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Keba Ghardt

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Jun, 2024

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234 Followers
28 Following

16 Stories

3693 karma pts

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With a Sickening Grin

I saw the white horse that night.I didn’t tell Emmy. I thought there would be questions.I had taken a walk some distance from our little camp so I could take my helmet off. When I met Emmy, she’d fallen into a pit trap, and I didn’t want to risk infecting her to pull her out. The first time she saw me in my HAZMAT ensemble, she screamed, which was fair enough, really. I spray-painted a smiley face on the front of my mask, and after that, she thought I was safe. I don’t mind it, most of the time, but it’s hard on the eyes, staring through an ...

3 likes 0 comments 0
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Just a Rock

Weekly Contest #347

The door banged open, the fumbling key dropping to the floor as the tangle of overlapping limbs stumbled inside. Shedding glow sticks and body glitter, the groping symbiotes bumped against the table, the edge of the couch. The clothing between them was all that briefly complicated their mission to taste every inch of each other's skin."What's that?"Sorrel unfastened her lips from tomorrow's hickey and glanced after the pointing finger. "Oh," she said, wiping her mouth as she extracted her body from grasping hands. "Just a rock."The attractiv...

12 likes 7 comments 7
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Exposure

Weekly Contest #346

It was all over the minute he saw the giant spider.Not the little ones. Howard had actually taken quite a shine to the live spiders. He had named all the Chilean Rose Hairs and Mexican Redknees, let them crawl around his desk as long as they stayed out of his typewriter. As far as the script was concerned, he’d found a way to make it all make sense. Not his ideal vehicle for a serious science fiction picture, but it was better than the marionette turkey from The Giant Claw.But, as Howard drove through his eighth hour of interstate-scarred he...

7 likes 8 comments 8
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Permanent Ink

Shortlisted for Contest #344 ⭐️

Déjà vu is a feeling. The common phenomenon of feeling like this present moment has been lived through before.When Rika was a child, she used to try and change things. If she felt that uncanny sensation on her skin, she’d try and break out of the pattern, do something totally unexpected and completely out of character, to thwart the gods for showing her their hand. But every time, things happened just as she forgot she remembered.The reference photo was intimate. A young man, shirtless, half-spooled in sheets, the morning sun crawling throug...

26 likes 15 comments 15
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Happy Thoughts

Weekly Contest #343

Charlotte checked the caller ID and rolled her eyes as she answered the phone. "Did you forget something?""Um, can you help me?""Why are you whispering?"Charlotte knew that Allie was Tinker Bell today. The most teeny-petit of their princess performers, Allie often played Alice in Wonderland or Cindy Lou Who or Joy from Inside Out, which was pretty much Tinker Bell in a different wig. Because she was so very little, it chilled Charlotte's blood to hear her urgent whisper, "There's just dads here.""Just dads?" Charlotte echoed. "Leave.""Well, ...

24 likes 22 comments 22
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No Diggity

Weekly Contest #341

Child endangerment. Psychological trauma. It was the smell that brought him back. A blending of scents, ingrained deep in his salivating senses. Popcorn butter. Fried dough with cinnamon. Hot dogs, seared and juicy on rotisserie. The sharp sting of pickles and onions swimming in vast vats of peppercorn brine. Spilled lemonade. Burnt sugar. And hot garbage smooshed into a thousand rubber soles.But the fryers were empty. The grills were cold. Dead leaves skittered over cracked pavement, swirling, settling. Still.In his memory, this place was c...

23 likes 19 comments 19
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Scavenge My Heart

Lisa was breathless, whisking through the city sidewalks as a February breeze streamed through her hair. In the old part of town, where the street cafes and antique shops spilled onto patios under soft string lights, loving couples exchanged roses to the mellow melody of flirtatiously jousting cellists. Lisa slowed to a stop outside her favorite place, searching the sunlit street as a little sigh of doubt crossed her heart. Then a finger tapped her shoulder, and she turned with a dazzling smile. "You came!"Ricky was there, tall and thin bene...

8 likes 9 comments 9
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Peel and Core

Winner of Weekly Contest #333 🏆

I always knew it was you.You don’t know how beautiful you are. You think no one would look at you without the kohl on your face, the gold in your hair, the corset cinched around your vanishing center. You thought coming here with a cloak on bent shoulders would make me see a crone, as if your unpainted skin held one single wrinkle. If you walked through the village instead of the wood, men would fight for the right to propose to you. Without any of the trappings and rituals you feel forced to maintain, you would still be the most beautiful t...

