Author: R.

Vanish

Do weightlifters vanish when they try to lift weights in weightless environments?
I don’t know. But I’m sure that they could figure it out on the space station.
Okay, so there’s many other high-priority experiments that take priority over a weightlifter in space lifting weights. Like superconductors and crystals, and superconducting crystals.
And when it costs so much to boost cargo into orbit, weights won’t exactly going to top the manifest.
Still, it doesn’t take much to fashion some makeshift weights, wear a strongman suit, and test the theory.
Until then, the greatest mystery of the universe remains a mystery.

Weekly Challenge #456 – Mess

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: MESS

We’ve got stories by:

The next 100 word stories weekly challenge is on the topic of IF YOU’RE HAPPY AND YOU KNOW IT… Scroll up and click on Weekly Challenge to learn how to join us!

Myst

JOHN MUSICO

John Musico
Mess

To Felix, a mess is a big deal, the biggest. He can’t relax in a room until it’s tidy.
Most people’s nightmares are about being chased by wild animals, falling off a cliff, or the like; real legit danger.
His nightmares have to do with a mess. For example he lives in a house that’s a mess, or his hair’s all messed up, that sort of thing.
Felix was ashamed it was some sort of sex phobia. Felix’s psychiatrist clarified; “That’s a dirt thing, you have order issues, see; it’s control really.”
Felix is still tidy but finally at peace.

MUNSI

Cleaning Up

By Christopher Munroe

…another fine mess you’ve gotten us into.

I suppose you expect me to bail you out ?

Fine. Bring the bone saw, fetch a rug. I’ll dismember the corpse and we can dispose of it at the quarry before coming back to scrub blood out of carpet and walls.

Make sure nobody sees you, there’s no reason for us to be here, so if no trace is found no one will suspect and in a few hours we’ll be home, enjoying a scotch.

But seriously, this is the last time I’m doing this.

I can’t clean up your messes forever…

JEFFREY

“Another Nice Mess”
by Jeffrey Fischer

Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy found themselves lost in the Iraqi desert. After walking for miles, they saw tents in the distance – at last, civilization! They crawled under a barbed-wire fence, where the portly Hardy lost his bowler hat, and peeked into the first tent they came to. The pair was surprised to see a military kitchen, with dozens of spotless cooking instruments, from stainless steel pots to ladles of all sizes.

Startled by the click of automatic weapons, they turned to face a half-dozen machine gun barrels. Laurel said to Hardy, “Well, this is another nice mess you’ve gotten us into.”

“Why I Tore Up the Adoption Papers”
by Jeffrey Fischer

I open the pantry door to see a carton of milk I placed there by mistake. One sniff is enough for me to know I hadn’t done so recently. Wondering what took the place of the milk, I open the refrigerator. Sure enough, there’s a pair of dirty socks. The washing machine turns out to be where I’ve placed a library book. The book’s spot in the den has a box of dog biscuits in it, which confuses me until I recall I agreed to dog-sit for a neighbor. Say, where is the dog, anyway? I peer into the dog’s crate, which contains nothing but a thawed bag of once-frozen corn. Uh-oh.

RICHARD

#1 – George’s Story – Part 89: Still waiting

Faced with an unresponsive companion, George was forced to concede that there was little else to do other than wait, although what for, he had no idea.

As the minutes stretched out, he found himself asking how on earth he’d managed to get into such a mess. His memories prior to waking at the hospital were still patchy, at best, and as for the circumstances leading up to that turning point in his life, other than the words ‘car accident’ gleaned from the hospital notes, he couldn’t even surmise about what had occurred.

Bored and tired, George closed his eyes.

#2 – Eton Mess

The crowning glory of my dinner party was the desert – my stunning coup de grace: Eton Mess.

A wonderful concoction of whipped cream, strawberries and crumbled meringue, lovingly folded together harmoniously to form a gloriously beguiling and deliciously wicked finale to the evening’s culinary pleasures.

It went down an absolute treat – impressing everyone.

As I closed the door behind the last departing diner, I breathed a sigh of relief and reflected on the evening’s proceedings.

Shame about the pavlova, I thought… but scooped off the floor and served with a flourish, nobody even noticed.

