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:

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

MUNSI

We all have mouths, and we must scream…
By Christopher Munroe

I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream.

At least, we tell ourselves it’s for ice cream, as we scream our lungs out at the unknowing, uncaring, impassive sky, voices filled with existencial dread, desperately and ultimately fruitlessly seeking something, anything, out there that might distract us from the looming fact that we’ve grown increasingly dissociated from one another, from ourselves, and from the world we’ve built…

We cannot face that this is why we scream. So we don’t.

“Yes,” we say, “yes, it’s simply ice cream for which we scream.”

Simply ice cream.

Ice cream is good…

JEFFREY

Hold It In
by Jeffrey Fischer

She told me not to scream, not to make a sound that she might interpret as a scream. If I did, she threatened retaliation, and my punishment would be at least twofold.

I sat and endured it. Every second was torture. I dug my nails into the chair, tensing my body. I’m not sure it worked. Finally, after what I estimated to be hours but was probably no longer than 15 minutes, I could take no more and let out an agonized scream.

“I warned you,” my girlfriend said. “Just one Nicholas Sparks movie and you were off the hook for ruining my best shoes, but you couldn’t manage it. Now we rent ‘The Notebook” from Netflix.

In space, no one can hear you scream. The same is not true of a movie theater.

CHARLIE

He stifled a scream when he opened the medicine cabinet. The shelves were stuffed with little bottles of homeopathic medicines. His wife purchased two, basic, family kits on Amazon. Each kit contained three dozen remedies.

Lamont had read a lot of recent news about Homeopathics, and concluded it was hogwash. His wife believed in aromatherapy, astrology, acupressure, and she threw the I Ching coins before leaving for work.

Lamont thought “what the hell”, and dropped 10 Arnica Montana tablets, hoping it would reduce the swelling in his knees. It reduced ALL swelling for six weeks, and his wife left him.

RICHARD

It’s perhaps my favourite movie franchise ever…

“In space, no one can hear you scream”.

Which, of course, is total nonsense. It would be more accurate to say ‘In a vacuum, sound waves can’t travel’, which – I admit – lacks something of the punch of the original.

Besides, it’s perfectly possible to hear screams in space, just as long as you’re not outside in the cold, or if you’re using radio communication – how the heck would Major Tim have sung Bowie to the world otherwise?

It’s so disappointing that the best movie tagline ever, is a complete lie.

TOM

Give the Pope my Best

I would like to give you the satisfaction of a well deserved scream, but quite frankly our time spent together has exhausted my ability to generate a sufficient level of fear. Please do not see this as a condemnation of your techniques, nor environmental stimuli. Excellent on both counts, sir. Perhaps a more tactile course of action would be better suited to producing a more robust response. Nothing aligns the body, mind, and soul like precisely applied pain. Consider your duty as the Troll of the Holy See to extract the most sincere of contrition’s sealed with a searing scream.

LIZZIE

he old man reached out his hand. No one paid attention to him. They wanted nothing to do with an odd-smelling bum.

The old man put his hand down and waited for someone else to walk by. Then he reached out his hand once more. Everyone avoided him.

Finally, a young man walked closer and stood right in front of him.

The old man reached out his hand and the man shook it. Then, he pulled the old man closer and gave him a hug.

The old man smiled.

“I had a scream stuck in my throat. You changed that.”

WILL

Edward liked to munch on sweets. He wished he lived near Willy Wonka’s factory, but in his part of the world there were fjords.

It’s cold in Norway, especially in winter. And so when Edward set off to the local dairy to buy himself a cone he wasn’t worried that it would melt.

They had a new flavor in the shop — a kind of mixed berry sludge. But when he sank in his teeth he discovered he had a painful cavity.

Edward painted a picture of the experience. He called it: I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice-cream.

ZACKMANN

I’m Santa Claus. There have been allegations that I fathered a group known as the Decemberians. Although, as many who travel know infidelity is very common, I have lived a long time, and despite what you may have hear I do come more than once a year. I have not committed adultery but my Mrs Claus was once widely know as Red Sonja. The Decemberians are ours. Someone near the oil sands is definitely going on the naughty list because he just makes me want to scream “Even if I had relations with Conan, how could that have produced offspring?”

JON

Matters of Moment (burp!)

By

Jon DeCles

Just give me a moment here, I can think of a story right now, between the main course, the turkey and all, and the desert, which is probably pumpkin pie (I actually prefer sweet potato) with ice cream.

It would be a lot easier if it were not so cold here. The fire is doing its best to warm this big, cavernous space, and the heat of people’s bodies contributes to my not turning blue during the lull between the turkey and the desert, but still, I ought to be able to think of a simple story.

