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:

• Hotspur
• Jeffrey
• Richard
• Munsi
• Anima
• Serendipity
• Lizzie
• Tom
• Norval Joe
• Danny
• Tura Brezoianu
• Kimi
• Planet Z

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

HOTSPUR

(no text)

JEFFREY

Days Gone By
by Jeffrey Fischer

My wife laments that people eat out too much these days. They have far too much food, often food that’s not healthy, and don’t learn to cook for themselves. For without the desire to cook, there’s no need for fancy cooking equipment: no roasters, or whisks, no mixers, no frying pans. And it’s the last of that bunch that really upsets her, because there’s nothing like a good frying pan with which to whack an errant husband over the head. Smacking him with a stack of takeout menus just isn’t the same.

Hop-son’s Choice
by Jeffrey Fischer

The angler reached into his bucket of ice and pulled out a trout he had caught only minutes before. He threw the trout into the frying pan suspended over the open fire and turned his attention to preparing the rest of the meal.

The trout was initially happy to be in the warm pan after lying on the cold ice and enjoyed the sauna. After some time, however, he was far too warm and considered his options. He leapt out of the pan.

The fire was no better! The trout felt his skin begin to singe. Mustering all his strength, he leapt back into the frying pan, which was now sizzling hot. Even his little trout brain understood that he was screwed either way.

Everyone’s a Critic
by Jeffrey Fischer

The job of a theater critic is not an easy one. Staying awake is often a problem, as is not reacting to the boorish behavior of others in the audience. But the big headache is handling those who react poorly to criticism. If I pan a play, I can expect no end of crap from the director to the actors to the actors’ mothers. Look, folks, I just call ’em as I see ’em.

So darling, I don’t care if you’re in middle school – that production of “Our Town” was a stinker. And tell your mom she has to start talking to me some time.

RICHARD

Hi Laurence,

Only one story this week – the sunshine is far too lovely to be sat in front of a keyboard, and around these parts it doesn’t last long enough to be wasted! (Which is a clever way to hide the fact I was totally uninspired… ah well, the best laid pans, eh?)

So here it is, and here’s my topic suggestion – ‘The ultimate thrill’

Catch up with you and the gang on Sunday.

Regards,
Richard.

Frying Pan

I’ve a terrible knack for getting into trouble – it seems no sooner do I get out of one scrape, I’m straight into another one, until eventually, I’m in a whole pile of grief.

Then it struck me that if I’m going to get into trouble, I may as well accept things as they are – pretty pointless to try and dig myself out if I know that I’ll inevitably end up in the same position again, almost immediately.

So these days, rather than out of the frying pan into the fire, I sit tight in the pan, and hope no-one notices.

MUNSI

A Life Lived with Style

By Christopher Munroe

I go through life with grace and aplomb.

Grace and aplomb, in case you didn’t know, is like swagger for people who AREN’T reprehensible douche-bags.

There’s a poise to it, a style too absent from this vulgar modern age, and I’ve made it my personal mission to restore that indefinable quality, that dignity, that It Factor, to all my dealings with the world.

Panache, I suppose you could call it. Or quiet, elegant dignity.

And dignity has always been my watchword.

No, wait, I misspoke, that doesn’t describe me at all. I’d meant the opposite of every part of that…

ANIMA

THE FIRST OF MAY

Sarah rolled over, looking into his eyes. Twigs and leaves clung to her dishevelled hair. The grassy knoll where they lay was bathed lightly in morning sun.

“I’m happy you convinced me the first of May is a real holiday. When we met at the bonfire last night, I wasn’t interested in short, hairy guys, but … WOW! You have changed my attitude.

You’ve played music long? I am glad you can use those skills for more than playing the pipes…”

Pan leaned in, kissing Sarah on the mouth, nickering happily at his latest conquest. Indeed, the first of May!

SERENDIPITY

They told me that if you were to place a frog in a pan of cold water and gradually increase the temperature, it would boil to death without ever realising.

I didn’t believe it of course; even so, I decided to give it a try, but my results were inconclusive… with no way to communicate with the frog, how could I possibly tell whether it knew it was being boiled?

Which is why you’re presently lying in a bath of water, currently at a very pleasant, body temperature.

You’ll be sure to let me know when you’re done, won’t you?

LIZZIE

Frying pan in hand, Linda looked outside. Tony was late; her darling husband who swore to wed her for better or for worse and all that crap, until… She waited for hours and hours.