Eton mess, my arse!

JESSICA

Don Foyer
By: Jessica Quin

Don Foyer headed into the hotel shower.
He carefully placed his towel on the hook, taking extra care not to let it touch anything. He left his slippers on because he wouldn’t dare touch the floor. He couldn’t, no wouldn’t allow the germs to touch him! How vile! Disgusting!

On the other side of the city one man squeezed through the door that only opened slightly, he re-emerged gaging and shaking his head. The other men pushed through to find a mess of garbage, the stench insufferable; maggots crawled on the mail piled at the door.

‘Don Foyer eviction notice’

Obsession
By: Jessica Quin

Josh hardly knew her, but she declared her love anyway.
What was her obsession with him?
First time, he saw her in the car outside his job, then the store, the bar and finally, under the darkness of his living room.
“Say you want me too!”
Josh heard the crazed sound in her voice. He moved quickly towards his gun in the basket above the TV!
She took her aim in the darkness and pulled the trigger!
Shots rang out!

Ouch… the burning…
His side was hurting. He looked over, she wasn’t moving.
“How did I get into this mess?”

LIZZIE

When he woke up, the TV was on and he saw his face splattered all over the news. The previous night was a total blur and the woman slumped on the couch of this unfamiliar living-room remained eerily silent. He wore nothing but a black t-shirt. Slightly embarrassed for being half naked, he mumbled an apology and dashed for the door, holding his pants. Don’t worry, he heard. But it wasn’t the woman’s voice. Her head rolled to a halt by his feet. At least, I got rid of one of them, he thought. Yes, one voice at a time.

SERENDIPITY

Crime scene, accident, or just a simple corpse mouldering in an empty house… until the neighbours notice the smell.

Things like that leave one hell of a mess, and somebody has to clean it up… and that’s where I come in.

Blood, fluids, bones, hair and rotting organs are my stock in trade – I bag them up, scrub away the stains and you’d never know anything had occurred.

From unholy mess to pristine clean – I take pride in my job.

And as for all those bits I take away…

What do you think is inside your microwave lasagne?

TOM

Talking about my generation

Each generation strives to create its own unique lexiconic tool box. Emboldened a group of words with hype context. Those of the Mod Gen were rather fond of the word [mess]. It was used as a non-specific sum as in “I have a mess of comic books. And with the modifier [stuff] having even less specificness as in “I got a mess of stuff for Christmas.” It severed to note aimless non-productive enterprise as “ We were just messing around.” Yet in the proper setting it described critical interact as in “Don’t mess with me.” Or “Man, your messed up.”

A Well Defined Relationship Part 85

Le Cid removed the paper and handed it to Timmy. Unconsciously Master Parsons said “Who is Laura Lin Parker?” The Dealer immediately started writing the following.

“Daughter of Texas billionaire Titus Parker. Texas Sharpshooter of the Year 1956. Wife of Rep Governor Ronald James.”

Le Cid chuckled “ Seems JFK got popped for messing with the wrong Texas Deb.” “That was disappointing,” said Tim. “Try something really hard,” prodded the bandit. “Why did my father have to die,” The Dealer’s face changed from serene to puzzled to sad, wrote the following

Poindexter

“Timothy Parson’s god father ?” Asked the lad.

ANIMA

Major Tom

The noise was the first thing I notice: Entering the mess hall, there’s silverware clanging, laughter and conversation, news feeds blaring, boots stomping on the planking. The din is overwhelming me, so recently released from isolation training. 60 days alone in some netherworld sub-basement quarters at NASA.

Someone is standing by me, but I am having a tough time focusing…

Huh? Sorry… what…-

“ I asked, how do you feel about your upcoming mission? Isn’t it a bit controversial, searching for life forms in outer space? What does your wife…”

I mutter, I can’t wait to leave all this behind.

SPATE

Messy Business

Six years of dogging every imagined impropriety. Six years of oversight
hearings and special investigations. Six years watching them audaciously
shrug off scandal after scandal.

Now finally we have them by their slippery golf balls! In a mess of their
own making and by their own admission: nobody of importance was sent!

