Jeff and his friends built a haunted house every Halloween.
They challenged themselves to make it creepier and scarier every year.
One year, an evangelical Christian group built a “Christian” haunted house.
Instead of ghosts and goblins, they showed the evils of abortion, divorce, drug use, and gay marriage.
So, Jeff and his friends built a new haunted house that showed the evils of Christianity: child molestation, fringe cults, denial of women’s access to health care, and protesting the funerals of solders.
Across the street, Abdul Mohammed laughed and PayPalled another hundred bucks to his friends in ISIS and Hamas.
Author: R.
The boy who cried AESOP!
You know the tale of the boy who cried “Wolf!”
It was written by Aesop after he was found with the mutilated corpse of a shepherd boy.
“He was torn apart by wolves,” he told the police. “He’d jokingly cried wolf once too many times, nobody believed him, and so nobody came to his aid when he was beset by wolves for real.”
The police wrote this down, and sent Aesop on his way.
Aesop walked down the road, stomach full of the boy’s blood.
His story had worked.
And it would work again the next time he grew hungry.
The Midas Touch
Want to be famous for a little while?
I’m a casting agent.
No, I don’t work for the studios.
I work for Dr. Midas Goldman.
He’s a magician with dead celebrities, making up their ravaged corpses for their last performance.
But sometimes, they’re too far gone, even for him.
That’s where I come in.
I bring in body doubles, he dresses them up.
You get the spotlight and a thousand bucks.
We need to knock you out, though, but we’ll bring you back.
Haven’t lost one yet.
Just don’t put it on your resume.
Or we bury you for real.
Full Moon
The next full moon is on February 14th.
Valentine’s Day.
John’s got a choice to make.
Tell his girlfriend that he’s a werewolf, or miss the most important night of the year.
Well, that and Christmas.
Oh, and her birthday.
He’s been a werewolf for years, and he’s never come up with a solution for this.
“I gotta work late.” doesn’t quite cut it on the weekend.
So, he picks the lonely ones. The ones without family.
The ones who won’t be missed when they vanish.
He buys the flowers, the card.
And knocks on her door.
“Hello there!”
The Robot Brother
My brothers made the best Halloween props.
They started with amazing costumes and haunted houses.
But one year, they built a little brother in a wheelchair.
It was so lifelike. But they made it developmentally challenged, like Timmy on that South Park show.
Big head, crippled spastic body. Only barking out a few words.
They took it Trick or Treating in a Batman mask.
“BA-MA!” the thing slurred.
Parents humored it, said how cute how special. Gave it candy.
It was humiliating!
This year, they’re re-engineering me into an animatronic Wolfman.
When they’re done, I’ll tear their throats out.
Bottle by Jeffrey
A Cup of Pretension
by Jeffrey Fischer
I’ve liked coffee ever since that fateful morning in graduate school when, bleary-eyed and heading for class, I poured a cup of Maxwell House from the department’s automatic drip machine. I’ve upgraded my taste in beans a little – Dunkin’ Donuts, regular and decaf mixed 50-50, is the Fischer house specialty – and bought a nicer drip maker, but it’s essentially the same stuff.
Out in the broader world, though, people have gone nuts. First there was Starbucks and its “baristas,” which allowed them to charge three bucks for over-roasted beans. Now there are ultra-pretentious places, such as Blue Bottle, that make a fetish out of pouring a simple cup of joe – and charge north of six bucks for the privilege.
As for me: I have a machine in my office.
Anger Management
by Jeffrey Fischer
Ten-year-old Timmy was told not to bottle up his emotions. “What does that mean?” he asked. “Well, if you feel angry or sad or happy, don’t keep it inside you; let other people know how you feel.” The next day, Timmy felt happy, so he smiled at everyone. His teachers thought he was creepy. The following day, Timmy felt sad, so he cried all day. His friends shunned him. That made Timmy angry, so the third day he took a glass Pepsi bottle and smashed it over Dave’s head. That made Timmy happy again, and he smiled his creepy smile even as the teachers pulled him away.
Weekly Challenge #547 – Bottle
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
Coping Mechanism
By Christopher Munroe
I’ve been bottling up my emotions, for later sale.
Because, at the end of the day, nobody’s buying actual products anymore. We buy emotional connections, experiences and nostalgia for the emotional connections and experiences of our past.
I’m simply more honest about it than most, selling my own emotions directly to the consumer, no product involved, just raw, unprocessed feeling to enjoy at your leisure.
Which emotions in particular? Depression, mostly, from a lifetime of issues I never managed to resolve.
Which should come as no surprise.
After all, I’ve already admitted that I tend to bottle up my emotions…
LISA
Delivering so much more:
He found her although he lives the other side of town, only comes every other day now. Not many people use him, preferring to pick it up when they shop.
The familiar sounds of his approach. A chink of glass bottles followed a hum of the float. A wet cough from decades of Capstans. He noticed what we didn’t. Monday’s milk still there on her well swept step.
Just doing his job he told us later at her hospital bed.
Hadn’t hesitated.
Elbow shoved the door to find her fallen, bruised and dehydrated still holding the note ‘No milk today.’
