Welcome to the forty-fifth Weekly Challenge, where I post a topic and then challenge you to come up with a 100 word story based on that topic.
The topic this week was selected by Elisson from Blog d’Elisson, and it’s The Steaming Heap.
Twelve stories were submitted this week.
Two rookies joined in… yay!
And, once again, some disturbing madness from Planet Z.
Go ahead and listen to them by clicking on the grammophone thingy there in the left column and then vote for your favorites (multiple selections are allowed):
WE GOTS PRIZES:
I will be sending the winner a prize… it’s a packet containing a pair of refrigerators magnet and a CD with the archive of the entire 100 word stories podcast. (Well, minus promos and junk)
It is your voting that determines who wins. So listen, vote, and tune in next week to find out who won!
The full text of each story:
TOM
There are jobs destine to go to the young.
They are physical and as a class tend
to be offensive to the orafactorial sensibilities.
Mr. Russell directed John to the shingled shed,
handed him a shovel.
“To the floor,” he said
It was dead winter but the vapors
of the steaming heap danced in the air.
Fifty years of newspapers.
Rain on peed on and pooped on.
Chemical reactions from fermentation to
fractional distillations possibly even
nuclear fission gave the heap a core temperature.
John laid shovel to its skin.
Beneath was a blacker steamer goop.
John lost his lunch
MIKE JAMES
Tom stood still, just staring. Maybe it wasn’t as bad as it seemed,
but no, he knew it would be. The chilly air made it seem even less
agreeable than usual. It was early, it was quiet, perhaps no one had
even noticed. Salvation seemed so close. Just then, Agnes’s door
opened. As she walked past Tom to her mailbox the look in her
eyes was more than enough to signal that it was too late.
Tom bent over, baggie in hand, and picked up the warm steaming heap.
He waived to Agnes, as he and His dog walked on.
TABITHA
“What is it?” Willow said, looking up at Giles.
“Dunno,” Giles adjusted his glasses, leaning in closer he made a horrible face.
“It ain’t no blooming rose garden.” Spike grumbled.
Buffy watched it cautiously. “How can I slay something like that?”
All of them stood dumbfounded while Clem chortled with glee. Finally Anya stepped in from her weekly counting of money. “Why aren’t you all buying something?”
Xander pointed at the spectacle lying on the floor of the Magic Box store.
Anya looked at it, then shrugged. “You humans always impressed by a steaming pile of demon excrement.”
LISA
Marcel had aspirations to play on the varsity hockey team, but the only position he made the cut for was waterboy. Disappointed, but wanting desperately to be part of the team, he took his duties seriously. He always arrived early for each game and was last to leave, cleaning up after everyone.
When Marcel didn’t come home by 10:30, his family became concerned. By midnight, they called the police. A school-wide search began and the dogs were brought in. They were able to sniff out poor Marcel, who was found knocked unconscious under the still-steaming heap of putrid hockey gear.
ELISSON
“It’s been years now, but I’ll never forget when we tried to rescue Ann from that giant ape.
“A bunch of us came along with Driscoll. He had seen Kong grab Ann and knew we had no time to lose.
“Skull Island? Horrible. Dinosaurs, swamps, and a ravine fulla giant bugs! I still get the sweats thinking about it.
“Anyhow, it was pretty easy to track that monkey. Every couple hundred yards, there’d be a steaming heap of Ape-Shit.
“But when we saw the blond hair in that last heap – why, that’s when we turned around and went home.”
TERRENCE
“What is that?” The cloaked figure said.
“What?” Raoul looked up at his brother on the ashen horse.
“The steaming heap,” The figure raised a thin arm and pointed behind Raoul.
Innocently Raoul looked over his shoulder at the unidentifiable mass a
short distance behind him. He turned back to his brother and
shrugged.
“I do not have the time for this.” He checked the list in his hand.
“So what did this Simon do?”
“Not returning emails, misspelling names.”
“And what is that thing?” Raoul turned again.