Bigger than Benghazi! Stickier than some kid’s lemonade stand being targeted
by the IRS!

Why not go to Paris? I’m sure the Secret Service was up for a trip to the
‘City of Love’.

Hold the ketchup. don’t call my french fries freedom fries… they are
Charlie fries!

NORVAL JOE

The prophet Mess Mass Abush was a humble man. He taught his people to live lives of compassion and service for all people; believers and unbeliever alike. As an example of his humility he insisted that no representation of his image should ever be made.
Unfortunately, the alphabet of his people was hieroglyphic. As a result, his name was represented as a blank square.
Over the centuries the meaning of the blank square was lost. Ultimately, disciples of the Nameless Prophet interpreted the empty space to mean, “Anyone to name the prophet should be smashed beneath a giant stone block”.

TURA

Mess
——–
We pwned the Hanover Messe this year, the largest trade show in the world. Their registrations ran on bog-standard Windows, so we hacked ourselves a free booth for a fake company. Then we brought in crateloads of wired and wireless sniffers, cracking hardware, and storage.

By the end, we’d downloaded the entire contents of 85% of the mobile phones that passed through (including Angela Merkel’s), and had access to almost everything with a computer inside. We could have wrecked the industrial robots, but we only use our powers for good.

Yes, that was another fine Messe we got ourselves into.

PLANET Z

Mother made a mess in the kitchen.
Father made a mess of the family finances.
Son made a mess of his school grades.
Daughter made a mess of her relationship.
Grandpa made a mess of the inheritance.
Rover made a mess on the carpet.
Baby made a mess on the wall with crayons.

Thank goodness for their neighbor, Luigi. He made a mess of spaghetti and meatballs and garlic bread, and called everyone over for a feast.

They had a great dinner together, and had a good time.

Until Grampa got drunk, and talked about the war.

Luigi stabbed him.

Middle Man

Everybody’s always saying they’re gonna cut out the middle man.
Who is the middle man?
Why is he in the middle?
What’s he doing there?
If he was just getting in the way, why was he there in the first place?
Where do you learn how to be a middle man?
Middle school?
So, you want to cut him out?
If he’s not in the middle anymore, what’s he going to do with his spare time?
I’d rather have him there in the middle, where I can see him. There’s no way I’ll turn my back to a guy like that.

Parland

West Parland and East Parland have been enemies for so long, there’s no remaining evidence of there having been a unified Parland ever existing.
Each claims to be the right and proper Parland, claiming sovereignty over the other, home of the National Church Of Parland, speakers of the Original Parland language, and keepers of the Parland style of cuisine.
Finally, in the dead of night, after so many years, the East Parland Army marched West… and the West Parland Army marched East.
They completely missed each other, and they conquered their enemies’ lands.
The citizens woke up confused and frightened.

3D

These three dimensional printers are revolutionizing the manufacturing process.
But they’re also screwing with the structure of society.
Students in my 3D Manufacturing Class aren’t allowed to print duplicates of themselves to do their homework for them, but that doesn’t stop them from turning off the anti-cloning filters and playing God.
But then, a lazy student who clones themselves will create a lazy duplicate.
And I routinely check the logs for biological replication, so the cheaters are easy to discover and hand an F.
Well, I don’t hand them an F.
My duplicate does.
(Or has he duplicated himself already?)

Can of worms

Where did the expression “can of worms” come from?
Well, long ago, bait shops would sell worms in pails with lids.
If you wanted to bait a hook, you had to pry off the lid and pull out a worm.
Once the pail was open, you had to close it back up. Otherwise, the worms would crawl out and escape.
So, it’s not the opening a can of worms that’s a problem, but not putting the lid back on it.
If you use worms.
I catch fish with dynamite. To blow a hole in the wall of the fish market.

Hitler

Monopoly recently retired the iron game piece and replaced it with a cat.
Their second choice was a die-cast figurine of Adolf Hitler.
Why Adolf Hitler would be wandering the streets of Atlantic City, purchasing property and building hotels, I’m not sure.
But you’ve got to admit that if you had a choice between the iron and Hitler, you’d go with Hitler in a heartbeat, right?
In fact, coming in second place in that beauty contest may have been the motivation for Hitler to invade Poland and Czechoslovakia.
If only he’d have come in first.
So many lives needlessly lost.