When Margaret, the owner of the house, arrived, Linda gave her the pan treatment first.

The problem was that Tony had years of experience. He entered the house through the back and… Let’s say Linda’s life suffered a slight rearrangement and there it was… till death do us part.

Frying pan in hand, Tony thought “amazing how easy it was to solve two problems at once”.

TOM

And One more for the Road

The Great Pan sidled up to the bar. The bar keep passed him a Bushmills neat with an ouzo shooter. After the fourth round the bartender positioned himself in front of the old goat, and casually drew a towel around the inside of an Old Fashion glass. “Hoof and Horn,” mumbled Pan. “Gladys?” Pan limply flailed a hand that banged into his left horn, bounced, hit the bar. “That satyr is no good for you.” “Cupid’s arrows” “Fuck Cupid.” Pan wiped out his pipes and started playing some Mississippi blues. Joe pour Pan a double “It on the house, man.”

The DownUlater

They paned it. Damn near everyone to Omaha paned it. Those that didn’t had less then faint praise for the production. He knew if he stayed in the pack he’d have deep cover. Careers had been lost over this sort of quixotic dedication. A lone voice countering the choirs. His editor and publisher lent a deaf silent to the piece. Even his wife Ann said burn it. “Print it” he said.

The first review of the newly hired New York Theater Reviewer thanked the previous reviewer for his glowing piece on Jim Carey’s Musical version of Waiting for Godot.

NORVAL JOE

Dergle sent his first tweet:
Dergle Vander Hoont ‏@WienerDogMan
By not believing in myself, I’ve ceased to exist. Trying to #connect with people who might #believe in me.
He waited. If this didn’t pan out like he hoped, he didn’t know what to do next.
He tried again:
Dergle Vander Hoont ‏@WienerDogMan
#ImReal #BelieveMe My pet #weinerdog is named Long John Silver. My #GirlFriend is Bambi. She works at Mac Discount’s #GroceryStore.
An hour later he got a follower @_Brit_knee_Speers who he followed back.
She sent a direct message, “10,000 real twitter followers for $9.99”.
Dergle sighed, losing all hope.

DANNY

Weekly Challenge 468: Pan

Susan Pan was a poor, disillusioned, petty excuse of a human being. She wasn’t even of Asian descent, yet her last name was still Pan. This was because her father, Harry Potter, never wanted to acknowledge he had impregnated a woman, but still wanted the last name of his bastard child to reflect a kitchen appliance. Susan suffered from a rare affliction that caused her feet to ooze thick oil that smelled like Italian dressing. This is where the story gets weird, because I’m running low on 100 words. Susan’s boyfriend JimBob, who was turned on by the smell of her….

TURA

Pan
——–
“What are the sun and the moon?” asked the boy, ten thousand years ago.

“A man on a horse, dragging a firepot,” replied the old man. “And Woman, who chases Man, then flees from him.”

“What is fire?” a boy asked a century ago.

“Atoms!” replied his father.

“What is love?” he asks today.

“Neurons firing!” comes the reply.

Stories all, of which we rarely ask, “is this true?” but only, “is it a good story?”

Terry Pratchett told a very true story, when he said that we are not Homo sapiens, knowing man, but Pan narrans, the story-telling ape.

KIMI

Granny Jackson could cook. Before she became frail, the woman was brilliant in the kitchen. Now, she sat in her wheelchair next to me at the kitchen table going over recipes. We have sat together like this since I was a little girl. Looking around the kitchen stirs memories of my failed attempts cooking my favorite meal of fried chicken and buttered Johnny cakes drizzled with sorghum.
“Granny, I followed your recipes but it doesn’t quite taste the same. Do you have a secret spice that isn’t in the recipe?”
“A spice? No. A pan? Yes! A Number 10 Griswold.”

PLANET Z

Back in the days of Ancient Greece, Pan was some goat-legged sex fiend god.

I’m not sure what he was the god of, though.

Goats?
Sex fiends?
Fiends who had sex with goats?

The Greeks had a god for everything. I guess they had a lot of goats, sex fiends, or fiends who had sex with goats, because they had to come up with a god for it.

Pan had a pipe flute. These days, it’s called the Pan flute.

Zamfir is the master of the Pan flute.

Whether he’s a sex fiend, well, the informercials never manage to say.

