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:

• Tom
• Munsi
• Charlie
• Jeffrey
• Richard
• Owen
• Jeff
• Serendipity
• Lizzie
• Norval Joe
• Tura
• Zackmann
• Planet Z

TOM

Not quite Bonnie and Clyde

“Earthling Wine is swill,” grumbled the little green man. “Shut your air hole,” returned the big purple woman, “your Frackn idea to crash on this Gor forsaken rock.” “Because you didn’t filler up at the Alpha Centauri Zmart.” “Right, right it’s my fault you second rate amphibian.” “Look child of a tree sloth, I’m just laying out the facts.” “Ok Almond eyes, Fact one who pocketed the Eye of All Seeing Sight during the Emperor’s coronation?” “No, Zero fact who made off with the Generals ID plate?” “Initiative.” “Oh really?” “Fur ball” “Pond scum “Shut up pass me the Thunderbird.”

MUNSI

The End of the World
By Christopher Munroe

They say that, from a certain point of view, every end is a new beginning.

I assume this is intended for people who’ve been dumped, as it does NOT apply to the end of the world.

It came from beyond the clouds, a being beyond any earthling’s comprehension, and we knew instinctively there was no way to defend ourselves, no hope for humanity…

Well, we who weren’t driven mad did, anyway.

Myself, I tried to be philosophical about it.

We’ve all gotta go sometime.

Sometime soon.

I drank up the wine, eyes on the horizon, and waited for the end…

CHARLIE

I was certain that the cloud passing over was a sign and a threat to all the earthlings that dumped their garbage in the ocean and built atomic missiles. It was the beginning. That day, that hour–that the aliens finally put their hooves down and let us know that they were here, that they were taking over for our own good and theirs, and that we had fugged things up so much they decided we needed a lot of radical changes to save ourselves and save them, in turn. They were out to prove that we were irresponsible poopheads.

#2
I dumped two bottles of wine in my schlep bag and went to the apartment where the writing group met. I had planned to blow smoke up the behind of the editor of our local weekly. Hoping he was going to be there, I wore my best blazer and my favorite tie. I wanted to get a reporter job where I could write to my strengths. I had written two or three hundred short stories, published on line, but they offered no challenge to my real talent, and didn’t give me any satisfaction. I was on automatic when I wrote.

JEFFREY

Family Outing
by Jeffrey Fischer

“Isn’t this a great day for a picnic?” Dad exclaimed, his manufactured enthusiasm only delaying the inevitable responses.

“I was going to hang with Dylan,” said my sister Jan.

“Sit on damp grass, attract ants, and have lousy cell reception? No, thanks,” I said.

“It’s a lovely idea, dear, but the day is turning cloudy. We don’t want to risk rain dumping on us,” Mom said.

“Then it’s settled: we leave in an hour.” Dad spoke to me only, as Jan was already on the phone to Dylan, explaining that she had the worst father in the world. Mom was putting a bottle of wine in the cooler. She felt the outdoors was best experienced with a serious buzz. I sighed and checked the charge on my Game Boy.

Cheap Venal Scam
by Jeffrey Fischer

Prices at CVS are terrible, so I never go without a sheaf of coupons. Just as certain as bad prices, I can always count on being unable to use one or more coupons. I’ve had the self-checkout machine eat several, had some the system simply refused to take, and had others good on merchandise that the chain doesn’t carry. My favorite is the “25% off your purchase” coupon. The fine print explains that the coupon is not good on sale items. This turns out to include “buy one, get one half off” items, even if I’m buying only one. “But I’m paying full price!” I protested, to no avail. I dumped the merchandise on the counter and left, feeling the beginnings of a tension headache.

RICHARD

#1 – The Gospel According to Norman: In The Beginning

In the beginning was the heaven and the earth, but both were incredibly boring, so – to liven things up a bit – god said “Let there be wine”… And there was wine.

Much partying and merriment ensued and the heavenly host grew rather the worse for wear, and more than a little drunk.

Seeing his creator distracted, man had a party of his own, sinning both originally and copiously. It didn’t matter: An angel drunkenly left a tap running, flooding the earth.

Fortunately, a few righteous individuals were spared – some boat builders who didn’t have time for partying.