RICHARD
Secret of my Success
People used to tell me that if I could bottle the secret of my success, I could make a fortune from selling it.
That was before I made my fortune – oddly enough though, they weren’t far off the mark. It just goes to show that from humble beginnings, with hard work and dedication, and a keen sense of business acumen, anyone can be successful.
Who would ever have thought that Grannie Heinz’s tomato sauce would ever have been marketable? Yet, I saw its potential and bottled the stuff…
And that, in simple terms, is the secret of my success!
TOM
When You’re All Alone
Jack was hitting the bottle pretty hard. Jill had left him for a foreign guy. He was taking it rather badly heading for rock bottom. Benny suggested a 12 step, but Jack just kept throwing down poppers. “She’ll be back,” he sang into his glass. Well you would have thought it quite improbable but Jill after being jilted by that foreign guy showed up on Jack’s doorstep. “Jack can I come in,” she said swinging the door inward. Gingerly she made her way over the drifts of empty bottles to where Jack sat. Sadly the bottle had already taken him.
SERENDIPITY
Just one bottle left now, such a shame. My father’s home made wine wasn’t that bad at all. Sadly, now that he’s gone, this bottle is all I have left of him.
I silently raise a toast to him, before draining the glass.
Later, as I tipped the last few drops into my glass and savoured the end of an era, I pondered on what to try next.
Maybe I should do away with mother too? I’m sure she’d ferment well, and I’d get a good few gallons from her too…
I’m pretty certain she could be a great vintage!
LIZZIE
“And a bottle of wine,” he ordered. “You’ll love it. Super expensive.”
She didn’t drink. He knew it but didn’t care. He went on to talk about his expensive new suit. Didn’t he look smart, he asked, scanning the restaurant for familiar faces.
“This is the best place in town, very hip, super expensive too. Oh, hey, Vincent,” he waved hellos left and right, turning his back to her.
When she walked away, he didn’t even notice it. And now he had that super expensive existence all to his radiant, perfectly pathetic self. And she was free. Wasn’t life grand?
TURA
Bottle
———
I love building ships in bottles. They’re nothing like your great-grandfather’s. I design them on the computer and fabricate them with a 4D printer, with intelligent microrobots to play sailors setting sails and mounting broadsides.
But I shouldn’t have set my two latest bottled galleons side by side. They started fighting, and one day I found the bottles broken and the crews missing. Trouble is, the microbots are powered from the house induction charging loops. The off switch is inside the house. And they can access the machines that make more robots.
Maybe I should just burn the house down.
NORVAL JOE
Dashing among the trees of the hardwood forest, Mickey leapt to the first branch within reach. In no time he was swinging from branches, almost flying across the tops of trees. Finding a comfortable spot, high in a maple, he waited for his former captors to stumble through the underbrush below, search in vain, and return to their hideout.
As the night drew on Mickey knew he needed a warm safe place.
In the nick of time, he found a dilapidated cabin with all the amenities of home; a moldy blanket, a package of ramen, and a bottle of water.
PLANET Z
Why is it that Guinness tastes so much better when you get it on draft at an Irish pub than when you buy it in a bottle at the store or in one of those stupid special cans with the plastic block in it?
Well, instead of carbon dioxide, a proper Guinness tap uses a mix of Nitrogen and carbon dioxide.
Also, the tap is specially-designed for stouts.
Finally, the keg at the bar is probably fresh, while those bottles in the back of your refrigerator have been sitting there for years.
Do you need a ride to the hospital?
The Horror of Baker Hill
The Horror of Baker Hill hasn’t actually killed anyone.
Oh, there’s been lots of deaths up there.
But they’ve all been accidents.
Kids falling into ravines.
Heart conditions. Suffering asthma attacks.
Once you get to know him, The Horror is actually a decent guy.
He collects old baseball cards. And newspapers.
And chainsaws. (None of them actually work.)
What’s with the bone pile?
Well, he loves his pets so much, when he loses them, he tries his best at taxidermy.
But he’s not very good at it.
So, leave him alone.
And go back to your camp.
At Crystal Lake.
Forty-Seven
The vending machine
In the break room
Has so many slots
With chips, peanuts, and gum
But the best slot
Is Forty-Seven
It has all the candy bars
And chocolate goodies
It’s the Best of Halloween
You don’t need to dress up
Or ring a doorbell
Or say “Trick or Treat!”
Or go to more houses
Or share with your younger brother
Or let Mom inspect your candy
(Which really is to let her take the good stuff)
Put in a dollar
Push a button
And you get candy
Sweet candy
Wonderful candy
Forget saying “Happy Halloween!”
Say “Happy Forty-Seven!”
Frankenbranding
We call Derringer’s gun a derringer.
We call Zomboni’s ice resurfacer a Zamboni.
Why not call the monster a Frankenstein?
It’s all about branding, right?
Besides, why would he call it “The Creature?”
You can’t trademark “The Creature.”
If cheap Chinese knock-off creatures flooded the market, wouldn’t you hold out for a true Frankenstein?
I remember getting a build-your-own Frankenstein kit for Hanukkah one year.
Spread out over eight days.
But there was a misprint in the scroll, and we had to send it back.
After that, I got socks and underwear.