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:

• Jeffrey
• Lizzie
• Richard
• Jon
• Tom
• Serendipity
• Munsi
• Tura
• Norval Joe
• Laieanna
• Planet Z

JEFFREY

Higher Education
by Jeffrey Fischer

Back in the day, a Normal School was essentially a training school for teachers. In the United States, they date back to the 19th century, while Europe had even older examples. These days, many of the Normal Schools have been transformed into typical universities. You may not even know the background of these schools; UCLA started as one, for example.

Lesser-known are the country’s Abnormal Schools. These have always been secretive, and that secrecy continues to this day. No one brags about graduating from an Abnormal School, no matter how prestigious the institution. And yet, here’s something you might not know… every national politician since the days of Millard Fillmore graduated from one of these schools. It explains a lot.

LIZZIE

A normal day always started with a nice cup of coffee. This wasn’t a normal day.
When she picked up the cup, the stain of lipstick on the brim glared back at her, a mocking slap on the face.
The stupid ass had forgotten to clean the cup right.
She walked to the bedroom and looked around carefully. Everything was in its rightful place. Except…
An earring had rolled under the bed. Silver. A loop, how fitting.
She picked up the phone.
“Go for it.”
Two days later, he was found by the river, wearing a shiny silver loop earring.

RICHARD

#1 – Abnormal Norman

Norman was far from normal – nothing to do with the odd socks with holes in the heels, the plant pot he wore on his head, or the stuffed pet fish he’d take for walks in the park.

It wasn’t the toasted marshmallows he insisted on for breakfast, or the dinner parties for dogs that he loved to host.

And it wasn’t his habit of bathing in malt vinegar and chocolate sauce.

None of these set him apart.

Norman was far from normal because he was the last king of England, and a perfect example of the folly of inbreeding.

#2 – SNAFU

Got up, fell out of bed, got a bruise on my forehead.

Made a brew; milk was off, burned the toast – smoke made me cough.

Running late, I lost my hat, made the bus in seconds flat. Wrong bus: I ended up lost, now I’m really counting the cost.

When I finally got to work, the boss chewed me out and called me a jerk.

Phone rang – it was my wife – got into a bit of strife. So no fun tonight, it’s always the same.

What a day, but can’t complain; every one is just the same…

JON

It’s Not Normal

By Jon DeCles

“It’s not normal for a dog to behave that way!” Paul said.

“You’re right,” said Ruth.

“I hope she’s not sick,” said Paul.

“I hope it’s not rabies!” said Ruth, with alarm.

They backed away.

The Collie danced around, ran off toward the gate in the fence surrounding the farm house, then came bounding back. She barked, ran off again, came back again.

“I’d take her to the vet, but if it’s rabies I don’t dare touch her,” said Ruth.

The dog did her best, but the humans didn’t understand that Timmy had fallen down a well. Thus Timmy drowned.

TOM

école normale

The tradition of teaching colleges goes back to the 1680s. Jean-Baptiste La Salle founded it in Champagne, France, given the amount of liquor the average teacher need to carry on, quite appropriate. The First normal school in America was founded in 1839 my Samuel Hall in Concord, Vermont. Not the one with shoot heard round the world. Southern Illinois, and UCLA were both normal school. Norman school were laboratory school. Providing a model school with model classrooms to teach model teaching practices to its student teachers. Children, teachers, and the teachers of the teachers were often together in the same building.

SERENDIPITY

Don’t try to tell me what’s normal!

Just because I don’t fit into your stereotypical definitions of acceptable behaviour and societal standards doesn’t mean that I’m wrong, or that you’re right.

I’m different. Live with it, and if you can’t, then keep your mouth shut and stay out of my way. You have no right to tell me how to live my life simply because I don’t happen to obey your arbitrary rules.

I don’t care that you’re a judge, and I’m guilty.

I’ll still hunt you down when I get out.

And my revenge will be far from normal!

MUNSI

Normalized
By Christopher Munroe

This is normal.

This has always been normal, and it’s the way things have always been.

Things have never been any different than this, and when people tell you “We can not allow this to be normalized!” you can safely pay them no mind.

We can normalize this.

And we will.

Although there is no need.

Because all of this is already perfectly normal, perfectly ordinary, reliable and predictable and well in keeping with what has gone before, and requires no more thought than that.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a story to write.

