Despite everything Fate threw at me this weekend, here it is and here you are.
Let’s make it happen, cap’n.
NOTE: The first 22 minutes are me rambling, ranting, and gushing. If that’s not your thing, skip ahead.
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.
We’ve got stories by:
- Munsi
- Jeffrey
- Richard
- Tom
- Jerry
- Serendipity
- Zackmann
- Anima
- Lizzie
- Tura Brezoianu
- Norval Joe
- Planet Z
What’s the next Weekly Challenge? Come to the website and subscribe to the feed to find out!
MUNSI
Happy Anniversary
By Christopher Munroe
Ten years ago today a man had a dream that he would write a 100-word story a day, every day, forever.
They may have called him mad, but here he is a decade later, keeping up the pace he’s set for himself, providing us our daily story sustinence.
And we, his Sunday writers, have joined him, pledging ourselves to his quest, writing our prompts and sending them in, rain or shine, without end as the years go by.
Because he won’t be done until the day he dies.
And if we ever want to stop, we have to kill him…
JEFFREY
Beginnings and Endings
by Jeffrey Fischer
Beginnings of stories are often the hardest to write. For his Game of Thrones series, George R.R. Martin had to write but one beginning that served him for thousands of pages. Marcel Proust, same thing. A 100 word story? A new beginning every week. Clearly the tougher job.
We have the better of the other side of the process, though. Will Martin ever finish his epic? Robert Jordan never did, and had to have Brandon Sanderson finish the Wheel of Time saga. But a drabble… well, the odds are pretty good that the same author can begin and finish his masterpiece. Unless dinner intervenes, of course.
Language
by Jeffrey Fischer
Language is infinitely malleable. Said one way, a word can have one meaning. Said with a different inflection, the same word can have the opposite meaning. Metaphors can embed themselves so deeply in the culture that a phrase can have meaning only as metaphor – we know what handling with kid gloves means, but few connect the phrase to goats.
I work with lawyers, who are masters at making words mean what they want the words to mean. Bill Clinton infamously said, “It depends what the meaning of ‘is’ is.” My lawyers aim for Clintonian heights when part of their boilerplate language reads “The words ‘and’ and ‘or’ are to be taken in their disjunctive and conjunctive meanings.” Yes, I work with people who believe “and” means “or” and vice-versa. No wonder I’m often confused.
RICHARD
Urban Legend
Ever wondered where urban legends come from?
Those stories of knife-wielding maniacs hiding in the back seat; alligators in the sewers, and waking in the bath to find you’re missing a kidney… Stories you know can’t possibly be true, but they might just be?
They must come from somewhere, and I know just where that somewhere is!
Every one of those myths is based on a story idea that I’ve had, scribbled down on a post-it note, which has later mysteriously disappeared after my agent has called to see me.
It’s not exactly how I planned being published!
TOM
Rocky the Barking Squirrel
Rocky moved in last week. Fuckn brave squirrel considering the 12 cats who live at different points of the deck. We haven’t seen a squirrel about in over 20 years. It seems to be perpetually pissed off, barks at on you like: “what the fuck you look at monkey boy?” Must say he quite good at leaping from limb to limb in the smallest forest in North America. Since most of the cats are well over 18 years old Rocky might well make it. If Rocky start getting those pinecone at the 60 foot level I’ll be one happy camper.
The Pistachios are on the Front Seat
Of late I have been drifting away from my local church. But from time to time I will run into a person I’ve shared a pew with, in the store, at the movies, or the farmer’s market. It’s unusually awkward and full of gaps in the conversation. In an effort to find common ground I remember the person I’m talking to is fond of pistachios. “We going to Santa Rosa I’ll bring back some pistachios.” “Oh don’t do that, I’m short of cash.” I smile and tell them I’m not listening. They frown. Sometime doing good it like pulling teeth.
Lincoln Lincoln I’ve been thinkin
The war was going rather slow this week and Lincoln found he had some free time on his hands, so from under his desk he pulled the old Double XX and took a double pull. Sitting on his desk was a piece of Tennessee Hickory, a toy for Tad; Abe had been carving on for weeks. Ironically it was a bust of Booth.
“Should I whittle or sand?” pondered Abe.
The more he debated the drunker he got. In the end the angels of his better nature directed him to whittle.
A Souse divided against itself can not Sand
Epistemology
“Build a boat,” said the voice.
“You said you would never flood the earth,” said the man.
“I lied,” said God.
“You can’t lie,” yelled the man.
“Oh, like I can’t create a stone
so heavy I can’t lift it” whined God.
Suddenly a granite form the size
of the moon appeared over the man.
“Take it,” said God.
“What” cried the man.
“Hold out your hand.”
commanded God.
The man did and the stone
felt lighter than a feather.
“You couldn’t lift this?”
“Idiot, God does have hands.
Now go build that boat.”
The man walked away completely stoned.