#2 – Space: The Final Dumpster

Space is becoming messy. We’ve dumped so much trash out there, circling in geosynchronous orbit, most of the stars you see at night are just reflections of sunlight on stray bits of metal and dust.

Dead satellites, lost spanners, fragments of foil, bags full of astronaut poop: A massive cloud of debris that’s not going away, and nobody knows just how damaging if might be.

Not that it matters to me – by the time it’s anything to be concerned about I’ll be long gone.

Unless of course, I’m taken before my time… An unfortunate victim of falling space junk

#3 – Close encounter

“Greetings Earthling”

I’d always denied the existence of aliens, but faced with the thin, grey creature, with the dark oval eyes, I was finding that was difficult to do right now.

I giggled nervously; “You’re not going to ask me to phone home or take you to my leader are you?”

The alien looked at me steadily: “You are to stand trial before the Galactic Court of Justice as your planet’s representative. Humans are beginning to become a cosmic pain in the butt!”

“But why?”, I protested, “What crime are we accused of?”

“Fly tipping and littering the solar system!”

OWEN

Certain and Beginning

For me, the beginning was when I joined the school newspaper. I was enamored by my uncle, the foreign correspondent. An advisor yelling at us for being late on deadlines, doing lay out under light boards, hauling ass in my friend’s old MG to make it to the printer’s by midnight. I was certain it would be the rest of my life.

And I tried, taking pay cuts from $11/hour to $10.50, losing years to a hyper-local startup, reporting on big pharma.

Luckily I’m the one who got to begin again, but I’m certain it’ll never be the same.

-END

SERENDIPIDY

“Would you like another glass?”, I asked, offering the wine bottle.

He smiled and nodded – they always did – and then, shortly afterwards, the look of surprise as they found themselves slipping into unconsciousness and slumping onto the table.

I’d perfected my technique after some idiot tried to date rape me using the same method – he hadn’t succeeded, and now I was on a mission – it was simple revenge against the arrogance of the male of the species.

When he finally woke up, he’d find himself dumped in an alley, missing his wallet…

And missing his testicles!

LIZZIE

“Look, this wine costs a fortune,” said the sommelier, tilting the bottle.
At the beginning, the teen students seemed interested and nodded.
“If I dropped it… What a catastrophe!”
Then some started yawning.
“It must taste heavenly!”
Several strayed away.
However, the sommelier was quite proud of his presentation and he didn’t see it coming.
One unsuspected elbow and the bottle slipped from his hand, crashing on the floor.
All laughed uncontrollably.
The sommelier died inside… He dashed onto a shelf, smashing a fortune and his future.
The kids just gazed back at their phones and forgot all about it.

TURA

Cloud; beginning
———
Find a little fluffy cloud, and stare at it patiently. After a few minutes you may begin to not merely notice that it has changed shape, but to directly see it writhing in the sky. The transition from “seeing that” to “seeing” is unmistakeable.

Practice this whenever you see clouds.

When you can look at the sky and at once see a roiling cloudscape, you can try staring at the surface of a lake until you see the minute disturbances telling the movement of fish below.

Eventually, you will be able to see grass grow, paint dry, and friends age.

NORVAL JOE

“Wait here,” Mickey told Cherry Cola, taking furry brown monkey shorts from his backpack.
Just because you’re a monkey doesn’t mean certain parts just disappear. In the beginning, when he first changed, it came as an embarrassing surprise.
In a storage room, he dumped his clothes in an empty wine crate and left the room as a large howler monkey.
“Oo, oo,” he said to Cherry, motioning her to follow.
Outside, he leapt to a fire escape and swung to the roof. He wouldn’t be among the clouds, but he’d be above the gravity bound earthlings on the street below.

ZACKMANN

I had to go to the planet because almost everyone seems to be playing this new game called Poke a Mango. Since Mango is in the name of the game I am almost certain that the earthling Matthew Sandborn Smith is somehow mixed up in it. I met some friendly people who shared a mobile device and much wine. I liked the sweet taste but after involuntarily dumping my stomach I began to think this drink is only for humans. I think it was the reason my head was in a cloud and I didn’t catch any Poke a Mans.