About a Party Bus…

TURA

Normal
———
Everything adds up to normality, they say. When physicists discovered that solid matter is mostly empty space, people weren’t suddenly able to walk through walls. The physicists could even explain why.

So why did people turn into zombies when neuroscientists finally explained consciousness? People read about it and the lights go out in their head. A fundamentalist militant Buddhism that denies the self is sweeping the world.

The zombies get suspicious of the conscious ones, immune to the basilisk. There are lynchings. There’s talk of pogroms.

Everything may add up to normality, but the calculation could take a long time.

NORVAL JOE

I heard one guy say that alternate lifestyles are the new normal. Unfortunately, something alternate can never be considered normal by the very definitions of the words. Normal means, the norm. You know, average, the most common. Alternate means, not the most common, not the norm. Ab–normal.
There’s nothing wrong with being ab–normal.
There’s nothing wrong with being normal.
Alternate lifestyles are the new acceptable.
The normal lifestyle is for a man and woman to marry, endure one another for three to ten years, then get divorced.
Therefore, any relationship that lasts a lifetime is abnormal.
I think that’s great.

LAIEANNA

PLANET Z

I like to buy minor league baseball caps.
The sillier the team name, mascot, or logo, the better.
The Normal, Illinois baseball team asked their fans to vote on a name, but due to a security flaw on their website, the vote was rigged by hackers.
They ran it again with the CornBelters, the Nutz, the Coal Bears, the Fellers, and the CamelBacks.
Eventually, the fans settled on the CornBelters, and their logo is a confused ear of corn.
I added the ballcap’s store page to my bookmarks list for consideration.
Maybe I’ll buy it someday.
But I doubt it.

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:

• Charlie
• Jeffrey
• Richard
• Munsi
• Tom
• Jon
• Serendipity
• Lizzie
• Norval Joe
• Laieanna
• Tura
• Planet Z

CHARLIE

Faster than a cat can lick it’s behind. That’s fast, not too fast, not half fast, just fast enough to be efficient, I suppose.

It’s the speed that I assign to my piece-work employees. As they extract the piece from the mold, remove the flashing, and inspect the body of device. I ask that they do it at speed, and that they are consistent with the speed at which they perform the action. If they do not do this, they are removed from the line, beaten, fined a week’s wage, and forced to live in less comfortable housing.

A second offence is a death sentence, or they are exiled to a small island off the coast.

JEFFREY

Reaching the Pinnacle
by Jeffrey Fischer

Steve wasn’t a bright bulb. Everyone knew this – even his mother said he didn’t have a lick of sense. His personality did nothing to overcome his lack of intelligence. He had a volatile temper that, when it erupted, was directed toward anyone who disagreed with him.

Mysteriously, these handicaps did nothing to hinder his career. He became a business tycoon, with almost unimaginable wealth. True, that career had its ups and downs, and the downs were embarrassing. The press loves a winner, but it loves picking on a loser even more.

In the end, despite his limitations, he became president… of a huge software company. Go figure.

RICHARD

Lick

“It’s mostly cosmetic, only needs a lick of paint! “.

I couldn’t agree – the place was clearly riddled with damp, there was a huge structural crack in the back wall and the spongy feel underfoot definitely hinted at woodworm.

Still, the defects gave me a distinct buyer’s advantage and most of the other bidders dropped out pretty early, rather than throw away their cash.

After the deal was sealed, the vendor laughed: “It’ll take more than a lick of paint before moving in!”

“It’s not for me… And I don’t care about the tenants, as long as they pay the rent!”

MUNSI

…on Pub Games
By Christopher Munroe

“Betcha won’t lick that!”

It’s the disgusting game that anyone can play, you simply need to point to a thing, and utter the phrase.

Your opponent, now roped in, must lick, or concede defeat, which for some is nearly impossible, especially after a few drinks.

And trust me, this is not a game anyone plays sober.

I’m good at it, I have almost no impulse control, so to most I’m a formidable opponent.

Though I admit, I’ve lost more than once.

When asked to lick the FLOOR of the party bus, for example, I got while the getting was good…

JON

The Late, Great…

By

Jon DeCles

America needed her Conservatives. They reined things in, kept her Liberals from going too far. They maintained the balance.

Enter the Neo-Con-Artists. They made Conservatism flashy and fashionable: but they also outspent the Liberals thousands to one. They undermined the principals of Conservatism, and left the true Conservatives looking dusty and dowdy.

