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:

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

CHARLIE

I always order Chow Fun as takeout. I love the lard varnish on the noodles, and how they slide so quickly down my throat. The other foods I like slathered in lard are tongue, shark fin, spleen, tripe and pig’s knuckles.

I grew up in a family of big people…big people that worked with their hands, and during wine grape harvesting, worked with their big, gnarly feet to crush the grapes in the traditional way.

Most of my family had their stomachs stapled by the time I finished vocational school. I stayed slim by eating rancid oil and mung beans.

JEFFREY

The Job
by Jeffrey Fischer

Hank was the town executioner. He carried out the ultimate punishment when the jury imposed it and had done so with professionalism and enthusiasm for years. The problem was that the job just wasn’t fun any more. Read the warrant, throw the switch, repeat. Eight hours a day, five days a week. (This was a tough town. At least the benefits were good.) Hank told his boss, “The job has no growth potential. I feel creatively stifled.”

His boss nodded. “I understand what you’re saying. Back in my day, it was ‘Read the warrant, chop off the head’ all day long. It’s the nature of the job. But I have an idea…”

After that, Hank got to choose the method of execution: hanging, blade, gun… he especially liked some of the more creative methods. The fun was back.

MUNSI

Fun
By Christopher Munroe

In the morning, in the evening, ain’t we got fun?

Well?

Ain’t we?

I work so fucking hard, I do my job every day, without complaint, and I ask for so little in return. A little fun, in the morning, and perhaps a little in the evening when I get home, and I don’t think, considering everything I put up with, that this is an unreasonable thing for me to expect.

So, I’ll ask again, and this time really consider your answer before you give it.

In the morning, in the evening, ain’t we got fun?

Well?

Ain’t we, punk?

TOM

Bluestocking to Barbie

Girl just want to have fun. Does this rule out real estate, 401K-s, Gold, Diamonds? What exactly constitutes being a Girl? Shouldn’t being over 30 make one suspect of having an elderly agenda? The song seems to be a slap in the face at pay equity, sending the women’s movement new marching orders.

On the other hand it might be a cautionary anthem. The dominate female pleas with the protagonist. “When you gonna live your life right.” The paterfamilias voices a vailed Cassandric concern. “What you gonna do with your life.” What’s the big deal about walking in the sun?

It is a tale. Told by an idiot

Tom you Trotskyite Darwinian Tree-Hugging Papist you’ve totally missed the meaning of the song. Failing to note the sub-text of how the masculation of the fair sex has produced ball-busting Valkyrie. “You say this as if it were a bad thing?” Well the song does. What cost freedom without joy?

Get over the fact that the song was sung by a mid-aged-waif-wanta-be. She was 30, you were 30, get over it. The Boomers failed to change the world. The least we can do is leave songs of hope. In a post Trump world perhaps the best defense is having fun.

JON

It Depends on What You Like

By

Jon DeCles

It’s not much fun being a God in a badly designed universe. For one thing, you have to share it with the other Gods: and believe me, there will be other Gods!

Some of them are pretty nice deities, but most of them resent having to share..

For my part, I enjoy trying to set up my Creatures with the possibility of, within their limits, reasonably happy lives. But some Gods: well, they like to watch Creatures suffer and fight and make war and die horribly. So—

If you don’t like your life: you may be worshipping the wrong God.

TURA

Fun
———
After the gods had created the universe, and the multiverse, and Man, they wondered what to do.

“Consider Man,” said one. “Man invents obstacles, then overcomes them. This he calls ‘fun’.”

“What is an obstacle to the gods?” said another.

“This!” said one, and split into a billion stars, each a fragment of the whole.

“This!” said another, setting to study what was, before the gods.

“This!” said a third, and placed a sliver of himself into a Man.

One day they will end their fun and return to themselves, and their creations will vanish like a dream upon waking.

LISA

Follow the Rainbow
She’d slept with the light on.
It was pink. A metallic glittered hue. It sparkled from across the room.

A girls dream come true. A scooter. The one that chalked as you rode. Painting a rainbow behind you in the city streets.

Pom-poms from the handlebars shed glitter on her floor next to a discarded shoe.

Mum calling from downstairs broke the morning silence.

“I don’t know what time you got in last night my girl. Or what drunken state you were in. But you’re gunna be late for work. And you need to take that fucking scooter back.”

RICHARD

Fun

“Let’s do it”, she said, “it’ll be fun!”

And that’s how I ended up going on my first, and quite definitely my last ‘Mystery Trip’.

Four hours on a bus, with a load of elderly idiots whose own idea of fun was singing endlessly throughout the journey: To be deposited in a depressing historical town, in the pouring rain, whilst a bored guide took us on a whistle-stop tour of the sights, then abandoned us to shopping all afternoon.

Then four hours back on the bus.

The only mystery to me, is how anyone can call this fun!

SERENDIPITY

You know what they say – girls just wanna have fun – and, when it comes to men, I can’t deny that it’s true.

We’ll break your hearts, take over your lives, destroy your dreams and take you for a ride. You’ll pander to our needs, fulfil all our desires and worship us with your mind, soul and body.

Then, once we’ve tired of you and feel like moving on, we’ll take you for everything you have and leave you empty, destitute and helpless.

And all this, sanctioned and supported by the law.

Around these parts, we call it ‘marriage’!

LIZZIE

Her last wish was to have the room filled with balloons.
While she was sleeping, they brought them in.
The look on her face when she woke up was extraordinary.
She smiled, her eyes sparkling with excitement, mesmerized by the soft swaying of a multitude of colors.
Suddenly, she reached for the cord of one of the balloons and frowned.
“What is it, sweetheart?”
“Mommy, we must free them now. They won’t be happy locked in here.”
So, they opened the window and, one by one, the balloons were set free, as was her young tired heart later that night.

NORVAL JOE

Thurbing reached toward the glowing keystone, but withdrew his finger before touching it,
“That’s hot. I can’t touch that. I’ll burn myself.”
“Aye, Son. Ye can,” Karbunkle said. “Ye weren’t brought on this quest for fun.”
Thurbing took another step back. “I’m not talking about fun, Dwarf. I’m talking about permanently maiming myself.”
“Enough foolishness,” Beechbark said, took Thurbing’s arm by the elbow and wrist, and pushed his hand against the keystone.
To Thurbing’s surprise, the keystone pushed into the wall of the temple without his hand bursting into flame.
With a rumble, a passage opened in the temple wall.

PLANET Z

My T-shirt says: We put the “FUN” in “Fungus!”
Why?
Because I went to The Mushroom Museum in Zagreb.
Where is Zagreb?
It’s in Croatia. It’s the largest city and capital of Croatia.
They have many museums there, but I liked The Mushroom Museum the best.
It’s a nice place.
Plus, you can take home as many samples as you want.
I filled my pockets with the “special” mushrooms.
But Customs stopped me at the airport, and they seized my entire haul.
Except for this T-shirt.
Which is made out of “special” mushroom fibers.
Let’s eat it and get stoned!