It’s fun to watch classic movies at the Hollywood cemetery. Staff sets out chairs or picnic blankets, and they project the movie on the side of the chapel.
Sometimes they combine the screening with a fundraiser, supporting the disease or disaster of the week, and they cater the event and set up a bar.
Or they hold an auction for movie dates with celebrities. Watch the movie with a star, they say.
There’s some famous names are up on the board this week. John Wayne, Marilyn Monroe…
Relax. No need for a shovel. The staff digs them up for you.
Author: R.
The Dark Forest
Long ago, the Dark Forest was a dreadful place, full of trolls and goblins, unnatural horrors.
Nowadays, the Dark Forest is in the middle of the Piney Ridge suburb.
Or, I suppose, what’s left of it.
Developers cleared most of it all. Houses, schools, and churches.
A few parks here and there, but they’re all nursery trees, not the cursed ones that made up the Dark Forest.
Just a few oaks, scattered around.
The trolls and goblins and other beasts are long gone.
But about those schools and churches…
You can see evil in the principal’s eye… the pastor’s smile…
Reputation
Some neighborhoods get the reputation for being good places to Trick or Treat, giving out full-sized candy bars and other goodies.
Others get a reputation for being lousy, with lots of porch lights turned off or sugar-free dentist office candy.
This year, word got around that my neighborhood was prime territory.
Communities rented buses and brought their kids here from miles around.
The streets filled up like a refugee camp. Screaming kids, roaming everywhere, bloody and frightened.
Relief agencies air-dropped insulin, dental floss, and ritalin.
The governor declared a disaster area.
Maybe next year, we’ll just do a haunted house.
Weekly Challenge #545 – Field
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
Health Kick
by Jeffrey Fischer
Gary’s doctor gave him a stern look. “You need to lose weight. A LOT of weight. I want you to eat at least one salad a day. Field greens, kale, beets, whatever makes it taste good, but salad. No pizzas, no big ribeye steaks, no grande burritos. Do you understand?”
Gary mentally ticked off the items that his doctor listed. “I hear you, doc. I’ll try,” he said glumly.
The next night he brought home a bag of field greens, a bag of kale, and several beets that he cut up and added to the salad. Then he foraged in his refrigerator. Leftover steak, crumbled nacho chips, a cup of cheese, and a handful of soft candies all went on top, along with a generous dollop of French dressing. He ate the toppings, threw away the greens, and decided that salads were pretty tasty.
Battlefield
by Jeffrey Fischer
The artillery barrage rained down destruction for several hours, explosions killing or maiming anything nearby. When the battlefield was silent again, the two armies advanced toward one another. The inevitable clash occurred and it was a bloodbath on both sides. Men shot one another and, at closer rage, stabbed with bayonets or even knives. After it was over, the dead and dying were so thick on the ground that each side could walk back to its trenches barely touching the bloody earth.
Shawn switched off the television. “Same time tomorrow?” Anthony nodded. Now it was beer o’clock.
RICHARD
The Gospel according to Norman: The parable of the sower
There was a farmer who desired to plant his fields with wheat, and as he sowed some of the seed fell upon the path, some amongst the weeds and some on stony ground.
When it came to the harvest, only the seed which had fallen on good soil had cropped, and the farmer was driven to poverty.
“Good teacher, what are we to learn from this parable”, asked his followers.
“How am I supposed to know”, he replied; “I’m a teacher, not an agricultural specialist! Why is it that you lot always seem to think I have all the answers!”
MUNSI
The Gospel according to Norman: The parable of the sower
There was a farmer who desired to plant his fields with wheat, and as he sowed some of the seed fell upon the path, some amongst the weeds and some on stony ground.
When it came to the harvest, only the seed which had fallen on good soil had cropped, and the farmer was driven to poverty.
“Good teacher, what are we to learn from this parable”, asked his followers.
“How am I supposed to know”, he replied; “I’m a teacher, not an agricultural specialist! Why is it that you lot always seem to think I have all the answers!”
SERENDIPITY
Welcome to the field of human conflict.
It seems a pretty ordinary field, but look closer and amongst the mud and grass and meadow flowers are the reminders of mankind’s harsh manner of reconciling differences.
Here you will find the bones and blood and broken bodies; the last stands and the heroic deeds; here you will find the dead and wounded, the souls who never found peace in their quest to secure peace.
And yet, faced with this carnage, still you wage your wars.
Idiots!
And, if you think that’s fighting talk, I’ll take you on.
Right here, right now!
TOM
Two Early by Half
I have always been amused by St. Martins in the Field. If your tastes in music run towards the classics you have heard of the place intoned by some baritone DJ in the mid Frequency Modulation Spectrum. I picture a guy who should be the first mate in The Rime of the Ancient Mariner conducting a string section knee deep in waves of flowing wheat. In 1542 Henry the eighth less than pleased with a rabble of plague victims trooping through Whitehall built a church literally in the field between Westminster and London. Not a field to be seen today.