PLANET Z

Long ago, Manfred Mann’s band sang about The Mighty Quinn, an Eskimo so spread peace and love and joy.
Ever since then, I’ve always thought that song must be hell for any Eskimo or person named Quinn.
“Are you an Eskimo?” people would ask Quinn.
“Are you named Quinn?” people would ask the Eskimo.
Although, now that I think of it, I don’t believe that I’ve met many Eskimos.
I can’t recall the last time I saw one.
I assume that they heard the song, got sick of people asking them if their name is Quinn, and went back home.

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
• Richard
• Charlie
• Jeff
• Tom
• Serendipity
• Lizzie
• Planet Xray
• Norval Joe
• Tura
• Planet Z

MUNSI

The Endless Ones
By Christopher Munroe

The Endless Ones slumber beneath the city

Unthinkably huge, eternally old and horrifying beyond all imagination, simply to view them is to go mad from revelations no mortal man was ever meant to know. Surely upon waking they could destroy us, one and all, obliterating our city and all who dwell within it without so much as a thought.

For such is their power, their horrible majesty, that we are but gnats upon their surface.

Fortunately for us, here on the surface, their sleep is, like they themselves are, endless.

So yeah, we’re good. We ought to all be fine…

JEFFREY

Hot Air
by Jeffrey Fischer

When I was a new employee, meetings were exciting. I got to meet people, discuss ideas, see how the decision-making process worked. Occasionally, there was the illusion that others took my ideas seriously. The shininess wore off quickly, and an endless stream of meetings became another chore along the relentless journey toward retirement.

However, as an older, wiser bureaucrat, I know something my younger self did not: my presence is not needed at almost all of those meetings, and skipping a dull, unproductive session has no negative consequences. Outlook’s “Decline” button is my friend.

Nap Time
by Jeffrey Fischer

As a young child, I resented being told to take a nap. I now know this was my parents’ way of getting a little peace in the afternoon, but I convinced myself I didn’t need the extra sleep.

Now, in my 50s, I relish the opportunity to take a nap. Briefly sleeping in the afternoon recharges me physically, makes me ready for the rest of the day. A nap refreshes me mentally as well, providing a temporary halt in the endless stream of stimuli. In short, naps are good.

The trouble is, my boss never thinks so when he comes into my office, only to wake me up.

RICHARD

Nirvana

I became a Buddhist primarily for the perks.

When I say perks, I’m referring to reincarnation – who can fault a belief system that gives you as many lifetimes as you need to perfect the art of not screwing up?

However, what they don’t tell you until it’s far too late, is that they managed to get all that stuff about coming back as another animal or person completely wrong.

When you’re reincarnated – you come back as yourself, starting the same old life all over again.

Same mistakes, same problems, same everything…

An endless cycle of constantly screwing up.

CHARLIE

She was like the universe. Endless. She went overboard with her glute exercises and she stewed all the fat off her back end. She tried desperately to put the bootie back on by eating big tubs of hummus slathered with sour cream, but nothing worked. She had an alcoholic’s ass, and it was a disaster. No outerwear would help, but she found that foam inserts in her panties would suffice. Some days she would forget to insert one or the other of the foam pads, and went out with one cheek. She had to turn the other cheek all day.

#2

Nancy related her funny stories about her visits to the gyno, which were numerous and fascinating. She told us that she always apologized for not grooming before she went for her exam. She was embarrassed that she had such an enormous amount of vegetation down there. Her friends always laughed and whispered to each other when they saw her in the gym’s locker room. She believed that her generous grove protected her parts from soft tissue injury and made her stand out in a crowd of the younger women who insisted on tinkering with their presentation and manicuring their muffs.

#3

Nancy’s friend was born without the buttock gene, thus endless, so at twenty she opted for buttock enhancement surgery in an out of the way clinica in Northern Mexico. She left the surgery on Monday afternoon, and awoke with an infected caboose on Tuesday morning. In addition to the infection, the implants were placed incorrectly and unevenly because the good doctor was a little cockeyed and had a bad astigmatism. After her complete, two year recovery, she had an uneven undercarriage, and looked ridiculous in her bikini. A surgeon on Rodeo Drive fixed her up and recycled the silicone implants.

