Welcome to the 100 Word Stories podcast at oneadayuntilthedayidie.com.
This is 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:
- Carol
- Munsi
- Jeffrey
- Richard
- Lizzie
- Tom
- Jerry
- Serendipity
- Spate
- John Musico
- Zackmann
- Anima
- Norval Joe
- Tura Brezoianu
- Planet Z
What’s the next Weekly Challenge? Come to the website and subscribe to the feed to find out!
CAROL
I wanted to be a Wave. Thought my father would be happy about that – he had quit school and run away from home to join the Navy when he was 16 after all. He wasn’t. Said that all Waves were whores and forbade me to enlist.
So I ran away from home and became a mermaid. Now I sport beneath the waves, leaving him to his land-locked life. No regrets
But he was right about one thing – waves are definitely not monogamous. Any time, any breeze, any beach will do. And don’t even get me started about those white-caps!
MUNSI
Dancing
By Christopher Munroe
I’m not too old to hit up a nightclub.
I mean, an alternative club, and basically only on retro night every other week, but still, proof of concept. I can still go dancing, and by god I do!
Scene kids in our thirties, now, enjoying one another’s company in impeccable style, soundtracked by the goth/indie tunes of the ‘80s and 90s, and fun is had every damn time.
It’s an important part of who I am.
And when the Pixies play, you better believe I’m on the floor…
On a wave of mutilation.
Wave of mutilation.
Wave of mutilation.
Wave…
JEFFREY
Catch a Wave
by Jeffrey Fischer
Casey paddled away from shore, his surfboard in hand. He had seen the guys surfing on the beach, and they all had hot, bikini-clad girlfriends who laughed a lot. Surfing didn’t look very hard, and Casey wanted a hot, laughing, bikini-clad girlfriend, so he waited for the right moment to impress.
A monster wave was starting to crest. This was it! Casey balanced on the board and let the water move him. In an instant, he fell, tumbling again and again in the water until he surfaced on the beach. He felt very proud of himself.
The bikini-clad girls were laughing, which was good. Only then did he realize he had lost his swim suit some time ago.
Safe Space
by Jeffrey Fischer
The seminar participants were very brave to sit through twenty minutes in which a cisgendered straight Caucasian explained to them that carrying around a mattress on campus was not actually performance art. The only way this could have been more traumatic would have been if the speaker were male. Male privilege was the *worst*. Well, white male…well, straight white male… Oh things got confusing quickly. Anyway, despite the multiple trigger warnings before and during the talk, some of the womyn needed a safe space to calm down. When the Womyn’s Center facilitator said there would be coloring books and videos of frolicking puppies, the audience waved, because clapping was triggering for some.
And so went another day at day care for twenty-somethings, also known as college.
RICHARD
One pint of beer
All it takes is one pint of beer – it really doesn’t matter what sort or which brewery, it doesn’t even have to be artisan beer, any old cheap brew will do.
You don’t need pretzels, snacks, a party atmosphere or the company of any friends to share the moment… just a pint glass, brimming with cold beer.
That, along with a single, momentary lapse of judgement, and maybe a brief, thoughtless, uncoordinated wave of the hand…
Hand: meet beer.
Beer: meet high tech, high spec, top of the range laptop computer.
And you can just wave that expensive laptop goodbye!
LIZZIE
Waving energetically didn’t solve her problem. She tried whistling and even throwing stones. Nothing. She lifted the axe from the floor and swung it over her shoulder.
A man approached quickly and tried to take the axe away from her. “What on Earth, lady!”
“What on Earth?! Just get off my lawn! Don’t you see the sign?!”
He hadn’t seen it, considering the puzzled look on his face. Well, it was too late now.
The sign read “Stay off my lawn or I’ll chop your head off.” Yep, getting all those words on such a small sign was a pain.
TOM
And that is all I have to Say about That
Timmy waved to the cars passing by. Sometimes they’d slow down and wave back. It didn’t matter the weather or temperature. Timmy would be comfortably seated in the rainbow lawn chair, smiling and waving. His sister had taught him how to do the: “prom queen on a float wave” so he wouldn’t tire himself out. Sometimes someone from the church would stop the car and come up on the porch. Timmy would pour them a lemonade and wave when they got back in their car. Timmy doesn’t sit on the porch any more, but people still drive by and wave.
JERRY
Ounce – 2015-06-18
—————–
Now and again I don’t see the need to follow directions. I don’t mean things like “to get to 1720 Westlake Road go North 10 blocks and then turn left”. You will find me following those kinds of directions precisely. Sometimes, when I am cooking, I will fall off the direction wagon because somethings look so good. Say that the recipe calls for a cup of chopped onions or seven sliced cumquats. I may add a little more. Last night, after the doctor pumped my stomach, he said that my using 16 ounces of Habanero may have been too much.
