Garrett Warren
Bio
Stories (15/0)
Bear, With Me
A bear meandered at the edge of the backyard, big and brown. Bears weren’t native to the area, so this merited some wide-eyed gawking. It even earned the kids’ attention, had them scrambling over furniture—and each other—to join Liam by the sliding glass door. Emily looked uneasy.
By Garrett Warren3 years ago in Fiction
Down, Down to Gas Town
They passed another gas station on Century Avenue with a sign that said “No Gas.” Could you call a gas station “a gas station” if it didn’t have any gas? Tyler didn’t know, nor did he know what else you would call it. A convenience store? The one they just passed had four pumps and a building barely big enough to stock more than candy bars and cigarettes. Hardly convenient.
By Garrett Warren3 years ago in Fiction
Driving: A Pretty Good Model for How People Will Behave With Unlimited Freedom
I drive something like 250 miles a day, five days a week. I am always surrounded by cars, and so I have seen a lot of nonsense. The nonsense never comes from nowhere, and so it’s always predictable and avoidable. With very few exceptions the best way to avoid nonsense is to follow traffic laws.
By Garrett Warren3 years ago in Wheel
The Way We Tell It
I was in a slapped-together bar at the back of a repossessed property. The bar was illegal, but I didn’t care. I retired from the force and didn’t need to care anymore. The bartender was the eponymous owner of the place—Milly of Milly’s Shed. It was really three sheds, cut and nailed together.
By Garrett Warren3 years ago in Fiction
The Logistics of Providence
The airy rush of distant highways serenades the nighttime city into a restless half-sleep. A well-dressed man steps from the back of a limousine, a suspicious package wrapped in brown paper nested in the crook of his arm. His head on a swivel, he scans the hoi polloi for a proper recipient. As he passes under sodium-yellow streetlights, the package pulses and the lights tremble.
By Garrett Warren3 years ago in Fiction
7 Cooking Hacks for the Busy Millennial
We Millennials are a varied lot. Some of us are somewhat young; others are nearing that age where we will need to take them out behind the barn and put them down. But young or euthanasia-adjacent, we all have one thing in common: we are busy.
By Garrett Warren3 years ago in Humans
Toil Story
I went back and forth a lot on whether I wanted to write this. Not for any serious reason, but on issues of laziness – i.e. “I could play video games to give myself a writing break before I work on my Fair Winds story”. Also, I had previously decided that if I wrote any ‘non-fiction’ thing it would be something universally applicable and not contextually dependent on the readers familiarity with Vocal. In addition, I'm not particularly good at this sort of writing. But while the subject matter is specific to Vocal, those sufficiently skilled in extrapolation can probably find some broader applicable areas for this piece which is why I decided to go ahead and write it.
By Garrett Warren3 years ago in Journal
Super Burrito, Better America
The United States, sometime probably in the 1980s, had undergone something of a change. Or, rather, an un-change. Drive along any interstate, get off on any exit, and you will find familiar corporate faces greeting your arrival. Some of the places you visit may seem different, but only superficially. Get off an exit in Wisconsin, Minnesota, or Iowa; you will find a Kwik Trip (or a Casey’s General Store). Around the East Coast, you’ll find a Wawa. Then there are your Circle K’s and RaceTrac’s and Sheetz. I’m not well versed on popular Southwest or West Coast gas chains, but the ones mentioned offer the faux-intrepid similar accommodations. But gas stations aren’t the only ubiquities a person might find, and their reach is far beyond Highway Hubs.
By Garrett Warren3 years ago in Feast