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
• Tura Brezoianu
• Zackmann
• Anima
• Tom
• Norval Joe
• Munsi
• Danny
• Kimi
• Planet Z

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

JEFFREY

Have Pen, Will Travel
by Jeffrey Fischer

The authorial imagination often soars when the author is removed from familiar surroundings. We take that for granted now, but few remember that it was the fountain pen that freed the wordsmith from being chained to his inkwell. Carrying enough ink for many pages of prose allowed him to write anywhere. Thus, the invention of the fountain pen was the second most important development in the creation of the modern writer.

Nevertheless, another hundred and fifty years or so would have to pass before the invention of the writing surface outside the home, also known as Starbucks.

Swordsmanship
by Jeffrey Fischer

They say the pen is mightier than the sword. I know mine is. When I say that, I often get a condescending reply about the metaphorical power of the written word. I can see that reply forming in your mouth as well, sir.

But I assure you that I’m not speaking metaphorically. Take a look at this pen. To be sure, it will write a few lines, but this is also – wait a moment while I push this button – a fully-functioning light saber, capable of slicing through metal like… well, a laser device through metal. I have a pen, but I’m not that good with similes.

So put down that sword before you get hurt, sir.

RICHARD

#1 – George’s Story – Part 100: The End

George pulled up to the guard’s cabin, signed out, and drove away from ‘Connect Protect Solutions’… maybe now he could get back to the world he understood – pipes, washers and drainage. He couldn’t have felt happier!

Pausing at the junction, he glanced in his rear view mirror and was surprised to see the security guard running after him – he leaned out of the window.

“You’ve still got my pen!”, the guard was shouting.

George didn’t care – he floored the accelerator, without looking, and ploughed straight into a passing truck!

—-oo—

George opened his eyes… the hospital seemed strangely quiet.

#2 – Monkeys

If an unlimited number of monkeys with typewriters could theoretically write the complete works of Shakespeare, just imagine what they could do with a decent word processing package… Neatly formatted paragraphs, properly spellchecked and justified – although I bet they’d use Comic Sans!

Personally, I wouldn’t trust a monkey with anything more advanced than a pen – and I can’t imagine they’d do anything particularly creative with it. Probably stick it up their bum, I imagine.

If you’re going to write Shakespeare, monkeys simply aren’t up to the job, no matter how many you might have handy.

Try dolphins instead.

#3 – Petition

Laggins was enjoying his third helping of bacon and coffee, when the doorbell rang. Grumpily muttering to himself, he opened the front door, to be confronted by that perishing wizard again!

“What?”, he barked.

The wizard smiled… “Would you be willing to sign a petition outlawing door to door recruitment for magical quests?”, he enquired, proffering a large quill pen.

Without hesitation, Laggins grabbed the pen, signing his name on the wizard’s scroll, with a flourish.

“Oops!”, said the wizard, “Wrong scroll… you’ve just signed up to join the ‘Infernal and Horrific Ultimate Treasure Quest'”

“See you tomorrow, first thing!”

#4 – Livestock

We keep them in the pen until they’re ready to move on – that way we can watch their diet and there’s no chance of them running off.

Of course, they need to keep fit and healthy in such a confined space, so we give them the treadmills and the exercise bikes – they get an hour in the middle of the day, and another couple of hours in the evening: Keeps them at their peak and gives them a better quality of life, you see.

Then, after forty years, we let them go… with a carriage clock.

Happy retirement!

LIZZIE

“When we were kids, we had pen-pals. This was when people used pens and paper. To open the mailbox and find a letter from some exotic location was beyond words. Sometimes, we received letters from places we had never heard of. We would dream of going there to meet our new friends!”

The kids looked at their great-grandfather, a puzzled look in their eyes. “Is that why you got stuck up here in Colony800?”

The old man sighed. How could he explain that there had been a life before the Colonies, a life at a place everyone called “the World”?

SERENDIPITY

They told me that the pen is mightier than the sword – I didn’t believe them: A sword is clearly a far superior weapon to a ballpoint, but then I got thinking.

A sword is such an obvious weapon, difficult to conceal, and takes training to wield efficiently… whereas a pen can go anywhere, and nobody would ever suspect evil intent.

My plan was simple: neurotoxin carefully applied in just the right place: Hundreds of victims – simple and deadly.

Mightier than any bladed weapon, any day.

Because everybody chews on their pen, even you, perhaps even right this minute?