Just a moment…

I’m going to scream

by

Jon DeCles

I’m going to scream.

I wrote the last story between dinner and desert on Thanksgiving Day. I copied it from Word and put it in an e-mail for Tom. He did not get it. I sent it again. And again. He advised I should send it in the body of a letter. That is what I had done. I did it again and again and again.

I am going to scream: for a scribe!

We have always had scribes to write things down. Funny little bald monks who write. Only in the past, if they made mistakes they illuminated them.

LISA

WARD 13
The building stood dark against the skyline. The sloping grounds vibrating from the traffic as the city made its way home. And beneath the grass. The long forgotten passages only a few had known about.

A white tiled room.

A flickering light.

Illuminating barely enough.

Broken restraints on a rusted bed. Dusty equipment in an open drawer. A shiver for what might’ve been. An inkling of what went on. The screams of the last patient still dripping from the wipe clean walls.

A catch of breath then at the creak.
A sound.
Like the somnambulant soles of a nurses shoe.

SERENDIPITY

Scream if you want to go faster!

Alright, I know the context is wrong – it’s what you expect to hear whilst being thrown around on a fairground ride… Not really what you want to hear from your driver as you speed down the motorway to your afternoon appointment, but it makes for a fun experience!

I love the exhilaration and thrill that comes from driving fast and barely in control.
You really have nothing to worry about – you’re firmly strapped in, just enjoy the ride.
So, keep screaming… And we’ll see just how fast this baby will go!

NORVAL JOE

“Do you know who that guy in the truck was?” Mickey asked.
“I don’t think he was from the hideout. I didn’t see him there,” Ferret said.
“Yeah,” Cherry Cola added. “That truck wasn’t parked anywhere around there.”
“I keep expecting it to scream up after us any minute, but it looks like he gave up,” Mickey said, still looking out the back window.
Ferret let her foot off the gas. The minivan slowed and she said, “Maybe he doesn’t need to follow us.”
Mickey looked forward to see five cars, side by side, blocking all lanes of the highway.

TURA

Scream
———
It started with a theoretical idea. The SuperConverting RElativistic rAMJET, or screamjet for short. It converts incoming matter directly into energy, and squirts it out the back. Packs upwards of ten thousand gees.

And then some dullard built one. First problem, the exhaust is like a continuously exploding atom bomb. You don’t want to be on the same planet. Second problem, it can’t be stopped. It’s made of forcefields powered from the conversion reaction itself. Every obstruction makes it stronger.

Eventually, the forcefields will start rupturing space-time, and no-one knows what happens then.

But you won’t have time to scream.

PLANET Z

Mrs. Claus is screaming at Santa again.
There’s more paternity suits than wishlists in the mailbag this year.
Santa says women are mixing GHB and Viagra into the milk and cookies.
There’s only so much room in the sleigh for energy bars and bottled water, so towards the end of his run, he sneaks a sip or a nibble here and there, and the next thing he knows, he’s on his back, his pants are down, and some MILF is riding him, making a baby brother or sister for her kid.
Santa groans, and writes “vasectomy” on his own wishlist.

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:

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

MUNSI

Moments
By Christopher Munroe

This has been a moment in 100-word story…

Our moment.

Shimmering and lovely and sad,

Leave the moment, just be glad,

For the story that we had,

Every moment is a moment,

When you’re in a 100-word story!

This is ridiculous, what am I doing here, I’m in the wrong story!

Wait, no, this is my story.

I wrote this story. Nobody wrote it but me, and as such nobody but me will pull it together and make it all make sense.

Because otherwise, it’s all going to slip away from me, and be forgotten.

Moments are fleeting that way…

CHARLIE

He declared it only took a moment. The posture he was forced to take was both uncomfortable and awkward. He was speaking of his morning routine of the cursory, steam cleansing and the application of unguents to his aging and parched spheroids.

He told his breakfast club that it might be the reason he was late, in addition to the traffic in downtown Seattle.

An eccentric, but scholarly man, Mr. LaCrosse spoke freely and without a hint of restraint. Like his new, modern, hero, Donald Trump, he relied on his wealth, education, and position in the community to speak candidly.

JEFFREY

Living in the Moment
by Jeffrey Fischer

Grant was depressed about the future. His shrink told him he shouldn’t obsess about things to come, but to live in the moment and enjoy himself.

Grant started with several shots of bourbon. He felt he needed some stimulation, so he snorted several lines of coke. He swallowed a random handful of pills to see what would happen. What happened was that he felt lust for his next-door neighbor, so they had sex.