JERRY
Sorry Laurence, but this entire week, for some reason, the well has gone dry and my mind is a blank. No ideas about what to say or how to say it. This week has been a real drag and the old wheels are just not turning. You gave us free will to write anything at all for your tenth anniversary pod cast and I, to my shame, can think of not one subject on which to write. I know I am a disappointment to you as I am to myself and so, no, wait I can write 100 words about….
SERENDIPITY
10 Year Anniversary
Can’t believe we stayed together so long, especially with all your complaining.
I could never do anything right, or come up to your exacting standards – no matter how hard I tried, you always found fault and put me down.
I stuck with it though, year after year, after year. Can you believe we’ve been together for ten years now?
It was hard at first, but I stuck with it and I found ways to cope. Although – to be fair – you’ve been much quieter these last few years… ever since I cut out your tongue and chained you in the basement.
—
The Weekly Challenge
I hate Facebook, and I loathe the people who can’t live without it.
That’s why I created the Weekly Challenge – call it an experiment in social engineering…
Every week, I post a challenge and those idiots stupid enough to rise to the task are rewarded with my Facebook friendship.
The challenges were simple at first – steal a bicycle; punch an old lady; poison a puppy… but soon I was inciting torture and murder… and people were doing it.
I’m still not sure what my crime actually was, but when they caught up with me, I was sent down…
For ten years.
—
Whatever the hell I want
He was the uncooperative type – the sort for whom normal punishment for a life misspent was pointless.
“So what should I do with you?” I asked, as he stood arrogantly before me
“Whatever the hell you want” came the reply.
I smiled. This was going to be fun.
“So be it… the hell that I have chosen is this:
I’m returning you to the mortal world, where you will write for my amusement. You will write a hundred-word story every day of your life: every day, until the day you die.
And you’ll write them, in your own blood!”
ZACKMANN
“You want to get out of that cell?” asked a small man in a suit.
“That’s my fairy godfather.” said the troll.
“”Yes, I am and I will get you all out of that cell by turning the bars into cheese singles.” he said.
Matt looked at the bars and said “I can’t believe this is real.”
“It’s definitely not real.” responded fairy godfather “It’s processed American.”
Matt replied “I’m not sure I should go through with this man. I’ve always had trouble with singles bars.”
“Oh, come on. As as fairy godfather troll, I’m to protect the rightfully accused.”
ANIMA
The Triathlete
Exhausted, I fall on the sofa and gulp down my recovery drink. 11 long and slow miles are now done, and I am tired but happy. One more weekly goal accomplished.
I am what I consider a triathlete. Mostly I try to run (slowly), I try to swim (slightly better than a rock), and I try to bike (downhill is better than uphill). I have little natural ability, other than refusing to accept defeat or pay attention to the nay-sayers who think I should act my age and mind the grandchildren.
But now I have 3 marathon finisher medals, so there! :P
LIZZIE
Cake?
When she dropped her cake, a murmur of excitement spread through the room. Miss Perfect had messed up. When she picked up the smashed pieces of cake and tried to put them back together on the plate, everyone chuckled; everyone except him, the stranger with the pierced nose. He walked up to her slowly, sat on the floor and got a few pieces that were still scattered about. “Cake?” he asked the crowd. “No? Your loss.” Since then, once a year, the two of them smash a cake to pieces and ask “Cake? No?” to reply in unison “Your loss!”
TURA
1. On Obedience
General Wei journeyed with his army to inspect the state of the people. At the town of Xiin he demanded passage. The governor of that town said, “See! The gates lie open to you, and none shall obstruct your path.”
General Wei then demanded supplies for his army. The governor replied, “We will provide whatever you need, at the army price decreed by the emperor.”
Then General Wei ordered the governor executed and the town burned, saying, “An excess of obedience is rebellion. Willing servitude weakens the state. Only when the people are compelled against their will is order maintained.”
———
2. Concerning Heavenly and Earthly Virtue
The Emperor decided to move the capital from Sheng-tzu to Sheng-nieh. Secretaries created plans to dismantle every building, from the imperial palaces down to the labourers’ huts, and transport them fifty miles east, where the terrain at Sheng-nieh would be excavated and built up to replicate the topography of Sheng-tzu.
General Wei said, “The conception of Heaven exceeds the capacity of Earth.” Then he executed the secretaries and destroyed the plans, substituting a ritual observance of withdrawing a single nail from each building and hammering it back in, and redrawing maps to show the capital at its new official location.
NORVAL JOE
When Dergle received the invitation to his ten year high school reunion, he threw it away. “No one I want to see there.”
“Aw, come on,” Bambi said. “It should be fun to see your old friends. I’ll go with you, if you want.”
Dergle spent the entire night watching Bambi laugh and joke with all of her friends and eventually explain that she graduated in 2008. It was Dergle who was a member of their graduating class.
When he smiled and said hello his classmates typically scratched their heads and asked if he’d been in their wood shop class.
PLANET Z