TURA

Pen
——–
Whether one writes a poem, a letter, or just a shopping list, always there is the perfect pen for the task. For this letter, I selected my 1851 Montserré fountain, with a nib of meteoric steel and a hand-chequered mahogany barrel. I would use a North Indian ink, its forthright blackness tempered with a regretful hint of sepia.

Of course, she would appreciate none of this.

“O light of my heart,” I wrote.

“After deep consideration, I have decided to terminate our relationship. How can I share my life wth someone who writes to me only with a ballpoint pen?”

ZACKMANN

After supplies ran low, I wound up dueling with the old Captain over which of us was most capable of feeding our crew.

I asked the Captain if he would bet his life on the pen being mightier than the sword. He told me he would so I stabbed him. Luckily, our cook came from a cannibal tribe so the captain was better able than I to feed the crew after all.

Why the eye patch you might ask. Well, just because I find the sword mightier than the pen that doesn’t mean the pen is useless in a fight.

ANIMA

THE END IS NEAR

Folks: Penmanship has gone into hospice, and the end is near.

Not long ago, Penmanship was taught in primary school, and a part of the foundation of the education system. This skill was honed through the simple task of writing untold numbers of thank you notes to distant relatives; social rapport and empathy were developed. The reward? Smiling grandparents, and five dollar bills delivered on birthdays.

Now, the clatter of keyboards and tapping of touch screens have usurped Penmanship. The hopeful walk to the mailbox has been replaced with the Pavlovian response to a message alert.

It makes me cry.

TOM

A Well Defined Relationship Part 100

As I lay pen to paper I can scarily believe it’s been 50 years since the death of Timmy, which in itself tests the limits of a rational world. Normally a still birth document lists gender, baby boy or baby girl, but the officiating nurse swears I clearly said Timmy. Magnanimously the Parsons did not question my oversight, for the rest of their lives they referred to that lost son as Timmy. I can’t explain my change of heart. I can’t tell you why I did it, I might will be insane to tell you Timmy told me “Do it.”

NORVAL JOE

The pen is mightier than the sword. I know it’s an overused expression and one others of my fellow drabblers are likely to quote.
It’s a stupid expression as well. While it made seeing difficult for my adversary, once I’d shoved my pen in his eye, he had quite the reach on my with his sword.
I lost my pen. It protrudes from his face. And I’m about to lose my life, as I’m unable to hold me entrails in from the gaping sword wound across my abdomen.
So, don’t believe it. The pen is not mightier than the sword.

MUNSI

On Pens

By Christopher Munroe

You can’t OWN a pen.

They’re like butterflies that way. Or disposable lighters. They don’t BELONG to anyone, they simply are. They’re out in the world, existing, and while one might stay with you for a while, the time will inevitably come when it must move on.

Somebody will borrow your pen and, thoughtlessly, it will be put in that person’s pocket, never to be seen again.

And, when that comes, there’s nothing you can do to prevent it. It’s pointless to try.

Just say goodbye to your pen, remember the time you and it shared fondly, and move on…

DANNY

Weekly Challenge 467: Pen

I don’t use a pen anymore, I type everything now, averaging 110 words per minute. Even if I were inclined to use a pen to write this, I don’t know if I could hold it right now after hearing a friend from High School died suddenly this past week, prior to his 50th birthday. It is stunning that someone healthy, with no medical history, could die so suddenly. He leaves behind a wife, who is in remission from a terminal illness and unemployed, plus two teenage son’s. This just prior to Easter. I doubt even Shakespeare could pen such a tragedy.

KIMI

The ink wasn’t quite dry on the parchment. Satan carefully blotted the markings. He admired the beautiful script, the perfectly spaced letters. He picked up the sheet and blew softly on it, not having the virtue of patience. He set the document down before him on the desk. He meant only to flick a fleck of something off the page, but he ended up smearing a wet globule of ink through the signature , obscuring the name.
Sighing, Satan cast the raven feather quill and snowglobe inkwell into outer darkness. Wistfully, he pocketed a shiny Bic retractable pen. It clicked loudly.

PLANET Z

It is said that the pen is mightier than the sword, but in a zombie apocalypse, you really ought to arm yourself with a sword.

Or a machete. Or, at the very least, a knife with a strong grip.

A gun might be handy if you need to deal with other humans, but guns require ammo, and ammo eventually runs out.

Yes, you can bluff with an empty gun. You can’t bluff zombies, though.

Well, maybe. You can stand behind a chainlink fence. Then, when the zombies rush the fence, stab them through the fence with a long metal pole.