When the police examined his body the next morning, they assumed the combination of drugs killed him. And they would have – but Grant’s wife worked faster, stabbing the cheating bastard. Her shrink also told her to live in the moment.

RICHARD

#1 – Horses

I’ve never liked horses, and they don’t particularly like me either: they’ll roll their eyes, do that thing with their upper lip, and – given half a chance – get a swift bite in if they can.

The one and only time I went horse riding was a complete disaster.

They gave me the smallest, most docile animal they had, and I still ended up upside down, underneath its belly, then brutally thrown into a stream when it suddenly decided to bolt.

I still have a reminder of that occasion having on my wall…

It’s the spur of the moment!

#2 – Caught out

“What you thinking?”, said my girlfriend, catching me in the middle of a reverie.

“Erm, nothing much,” I replied, “I was just having a moment”.

“Go on,” she teased, “what’s going on in that head of yours?”

I’d been well and truly caught out. There was no way I could tell her I was imagining what it might be like to bed the hot girl from across the street!

Quickly I countered: “You tell me what you’re thinking first!”

She looked embarrassed; “Umm… Actually, I was imagining a threesome with that hot girl across the street!”

She’s definitely a keeper!

TOM

By Leaf and Bow

Merry and Pippin were in a quite jolly mood having finished the better part of second breakfast. They were engaged in a lively conversation with the youngest of the Ents, a 1000 year old, named Top Heavy. In short order talk wandered off to favorite dish made by their mothers. Top Heavy spoke of a spice moss pudding then turned to the west and fell silent. “I can hardly remember her branches …” “If we return …” “When we return,” corrected Pippin, “we will join the search for the Ent wives.” “Blessing be on you who seek my Mom Ent.”

LIZZIE

The lights by the pink boxes took her back.
It was a rainy day.
She complained that she needed sun, that she absolutely abhorred winter.
He smiled. It wasn’t even winter yet but he knew her well.
He grabbed one of the boxes and said there was something special in it. She played along.
Inside the box, a string of white lights was neatly stored away.
When he plugged them, they flickered happily.
Here’s the sun for you, he said.
The lights stayed on since that day. And the sun was his smile offering her a string of white lights.

SERENDIPITY

They say in that moment before you die, your whole life flashes before your eyes. The problem is, it’s generally over too quickly to savour.

So, consider what I’m about to do, my parting gift to you – no matter what people say, I’m not as callous as they make out.

Yes, you’re about to die, and yes, it will be extraordinarily painful; but, out of the kindness of my heart and the compassion in my soul, I’ll do everything I can to help you enjoy your final moment of recall.

I’m going to kill you… Very, very slowly indeed!

LISA

WATCH
It was always the last thing he did before sleep. Always had been, from boarding school to today at Elms View Retirement Home.

It was usually done in bed, teetering on his left hip (new in 1992)

Watch wound before lights out. Funny how things from youth return to us later. He found comfort ending the day with those five swift twists.

Except tonight.

Arthur’d felt a bit queer and had gone to bed early. Had even missed pudding. (Jam roly poly with custard.)

He thought about the watch, but then lay back on his bed.

Just for a moment.

NORVAL JOE

For a moment Mickey thought it was over.
But as the form of a man, a big man with a pistol in his hand, passed in front of the head lights, he found Ferret had more guts to her than he had given her credit. She gunned the engine and raced passed the gunman.
Three bullets splashed through the side window. Three more shots fired and Mickey hoped they hadn’t hit anyone, or anything important in the van.
“Is anyone hurt?” he asked.
“I’m okay.”
“Me, too,” Cherry said.
Mickey peeked over the bench seat to watch for approaching headlights.

TURA

Moment
———
A man’s pipe-rack is the measure of his character. Established in his private study, this product of solitude springs wholly from his inmost soul.

For every moment, there is the perfect pipe, and for every pipe, the perfect moment to be smoked. Each new thing in one’s life, if lasting, may prompt a new pipe. Thus should a man accumulate a pipe-rack, as he accumulates substance.

On a certain distinguished Lord’s death, his executor, on entering his study, was struck dumb for a space of full three hours in wonderment at the transcendent character revealed by his row of pipes.

PLANET Z

“Do you have a moment?” is how the human resources representative gets you.
It’s never anything good.
“Hey, I baked these cookies, and I know you like peanut butter.”
See? You’d never hear anything like that.
It’s always something bad.
Someone talking shit, or you talking shit and someone reporting you for it.
So, I say “No, I don’t have a moment.” and walk away.
That’s when the emails begin. Followed by chat requests and calendar updates.
“Nope. Sorry. Too busy.”
Then, they show up at my door.
“We need to talk.”
At least now they’re being honest about it.