Author: R.

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
• Jeffrey
• Serendipity
• Lizzie
• Norval Joe
• Tom
• Jon
• Duane
• Planet Z

RICHARD

Big Brother

I’ve had a dicky ticker for some time. Weirdly, it’s a good thing in some ways – I grant you it will, literally, be the death of me, but on the bright side, it’s brought Harold and me back together.

As brothers go, we never had that close relationship we should have, but since the bad news, he’d do anything he can to help his little brother.

More fool him! I still can’t stand him.

It’s handy having him around though, especially since I’ve been steadily poisoning him for the last few months!

And, when he dies… I’m having his heart!

JEFFREY

My Brother, The Idiot
by Jeffrey Fischer

My brother was so dumb he rounded pi to three. “Easier to remember,” he said. Somehow he passed engineering school, and somehow he ended up with a job designing a building – a round tower in the center of the city. He got fed up with my riling him about his math skills, so, to prove me wrong, he said he would use no computers on the job.

As the mayor used the ceremonial scissors for the ribbon-cutting, the rumbling began. The building started to break into pieces. I ran for my life, but couldn’t help but notice that every chunk that fell resembled a slice of pizza.

SERENDIPITY

Another slice of pie?

No, really, there’s no need to be polite – if you’re hungry, please tuck in, and if you’re enjoying it, then please help yourself to another slice.

There’s no need to apologise for your brother. I’m sure he’d have joined us if he could. I know that we haven’t exactly seen eye to eye in the past, but I’m the first person to admit that I’m by no means perfect, so in a way, I suppose you could call this a slice of humble pie on my part.

Although, your brother is rather tasty, don’t you think?

LIZZIE

The Brothers, the Tower and No Elephant

The brothers had a reputation that preceded them wherever they went. The day they decided to steal the gold statue of an elephant, they came up with a plan and managed to sneak inside the king’s tower. The problem was, they couldn’t find the damn elephant anywhere. They climbed all the way to the top in pitch black darkness. Exhausted, they sat down for a few seconds. No elephant, but the view was magnificent. They decided to watch the sunrise before resuming the search. Suddenly, evil laughter interrupted the dreamy moment. Watching the sunrise was lovely. Free flying was not.

NORVAL JOE

Wearing his grocery bag loincloth, Billbert crept to the edge of the roof, looking like an insane albino native American. He spied his clothes at the base of the tree, towering above the school grounds.

Inconspicuous on the roof, he would stand out like an elephant at a tea party if he flew down there to grab them, now. Too bad his new super power wasn’t like spider man.
Spidey could just shoot a web down to his clothes and snag them.

Once class started Billbert could fly down, snag clothes, and shoot into the locker room to get dressed.

TOM

Out of the Dark

The Brotherhood of Pi came to my village one day. Dressed in the pi-ionic red took their place under a tree said to be the exact spot that Dar Laktor had drawn his proof. The brothers were here to find inquiring souls who were capable of serious mathematic heavy lifting. Boy Who Runs With Elephant and his brother Zin Bok sat at the edge of first ring each morning the good brothers spoke. On the day of departing Boy handed the Brothers a leaf showing his work on a new irrational called Q.

So he left with the brothers.

JON

The Brothers Oyinlola
By
Jon DeCles

The Brothers Oyinlola had a drumroll announce the appearance of any native wildlife, so the tourists atop the tower they owned would not miss anything. They would serve you a slice of iyeye pie while you were waiting, and just in case nothing showed all day, you could have more than once slice. They also had a medical kit, and occasionally a doctor on call, in case some elderly visitor’s ticker conked out when an elephant got upset and charged and shook the tall wooden tower. Lack of funds meant they only advertised their safari on the world wide web.

LAST WEEK
Grab Bag
By
Jon DeCles
The sign said I could grab a bag and fill it with whatever I wanted for only five dollars, but I only had five minutes. I could see what a bargain that would be. I grabbed the bag and started to stuff things in, running up and down the aisles, and I finished on time.
Now I have a pound of walnuts, a pair of red-sequined slippers, a new jock strap, a Thing “As Advertised on TV” (I don’t know what it does), bicycle goggles, ten daffodil bulbs, a really bad hardback novel: but Wait! There’s More! A VCR tape…

DUANE

Pick Two – Tower & Drumroll

I was raised on fairy tales about the brave knight saving the beautiful princess from the tower. There was always an evil stepmother or fearful king keeping the princess hidden away. At eighteen I ventured off to find my fair princess. I heard her one day, singing like an angel from her castle tower. I scaled the wall that night and climbed onto the ledge. The beautiful maiden turned from the across the room and our eyes met… the silence soon broken as she screamed and screamed. The last sounds I heard were the drumroll and the falling of the guillotine.