Barnum said there’s a fool born every minute, and two crooks to take him.

Barnum and Bailey has folded, unable to compete with the Circus in Washington.

Ronald Reagan is best remembered for taking down a wall.

Donald Trump may be best remembered for putting up a wall.

**

You Can’t Lick Our Dick

By

Jon DeCles

Well, that was not officially Nixon’s slogan, and it certainly was belied by his loss to John F. Kennedy in a race for the presidency, and his loss for the governorship of California to Pat Brown. But the man had resilience!

He ran for president again in ’68 and won. He ended the draft. He opened trade with China. He initiated an anti-ballistic missile treaty. He transferred power from the central control of Washington back to the States. He enforced desegregation and established the Environmental Protection Agency. He was president when we landed on the moon.

He was a Republican.

TOM

Lick

Being a child of the 50s I am bracketed between Elvis and the Beatles. I wish I could say the Stones, but alas I didn’t get a vote in the meme. By the time KISS showed up it was way to indecorous to lay a musical claim on the band. So in the passing days and nights I never heard a single KISS song until … Lick it Up. Well what can I say? Brilliant, the high-water mark in Western Civilization. Everything that went before just silly little love songs. Please pass the white grease paint. Black Shamrock what’ya think?

SERENDIPITY

I watched the flames lick the coals in the grate, painting their flickering, insubstantial images in the darkness, like a story unfolding before me.

It seemed to me they were speaking to me, the crackle of the flames whispering secrets in my mind and compelling me to respond.

“Burn!” They seemed to say; “Burn it all… Burn everything to the ground”

It was a voice that could not be ignored; one that I simply had to obey.

I’m sorry about your house, but really I’m afraid that it’s all your fault. I always said you should have fitted central heating!

LIZZIE

Late, as always.
Her pathetic little assistant, buzzing with enthusiasm for his new job and who had the annoying habit of licking his fingers to turn every page of every report, had proven to be quite the slacker.
When she entered her office, nothing was done. Unacceptable. The problem was that the eccentric middle-aged man now owned half the company. She’d have to get rid of him, but how?
Pushing him down the stairs? Too obvious. Hiring someone to get rid of him? Too expensive.
Then, mysteriously, he became quite ill.
They say reading reports is hazardous to your health.

NORVAL JOE

When Wanda accepted the position of Tiger Trainer at the Morganstern Brother’s Circus, she assured the Ring Master, that she had an almost telepathic empathy with animals, and that she wouldn’t need to use a whip on the large cats, as the previous trainer had.
“Watch this,” she said and walked fearlessly into the cage with the tigers and held out her bare arms for them to lick. “Seeee? They’re showing me how much they love me.”
And they did love her. Every ounce. The three tigers ate everything but her sequined costume and the red ribbon in her hair.

LAIEANNA

“If they say jump off a bridge, will you?” his mother asked, “or stand in front of an oncoming train? And if they dare you to stick your finger in the mouth of a snapping turtle, are you going to do that?” Max only offered up a shrug she was too furious to notice. “Why would you lick a metal pole in winter?”

Stuck lying in the hospital bed after his incident, Max snuck a hand down to shake his pocket. Three quarters and a Snickers weren’t bad rewards. If they upped the ante, he would consider the other stunts.

TURA

Lick
———
On the plains of Audhumla, a shower of rain is rare and passes in minutes, hardly more than dampening the ground. But the petrichor brings creatures from far and wide to lick the minerals leached from the broken grey slabs. The glabbeeks come first, lizards no larger than a finger, that can travel miles to reach the lick. Then the girondelles, nervous of predators, but hungry for the minerals they need. And certainly the feloids will arrive and pick off one or two of the herd, and the scavengers will have their share.

Thus life on Earth continues, after Man.

PLANET Z

I knew a girl who hired herself out as an assassin.
She got the job done, and got out. Nothing fancy.
Usually, she’d pay some homeless guy to shoot her target, or shove them under a bus.
Walk into a public restroom, stuff the wig into a purse, wipe off the makeup, turn her jacket inside-out, and she’d walk out a different person.
She didn’t do anything fancy or sexy, like licking her gun.
“That’s a great way to shoot off your tongue,” she said.
One day, she’ll kill me to cover her tracks.
“Free of charge,” she says, smiling.