Author: R.

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:

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

What’s the next Weekly Challenge? Come to the website and subscribe to the feed to find out!

JEFFREY

Fit to Shrink
by Jeffrey Fischer

I grab the nearest pair of dress pants from the closet, pull them on, and attempt to hook closed the waistband. Attempts two and three fare no better than the first. What has happened to my pants? They used to fit just fine. Then it came to me: they shrunk in the wash. No, they were dry cleaned. Aha! The dry cleaners shrunk the pants. Yes, that’s the only explanation that fits.

I wander into the bathroom, where I see myself in the mirror. Slowly, in a fit of inspiration, another explanation starts to emerge…

Clearly, the universe is an expanding one, and everything has become bigger, except my pants!

Outsized
by Jeffrey Fischer

I clipped my new FitBit to my waistband and started walking at a brisk pace. I imagined the steps mounting up and the calories burning off. Around the block – twice! – stopping at the doughnut shop only once, I felt like a man in charge of his destiny. Well, his body mass index, at any rate.

When I got home, I unclipped the FitBit to check my progress. 3,264 steps out of a daily goal of 10,000. This piece of crap must be broken, I thought. Still, surely I was losing weight.

I checked my fitness software. Two doughnuts, 400 calories consumed. 3,200 steps, about 150 calories burned. Maybe I could learn to love my weight.

RICHARD

Hi Laurence,

Hope this week is going well for you, and if it’s not, I hope it gets better!

Facing a bit of a word shortage around here, but I’ve managed to cobble together a hundred of them, collected from down the back of the sofa and all those other places that stray words tend to accumulate, along with odd socks and old ballpoint pens.

Topic suggestion: You’re in a box… Why?

And a story as well.

Regards,
Richard.

Square Peg

As a youngster, I never really managed to fit in – always very much a square peg in a round hole, not that it ever bothered me much.

I enjoyed being a misfit and a maverick… I grew my hair long, threw away my shoes and lived the hippy lifestyle; above all, I was happy.

Then came relationships, commitments, the job, the house, the kids and all the responsibility and respectability that comes with it – I finally started to fit in.

So, I’ve finally found my niche; my corner in life.

I wish I didn’t fit in any more.

LIZZIE

Nothing prepared him for the strenuous race. They told him it would be easy peasy. They lied. They told him to watch out for the spectators who, in their enthusiasm, tended to try to grab the runners; he didn’t see any spectators. Nevertheless, he ran like never before. He knew he’d be the winner. But the finish line was empty. Why? He didn’t understand. Suddenly, he realized that the “Finish” banner was nothing but a clothes line where t-shirts and a few diapers were hanging from. “Damn, I should’ve worn my glasses. This thing of looking handsome is not easy.”

SERENDIPITY

I know I promised that your family would see you again, but I never made any promises regarding how.

The trouble is, I can’t just walk you up to the front door – that’s a surefire way to get caught, neither can I just let you go, that way is fraught with risk.

Which is why I’ve decided to post you back… Piece by piece.

The post office will take care of the details, all I have to do is parcel you up and add a few stamps.

Only very small pieces though… Or you’ll never fit through the mailbox.

TOM

The Spice Must Flow

Benny was prone to fits. In a normal family this condition would have been met with the best possible care. But the Baxter family wasn’t your average family, in fact they really weren’t a family, more of a long term breeding enterprise. A minor house in the Landsraad hell bent to catch up with Atreides and Harkonnen. Initially Benny showed great promise, but despite the efforts of this tutors he lacked that Kwisatz Haderach fire. In the end Benny ended up in the financial wing of the family. When the fits arose he’d scream, “My name is a Billing word!”

The Legacy Generation

My father’s generation was an age of indulgence. Heavy smoking, drinking, driving and eating took its toll, few lived to see the lifespan of their fathers. Our generation is having none of that. We are fit in a manner that would shame Adonis. I walked five miles a day, lifted free weights and embraced a plant based diet. I chose employment that would not induce even moderate levels of stress. We should have been called the Fit Generation, in the end we were called the Asteroid Generation. The Plant Base Generation is doing quite leafy well, fuck you very much.

Too Be Happy

Mary was always putting square pegs in round holes. And it didn’t stop there. Every aspect of her life railed against the rules of convention. It didn’t stop her from attaining multiple degrees and a string of Noble’s. Three of this writing. A loner by temperament she knew she would never fit in, that was until she met Rudy. He had a way of making her smile doing the oddest stuff. Gave it all up for him. “The research went on without me,” she would say years later. Rudy and her fit together and that was just fine by her.

MUNSI

On Fitness

By Christopher Munroe

I’m not exactly fit.

I mean, I walk everywhere, have an active job and find the energy to go dancing on weekends, but still, my lifestyle will catch up with me.

I drink, probably too much, my diet’s terrible and while I’ve tried I’ve yet to quit smoking. These things wear on me, and one day they’ll bite me in the ass…

That’s fine.