JEFF

Time Lapse

A couple of concepts, infinity and eternity, are supposedly endless but nobody really knows for sure. At least with infinity, as it relates to mathematics, I can at least grasp the notion of taking the largest number I can think of and adding one to it. Eternity, on the other hand, is much harder for me to conceive. I can’t just think of the longest time I can imagine and add a day, and hour, a minute, or a second to it. Oh shit, I just wasted five minutes thinking about eternity, I’ll never get that time back, will I?

TOM

The Long Way Home

The endless road disappeared into the blue haze. The boy and the old man moved along the broken pavement steadily, but cautiously. “I’m thirst,” said the boy. “I know,” said the man. There was little else to say. A dot on a well-ware piece of paper was their goal. The map had cost them dearly, food, blankets, but more pressing water. What made this map worth the price, was its penciled additions. All along the blue lines were tiny gray crosses. Each marking the location of a shrine to Saint Oscar the patron saint of wanders. “Are we close?” “Soon.”

SERENDIPIDY

Contrary to what Orwell might have said, the worst thing in the world isn’t to be found in room 101; neither is it the threat of being devoured by starving rats.

The worst thing in the world is far more mundane than that, and most of us have experienced it at some time or other.

Simply put, the worst thing in the world is the simple, endless repetition of that one small thing that drives us crazy…

The toilet seat, left up; the neighbour’s car, badly parked; the constantly late colleague.

And, given time, it will drive you to murder.

LIZZIE

She sat and listened to the world around her. The wind whispered softly. The tree branches murmured familiar words from the past. She tried not to listen. She tried. The branches rustled louder, threatening to undermine her determination. And she looked beyond the line dividing the horizon in two, that line so rugged, so hilly, so full of pain. She closed her eyes and whispered with the wind. And she sat, she just sat, and listened to the world around her, an endless string of promises filled her with hope. A day, only a day, and everything would be different.

PLANET XRAY

Wings

I am the Bard and my pen is a mighty sword.
On joyous wings my imagination takes flight and soars among the distant hills and valleys that are captured within my mind.
With a sword in my hand, I do battle to preserve truth, justice, and my ideals against those who would do evil and harm to my friends and myself.
Across vast landscapes I travel the dusty roads, visiting the towns and villages along the way, spinning my yarns for the young and old, asking only for a smile, a hug and a thank you.
I am the Bard.

Endless

Like the endless sands of time the bard’s tales flow forth in the pursuit of providing entertainment and enjoyment to all of those who would be listening.
Carefully crafted, each tale brings the listener on a new journey with shining knights, fair damsels in distress and of course the villain.
With stories painted of gallantry, courage, evil and cowardice, across vast landscapes of the countryside, in the narrow streets of the towns, our hero travels as he continues his never ending pursuit for the rescue of the fair maiden from the clutches of the evil desperado.
I am the bard.

NORVAL JOE

Mandy shrugged and went back to work.
“We saw Polecat head up the road,” Cherry Cola said. “Shouldn’t we go after her?”
“No. By now she could be anywhere,” Mickey said. “Her potential hiding places are endless without inside information. I think we should probably give up for now.”
Ferrit agreed. “Yeah. Anyway. It’s a school night. I need to head home.”
“Sure Ferrit. Take care and thanks for your help.”
Cherry looked at him like he was crazy.
Mickey watched Ferrit leave, then said, “Give her a minute, Cherry. I think one sister will lead us to the other.”

TURA

Endless
———
“…to say a hundred words. I have made reality what the ancient philosophers only dreamed as myth, that time is cyclic,” declared the scientist at the press conference. “I have invented a time machine! When I sent my first prototype into the past, the temporal paradox forced the universe to eject the machine into an endless loop of time of its own. But if we are inside the machine when it jumps— and I have built another one enclosing this whole room— we will see a time loop from the inside. It will be about a minute long, long enough to say a hundred words. I have made reality…”

PLANET Z

Death is not endless sleep.
Because sleep is sleep, and death is death.
You can wake from sleep. You cannot wake from death.
You dream while you sleep. You do not dream while you are dead.
Molly’s Mom continued to lecture her daughter on the differences between sleep and death.
“Stop,” said Molly. “All I wanted was a bedtime story.”
The hologram of Molly’s Mom stopped lecturing, and smiled.
“Once upon a time,” it began.
The hologram generator needed an upgrade.
But Molly’s Father was still in shock.
After the accident, which killed Molly’s Mom.
“Sweet dreams,” said the hologram.