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Keba Ghardt

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Jun, 2024

Stories (15)
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214 Followers
29 Following

15 Stories

3428 karma pts

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No Diggity

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...

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Time to Lose

Submitted to Contest #340

Smoke and debris settled in the fading echoes after the attack.Rimmelslaus raised his goggles and blinked owlishly as his retinas recovered from the blast. He grabbed his microphone, squinting toward the crater where his enemy used to be. "Are you still alive?"For a long moment, there was nothing but the sound of crumbling rock. Then a crackling speaker asserted, "No!"Heat rushed up Rimmelslaus's neck. "Liar!""Make me!""That doesn't make any sense!""You don't make any sense!"Damn that Mazdakov! Rimmelslaus hurried to divert power from the ba...

7 likes 8 comments 8
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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...

6 likes 8 comments 8
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Behind Shatter-proof Glass

Submitted to Contest #339

Mariella didn't see what was so odd about it. All she did was make a glass of tea. There was no rule about cold drinks in glasses and hot drinks in mugs, so if people did burn themselves, that was their fault for making assumptions. Did that make her crazy?Miss Stevens leaned over. "Do you need to use the restroom?"Dad made a little huff and slouched lower in his plastic seat. "She'll go when she's ready."Turning her narrow-eyed attention toward Dad, Miss Stevens said, "She's squirming.""I know. She does this." Dad looked straight ahead, arm...

17 likes 12 comments 12
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Fine Print

Submitted to Contest #338

The phone rang a little after three in the morning. Charlie grabbed it before the sound woke his...oh. Never mind. Inching away from the empty space on the bed, Charlie pressed his thumb to the screen. "Hello?""Did Grandma hate me?"Yawning, Charlie swung his legs off the edge of the bed. "She hated everybody, Chris. What are you really asking?"Cold footsteps across the floor, a chill draft picking up goosebumps on Charlie's legs. There was a long-distance sigh in his ear. "I mean, did she say anything? Did she have some specific thing she wa...

17 likes 10 comments 10
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In a Most Peculiar Way

Submitted to Contest #337

The astronaut didn’t know where she was.The smooth-walled corridor stretched out in front of her like a long white throat. Clumsy in her bulky spacesuit, bolted down by the planet's gravity, the astronaut inched along the passage, noting the images and runes that suggested intelligent life. The structure opened up into a wider chamber, with tall glass displays showing a bleak, white sky.An alien appeared.Covered in unkempt patches of dark brown fur, the alien stepped in from another portal off the esophageal corridor. It paused, balancing a ...

23 likes 19 comments 19
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Peel and Core

Winner of 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...

136 likes 79 comments 79
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Mummified Noir

Submitted to 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...

20 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 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...

139 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...

29 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

Submitted to 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...

35 likes 21 comments 21
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Your Animal Side

Winner of Contest #257 🏆

Eddie was sweating. He'd been told, before putting on the suit, to drink a ton of water, so much your stomach hurts, and he bet there was an extra ten pounds of perspiration in the cheap costume fur. It certainly smelled like it, but rule one of wearing the suit: never take off the head. "That's an automatic write up," said Rob. "If you do it, and Faye finds out you subbed in without approval, you are off weekend hours, my friend. Good luck sucking up Tuesday tips." "I get it, I get it," Eddie had insisted. "I'll stay away from French revolu...

95 likes 44 comments 44
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