The 100 Word Stories Podcast

Daisy loved watching the sunset over the water. So when her parents said they were moving from the Oregon coast to the Shores of North Carolina, she wept. But you’ll see sunrises over the ocean her parents said. You’ve never seen this before and I think you’ll like them. Try as she might, Daisy was a night person and could never get up early enough to watch the sunrise. So she tried another strategy, she drank coffee and tried to stay up late enough. Sure enough, she saw the sunrise. And it sucked. She cut her wrists on the beach.

100 years ago, launches were a huge spectacle. Crowds gathering in grandstands. People camping out for days outside the facility. Television and radio and newspapers covering every moment. Press conferences with the crew and the mission control staff. Nowadays, antigravity propulsion made things so much smoother. No more packing explosive gas in liquid form into leaky tanks. It was all contained in a superconducting module with years of flawless operation. And now that all the orbital space junk has been cleared out, there was no risk of another nasty collision with debris. All for tourists to weekend at the lunar base

Even when the big mart opened in Smallville, people still went to Earl’s pharmacy to get their prescriptions filled. Sure, he had to change, distributors and insurance plans changed over to the big Mart as a preferred provider, people still wanted to go to Earl. He never made mistakes, he worked things out with people who couldn’t afford their medicine, and he knew alternative ways to stay healthy that people actually used. He encouraged them during his walks or at the gym or the grocery store. The big Mart tried to buy Earl out. Then they burned his store down.

Smith was a beloved teacher at the high school, which made his dismissal all the more shocking. Rumors about him went around the town. He was taking care of his mother, so he didn’t leave town, and he showed up at the grocery or the pharmacy. But he never went anywhere else, especially the high school. The first year after his dismissal, when he went to the school to vote, the sheriff went with him. And didn’t talk to any of the teachers or students. After that, they say he voted absentee. But once again, just a rumor about him.

It was an annual prank at my high school for the students to hand the biology teacher a snake on the first day of class. If the teacher panicked or freaked out, they knew that they were bullshit. But if the teacher handled and petted the snake, they knew the teacher knew their shit. Usually, the snake was a garter snake or some docile non-poisonous species. But one year, they had found a cottonmouth. As for the teacher’s reaction to the snake, well, they never got the chance. The snake bit one of the students and killed the dumbass.

Winton got a basketball scholarship to a really good state college. They expected him to be a basketball. The staff wizard in the physical education department spiked Winton‘s Gatorade with a transfiguration potion. By the next morning, Winton was a basketball. He spent four years in the equipment locker, occasionally pulled out for practices. Once, he was a game ball. But it wasn’t a special game. Or the team all would’ve signed him and put them in the trophy case. After four years, they changed them back. Oddly enough, he was the only member of the basketball squad to graduate.

• Richard
• Lizzie
• Lisa (CHECK IT OUT… SHE HAS A NOVELLA OUT!)
• Samuel Martin (WELCOME TO THE MADNESS!)
• Tom
• Serendipidy
• Norval Joe
• Planet Z

The next topic is PICK TWO
Borderline
Stairwell
Hood
Challenge accepted
Porn star

RICHARD

Oh Brother!
I was clearing out the basement recently and came across a box of old tat from the seventies.
Amongst the Fleetwood Mac and Abba cassettes, a Rubik’s cube with half the stickers peeled off and an old lava lamp, were some seriously dubious items of clothing.
A pair of cowboy boots, frilly shirts and a fringed denim jacket. What on earth was I thinking back then?
More to the point, what on earth were we all thinking?
I carefully packed it back up and labelled the box with my brother’s name.
Sibling rivalry, still going strong after all these years.

LIZZIE

“This is not a fringe. It’s a tassel.” Her boss went on and on about the virtues of fringes in modern furniture. She thought modern furniture was mostly practical. Except for that armchair she inherited from the neighbor who moved to Africa right after redecorating the place with the “most modern furniture in the world”. It did look quite cybernetic, except for the armchair. “You keep it”, he said. And she did. That was when she decided that she’d have a tassel over a fringe any time of day, much to her boss’s aggravation. Viva Las Tassels! Be a rebel!

