Weekly Challenge #426 – Storm

Welcome to the 100 Word Stories podcast at oneadayuntilthedayidie.com.

This is 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 STORM.

We’ve got stories by:

The next 100 word stories weekly challenge is on the topic of TEMPER.

Newton

JOHN MUSICO

“Stormy Nights”, by John Musico

I suffered from insomnia most of my life.
I tried everything: drugs, various relaxation techniques, etc.
Then, I remembered reading that falling asleep is an active process. Your mind has to try to sleep, not turn it off. So, I modified the boring imagery of a still mountain lake.
Most people would view being marooned as unpleasant but I’d find that welcomed peace.
So, I envision a storm on an old sail ship. No one survives, except me. No knife, no nothing, my mind must step by step imagine what I’d do first and then next. I now sleep well.

TALUS

“How long do we have?” an engineer asked the lone figure silhouetted against the window.

“2 hours, maybe less,” the commander replied gesturing towards distant clouds of dust eclipsing the Martian sunrise.

“What made this such a… beast?” asked the engineer.

“Three solar mass ejections and an early summer”. The commander exhaled loudly.

Nodding respectfully, the engineer departed to resume her duties in the colony’s subterranean bunkers. Moments later an automated voice message broke the uneasy silence.

“Orbital communications will now terminate, resuming in approximately 480 days”.

The commander turned, shaking his head as the storm shudders began to close.
—————————————–

JEFFREY

Rallying the Troops
by Jeffrey Fischer

Markus the Merciless gave his usual inspirational speech to his men. “Though we be outnumbered ten to one, though the defenders may loose flaming arrows to pierce our bodies, we shall storm this castle, loot its contents, and have our way with its women!” This group of barbarians seemed oddly subdued at the speech. “C’mon, guys, loot. And women.” Markus turned his back to his men and ran toward the castle, sword held high, leading the charge.

When the first barrage came, Markus wondered why it was so quiet he could hear the arrows zip by. Turning around, he saw he was alone.

“That’s the last time I recruit troops from the village of gay men who have taken a vow of poverty!”

Stormy Weather
by Jeffrey Fischer

“Don’t know why there’s no sun up in the sky,” sang Billie Holliday. Calvin sloshed through yet another puddle as he wrangled shopping carts from where inconsiderate customers had left them. “Stormy weather.”

“Aw, can it, Billie.” The rain had been falling for two days now, with no end in sight. He had lost patience with rain, Billie Holliday, shopping carts with stuck wheels, and goddamn inconsiderate jackasses who thought nothing of leaving a cart in a dry gulch. Only it wasn’t so dry any more, was it?

Calvin was on the verge of storming into his boss’s office and quitting his lousy, minimum-wage job when a homeless man appeared out of the woods and grabbed a cart from the gulch, wheeling it back into the woods. Maybe he’d hang on for another day, just in case the sun came out.

RICHARD

#1 – George’s Story: Part 62 – Zoo

With a snarl, the lion was over the wall!

Panic-stricken, George ran for his life, tripped and executed a graceful swan dive straight into a large wastepaper bin. The bin toppled sideways, rolled down an embankment, then bounced violently off a kerbstone, catapulting George through the air, over a high metal fence, landing unceremoniously in a heap the other side.

Stunned, bruised and battered, George crawled into a corner, as the lion paced along the outside of the fence, growling fiercely.

He was safe, for now, but he had a nasty feeling it was the calm before the storm!

#2 – Jupiter

One day it was there, the next it was gone – the greatest storm in the solar system had simply vanished overnight.

In consternation, astronomers searched in vain for the Great Red Spot, but it was nowhere to be found – Jupiter’s most famous landmark was lost, completely without trace.

Or so we thought.

Drifting silently through space, the tenuous, vaporous tendrils reached across the heavens towards the earth. Slowly our atmosphere became infused with crimson: a grim portent of the maelstrom to come.

By the time we realised the shocking truth, it was far too late.

The great storm had arrived.

#3 – Storm

The storm raged: dark water, in turmoil, rolled and crashed against the sides of our vessel, threatening to swamp us, a whirlpool into which we were being inexorably drawn.

Just as the storm was abating, we were plunged into the murky depths, surfacing moments later, wet through. Again we were thrust into the deep, and returned to the surface weakened by the experience.

Suddenly, we were flying through the air, leaving the teacup far below.

Soggy: barely holding ourselves together, we breathed a sigh of relief, not realising the horror to come.

A biscuit’s lot is not a happy one!

JUDY

Midnight

A strange walk. So quiet outside, I could hear the street lights’ electrical hum. Dog’s nails clicking on the pavement, we got to the corner of the next block. As we crossed the street, the dog got spooked and pulled me back towards home.

