt were, apparently, unfair. Stolen, they might say, if their yard signs didn\u2019t already proclaim it so loudly. So many signs. So much pressure building, fed by media coverage but even more so by meetings between friends that seemed to happen regularly and yet quietly. These regular meetings between friends of like mind didn\u2019t used to be quiet, but lately they took on a secretive air. Something held back from view was hanging in the air around the house on Washington Street.<\/div>\n
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It felt murky and grey. Like a fog that got darker with each passing week. Darker and thicker, it engulfed the home and the dozen cars now bringing meeting attendants of all ages and capabilities. As meetings broke, people emerged from the thick emotional fog to make phone calls in their cars. They turned away from the curious walkers as they approached as if to visually hide their auditory conversations. So much pressure here for action. What would it become? How far were they willing to go to seek relief from the pressure calling for justices, but not knowing what that might look like. How much fear were they willing to create in others to assuage their own?<\/div>\n
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No quarter. There it was. Walk after walk, the proud neighbors, bonded in the purpose of freedom and righteousness, had daily flown the flag of their nation high and proud, colorful and bright, supported by the breeze that caressed it like silk. But today…. no quarter. The same flag, dyed black as the fog that flowed billowing from the meeting house, flew low and ominous, proclaiming the answers to all the questions the curious couple had posed. Heavy and dark, the black flag still had the stitching pattern of its predecessor, but the wind carried it now with the air of war. No quarter means no prisoners. The curious couple, having worked in the realm of war for so many years before their days of freedom, knew exactly what that flag meant. They walked by in reverence now. The house on Washington Street had become, in all sense of feeling, a funeral in future tense for all those they blamed for their problems.<\/div>\n
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The fear they were willing to create to assuage their own, hung over the meeting house daily; and oddly enough, not over anyone else\u2019s. Every other house of the hundred or so there was small and simple, bright and peaceful. As much as the thick, dark fog of impending war filled the air at the house on Washington Street, it seemed bounded by those property lines, never to touch a single other place in town.<\/div>\n
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The people in town were blissfully unaware, in as much as they were unaware of anything in that smallest of tight knit towns. Which is to say they were fully aware, just not talking. In truth, everyone in town gossiped long and loud about everything anyone was doing; except this. Not one person spoke about the house on Washington Street, about the meetings, or the flag or the fog. They spoke of secret lovers, local animal antics, and who was dealing meth, but not that one isolated house. Some town wide covenant seemed to bind their tongues on that particular subject.<\/div>\n
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And so the couple decided it was best to stay out of such business. It\u2019s an ominous flag, that one. It speaks of the darkest type of desperation; a desperation so deeply drowning in fear of its own existence that to take life seems not just reasonable but right. In such times as those it was best to take a side – specifically, to be on the side of whomever you met. Nights were tense in that small town, and days were worse. With time, tensions eased. The meeting house became less busy. The fog dissipated in place. The threat of war, as it seemed at the time, passed. But the flag remained, signaling a commitment that was, for now, purely internal.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A short literary story in which an intuitive walker, She Who Sees, and her beloved observe a small town’s rhythms and sense mounting political tension erupt when a neighborhood’s flag is dyed black to signal no quarter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2320,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","episode_type":"audio","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","itunes_episode_number":"","itunes_title":"","itunes_season_number":"","itunes_episode_type":"","footnotes":""},"project_category":[31,2086],"project_tag":[36,2069,1429,654,180,900,280,649,981,2052,947,1452,1857,977,489,309,1012,1248,655,112,302,186,979,978,284,980,605,332,1361,283],"series":[],"class_list":["post-4297","project","type-project","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","project_category-observations","project_category-stories","project_tag-art","project_tag-books","project_tag-business","project_tag-complete-connection","project_tag-connection","project_tag-consciousness","project_tag-cycle","project_tag-cycle-of-human-development","project_tag-finding-peace","project_tag-guided-meditations","project_tag-human-development","project_tag-lasting-peace","project_tag-lastingpeace-org","project_tag-life-optimization","project_tag-meditation","project_tag-money","project_tag-podcasts","project_tag-poetry","project_tag-purna-asatti","project_tag-relationships","project_tag-religion","project_tag-science","project_tag-seeing-yourself","project_tag-self-mastery","project_tag-self-development","project_tag-self-improvement-2","project_tag-self-understanding","project_tag-society","project_tag-spirituality","project_tag-stages"],"acf":{"recommend_blurb":"For readers who enjoy atmospheric, intuitive short fiction, this story follows a perceptive couple attuned to a town's patterns as quiet political pressure builds toward an ominous turn.","citation_snippet":"Dr. Kathryn Messegee (Kathryn Colleen), \"Stories - No Quarter,\" https:\/\/kathryncolleen.com\/studio\/project\/stories-no-quarter\/","topics":["essays"],"related_book":"","buy_url":""},"episode_featured_image":"https:\/\/kathryncolleen.com\/studio\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/img_1630.jpg","episode_player_image":"https:\/\/kathryncolleen.com\/studio\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/CCA57320-6DC3-4284-BC27-49E433028503.jpeg","download_link":"","player_link":"","audio_player":false,"episode_data":{"playerMode":"dark","subscribeUrls":{"apple_podcasts":{"key":"apple_podcasts","url":"https:\/\/podcasts.apple.com\/us\/podcast\/on-life-being-human\/id1360368906","label":"Apple Podcasts","class":"apple_podcasts","icon":"apple-podcasts.png"},"google_podcasts":{"key":"google_podcasts","url":"","label":"Google Podcasts","class":"google_podcasts","icon":"google-podcasts.png"},"spotify":{"key":"spotify","url":"https:\/\/open.spotify.com\/show\/2nq6d35q9nFAFlanaJc2Do","label":"Spotify","class":"spotify","icon":"spotify.png"},"stitcher":{"key":"stitcher","url":"","label":"Stitcher","class":"stitcher","icon":"stitcher.png"}},"rssFeedUrl":"https:\/\/kathryncolleen.com\/studio\/feed\/podcast\/on-life-being-human","embedCode":"

Stories – No Quarter<\/a><\/blockquote>