LISA

A Date to Remember
It really was going to be a date to remember.
Elaine had fancied Vidal for ages. They were going to the new place in town that was already booked up for the rest of the year.
Sally was putting a hat on when her room-mate, Paula poked her head around the door.
“Do you really need a hat? That dress is smoking and it’s still boiling outside.”
“It’s hat or fake my own death,” Elaine removed the hat to reveal a half fringe half haystack, “I thought I’d trim my hair.” Paula quietly put the hat back on Sally’s head.

SAMUEL

As the black smoke gradually releases its grip from the once green meadows of Hampshire, one’s eyes can hardly rest upon this scene of devastation. Ash covers the smoking dirt where luscious green grass had thrived only months prior. The oaks that once lauded over these lands are so suddenly reduced to char-scarred skeletons. An eerie silence settles over this place, with even the birds holding back their breath. It’s like nature itself has cast a spell on all sound, knowing that the damage is already accomplished. And so even the earth itself lays in quiet respect for the fallen.

TOM

Fringe

When the plague hit critical, they blow the bridges. Not to be out done the County blew-up all the roads coming in to the county. No one I mean no one was coming to save us. We were now living on the fringe and life got very simple. The grapes gave way to wheat, and cars were replaced my horses. Somehow one guy got the electric grid running an hour a day. Folk started making simple motors. Churches filled and classroom became places of hope. I taught a generation of kids algebra. Those kids truly built back a better world.

SERENDIPIDY

I guess you could say I’ve always hovered around the fringe of society.
You know: the sort of people who tend to fall off the radar, ignored by polite society and generally looked down upon by most.
All of which, works very much in my favour.
Nobody really cares about the odd murder and mutilation where those are concerned. Comes with the territory and it’s no real loss.
And that pretty much gives me free rein to pick off whoever I want, whenever, and however I feel.
I won’t get caught.
Because I’m on the fringe too.
Under the radar.

NORVAL JOE

The social worker appeared ready to leave, but when Billbert’s mother spoke to her, she settled back onto the threadbare couch.

Billbert felt his mother’s influence kick in when she said, “I realize that we are on the fringe of what you consider a normal family for a child’s placement. But if you look at her background, and our history with her, you will see that she belongs in our home. Most importantly, she wants to be in our home.

The woman’s eyes appeared glazed for a moment, then she said, “I think you’re right. I’ll make the appropriate arrangements.”

PLANET Z

Professor Bailey had some pretty fringe theories, if you want to be polite about it. He’d stand at the lecture hall door, screaming about Jewish bankers, and the queen running drug smuggling operations. His long greasy gray hair wild around his ghastly face, his bony fingers in all directions, his arms waving madly. Why did the faculty hire him? He was a good gardener. Oh, did you think he was an actual professor? We’re not sure what his real first name is, but he says his mother named him professor. As long as the top Aries look good, who cares?

When Charlie went home from school, he liked to take the shortcut through the woods. It was quiet and peaceful, and when it was raining, he liked how the rain would gently fall through the leaves. He liked to walk by the tree where he had stabbed that bully, Adam, and then watched him bleed to death. Adam daily beat him up for his lunch money. Charlie told his father. And his father gave him a knife. They buried the body in the woods and nobody ever found it. Charlie smiled, patted the tree trunk, and continued his way home.

I didn’t find the movie the curious Case of Benjamin button all that interesting. I find it rather confusing. But I found it a lot more enjoyable playing it backwards. Because Brad Pitt ends up being a completely normal guy surrounded by a world that’s talking backwards and completely fucked up and running backwards until as an old shriveled baby. He’s shoved up his mother‘s vagina. Which for a horror movie is a really messed up twist ending. I’d have given it four stars, just for the audacity and maybe the weird titillation from such a scene. Two thumbs up.