Welcome to the 100 Word Stories podcast at oneadayuntilthedayidie.com.
This is the 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:
- Richard
- Charlie Lacrosse
- Lizzie
- Serendipity
- Tom
- Jon
- Norval Joe
- Danny
- Paul Camp
- Planet Z
RICHARD
Mavis
Mavis plays the pipe organ in church every Sunday.
She’s not particularly good, but the vicar won’t let anyone else try their hand, despite having a few candidates who could play equally well, if not better.
There’s Albert, who was a music teacher; Henry, who plays keyboard on a Friday night at The Smokehouse Blues Bar; and Jake, who’s young, but can play better than most twice his age.
We reckoned the vicar just didn’t want to hurt her feelings.
Until we discovered the vicar’s own ‘pipe organ’ was also getting the Mavis treatment in the vestry before every service!
CHARLIE
When I went to South Africa to shop for my organ, I brought Bessie with me. I trusted her enough to help me pick out the organ I would have the rest of my life.
She was not a stuffy, snooty type. She would pick one out that was simple, not ornate in any way, and she would tend to pick something that was practical and easy to maintain.
We arrived at the showroom and the director took us into the private display salon.
There were about a dozen on display. A couple of them had mirrors reflecting several views.
#2
If you have an aging organ, you have several options: 1) rebuild the existing organ; 2) replace the organ with a suitable electronic substitute; 3) purchase an entirely new organ; or 4) make do with a compromised tool.
Trading in an existing organ for an electronic substitute can be much like tossing out an heirloom gold watch bequeathed by your grandfather and replacing it with a Walmart 6 dollar watch. Most organs, even those neglected and in greatest need of repair, have parts of considerable value to someone.
The pipes, casework, console shell, and many other components never wear out.
LIZZIE
When we arrived for dinner at the neighbors, a man was playing a song on an old pipe organ. One of the notes was off-key, but he played on. When the host invited us to go outside, I was happy to escape that torture. The problems started when she explained that they needed meat and that they took some of his organs . I was shocked, and was about to ask how he could even play when I felt a sharp blow to the back of my neck. Officer, do you think this scar is what I suspect it is?
SERENDIPITY
I’m all in favour of organ donation, but I do think that it’s a shame so many die because the demand for organs so frequently outstrips the supply.
So I thought I should do my bit to solve the problem. I’ve been working on growing human tissues in the lab, with some very encouraging successes to date, I’ve even managed to create a functioning human kidney!
You see, I’m not all bad.
I bet you thought this was going to be a story about harvesting organs from unwilling victims, didn’t you?
That’s just a hobby I pursue on the side!
TOM
Even Educated Fleas Do-s It
Birds got this organ that lets them know exactly where there are in space. You’ve seen Humming Birds target a space that was once a red feeder and hoover there in surprise. Well modern science has discovered a logic organ in male humans. It seems a matrix of Y-chromosomes somewhere north of Mr. Happy and bit south of the hippocampus is responsible for mid-level discord processes. Researchers at the Mayo Clinic have dubbed this new structure the Y-organ. The triggering mechanism is the sound of the female voice. The response is a long string of the word: WHY WHY WHY.
JON
Bach’s Royal Instrument
By
Jon DeCles
The organ is the biggest, most powerful instrument ever built. Pipes from teeny tiny to pipes 28 feet long. In San Francisco there is an art gallery that is one gigantic organ, the pipes inside the walls. Churches tremble as if in earthquake when the mighty organ sounds its orgasmic chords under fingers and pedals. People who have only heard the organ recorded are like those who have read pornography but never had sex. Properly played, the organ can make you tremble right down to your core.
That’s the very kind of big-piped, powerful, orgasm-inducing, mind-shattering organ that I want.
NORVAL JOE
A dozen students, including Billbert, gathered around Roderick as he put his feet through the holes in the grocery bag and pulled it up.
“Watch this.” He put his arms out like superman, jumped forward, and belly flopped in the dirt.
The kids wouldn’t have laughed harder if an organ grinder with a dancing monkey had suddenly appeared.
Fuming, Roderick got to his feet, tore off the grocery bag, and threw the shreds of plastic on the ground. He walked to Billbert and slugged him in the stomach.
“I think he ruptured my spleen,” Billbert said, watching Roderick stomp away.
DANNY
Jezebel was a musician, who liked to make instruments out of human organs and body parts. There were the Bagpipes made of lungs, piano keys made from bones, piano wire made from hair and muscle, and his favorite, a harmonica made from a larynx. Jezebel would bring his grizzly musical instruments to the town square every Saturday, where the crowd favorite was his portable Organ made solely out of organs. It would make disturbing squishy sounds with every key he hit. “What on earth does that sound like?” most would ask. I don’t know, but it sure does sound expensive.
PAUL CAMP
Time For the Game
“Daddy, why do they call it the Organ Trail?” The game is about to start. I mute the car radio.
“The Organ Trail?”
“You know, with the covered wagons.”
“Oh, sweetheart, you mean the Oregon Trail. Oregon is a place.”
“No, Daddy! Mrs. Lindholm says it’s the ‘Organ Trail.’
Who am I to contradict her first grade teacher?
“It’s because the Indians would cut out everyone’s hearts and livers. You know, their organs.”
A look in the mirror of horrified silence. We can straighten this out later. I turn up the radio. This is going to be a great game.
PLANET Z
People settled Red Creek about two hundred years ago.
They built houses, a school, and a church.
More people arrived. And they built more.
They raised money for a pipe organ for the church.
Wells Fargo wagons brought the pipes and machinery out to Red Creek.
But the assembly instructions somehow got lost.
Instead of waiting for a new copy to arrive, the town blacksmith did his best to put the thing together.
At the celebration party, the pipe organ exploded, killing everyone in town.
Wells Fargo paid the newspapers to cover it up and call it a meteor strike