I like me, I like most of the things I find myself doing, and if that causes problems it will at least be a life of minimal regrets.

My life is a good fit for me…

ZACKMANN

“Did you get a new car? Looks like you like Hondas.” Said the security officer.

“Yes, it’s smaller than my old car but it is Fit as a fiddle.” Replied the DJ.

“How does it feel to be out of your Element?” ask security.
“I was afraid as full as the Element got after gigs that I wouldn’t fit all my stuff in the Fit but I do love Hondas and gas isn’t cheap. I’m not actually out of my Element. My wife drives it. We looked at an Odyssey but she almost had a fit seeing the monthly payments.”

TURA

Fit for purpose
——–
The scene: the campaign headquarters of a political party.

“Look, David, we’ve no chance of keeping this promise, we all know that and so will everyone else.”

“Call it an intention, then.”

“That’s still too definite. How about a goal?”

“A target, not a goal.”

“An aim, not a target.”

“Perhaps it should be an aspiration?”

“That pushes it too far away. Any party can talk about aspirations. How about a purpose?”

“Suppose we say the policy is fit for purpose? Then we don’t even have to say what the purpose is!”

“Brilliant, Jenkins! Give that man a pay rise!”

ANIMA

As the manager of an apartment complex, I am plagued with inane requests. The residents don’t think I am competent; In a fit of pique I have decided to respond to ALL this week’s requests.

Lights in the halls: I’ll reissue the glowsticks I gave the last time this was mentioned.

Weekly garbage pickup: A few grannys should do the trick. They’re usually weak. Hope no one tosses out a sofa.

A community game room? Awesome! – I can stock the garage with wolves, then hold competitions to see who can makes it home in one piece! Let the games begin!

NORVAL JOE

I always wanted to be a dancer but I could never get any toe shoes that fit. The only thing I could ever pull over my massive dogs was red rubber boots and the dance school said a gag like that wouldn’t fit the dance routine.
I always wanted to be a tennis star, too, but I wasn’t physically fit enough to win any games. And then, when I would hit a ball into the net, I would smash my racket on the ground in a fit of rage. Do you think that’s why I could never get a sponsor?

PLANET Z

Ned’s a small guy.

So small, he’d fit in a wine glass.

I guess that would be funny, seeing how Ned’s last name is Wineglass.

But seeing as how I’ve never seen him in a wine glass, I guess that’s not really all that funny.

I’ve seen him in a beer stein though. Heck, he jumps in there a lot these days.

Maybe if Ned were named Ned Stein, that could be funny.

Ned runs across the table and jumps into a beer stein, pulling down the lid.

Hilarious!

Especially when he shouts for someone to put the cat outside.

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:

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

What’s the next Weekly Challenge? Come to the website and subscribe to the feed to find out!

MUNSI

Drop the Anchors

By Christopher Munroe

Anchors away?

Never! And to hell with anyone who’d suggest such a thing!

To hell!

There’s an anchor crisis here, at home! Right in our own backyard there are no anchors, unless you live near a shipyard in which case maybe, but what about the people who DON’T live near shipyards? What about them?

Yet some would send our anchors away? Never! An anchor in every garage! I believe in anchors for everyone, and nothing’s stopping us but our own unwillingness to act!

So act we shall!

Something something, and let’s set course to this bold, new, anchorful future, together!

JEFFREY

Retirement
by Jeffrey Fischer

I helped my friend Mike pack his office. He was retiring at the end of the week and wanted to take home his handful of personal items. While Mike sorted through desk drawers, I removed anything hanging on the walls.

Most were pictures of family or vacation spots, but occupying a place of honor was Mike’s treasured “Employee of the Year” plaque. I tugged at it, but the plaque refused to move. Studying it, I saw a large bolt anchoring it to the wall. The plaque wasn’t going home without a large chunk of plasterboard.

“Oh, just leave that,” Mike said.

“Your award? Your recognition for years of hard work?”

“Well, someone’s hard work. It came with the office. I guess the previous guy couldn’t pry it loose.”

The Diagnosis
by Jeffrey Fischer

My wife came out of the physician’s office with a grim look on her face. “What’s wrong?” I asked.

“Dr. Boothe said the pains were likely from a tumor.” She fought back tears. “Judging from the size and position, he said I may have only a few weeks.”

I sank into a chair, my legs unable to hold me. How could this be? My rock, my anchor, the one person I could always rely on – gone in a few weeks?

My wife saw my grief-stricken expression and laughed. “April Fool! He thinks it’s just indigestion and I’ll be fine. Had you going, though.”

I later told the police, after I killed her, that she didn’t even have the month right.

RICHARD

Sailor

I never realised just how difficult being a sailor could be for someone who takes things as literally as me.

It started when the captain told me to weigh anchor… It took me a week to find a set of scales that could handle it.