What do dogs see? There are rabbits she sees which I cannot make out. This was not a rabbit, person or breeze. Everything was still, even the leaves.

I got spooked and we flew back to my porch. The dog turned around, alert, ears up, searching…

I grabbed her and locked the door. Whew!

TOM

Stormwalker

He traveled light. Water, Amino drops and his rack of lightning rods. A wide brimmed hat for the sun, an oiled duster for the cold. Never much to look at, and never much to say. Stormwalker worked the grid from Freeport to Lanceson Ridge. As a rule he stayed clear of Funky town, not so much because of the folk, they were friendly enough, the place just wasn’t very interesting. You can image his surprise when gun fire exploded ahead of him. The last rod he planted charged up throwing bolts into the sky. “Storms a comeN,” he mused.

A Well Defined Relationship Part 55

A lucky shot dropped the bandit next to Caesar. That penetration into probability started a reality cascade in Cid’s peripheral awareness. A single thought took shape. “They knew we were coming.” As Antonio Caesar closed the distances to the trembling women, the voice of the wise muse of desperadoes whispered into Cid’s ear “trap.”

“ANTONIO,” screamed the bandit. As planed the advancing men stopped, turn to their leader. Just what the Doctor ordered. Mrs. Parsons and the ladies of the gear guild dropped to the ground took aim with a dozen rail guns. A storm of bullets found their mark.

TURA

A man came before the Emperor’s court accused of sorcery, for he had foretold the great storm that had devastated the capital. The Examiner said, “Storms arise by the Emperor’s will, and abate when the people have been chastised. How can you know the Emperor’s mind?”

He answered that he only observed the heavens and the earth, and applied his reason.

General Wei said, “Reason and observation make an even greater storm. Nothing can stand against them. Therefore let the prisoner enter the Gate of Enlightenment(*), and imprison his books in the Emperor’s Library.”

(*)A doorway atop a thousand-foot cliff.

SERENDIPITY

He had taken some persuading, but under torture, the messenger had given up his secret. Our attackers planned to storm the ramparts at dawn – a final, last-ditch effort.

We would be ready for them.

Arrows were fletched, great cauldrons of boiling oil prepared and every sentry was at his post – the attack was doomed to fail.

As dawn broke, the order to storm the castle rang out, I slipped the bolts on the main gate, lowered the drawbridge and made my escape, while the attackers poured in.

Traitor? Call me what you like, I’m the only one who survived.

LIZZIE

Storm was his name. He was a guide at a park.

Storm never missed a day at work.

Storm was an example. Well, except for the hurry. People told him to slow down. He wouldn’t, ever. People told him that they wanted to enjoy the walk. He replied they could enjoy it fast.

Storm rushed through life as quickly as he could, until that day when he decided he needed a change. The midlife crisis, people whispered.

He crossed the street to the park slowly, enjoying the quiet moments before a day’s work and he got hit by a speeding truck.

MUNSI

Flood

By Christopher Munroe

We’re a flood town.

We always have been.

You may remember last year being the first major, city-debilitating flood Calgary’s had, but you’re remembering incorrectly. We’ve always been a flood town and as such we’ve always had floods.

Whenever there’s a major storm, we flood, nothing could be more natural and we’re all used to it.

It has always been thus, and there is no need to examine it further.

We are a flood town, we always have been and we will always be.

There is no such thing as global climate change.

Now: How goes the war with Eastasia?

ZACKMANN

“Logan, you look terrible.”

“Yeh, Scott it’s like the weather gets bad whenever my wife gets upset.”

“Come on it is not like you said an old girlfriends name in you sleep.”

“Actually, I did but because I was having nightmare about the one who tried to kill me.”

“Logan, which ex girlfriend who tried to kill you?”’

“That does seem to happen often. Surprising since I’m such a wonderful guy.”

“You know I bet in a alternate universe Storm is a weather witch”

“Oh come on Scott, if my wife has superpowers then your parents are space aliens.”
zackmann

DIONYSUS

Brainstorm

In that instant it seemed that a small storm of considerable import and strength had begun.

What had been thoughts moments before were swept up as pieces in gusts that carried all the detritus of marriage, children, and grandchildren, swirling memories of work, bits of song and television ads, and even the brutal deprivations of childhood together in a final, indiscriminate heap of smells, sounds, voices, chills, despair, tears, laughter, colors, and time.

After, a few memories fluttered down the empty streets this way and that, small eddies of swirling time refused to give up, and nothing was complete.

Turn Turn Turn

Those of us who knew him tended to avoid MacGoo, especially in the spring.