“That?” Raoul smiled. “Is a former sex slave midget, dancing with joy.”
PATTI
Joel knew his arm was broken, badly; shock was setting in.
“Broken … arm,” he mumbled to the Emergency Room clerk.
“Have a seat; we’ll call you,” she said.
Pulling up his sleeve, he shoved his mangled arm inches from the clerk’s face. The fractured bones overlapped each other beneath the skin, shortening his arm by at least four inches and giving it a “Z” shape.
“Look at this shit,” he yelled, “I’ll be seen RIGHT FUCKING NOW!” And he collapsed.
They found him covered in a steaming heap of the clerk’s vomit; it was her first and last day in the ER.
LAIEANNA
It worked! When a steaming heap of…well, no need to be graphic,
poured out of his mouth, I wanted to puke. He was so freaked out. He
wouldn’t stop babbling and more stuff plopped onto his clothes. I
laughed, but a small part of me felt guilty. I left for awhile and
when I returned he was still talking to himself. The smell was
overwhelming. I handed him a sign language book. Now that the curse
had taken place, I figured he needed to find a new way to spew his
shit when he’s hitting on women in the bar.
TED
The medical examiner was silent. I still say he was a loss for words. There is absolutely NO excuse for any human being to morph into what he saw here before him.
She lay before him, bloated and stinky. What was once the American dream, the desire of most red blooded American males, now was nothing more than worm food. Let the worms have their way with her.
Drugs, alcohol, old men, internet porn.. It was obvious that she had indulged in them all,. Here she was, cold and dead, a steaming heap of goo..
We’ll miss you, Anna Nicole.
DODGE
The steaming pile filled the air that not only smelled of excrement,
rubbish and braken but left a taste in one’s mouth that was foul just
by standing near it.
The policeman who stood next to me could barely keep is dour face
straight. To open his mouth to speak to me was to gag.
I was here to see the bloated shape that lay below us the body look
humanoid, the large head and obviously webbed hands & feet saw to
that.
A creature of fiction lay there…in reality. The proximity to my flat
worried me intensely…they knew me…
K-NINE
Colonel Stratton was a cavalry officer first and
foremost. He rode a gallant steed all across France
in the First World War. The Army was his life, but
here in Europe during the latest global conflict, he
was starting to hate the changes of the last twenty
five years.
Once, he had ridden his horse through thick woods,
through muddy fields of bogged down artillery.
He stared at the broken broom handle that pierced the
radiator of his Jeep, the engine sputtered, and he did
the only thing an old horse soldier knew to do. He
shot the steaming heap.
to4m
Superbowl Sunday. The Guys would be there soon . I had to get the
yard work finished although it was freezing cold outside. I quietly
resented my teenage boy staying late getting high. He should’ve been
the one out there in the cold.. When brought it up to the wife she’d
say I was being too harsh on the boy. I found myself working my anger
out in the yard work. Especially with the wood chipper that is until
I slipped and as I had my first and last out of body experience I
saw a steaming heap of me.
Z
Linda looked at the menu and pointed at “The Steaming Heap.”
“It sounds like it’s describing… well, a pile of fresh horse crap,” she said to the waiter.
“It’s dumplings,” said the waiter.
“Oh, okay,” she said. “I guess I’ll have those.”
Fifteen minutes later, the waiter brought out a platter with a steaming heap of fresh dumplings.
“Enjoy,” he told her.
Linda speared one with a fork, tipped it into the bowl of ginger-and-soy dip, and took a bite.
She swallowed it before she realized the flavor in her mouth was, indeed, steamed horse crap. (With ginger and soy.)
Thanks to everyone for sending in their stories, and I look forward to what you’ve got to write (and say) next week.
The theme for next week’s Weekly Challenge will be posted shortly.
(In case you’re interested, I’ve settled on “Clair de Lune” as the opening music and “Moonshine” by Michael Oldfield from the Tubular Bells II album.)