——————
Wave 2015-06-18
——————
Last week I was out at the lake with the blue sky over head putting around with my little dinghy and everything was so perfect and was going so grand that I did not want it to ever stop. I was deep in the throes of a great, near faultless ride. The feeling was one of exhilaration, inner peace, physical completeness, that feeling of being surrounded by the warmth of true love in a wet and slippery environment. It was taking my breath away. I was riding the final wave when my wife walked in on Linda and me. Dang.
SERENDIPITY
Isn’t technology wonderful? It opens up a whole world of possibilities… I call them techno-pathogens.
Whilst the world is obsessed with computer viruses, I’ve been working away with real ones, digitally distributed and delivered directly to the unfortunate recipient.
Absolutely deadly, but not exactly silent.
You see, my viruses are hidden in music – the sort that gets inside your head and won’t go away: earworms that you hear once, then hang around for as long as it takes for the infection to gain hold.
Pathogens buried in the wave forms of sound itself – music to my ears.
SPATE
Everyday
Everyday I make the Post Office run. Everyday I see him on the corner. He’s
younger than me but not much, with long hair held back by grease; an
untucked tattered work shirt; dirty worn jeans that confuse sight with
smell.
Regardless of weather, he’s there, always wearing that sad smile, purposely
making eye contact with the driver of each car and giving each a personal
wave.
Some say mental illness. Some say drugs. Some that he’s been touched by God
and can connect with the soul of anyone he meets.
Me? I wave back. and go get the mail.
JOHN MUSICO
John
Wave
Hand waving reminds us of our territorial warring past. As a tribe approached our village, before they got too close; you’d wave your arm; “Whoaa, this place is ours”. If they proved friends, they’d get waved in. The handshake is a related, also dark gesture: “See, I hold no weapon”. Waving goodbye is a blend of the two. Communicating from afar as the boat sails off further; that weaponless, we two have been friends. The salute also goes back to our warlike nature. Lifting one’s armor visor to show your smiling not scowling face- one of the good guys.
ZACKMANN
I was in the bank getting some fees waived because sometimes all you have to do is ask. Mike my friend from tech who was in a New Wave band waved at me. When we were in electronics class Mike could whistle a perfect sine wave for the oscilloscope. Mike greets me with “Your mother wears army boots.” To which I could only respond “You watch too much Bugs Bunny cartoons. Besides that was my grandma and it was navy boots. She was in the WAVES.”
I’d like to go on Mike’s band cruise but ocean waves make me seasick.
ANIMA
The Great Wave of Kanagawa
For the past 10 minutes I have been looking at this amazing Japanese print.
3 boats plow the trough of a giant wave; In the distance, Mt Fuji.
Are the sailors scared? Jacked on adrenaline? Praying? Do their families worry when the fishing fleet goes out?
Mt Fuji peeks through – my mind wanders in a different direction.
At the base of the mountain lies Aokigahara, the Sea of Trees. Is there a widow wandering the Suicide Forest, about to suffer the same fate as her fisherman, drowning in a wave of grief?
Maybe I should mediate on cherry blossoms …
NORVAL JOE
Bufford thanked the Swiss man for his input with a smile and a wave and waited for him to disappear into the woods. Giggling, he gathered his pump, hoses and other apparatus, and loaded the collection chamber into a wheelbarrow.
Maybe it was only confirmation bias, but the chamber felt like it was more massive, even twice the expected mass. He shipped the equipment back home, but hand carried the chamber on the plane. On his flight back to Idaho he imagined the experiments he would perform. First he would determine if dark matter was made of particles or waves.
TURA
Wave
———
—I’m starting up a new business!
—Oh yes, what’s the business?
—I’ve invented a machine for creating the very best waves for surfing, anywhere there’s enough water. I can turn any beach, anywhere in the world, into a top-class surfing resort! No more hanging around waiting for the cry of “Surf’s up!” The surf will always be up! The pièce de résistance, though, is a gigantic pool shaped like a ring, with a wave breaking endlessly round and round. You’ll be able to surf a cylinder wave all day long!
—What are you calling it?
—“The Wave of the Future”!
PLANET Z
Is light a particle, or is it a wave?
Well, in some conditions, it acts like a particle.
And under other conditions, it acts like a wave.
Then there’s the times that light acts like a total dick.
Light never puts down the toilet seat.
And uses up all of the hot water when you want to take a shower.
Of course, it always borrows the car when you’re late for work.
Worst of all, there’s that damned light bill to pay every month.
I’m going to newspaper the windows, buy heavy drapes, and kill this son of a bitch.