Then I was told to station myself in the crow’s nest – but just how do you find a crow so far out to sea? In the end I settled for a seagull, but I can’t say the captain was impressed.

It was time to quit, when I was ordered to scrub the poop deck!

SERENDIPITY

When you told me to throw out the anchor, you should really have been far more careful about how you phrased it.

Right this minute, you’re wondering why we’re still drifting… creeping ever closer, inexorably towards the jagged reef and its needle sharp coral fingers.

And, as the hull splinters and splits on the rocks below; as the sea rushes in to drag you under to your doom, you’ll turn to me, eyes imploring ‘Why?’

And, I’ll smile back, and your final memory will be the siren’s song, echoing across the waves, as my sisters welcome me home, once more.

ZACKMANN

“What brings you into Cliff’s Tattoo Parlor today?”

“Well, I just got this job as an anchorman for a new cable news network;Unbroken News. They thought I would be edgier if I got a tattoo.”

“Are they the ones whose slogan is At least as accurate as The Onion.”? That seems like a low standard” said Cliff

“You would think but three of the existing networks can’t manage to do it.” said the newsman “Unbroken New instructed prior Navy gets an anchor tattoo.”

“A ship’s anchor?”
“No. I can still follow instructions getting Walter Cronkite’s character from We’re Back”

LIZZIE

Survivor

“I refuse to sink” read the tattoo on her chest. Decades of wars and narrow escapes turned her into a survivor. Yet, she knew. The capsule injected under her skin was her anchor.

As a child, she disappeared for a week, to her parents’ frantic despair. When she returned, the stories of strange looking beings with oddly shaped eyes and white skin were hurriedly dismissed.

When they finally came back for the data in the capsule, she smiled. That was the moment she had lived for. She asked them “take me with you” and they did. She’s over 250 today.

TOM

Hay Kid we can put on a show.

Why so glum Timmy? Cindy Lu needs a new iron lung, but Grandpa Joe can’t raise the money because the Bank is foreclosing on his farm,” said the lad plopping down on a bale of hay. “Heck Kid you gave me a great idea. We can take all this hay and make it into seating for a Musical Extravaganza right here in the barn. Will do a review, call it Anchors Way. A wandering Hollywood executive will see it and will make it into a big old Hollywood movie, make plenty of scratch get Cindy that brand new iron lung.

American Enterprise

The treasure fleet anchored in the bay. The Pomo representative boarded the Great Khan’s flagship with five oaken chests. In Chinese fluent, he greeted the Master Merchant with a long riddle. Tinsu Lang replied in prefect Pomo, “Coyote would ask the turtle.” “Then we are in agreement.” 30 bolts of crimson silk appeared alongside 30 pots of crimson spices. The Pomo dealer opened the oak chests filled to the top with Lake Diamonds and Konocti Obsidian arrow heads. Of all the riches that flowed across the continent the most valuable was beware the Europeans. The guns sure came in handy.

NORVAL JOE

Popeye went into the tattoo shop and asked to have his trademark anchor tattoo removed.
“If we remove it, we won’t know it’s you. It would be as bad as getting rid of the spinach.”
“Thacks the poink,” Popeye said, explaining that the belief that spinach had more iron was based on a decimal error on a government report from the late 1800. It’s no better for you than broccoli.
“It’s easier to cover the tattoo with something, than remove it,” the tattooist said. “How about Olive oil?”
They settled on Bluto, whom Popeye had secretly loved all these years.

TURA

Anchor
——–
There was once an anchoress, walled up in a cell in a church, to spend her days in contemplation. There was no door, only a barred window through which she might hear mass.

One day, the devil came to tempt her.

“Holy mother,” he said, “how brave to rise above the sneers of the ignorant, to be willingly shut up in the darkness! Do you never long to walk through the world of God’s creation?”

“What?” exclaimed the man who swept up the elephant dung in the circus, who had wandered in from another joke. “And give up show business?”
——–

KIMI

I sat in the third row on a metal folding chair in a small room off of the main chapel. Bill’s casket was open and I could see a few wisps of curly black hair and the heavy horn-rimmed glasses set astride his waxy nose.
Leaning back, I closed my eyes and ears to the goings on around me and thought of the sweet big guy that would wrap his burly arms around you and snug in close as he shared his amazing ooey-gooeyness.
I will miss those long, I Really Mean It hugs, Anchors AWeigh, my friend

PLANET Z

My first job out of college was with a public television station.
After my internship finished, I was asked to help the transmitter engineer with computer support.
Lots of already-ancient Tandy 1000’s stacked up in the warehouse, gathering dust.
Someone joked that we should give them away, like we did with mugs, tote bags, and Three Tenors CDs.
“Or use them as boat anchors,” said the transmitter engineer.
I left that place years ago. Never went back, didn’t keep in touch.
I imagine that old transmitter engineer out on his boat, hauling up a dead PC and sailing for Cuba.