Barrow

I was thinking about gardening, when I asked myself “Why do they call them wheelbarrows?”
All wheelbarrows have wheels, so why not call them barrows?
Have you ever heard of a barrow? A barrow without a wheel?
I’ve never heard of one. Or seen one.
I looked it up. They’re called a travois. They’re carts that you drag behind horses.
You’d think they’d call them horsebarrows, but they call them travois.
Goddamned French.
However, now that I’ve brought up the subject, can you bring up a horse from the basement?
I’m out of wheels, and there’s gardening to be done.

Weekly Challenge #455 – Piracy

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: PIRACY

We’ve got stories by:

The next 100 word stories weekly challenge is on the topic of MESS. Scroll up and click on Weekly Challenge to learn how to join us!

Pillowcat

JOHN MUSICO

Piracy
by John Musico

I first came across the issue of piracy when I tried downloading music from the internet.
When I worked on a TV series which included picture in picture scenes, I further learned the fine for copyright infringement is $150K per transgression.
So. I posted as many of my own pictures on the net as I could. I gave them unique titles that were easy for me to Google.
In just one week, I found 10 of my pics used on some stranger’s website.
My scam was a bit evil, however, with a million in the bank; I’ll sleep just fine.

MUNSI

Pirates

By Christopher Munroe

When Johnny Depp was kidnapped by actual Somali pirates, we all agreed it was going to be amazing. News networks went berserk, comedians got ready and we were primed to follow this amazing, if socially irrelevant, news story wherever it might take us.

It was, after all, the sort of amazing TV that didn’t come along every day, and we were excited to make the most of it.

Three days later the pirates killed him.

Because in real life, pirates do that.

It was kind of a downer.

Ah well. Hopefully the next thing will be a little more fun.

LIZZIE

They approached the ship at night. Two went up to the control room. The rest looked for the crew quarters; everyone was fast asleep. The captain wasn’t. After a scuffle and a black eye, he gave up. Much to his surprise, the leader of the group demanded the cargo. “But… It’s books.” The boxes were unloaded and taken away. The school of the village would finally teach proper English. The media hurried to state that even pirates have a heart, the authorities protested vehemently and the pirates’ only thought was that in the future, they’d make their demands more efficiently.

JEFFREY

“Spoilers”
by Jeffrey Fischer

I enjoy watching movies on DVD rather than in the theater. Not only is my living room more comfortable and quieter than the theater, with no rowdy kids or the glow of smartphone screens interrupting the story, but movies always come with a little extra. Even before the action begins, the FBI warning shows up, and I know G-Men are on the job, stopping movie piracy. I’m not quite sure how I could charge a fee for watching the piece of trash that is about to follow, but I sleep more soundly knowing my more clever neighbors aren’t making a buck out of it.

“Bad Day at the Office”
by Jeffrey Fischer

Two Somali pirates were at a bar, talking business over a vintage fermented goat’s milk. “How was your last kidnapping?”

“Wonderful, Allah be praised. A rich American infidel and his mistress on a yacht. I received two million dollars in ransom.”

“Allah be praised. On my last trip, I caught a small cruise ship. It was a fundraising trip for both Hillary Clinton and Jeb Bush. Each wants to be the next leader of the Great Satan.”

“That must have resulted in a large ransom indeed.”

“One would think so. But both the Democrats and Republicans refused to pay even a single cow for their return. The Republicans told me to push Mr. Bush overboard, while the Democrats offered me a show on MSNBC to do the same to Mrs. Clinton.”

RICHARD

#1 – George’s Story – Part 88: Waiting

When George finally found the waiting room shown in the images, he was somewhat shocked to find the room already occupied by a rather scruffy looking guy, thumbing through an old magazine.

Taking a seat, George cleared his throat and introduced himself: “I’m George, and you are?”

“Bored”, came the response; “Got anything to read on you? I’ve read this piece on internet piracy about twenty times now.”

George shook his head.

“Pity”, said the stranger, returning to his magazine.