The new hires were taken in by his awkward garrulity. They suspected that an office cold war kept us away.

We bore their assumed superiority with a mixture of condescension and pity, for we knew that spring would bring ravaging storms to MacGoo and environs.

Still, even we were caught off-guard. The first blasts came suddenly. Those closest to the storm felt big drops hitting them in the face without warning. Gusts whipped them, driving them stumbling backward, some falling helplessly, awkwardly, while those still able ran for cover, where we watched the devastation from afar.

Foul Weather Friends

O’Brien was a man who always seemed to have just come through a violent storm.

For others this was cause for small celebrations — Halloo O’Brien! we’d say, Glad you made it! — but for him it was as if the storm were still raging around him, as if he expected to be struck by lightning or swept away by raging waters any moment.

This would have been unbearable for us, except that we admired O’Brien’s ability and courage in surviving those imaginary storms.

We never thought he would escape them; but when he did, we found we no longer cared. Fair weather ruined him for us.

Bride of Chucky

-What’s your name, doll?
-She was a lanky redhead who made me want to spend the rest of my life counting freckles.
-She said, I’m Stormy.
-Joe, gimme somethin’ wet and hard to survive, I said.
-He goes, It’s Roberto.
-She said, You like living dangerously.
-Make it a double, I said. I like livin’, doll.
-She looked into her Chablis like that was where she was gonna find the answers to all her problems and told it, My husband is planning a murder.
-I never mix business and pleasure, unless I do. I threw back my double and said, What say we take a ride?
-She looked at me, Better ask my husband Roberto.

CHELSEA

Storm

I love the rain, always have. The smell of water in the air right before the clouds burst and the shower comes flowing down over my face. Where I live you can hear thunder and count how far away the lighting will strike.

Storms were always a magical thing when I was a child. They were something that I treasured and loved.

But then last year the storms brought the floods and everything changed. I still love the rain, but now I fear what comes with it. Now I have much more respect for what a little shower can become.

JULIE

Chasing the Twister

Behind the dust,

I rush–

Following the churning funnel cloud.

Oh, it excites me.

The power, noise—

It tears down

Everything in its path–

Good lord, I run to it.

Me, the proverbial moth to the flame.

Fluttering wildly–

Seeking approval.

10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.

My world to goes back into Technicolor.

It does,

When I chase you.

I always liked trouble.

Me, the walking dead.

I know I should run.

Lives ruined, all in a swirl

Of wind and ruins crashing.

Onto the homes of children and mothers,

I should give up.

No.

SPATE

Hash – Part 14

The atmosphere was now alive with possibility.

The storm that rumbled fiercely outside was an unexpected but welcome
addition to the plan. It provided the perfect cover.

After Davidson had finished the hash, they left him alone to contemplate the
sins of his existence.

He needed to move fast.

He slathered his nakedness with the stashed blubber, climbed atop the combo
toilet sink, scraped away the fake cement and popped the duct screen out.

Then he paused with a temporary sense of melancholy.

Running two fingers down his body he scooped enough blubber to write on the
wall: “Sorry Tiffany.”

Hash – Part 15

It was a snug squeeze into the air duct made possible only by that miracle
prison food service lubricant smeared over his body.

Davidson inched his way forward, sliding against the metal ductwork that
tightly enclosed him until it opened into a larger space; an octopus
junction, with seven branches each as small as the one that had brought him
thus far.

Davidson placed his nose at the ducts one-by-one and sniffed. On the fifth
duct he smelled it: rain on hot summer pavement. freedom!

He grew excited. Then the storm began in his belly.

And the Viagra kicked in.

NORVAL JOE

Clairene woke in her bedroom, disoriented in the dark. Wind whistled through the warped window frame and set the old elm tree tapping against the glass. She imagined it was her boyfriend, Jimmy, inviting her on a midnight tryst to watch lightning flash through the windshield of his car.
Clairene sat up, her heart pounding as the tree tap, tap, tapped again. There was no tree, anymore. She’d moved to the room at the back of the house just that afternoon.
“Jimmy?” She whispered, leaning out the window. However, it wasn’t her boyfriend’s hand that grabbed her by the throat.

PLANET Z

A few summers back, i rented a Winnebago, filled the kitchen with bran muffins and laxatives, and set out on a quest: to shit on the graves of every corrupt politician.

I wandered the country, laying piles of foulness in my wake. Heck, Arlington National Cemetery is full of them. Printed up a map, put together a schedule, and I hit the bran muffins hard. Had to play cat-and-mouse with the security guards. Shit my pants while on the run more than once.

Only when I was done did I realize that it’s Strom Thurmond, not Storm.

Pass the muffins.