LIZZIE
After a day’s work in the fields, Ronnie would say “Turn right”. Mike complied in silence. The path took them back to town. But there was also a path to the left.
“What’s over there?” asked Mike one day, pointing to the left.
Ronnie shrugged.
“Never felt curious?”
Ronnie shook his head.
However, Mike went back to the crossroads and, taking a deep breath, took the path to the left.
He never came back. He went to the big city. He became rich. And he never stopped being curious, especially about all the “paths to the left” he came across.
TURA
Field
———
A gun can fire 20,000 rounds on the range, smooth as hot butter, but the first time in the field it’s nothing but jams and misfires. New designs need field testing, and you don’t get real field stress short of an actual war zone.
So they drop me in with the kit and a mission to kill everyone I see on the way to the pickup point. No leftover ammo unless the equipment fails.
I don’t care where I am or who I’m shooting at. If I asked questions, on my next mission I’d be some other field tester’s target.
———
NORVAL JOE
Mickey paced in his cell, waiting for Dr. West and Salt to return with some shorts, and wondered how he might escape. Eventually, he lay on the cot, his back toward the cell door, and it came to him.
“We brought your fuzzy chonies,” Salt laughed.
Mickey didn’t move.
“Monkey boy. Here’s your underwear,” Salt said.
Mickey snored.
“Wake up you stupid kid.” Salt opened the door and stomping to the cot.
A flash, and Mickey in monkey form shot past Salt, grabbing the shorts and dashed toward the exit.
Outside, he raced across an open field to a forest.
PLANET Z
I bought an ultra-high definition television, and when you watch baseball, you can see the individual blades of grass out in center field.
You can also see the bulge that the envelope full of cash makes in the umpire’s back pocket.
And the needle marks from the batter’s recent injection of human growth hormone.
Not to mention the Vaseline that the pitcher smeared on the ball, the flecks of cocaine under the nose of the first baseman, and the guy in the stands relaying signs to the batter.
The picture is so real, even though the game’s fake as hell.
Santa’s Ghost
You’ve got your lights and your inflatable reindeer.
I’ve got you beat.
I own a robot Santa Claus that bows and says HO! HO! HO! and hands out presents.
I put it out on the lawn for Halloween.
Well, covered with a sheet. So it’s a creepy ghost. That hands out candy.
Oh, and I change the tape so it goes BOO! and screams now and then.
When Halloween is over, I remove the sheet, change the tape, and he’s back to being Santa Claus.
Sure, it’s a bit early, but he’s a heavy son of a bitch to move.
Airlines
Why is it that airline commercials show all these wonderful amenities and experiences in their airplanes, but none of that is available to anyone who is watching the commercial?
Even if you pay a little more for an upgrade, they still treat you like shit compared to the good old days.
I think the commercials are just the airline, advertising, and media executives telling the common people of the world all the things they have and we don’t deserve.
Same with Jaguar commercials, high-end watches and perfumes and yachts.
This message brought to you by the people better than you.
For a good time
I’ve written my number on every bathroom stall that I’ve ever used, nobody has ever called me.
I guess nobody wants a good time anymore.
So, I started writing “For A Bad Time” next to my number.
Still no takers. I guess people already have a bad enough time as it is, so why bother calling me for one?
I stopped writing my number on bathroom stalls. Disconnected the phone line completely.
I don’t even have a cell phone. I guess I got sick of all those telemarketers calling all the time.
Peace and quiet. Now that’s a good time.
Training Wheels
I can’t keep all the style guide rules in my head.
I fuck something up in every doc.
More than once.
When I get it to the front of my mental stack.
Something else slides back out.
I feel stupid. And weak. And old. And tired.
It’s time to put the training wheels back on.
It’s time to write up a checklist with everything I fuck up.
And then work through the checklist with every sentence.
Like a goddamned child. Like a goddamned retard.
And when I can write without the checklist.
I can take the training wheels off again.
World Cup
The sooner that the United States is out of the World Cup, the better.
Because anybody who gives a rat’s ass about the World Cup after the United States is out isn’t an American.
They may have been born here or have citizenship papers, but the odds are that they’re some dirty foreigner because no true American gives a fuck about the World Cup.
Football is football, dammit, not soccer.
See that McDonalds over there? The one that has those World Cup tear-off game pieces?
They might as well be a dirty run-down bogeda.
I’ll be at the Taco Bell.
Grilling on a rainy day
Two gigantic ribeye steaks.
Half price.
I bought them and brought them home.
But every evening, it rained.
Couldn’t grill them.
Until tonight.
Perfect low sun evening.
Not a cloud in the sky.
Rubbed the steaks with seasoning.
Smeared on the olive oil.
Scraped off the grill.
Loaded up the coals.
Sprayed on the lighter fluid.
And tossed on a match.
The coals went white in ten minutes.
That’s when I felt the droplets.
Shit.
It was a sunshower.
I got the steaks on.
Put on the lid.
Hissing droplets hit the top of the grill.
I won’t be denied.