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:

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

SERENDIPITY

The cops were getting annoyed. They knew I’d killed him, and they knew that I’d disposed of the body, but without it, they had nothing on me and I was going to walk free.

I was having fun, and the more questions they asked me, the more I led them on a wild goose chase.

I let slip a few details, confident that without the incriminating evidence the worst they could do me for was wasting police time.

They knew I’d left the body in a basement in the city somewhere.

But what I wouldn’t tell them was, under where!

MUNSI

This story was co-written by a five year old!
By Christopher Munroe

What do loggers have on under their pants?

Lumberwear.

What about Thor?

God-of-Thunderwear.

Pirates?

Plunderwear. Which is gross if you think about it, stolen underwear. I get that pirates aren’t the most hygienic people, but seriously. I mean, laundry facilities on old-timey pirate ships can’t be all that great, are they seriously going around in used undergarments stolen from ships they loot? It’s pretty disgusting. Indefensable.

For that reason, even if there were no others, I could never be a pirate.

Anywho…

What about 80s hitmakers Men at Work? What do they have on under their pants?

Land Down Underwear…

RICHARD

Underwear

As a young child, my parent’s nickname for me was ‘Clark Kent’ – I was far too young at the time to attach any significance to this, and it was a good few years later that I learned about Superman.

Needless to say, I was pleased that my parents had seen such potential in me.

The name stuck, and even today I’m known as Clark to my friends. And it always makes me smile.

Until this week’s family get together, when I mentioned it to my mother.

She laughed…

“We called you that because your underwear was always on display!”

JEFFREY

Summer Breeze
by Jeffrey Fischer

The summer was hot and humid. Larry was tired of having his underwear stick to him. His nether regions were constantly bathed in sweat, and the damp shorts chafed when he walked. He decided to go commando.

As he strode to his office, he felt good. No more sweat! No more chafing! Larry wished he had done this years ago. He received some strange looks – was it obvious he lacked underwear? He glanced down. Yes, apparently it was obvious, because his fly was down and his penis was flapping in the breeze.

Industrial Safety
by Jeffrey Fischer

Stockton was ready for the overseas visitors to the factory. His boss had said that a small group would be taking a tour and spending the day on the factory floor, and that Stockton was responsible for seeing to the safety and comfort of the visitors. To that end, he had sent ahead some safety instructions: hard hats needed to be worn at all times, along with steel-toed shoes, no jewelry, and, in case the group included women, no skirts or dresses – pants only, to prevent loose-fitting clothing from getting caught in the machinery.

The group arrived. Stockton watched in amazement as they walked into his office, three men and two women, clad in hard hats, chambray shirts, work boots… and bikini underwear. “Bloody hell, mate,” one of the guests said, “you Yanks really take safety seriously. Never been told to show up in me pants before.”

TOM

French Underwear

It was Montmartre day five. The last piece of underwear had been worn. It was at that very moment that the seminal wisdom of traveling was reduced to its subatomic singularity. When you are out of underwear it’s time to come home. My traveling compatriot had circumvented this reality by successfully working through the 3rd level mystery of the Paris auto-laundromat. I chose the way of the Gallery Lafayette no less mysterious and fraught with peril. No Small, Med, LG labeling just weird numbers and letters. What I ended up purchasing made the 7 hour flight home in a word: challenging.

LIZZIE

The light was on and no one answered. The police found her in her bedroom, sprawled on the bed. She had been stabbed 16 times. A lover, a stalker, her dealer? An intruder, perhaps? Then, they arrested him because he waltzed into the precinct and confessed. “I killed her with the kitchen knife. It’s still there.” Simple, right? Nope. The police searched the house. They couldn’t find the knife. Circumstantial evidence. Not enough. He was released. At her funeral, he wrapped the knife in her panties and stuffed it in the coffin, under the froufrou laces, and walked away.

TURA

Underwear
———
Once upon a time, there was a boy so clever that he could think things that no adult ever would, like “who makes the elves’ underwear?” There were still elves in the world then, beings so beautiful that one could hardly imagine their underwear, or their toilets, or their drains.

It became his life’s ambition to study them and spy out their everyday lives. But the more he discovered, the more tenuous their existence became, for they were always creatures as much of myth as of reality.

And that is why there are no longer any elves in the world.

NORVAL JOE

Dr. West pushed his assistant, Salt, aside and said, “Where he works is unimportant. We’re here to determine the source of his transformative ability.”
Harold Salt shrugged and backed away.
“Boy,” Dr. West said. “Transform for us.”
“I can’t,” Mickey said. “I need my monkey shorts.”
“You can’t transform without your underwear?” Salt laughed.
“I can, but then I’d be naked. I may look like a monkey, but I can still be embarassed,” Mickey said, folding his arms.
“If we find you some monkey underwear, will you change for us?” West asked.
Mickey hesitated, but finally nodded. “Okay,” he said.

PLANET Z

They say that the road to Hell is also the road to Heaven.
At one end of the road is Hell, while at the other end of the road is Heaven.
But the truth is, I’ve been walking on this road for what feels like an eternity, and I haven’t seen either Hell or Heaven.
I’ve gone in both directions. Made chalk marks in the road, and never come across them again, so it’s not a loop.
Maybe one side is Hell, and the other side is Heaven.
Which explains all of the chickens crossing the road.
While on fire.

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
• Serendipity
• Munsi
• Richard
• Jeff
• Tom
• Lizzie
• Norval Joe
• Tura
• Planet Z

JEFFREY

I’m with the Band
by Jeffrey Fischer

Sally played the oboe. She wanted to play in the high school marching band, but the band had no need for her instrument. Mr. Ryan, the director, suggested she learn another one. “How about the xylophone?” asked Sally. Mr. Ryan looked at her chest – in a purely professional way, of course. He wasn’t certain this would work, but gave his assent.

