The 100 Word Stories Podcast

• Lewie
• Lisa
• Lizzie
• Richard
• Tom
• Serendipidy
• Norval Joe
• Planet Z

The next topic is The noisiest place in the universe.

LEWIE

Dear Everyone,

Except for the guy in the back, in the yellow shirt.

Being of sound body and mind, I hereby declare that you are all immorally dressed. Nobody will receive anything of mine. Except maybe Francis. I haven’t decided yet. I leave it up to the guy in the yellow shirt.

Everyone looked. Nobody was present.

“Wasn’t Uncle Joe colorblind?” Francis asked.

“No.”

“Nancy has a yellow coat!”

“It specifically said, ‘Shirt… and guy.`”

“What’s that even mean?”

A courier stepped in with a package.

He wore an almost yellow shirt.

It was probably the lighting.

“Is Francis here?”

LISA

The Letter
“Dear Everyone.” The letter began.
“By the time you read this I’ll be gone.” For an eight year old he sure was dramatic I
suspected Chat GPT had helped.
We shifted uncomfortably and caught each others eyes. The Mother was inconsolable. The father still hadn’t answered our Calls.
“Don’t try and find me.”
We’d asked if there’d been any arguments, whether he was happy at school. The usual questions but with no explanatory answers.
Then, in he sauntered with a ‘Whaaaaaaat?”
His mother held the letter out asking what it was.
“My homework? To write a serious letter. He smirked.

RICHARD

A girl’s best friend
This wasn’t going well.
We were shopping for an engagement ring, and she was thinking money was no object, whereas I was very much of the opinion that we were on a strict budget, not that I was prepared to tell her that.
“How about one of these” she said, pointing to some large diamonds.
I looked. They were all so dear, every one of them, without exception.
“Aren’t they a bit ostentatious?” I suggested, “Wouldn’t you prefer something less vulgar… understated, yet elegant, just like me?” I smiled.
“Don’t you mean, cheap and tacky, just like you!” She retorted.

LIZZIE

“Dear Everyone, I…” And that was it. The letter was never completed. The police tried to figure it out. Everyone? Who? What statement would follow that lonely “I”? And where was the author of the letter? The police searched the house. They searched around the house. They canvassed the entire neighborhood. They opened emergency phone lines. The tips were worthless. After a month, the police gave up. A year later, a neighbor received a letter saying “I remember now.” No sender address, no fingerprints, no DNA, no clues. Just that one line, written in the unmistakable handwriting of his neighbor.

SERENDIPIDY

Dear everyone,
This is my manifesto.
Now you know something bad is coming. Any time somebody writes something headed, ‘My Manifesto’, it’s always a very bad thing.
You can almost visualise I’m sat alone in front of my computer, surrounded by loaded automatic weapons, combat knives and a stack of home-made pipe bombs.
You’re already making assumptions about my childhood and how I was bullied at school.
It’s all going to turn out very badly, and basically, you saw it coming.
Coming to think of it, I can’t be bothered writing a manifesto. You already know what it contains.

NORVAL JOE

“It’s a long story,” Billbert mumbled. “I’ll let Mandi explain.”

After Linoliamanda had told her story, Sabrina scowled and stepped toward her. Sabrina raised her hand as if to slap Mandi. Instead, she swiped the magnifying glass from Mandi’s hand.

Sabrina looked through the glass at the items on the table. All the arcane objects disappeared, except for two; the locket and a small diary.

“Hmm,” Sabrina grunted and picked up the diary.

She opened it and began to read, “Dear everyone, or at least, those who are left. You have journeyed this far and now you must move on.”

TOM

Mea Culpa

Dear Everyone:

It is with deep sadness I stand before you as the chief architect of this morning’s disaster. I could easily make the case the times justified the action, but someone most fall on the sword. I have drawn that lot. While history may be kinder than you all with pitch forks and the tastes of blood on your lips let me beg one last request. Safe passage for my family to the green zone. May you know a brighter day.

Secretary Dem Orton Thorwell

The letter was pinned to his suit as he turned slowly in the wind.

PLANET Z

They pulled Sally‘s body out of the river. In her pocket was a note that said dear everyone, but after that, it was an illegible smear. The coroner said suicide, case closed. The next day, three more bodies pulled from the river. The same note in their pocket, dear everyone. On the third day a dozen bodies. the corner noticed that it was the same handwriting on the notes. Was it a cult? A serial killer? Police watched the river, but never caught anyone. this morning, they pulled 100 bodies out of the river, and there’s still more out there.

