Randell Jones
Daniel Boone Footsteps
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6-minute Stories

Everybody loves a good story
Listen to these 6-minute stories
from both new voices and experienced writers
from the Personal Story Publishing Project anthologies:
Bearing Up , Exploring , That Southern Thing , Luck & Opportunity,
Trouble , Curious Stuff , Twists and Turns , Sooner or Later , and Now or Never.
Copies of all 10 books in the series available here.
“6-minute Stories” episodes announced on Facebook @6minutestories

"Flooded" by Tara Thompson

 – I’m running out of time.

With life in the balance, I had never felt the world like this before.

 

Tara Thompson passed away Dec. 2, 2022 unexpectedly from medical complications.

Tara Thompson lived in Durham, North Carolina. She held an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of North Carolina-Wilmington and was selected as a winner of the annual Piccolo Spoleto Fiction Open. Her short stories and essays have been published in Wilma Magazine, Charleston City Paper, The Square Table, Prick of the Spindle, and more. This current essay was inspired by Tara's soon-to-be published memoir, which is about her endless fight to survive cancer. Tara was also completing a contemporary novel.

Link to Tara’s obituary: click the image below

Author’s Talk

Tara Thompson

In 1993, my life changed forever. I was 26, pursuing an acting career, and living in a tiny one-room NYC studio with no air-conditioning. I had recently auditioned for a lead part in the soap opera One Life to Live, which I was recommended for by a director who saw me in an acting class. 

Things were on an upswing career-wise, even though I had not felt well for quite some time. I’d struggled with respiratory symptoms, night sweats, and a barrage of large bruises that I camouflaged with makeup. But nothing was going to stop me from auditioning. Nothing was going to derail my dream. 

Then one day, after my health had been deteriorating for weeks, I could barely get out of bed. I skipped auditions and headed straight to the Emergency Room. I thought I might have mono. That was the worst case scenario I could imagine. But, after numerous blood tests, it was determined to be something much, much worse. 

A couple months later I would find myself in another hospital, back in my home state of North Carolina, undergoing a complex procedure that may or may not save my life. 

It was hard to comprehend that I might not make it. I might not live past 26. Yet here I am, nearly 30 years later, still alive and taking on new things in my life. — Tara Thompson

 

Randell Jones