At band practice, some of the boys laughed as Sally tried to strap on the bulky instrument over her breasts. Mr. Ryan told her not to let those boobs bother her. “Er, I mean the boys, of course,” he clarified.

Perhaps not surprisingly, Sally and her xylophone were the hit of the season.

Spelling Counts
by Jeffrey Fischer

“The world is shrinking” is a cliche, but the globe doesn’t seem like it’s lost any size when one is stuck on an airplane. An old friend sent a mysterious text to meet him at the Frankfurt airport, so I hopped on the next flight out. When I staggered off, bleary-eyed, I couldn’t find him in the waiting area. I texted: “In Frankfurt – where are you?”

His reply was quick: “Am a little west of you. In Kentucky. Damn autocorrect changed the ‘o’ to a ‘u’.”

I’m sure I’ll laugh about this one day.

SERENDIPITY

Colonel Sander’s eleven secret herbs and spices that flavour Kentucky Fried Chicken batter aren’t quite so secret once you’ve spent some time behind the scenes in one of his kitchens.

Most of what goes into the recipe is plain old salt; you probably guessed that anyway. The remaining ten ingredients are a little more exotic.

There’s a fair helping of saliva and snot, dispensed by disgruntled, underpaid employees. A shot of fresh blood from the multitude of cut fingers; stray hairs; and the tears of young waitresses, unable to pay their way.

You really don’t want to know the rest!

MUNSI

Too Much/Too Soon
By Christopher Munroe

I fell out of the bed and onto the floor, completely naked, as she pulled the blanket up to cover her… self, suddenly embarrassed where moments before she’d been so uninhibited.

I shrugged at her, trying to play it off as though it were nothing, but I could already tell it wasn’t going to fly.

“You promised you wouldn’t make it weird.” She said, reproachfully, and I had to admit, it had gotten weird.

I’d made it weird.

“What can I say?” I told her sheepishly, “I like my women like like I like my Margaritas. Completely covered in salt…”

RICHARD

Slammers

I’ll never drink tequila again!

Blame that night in some nameless strip joint down Mexico way. It started with regular Slammers then progressed to irregular ones.

Somehow we talked one of the girls into joining us – the idea was simple: Lick the salt off her boobs, take the shot, retrieve the lime from her lips – no hands, of course – and slam the glass.

After my seventh shot, things went badly wrong.

I licked the lime, poured the shot on her lips, took the salt and slammed her boobs.

Needless to say, the local roughnecks then slammed me!

JEFF

My grandfather worked in a gigantic red brick building located on the edge of downtown. The nearest bridge over the river was a monstrous steel trestle beast straddling a river that bizarrely seemed to flow slowly and swiftly at the same time, causing strange whirlpools and eddies which were mesmerizing when watched from the banks as if they were storms in the river. The smell, as one approached, was a mixture of pig manure, dead fish, and smoked hickory. My grandfather was a purveyor of death in a factory of bacon and ham. The pigs screamed as they were killed.

TOM

A Love Supreme

Jack played the Xylophone. He got Coltrane, something I never fully got. Jack did this thing with a box of Morton Salt and a black light. Up and down the scales the crystals would dance in the light. Each note had an off center ringing that decayed in an off center measure. Damn near put you into an altered state. Worked amazingly well live, but never showed up on the master tracks. Folk didn’t seem to mind. It was the mark of a true fan to come out to the club to listen. Tried it on my bass, didn’t work.

LIZZIE

The truck traveled slowly. Attracting unwanted attention was the last thing Indigo wanted. Released after twenty years in prison, and… He steals a truck… He walked around the corner and there it was, keys in the ignition, begging to be stolen. When Indigo spotted the police behind him, he knew he was in trouble. However, it was only when they lifted the blanket that he realized how serious it was. In the back, there was the body of one of the jurors in his trial. He sighed. He’d have plenty of time to figure out who had framed him.

TURA

Indigo Salt
———
Every product wants to be a commodity, but a new breed of entrepreneurs is turning conventional wisdom on its head.

“Our latest project is indigo salt,” says Senza Sordino, a 20-something graduate of Udemy and Kickstarter. “No foodstuff is naturally blue, you see, so blue salt makes it less appetising, so you’ll use less salt. It ticks every box: healthy, organic, vegan, sustainable, chemical-free (our little in-joke), nut-free (ditto), and the key essential: a 2000% markup.

“Our next project might be water filtered through billion-year-old rock,” Sordino continues. “Make anything expensive enough and enough people will think it’s worth it.”

NORVAL JOE

Mickey ran his tin cup along the bars of his cell like a mono tonal xylophone. He walked to the center of the cell and wrapped an indigo blanket around his bare shoulders, waiting for the observers to enter.
Two men walked toward the bars.
“I’m Dr. West and this is my assistant Harold Salt,” the first said. “I have some questions.”
“You’re a couple of boobs. But I’m in here and you’re out there. Ask away,” Mickey sneered.
Salt squinted at Mickey. “Don’t you work at Kentucky Fried?”
“Nope. Chicken King,” Mickey said. “That proves it. You are boobs.”

PLANET Z

Most kids got caught using a flashlight to read dirty magazines under their blanket.
But when I was a kid, I would play the xylophone.
I tried to be quiet, mind you, but there were times when the music would take me over and I’d be hammering away like a maniac.
“Why can’t you be like other kids?” my dad would say, grabbing the xylophone and handing me a stack of dirty magazines.
I’d sigh, turn on the flashlight, pull down my pajama pants, and dread all of the lawns I’d have to mow to afford to buy another xylophone.