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
Order
By Christohper Munroe
I believe there is a fundamental order to the universe..
By which I mean that everything in the universe has a certain, specific order.
Linear time, I mean, I believe in linear time.
Yes, I’m aware that there are theories to account for the notion that time does NOT occur in a linear fashion, but while I find them fascinating to consider each in their turn, I couldn’t speak to the likelihood of any of their truth.
I don’t have the background necessary.
But I don’t begrudge said theories’ existence.
After all, in an orderly universe, everything has its place…
JEFFREY
The Verdict
by Jeffrey Fischer
The jury filed in, stone-faced. None would make eye contact with the defendant. The judge asked the forewoman, “Have you reached a unanimous verdict?” She said yes. “On the charge of capital murder, what is the decision of the jury?”
“Not guilty, Your Honor.”
The courtroom erupted. Friends of the victim shouted in disbelief, while friends of the defendant shouted in glee. “Order in the court!” demanded the bailiff, to little effect.
“You’re free to go,” the judge told the defendant.
“Thank you, Your Honor. May I say a few words?” The judge nodded.
“I want to thank the jury. Despite my obvious guilt, you bleeding hearts acquitted me so I can kill again. Thanks, suckers.”
The Natural Order of Things
by Jeffrey Fischer
I kept the car at a steady ten miles per hour over the speed limit. Lilly drummed her fingers but said nothing. “Yes?” I prompted.
“I wasn’t going to say anything, but, since you asked… Do you really need to drive that fast?”
“Not really sure, but it’s quite possible that I do. Do you have another question? I think you get three.”
“Are you going to be like this all weekend with my parents?”
“Almost assuredly. You have one more – make it a good one.”
“Why is it that you always end up driving, anyway?”
“Ah, that one I can answer. It’s the natural order of things. Man was meant to drive, woman was meant to sit in the passenger seat and complain.” I was still expounding on the theme when I lost control of the car and hit the guard rail.
CHARLIE
I placed my order on line. Using my iPad, I punched in size, toppings, extra toppings and type of crust, followed by my credit card number and address. I included the address with the cross street, and the GPS coordinates. I asked for the preferred delivery time, and the precautions that the delivery should take in my neighborhood. I mentioned the other delivery drones that work the neighborhood and the apartment complex, cautioning them about the two apartment blocks that frequently shoot down or drone-jack any delivery vehicles. The last four digits of my social security card completed the transaction.
2nd
Given the order by the office to attend to Mrs. Rummage, I was charged with attending to her personal needs as my first assignment. I was an in-home, part time, care nurse. Mrs. R. was ill, having relapsed as a recovering cancer patient. She was very polite and patient. My duties included personal care and making meals, minor cleaning, answering the phone, and snooping in her bureau drawers, refrigerator, and her medicine cabinet. We discussed a lot of personal things, and she told me that she only had one child, as dwarfism ran in the family on her husband’s side.
3rd
I like to afford order to my home and studio. Things are arranged in large, plastic bins if they are large, and in old, Altoids™ tins if they are small. I have a large and multifarious collection of electronic parts, watch parts, desert dioramas and human teeth. The teeth are carefully packed in cotton, and are divided into molars, incisors, canines and premolars. Dentists have asked me for consultations, and I make a nice little income by sharing my collection and knowledge. None of my friends are amused by my collection, but dentists and tooth fetishists appreciate my unique services.
LIZZIE
“That’s not the right order,” the man repeated.
His team ignored him. They wanted to solve the puzzle of the box quickly to move on to the next task and win the TV show challenge.
“Isn’t this a team effort?” he complained.
They clicked and rotated the sides of the box randomly.
“You’ve already tried that.”
Suddenly, they heard a click. Everyone froze.
“There’s a good click and there’s a bad click. Which one do you guys think this was?”
The box slowly unfolded to reveal a bright light.
A bad click… The show was suspended. The TV station closed.
RICHARD
Linguistics
They say that English is a difficult language to learn, but I have to disagree. Having spent a good many years now learning to speak a wide variety of languages, other than my own, I can confidently say that English is pretty simple, compared to some.
There’s no complications with tonality; no clicks or whistles, and once you get the hang of the relatively straightforward grammatical rules, the only real difficulty is one of contextualising the meanings of similar sounding words.
Of course, I’m a native English speaker – for foreigners, it’s tricky to words really in the get order right!
SERENDIPITY
“Are you ready to order now?”
The waitress was obviously growing impatient. I’d been at my table for over an hour, and I hadn’t yet decided what to have. I asked her what she’d recommend.
She suggested the steak.
I ordered: Medium rare, with peppercorn sauce, onion rings, chips and vegetables.
She was right – it was a good meal, and I was glad I’d taken her advice.
After all, your last meal should be a good one.
I looked around the crowded restaurant, estimating the body count, before starting the timer on the device.
Unfortunately, no time for a coffee.
TURA
Order
———
He stands before me, anxiously proferring his papers. I make a show of inspecting them closely, dragging the moment out. Finally I defecate on his hopes.
“Your papers are not in order.”
He gabbles of his wife and children. I gesture to the soldiers to remove him. He will be handed to whatever faction’s tinpot colonel first shows up to arrest “deserters”. His wife will exhaust her money on useless bribes, then I will take her and give her children over to the men.
Here, at this shithole of a border crossing, I am God. There is no finer pleasure.
TOM
If you can’t stand the heat
In my 20s my sister got me a job working as a short order cook. It was your basic Bar and Grill fair. Sandwiches, Fries, Soup. At first I was inept. Orders backed up and I was running my ass off trying to get food ready. Not having a background in food prep I had no idea that prep is everything. When I figured that out order replaced chaos. Further I started track the different sandwiches ordered daily and group them together. Sometime like Kevin Spacy in American Beauty I long for those days working in the Bar and Grill.
NORVAL JOE
Rick Racker, owner of the Bust-a-gut 24 hr gym knocked on the door of Dergle’s van.
Dergle looked at his watch. “1:30 am. What does Rick want?”
“I’ve got some people you should meet,” Rick said when he rolled the window down. “Come back into the gym.”
Rick showed Dergle to a back room where five figures bent around a table, each wearing bike shorts, sleeveless muscle shirts, and brown hoods over their heads. They turned as one and peered through their eye holes at Dergle.
“Mr. Vander Hoont. I Introduce you to the secret order of the Unarticulated Armadillo.
PLANET Z
For a while, it looked like every show on broadcast television would be a spinoff of Law and Order, CSI, and NCIS.
Even on PBS. For a pledge, you could get coffee mugs and tote bags with Richard Belzer’s character on them.
The networks tried to revive and reboot a few old series, but the only ones that worked were Battle of the Network Stars and Celebrity Apprentice. And those ended up featuring actors from Law and Order, CSI, and NCIS.
Not that anyone noticed. By then, everyone was watching Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon.
Or sleeping. People still do that.