• Lewie
• Lisa
• Lizzie
• Richard
• Tom
• Serendipidy
• Norval Joe
• Planet Z

The next topic is Dear everyone

RICHARD

Twist
I hate how the world has become so dumbed-down. When did the human race descend to the level where everything has to be explained to them?
Have we really become so stupid we need instructions to complete even the simplest of tasks?
Please hold the hand rail’, ‘Push to exit’, ‘Twist to open’… I mean, come on, are we really that thick?
Then I watch the news, scroll through social media and find myself coming to the conclusion that, just maybe, we are.
Only the message we need isn’t ‘Twist to open’, it’s ‘Wake up and smell the coffee!’

LISA

A Need for Something Sweet
Neptune was angry. He pummelled the pier until the wood weakened and split. The end of the pier snapped into the water; the waves could lap at the shop then. Licking the windows trying to taste what was beneath. The weight of the water behind the waves splintered the glass and it gave way. The shop had been selling traditional sweets since the pier was built. Sweets that no one under thirty had even heard of never mind tried. Aniseed Balls and Candy Twist. A jar of bonbons bobbed in the sea then crashed against a rock. Neptune was calmed.

LIZZIE

Write the story of your life, they said. It’ll be a success. And she wrote the story. It wasn’t fine and it wasn’t a success. Why? Because the story had one character. She was the main and only character. Her story wasn’t that interesting, she thought. Born to a family of crazy people. Small town, crazy school. Moved to the big city and got a fancy job that paid well. Then, she decided to write her story. The intrusive thoughts took over and she was done. The moment she jumped off the bridge, she thought “I’m crazy enough to fly”.

LEWIE

Oliver Twist’s parents were out of town,
vacationing.

He hosted a party
full of energy and music.

There was someone in the other room
playing a game of Twister,
shouting, “Left hand Blue!”

His friend Ernő kept to himself,
sitting in a large armchair,
twisting a Rubik’s Cube,
and Timmy tested Tibetan tongue twisters.

Chubby Checker started singing the twist.
Outside, a twister formed — the ultimate plot twist.
The television died.
Henry screamed.

His mother scolded him for twisting her TV rules.

He blamed his twisted sister’s
twisted sense of humor.

“But it is the theme, isn’t it?” she chuckled.

SERENDIPIDY

Why does the twist always have to come at the end?
Why not the beginning? (The butler did it! There: I saved you a long read).
Or perhaps the middle? I think that would be a real twist… You’d never have seen that coming.
But no, we always pin it to the end, often the last chapter, maybe even the very last page.
So predictable, so dependable, so very boring.
So, I’m not going to do it.
You’re coming to the end.
And, there is no twist.
Really. I mean it.
And you still got to the last line anyway.

TOM

Like we did last summer

If you weren’t an Aruther Murray prodigy, social dancing was problematic. Spent time at many a Polish wedding hugging the wall. Then as if a gift directly from the gods came: The Twist. A dance that remained in my skill-set deep into the 80s. The trick is to look exponentially cooler is lower till your knee are nearly scrapping the dance floor. By 1993 I had all but lost this skill, but then who among us could have competed against the like of Uma Thurman in Pulp Fiction. And that Italian kid. Wonder if she can still cut a rug.

NORVAL JOE

Mandi shoved the magnifying glass into the pocket of the baggy cat pajamas borrowed from Mrs. Weinerheimer and followed Billbert down the stairs. Standing by the kitchen table, covered with other arcane devices, Billbert said, “Okay. Let her out.”

Mandi twisted the handle of the glass in her pocket back and forth, hesitating. Her bottom lip quivered. “Do I have to? She’s so mean to me.”

“Show Sabrina you’re better than that,” Billbert suggested. “That you’re kind.”

She pulled the magnifying glass from her pocket and looked into it.

Sabrina appeared and frowned. “Why are you guys staring at me?”

PLANET Z

Cindy woke up, sitting in a chair.
She tried to get up, but she was tied to the chair.
She looked around, some kind of dark basement.
A door opened, a man came down the stairs.
It was the singer, Chubby Checker.
And he was grinning.
“Do you want to twist again,” he said. “Like we did last summer?”
“No,” moaned Cindy. “Not again.”
She remembered the bruises. The pain.
The shame.
Checker wagged his finger.
“Come on, baby,” he said. “Just like this.”
Then he held out his hands, reached over to Cindy, and…
Cindy passed out from screaming.