“So, er… what exactly do we do now?”, asked George.

The stranger nodded towards the waiting room sign:

“We wait!”

#2 – Yar!

Where did the romance of piracy go?

Long gone are the days of splicing the mainbrace, muskets and cannon, peg legs and brass spyglasses; and I can’t remember when I last saw a privateer run up the Jolly Roger and heave to.

Talking parrots and cutlasses have had their day, and you’re more likely to hear a string of Somalian, than ‘shiver me timbers’ in a piratey voice!

Swashbuckling adventure on the high seas isn’t quite the same with machine guns and machetes.

But, some things haven’t changed.

You can still make a tidy profit, in dollars, rather than doubloons.

#3 – Yo ho ho!

I won’t say that I knew what I wanted to be when I grew up – my ambitions changed from day to day.

When I said I wanted to be a pirate, my parents told me to be realistic: so I opted for astronaut, to which they said, ‘come back down to earth, son’.

I tried, but didn’t have the brains for a surgeon, or the brawn for a fireman.

So, instead, I lurk all day in my room, burning counterfeit DVDs to sell down the market.

Proved my parents wrong – I grew up to be a pirate anyway!

ZACKMANN

Ratsy was born on March fourteenth so naturally he was given the first name Pi. He loved television especially movies with rats in them. Especially ones in which rats worked in kitchens like Rizzo helping Long John in the galley. On a computer tablet he would watch cooking videos on youtube then practice cooking when he was alone. Eventually he achieved his lifelong dream: becoming a real life Ratatouille. Now he make the best desserts. You can look far and wide but you are very unlikely to find another rodent who is as good a pastry chef as Pi Ratsy.

ANIMA

The Dream Pirates

James woke with a start. He tried to remember his dream, the one with savage indians and treehouses, but only came up with half images of clocks, hooks and toothy crocodiles.

He tried to remember; he thought he’d been flying. He thought he’d been happy. But even as he roused himself out of that half state of early morning awareness, James felt the joy slipping away.

Sailing ships became math problems; his overdue book report and homeroom filled his waking senses.

The Dream Pirates had struck again, stealing childhood’s dreams worth gold, replacing them with realities wooden nickels and fears.

SERENDIPITY

You laughed when you read the warnings… ‘Piracy is a crime’: So what, you thought, everybody does it, and the entertainment industry makes enough money as it is.

Oh, they certainly do.

Enough money to employ me… and I’m coming to get you.

For every song you’ve ever stolen, every movie you’ve taken and every game you’ve copied, I am going to make you pay the price.

And I’ll expect every penny, with interest, paid in full on demand.

I will find you.

And you will pay.

And, if you can’t…

I’m going to make you walk the plank!

RICK THOMAS

A “Not So Roughshod” Pillaging
__________________________

They met in a bar by the bay …
green eyes, brown hair, broad shouldered he ravaged her again and again …
he and his friends had taken over her apartment like pirates raiding a ship!
They ate her food, drank her liquor, smoked, cursed, treated her as a servant wench …
at one point or another they had all put their hands on her inappropriately!
The raucous behavior was incessant, her home a wreck in the space of a long weekend.
Now they were gone … order restored …

Her heart ached for their return!

They were the best three days of her life!!!

SPATE

The Choice

Slow death is delicate agony. An Esther Williams black and white
synchronized water ballet of goodbyes. Fully extended arms as metronomes,
reaching in unison, counting the moments. backstroke goodbye, backstroke
goodbye; swimming away until strength is no more and then quietly slipping
beneath the surface of the pool.
Fade out.

Fast death is an act of piracy. An abrupt Charles Laughton led boarding
under cover of darkness. Pillaging substance, raping permanence; it sets
the ship afire, leaving you to jump alone into the black turbulence of the
sea.
Celluloid breaks, flapping to projector white light.

Which ending would you choose?

(music: “New England Is Interesting” by BOPD / curator: freemusicarchive.org
/ licensed CC BY-NC 3.0)

SCOTT

Piracy:

Peddling bootleg DVDs in Asia can be a risky business. Authorities love to make statements with high profile arrests, and even better if the offender is a foreigner.