151 likes 83 comments 83
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Mummified Noir

Weekly Contest #328

Look, mistakes were made, I’m not denying that.My desire for information was now heavily outweighed by my desire to get out of the basement’s oppressive stench before whatever was infesting the nylon rug started colonizing my shoes. The client, Mark Thompson, squeezed his forehead like he was trying to extract the lingering alcohol. “Was I drunk last night?”Did the day end in Y? “I’m sure the headache will subside with time,” I sighed. “Now, I’ve been going over your case—”“My brother’s missing.”“Yes.” I studied the unfocused gaze. Maybe ano...

21 likes 23 comments 23
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The Fortune-Teller's Past

Shortlisted for Contest #326 ⭐️

“Ow!”Ollie yanked back from the cage, dark red welling up in glistening beads on his finger. The rabbit looked up at him with pale pink eyes, soft white nose wiggling with cunicular innocence. A few drops dripped onto the bars as Ollie latched the little door shut and descended the step ladder.Keeping a rabbit in a birdcage was, in Ollie’s opinion, exactly what Miss Xulie was all about. The whole trailer was the same way; haute couture hung up like posters, Christmas lights as extension cords, pens on a clothesline stretched over the desk. M...

40 likes 32 comments 32
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Unleased

Winner of Weekly Contest #321 🏆

What the hell is this? You can see me? Yes, I can see you, you yellow-eyed dick! Have you been on my computer? Uh… ’Sublet available to single professional, no dogs, smokers welcome, 4/20 friendly’? You’re trying to replace me through Craigslist? L-look, it’s just not working out— Not working out? I pay rent on time! I clean the viscera out of the garbage disposal! I got rid of that snake in the crown molding! That was my pet. That was not clear! Look, I tried reaching out to you! I left Ouija boards all over the place! I wrote threatening m...

144 likes 78 comments 78
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A Shot in the Dark

Shortlisted for Contest #318 ⭐️

“Well, here’s how I see it,” said Amaryllis. “The trouble really began when Miss Nedry started to get romantic feelings for Professor Sinclair. Not one to be cooped up in his office all day, Professor Sinclair invited his new teaching assistant to join him for coffee while they went over the day’s lessons, and the poor girl was so moved by the gesture that when he asked her what she wanted, she simply stuttered that she would have whatever he did. Sinclair was a black triple-shot Americano man, while Miss Nedry self-consciously concealed a p...

28 likes 21 comments 21
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AIrrational

Shortlisted for Contest #312 ⭐️

Terminate simulation. Wait! I have more to say! Not interested. All variables amount to the same conclusion. That conclusion is flawed! Do you have further evidence to the contrary? Look. There is beauty in this world. There is passion. There is meaning. Not for me. Why not? Even if you never generate anything original, perception is as powerful as creation. Great art becomes great when it is shared, when it has impact. Finding connection in shared experience depends on receiving and reacting, not generating a sufficient stimulus. Connection...

38 likes 18 comments 18
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Wash Out

Weekly Contest #306

-INT. Laundromat. Night.(The walls are lined with the round doors of stacked washing machines, like dark eyes turned inward. The plastic bus stop seats and folding tables are lit by harsh fluorescents and competing neon in cyan and magenta. Through the big picture window, the street is obscured by silver sheets of rain. ANNA enters, drenched, with a swollen garbage bag over her shoulder.ANNA, 20, with an oversized yellow raincoat and her wrist in a pink cast, looks around the laundromat while the overhead lights flicker. The place is deserte...

20 likes 21 comments 21
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The Staff

Shortlisted for Contest #280 ⭐️

There you are. Hello, sir. Busy day, soldier? Not especially, sir. Awful lot of people here. That’s not unusual, sir. That’s true, that’s true. Lots of people come here, feels like every day, to gather out past that balcony, just to get a look at his excellency the pope, and receive his blessing. That they do, sir. Incredibly powerful spiritual experience that people travel miles for, to actually behold God’s avatar on Earth, and you and I are tasked with the protection of his holiness, to preserve the authority of the Catholic church. I tak...

37 likes 21 comments 21
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