PLANET Z

Simple Simon was a pieman.
So was his younger brother Saul.
Father left the bakery to Simon.
Even though Saul was the better pieman.
Simon renamed the shop Simon’s Pies.
Saul became very angry.
He started his own bakery, right across the street. Saul’s Pies.
And he tried to drive his brother out of business.
He nearly succeeded.
Instead of going bankrupt, Simon made a deal with some people.
And Saul’s Pies burned to the ground.
Saul was ruined.
Then, Simon’s Pies burned to the ground, too.
Simon’s new partners collected the insurance money.
The brothers manage a McDonalds now.

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:

• Lizzie
• Richard
• Serendipity
• Tom
• Jon
• Jeffrey
• Laeianna
• Duane
• Planet Z

LIZZIE

Grab a bag and fill it with stars, one by one. One star for each day you’ve made it. One star for each doubt you’ve overcome. One star for each moment of loneliness, for each step you’ve taken. Grab a bag and fill it with dreams, one by one. One dream for each tomorrow, for each smile, for each doubt you’ve left behind. And when you open that bag, you won’t know which are the stars and which the dreams. While you carried them around, they talked and they smiled. They knew they would be free, as free as fireflies.

RICHARD

Baggage Retrieval

I hate waiting around at airports. It’s bad enough spending hours in the departure lounge, but being expected to do the same at the other end at baggage retrieval is maddening!

So these days I travel light; but hand luggage doesn’t really suffice for longer trips, so I’ve taken to wandering down to reclaim where I just grab a bag – any bag – off the nearest carousel.

It doesn’t always work: I once spent a week wearing women’s underwear, but usually I get by with other people’s luggage.

And the drugs I discover more than cover the cost of future trips!

Self Defence

My ex-wife, amongst her many other dubious talents, taught women’s self-defence classes at the local community centre.

Completely unqualified, she nevertheless devised a foolproof means of dealing with male attackers which she claimed would work every time.

Her method was simple: Reach between the legs, grab, and twist as violently as possible.

She was absolutely right too… It did work, every single time; I can personally attest to that, after the many practice runs she insisted on conducting at home.

People ask me why it took me so long to leave her…

Simple: I just didn’t have the balls!

TOM

A Little Help From a Friend

“Hey kid Grab a bag,” said the head suit. There was piles of them in the room. Heavy sucker. Who would of thought a bag of paper could weigh that much. The drive to the hanger at O’Hare was uneventful, when my counter parts at National did the unloading they noted they were a bag shy. This is how I ended up on the redeye to DC. I and the last bag took a taxi to Fener Building on Q Street. On the fifth floor a bunch on mid aged women where redistributing the last of Clement Stone’s contribution.

JEFFREY

Grabby Hands
by Jeffrey Fischer

The cashier scanned my handful of groceries: a half-dozen apples, some yogurts, and a box of cookies for balance. I wanted to speed things along, as the line behind me was substantial, so I grabbed a plastic bag and loaded the scanned items. “That’ll be 5 cents for the bag.”

“Say what?”

“The county charges a nickel for each plastic bag used to reduce waste.”

“I’m new here. I used to live somewhere civilized. But have it your way.” I took one apple in each hand and walked them to the car. On my third trip, the other customers looked ready for murder. The cashier grabbed a bag, loaded the remaining items, and shoved the bag at me. Me: 1, government 0.

DUANE

We had been hiking all day. It was already dark, so we settled down in the middle of a grove of small trees. We covered our packs with garbage bags to keep the dew off them, unrolled our sleeping bags and went to sleep. We awoke the next morning in the middle of a tall patch or marijuana.

“Oh shit! Oh shit! We have to get out here. Should we call the cops?”

“Hey!” I whispered loudly. “Right now you are going to do two things. One, you are going to shut the hell up!”

“And two?”

“Grab a bag.”

LAIEANNA

I sifted through the mystery grab bags of candy Mr. Johnson sold,
looking for the one filled with only the best. Testing the contents,
I manhandled bags and tried to see inside, holding the brown paper
bags to the light. They were stapled shut and refused to yield their
secret. Taking my best guess, I took one up to the counter. Mr.
Johnson shook my bag, then his head, and took it back to the box to
replace with another, adding a wink and smile. Sometimes my sweet
tooth benefited that Mr. Johnson was a little sweet on my mom.

PLANET Z

There’s always some kind of fundraiser drive going at the grocery store.
The Girl Scouts camp out at the entrance, selling cookies.
Is that the only camping they actually do?
Then there’s food drives.
For the holidays, they have a shelf of grocery bags.
You can buy one for a family in need, but who knows what crap is in there.
Certainly not meat or healthy things that require refrigeration.
Or you can tack on a few bucks at the register.
The nerve of them! Don’t they already donate the expired and overstocked food to homeless shelters and food pantries?