Randy knew this, but he wasn’t worried. “Ten years of piracy and still counting. Besides, it takes a pirate to catch a pirate,” he’d say.

Therefore he was a little startled one day when his front door flew past him and crashed into the back wall. In the doorway stood an ancient buccaneer, teetering on a wooden leg. “A hundred years of piracy, and still counting,” the pillager bellowed, unsheathing his sword.

TOM

A Well Defined Relationship Part 84

“Where are I,” said Timmy. “We are with Tamerlane,” said Cid. The boy and the bandit where standing in a dimly lit cube 16×16. On one wall hung a 16th century mirror. Against an other was a child’s seesaw. In the center a green velvet black jack dealer’s station. Behind a man was removing single sheets of paper from a four ream stack and carefully writing on each. “This is the big bad secret,” troubled Tim. “Oh indeed Master Parsons, you’re looking at Piracy on a galactic level. Ask about a secret. “Who kill Kennedy?’ The dealer wrote the following.

In the Name of the Game

Tony was a runner. This was in the days of 5 ¼ floppies. He had gaming friends in both the South and North Bay. In San Jose he knew sector/track/byte sum crackers. In Concord he knew a guy with a garage full of q/a kicked Datalife disks. The best was to go to jail for copyright infringement was in the labyrinth of law which was mail fraud, thus the need for someone to be the sneaker-net. That was Tony, Buses to Bart, Bart to Buses. No one in the chain charged for their respective service it was Piracy without profit.

NORVAL JOE

Harold enjoyed his position as assistant headmaster at a boys’ school, though he knew he was hated by most of the students. The boys could hate him. He had what they wanted and knew that the little brats would pay well for it.
Over the years he had tried many ways to turn a few bucks from smuggling items into the dorms. He had sold soda, energy drinks, candy and pizza. Hands down, Harold’s most successful hustle was selling pirated video games. They cost almost nothing to rip off the internet and there wasn’t a boy who didn’t want one.

CHELSEA

The pirate

He stood at the now of his ship looking out at the calm blue ocean before him. All his life he’s been told no at every turn. That simple word had shaped him into the man he was today.
Every person who’d ever told him no hoping to break him a little more each day had only served to make him stronger. The only thing they had accomplished was to push him closer to this day.
“Hoist our colors!” He called to his crew.
He looked up as the black and white flag caught the ocean breeze, he was free.

TURA

Piracy
——–
“Arr!” said Cap’n Jack Black to his crew.

“Yarrr-har!” they responded.

“Listen up, mateys,” the Captain went on. “Afore Billy Bones died, he gave me ‘is treasure map! It’s a little island don’t appear on the charts, three days out to sea from here. Are ye rarin’ to go?”

“Yarrr!” they cheered.

“Google Maps doesn’t show it,” said one crewman, consulting his iPhone.

“It be tidal, it be,” riposted the Captain. “Only shows at low tide.”

“That would be a shipping hazard,” said another. “NOAA maps say there’s nothing there.”

“Arr,” said the Captain. “Piracy just isn’t fun any more.”

CLIFF

In the Golden Age of piracy, she was the best. She would have been the pirate queen but nobody ever knew her name. She looted seven Spanish galleons in one raid, sent them to the ocean floor, and everyone thought they had sunk in a storm. She raided ships in the oceans Atlantic, Indian, and Pacific. She once convinced the entire crew of a French treasure ship to abandon their vessel and make for shore in lifeboats due to ghost and curses. And who was this mysterious woman? Weren’t you listening? I told you that nobody ever knew her name.

PLANET Z

For centuries, your status in piracy was determined by how much you stole.
Then, the most important factor was the color of your beard.
Bluebeard… Blackbeard… Yellowbeard… you’ve heard of them, right?
Pirates started dyeing their beards with all kinds of colors.
Redbeard… Orangebeard… Pinkbeard… Ochrebeard…
Things got way out of hand, and merchant ships were sailing safely while pirates were too busy dyeing their beards.
A conclave of pirate captains came together to set beard standards.
No more wild colors. Beards could only be dyed to match the pirate’s hair color.
And that’s when they started using colored ribbons.