Nathaniel Gardener

“Blackout” by Nathaniel Gardener

      “Settling in?” An expectant grin almost distracted him from raptor eyes, splitting through the encroaching darkness as the streetlights dimmed out.           “Yeah,” Philip muttered.            “Oh goodie,” she scanned the floor. “You need a TV?”, her gaze darted, “New bedframe? Extra cupboard? I have all these things that belonged to my husband you see.”    &nbsp...

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“A Couple of Ks From the Beach” by Nathaniel Gardener

Submitted to Contest #252

Creedence on the radio, smooth waves of sun-sea basking me in light, salt clinging eagerly to the tangy white hairs on my skin.           Who needs to be serious when you have all this?           I take a big puff from the joint; it’s pure joy, a sweet aroma like you’ve never seen. It’s bliss, man, another world, in a head outside of yours, bigger than yours, like waaaaaaay bigger and somehow it’s everything you know, and you’re...

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“Captivity” by Nathaniel Gardener

Submitted to Contest #250

“Sam, I don’t want to have to ask you this again,” Marc loomed over the dirty mustard covers wrinkled around the boy’s body, “it is now five o'clock in the afternoon.”Sam groanedand writhed atop the jagged bedsprings that poked at his back through themattress. The words were muffled to him, warbling out of a fishbowl as helay half unconscious. Marc sighed.“If youdon’t get up, I’m going to get Adrian and the boys in here to lift youoff. Then we’re going to move this mattress underneath the staircase,where everyone can see you.&...

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“Paradise Lost: Rehab Camp” by Nathaniel Gardener

Submitted to Contest #248

           “Patients of Hortonhouse, I welcome you with the widest, deepest, and most open of arms, hearts, and such, to this, our flagship rehabilitation ranch.”At the time I thought that he meant it. The doctor’s grin was beef burger broad.            “It is my firm belief that functioning in the modern world strictly follows a sense of independence in the intra-psychic world.” Something, something, camp to make you ...

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“God in a Pill” by Nathaniel Gardener

“What if God was one of us?” Lee Anne said, hurling her golden hair back as it sparkled in a thousand different glimmers of golden blonde.               “Jesus Christ,” Pierre’s face turned up in disgust, sending a jolt of terror down the nerve endings in my neck, “That’s so frikking lame.”               “Come on angel,” Lee Anne raised an eyebrow, “Lighten up, you’ll have more fun that way.”  &nbsp...

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