Author: R.

NOTE: There were reports of a bad upload and the MP3 file getting cut off, so is is a repost of the Weekly Challenge #291 – Drums. Let me know in the comments if it worked for y’all.

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Welcome to the 100 Word Stories podcast at podcasting.isfullofcrap.com. I’m your host, Laurence Simon.

This is Weekly Challenge Number Two Hundred and Ninety, where I post a topic and then challenge you to come up with a 100 word story based on that topic.

The topic this week was What is the first thing you see out your window?

And we’ve got stories by:

Jami Titanium
Thomas Pitre
Taralyn Gravois
Tom
Chris Munroe
Tura Brezoianu
Zackmann
Abernathy
Danny
TJ
Norval Joe
Planet Z

And if you want to spam your social networks with this episode, use the Share buttons at the end of the post.

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Jami

Meri turned her head as the drums beat out the staccato rhythm of her death. She knew the bruises against her pale-skinned face were frightening on her small figure.

Drew was where he said he would be and she looked at him, unblinking. He smiled back though she knew it hurt him to do so. She watched his face through the framework of the guillotine as the drums beat and it was a comfort.

She wondered, suddenly, frantically if her blog would die with her, then dismissed the idea. IT was an idea… and ideas don’t die. Only people do.

Thomas

I was warned I would be drummed out of the club due to my behavior and outbursts during meetings. My father, and his father before him were both drummed out of the Mafia for their excess cruelty. You can imagine the embarrassment our large family suffered.

The final straw was the morning I stormed out of the prayer group, red-faced and streaming a barrage of obscenities at the officers, capping it off with a bold dropping of the pants and exposing my white and plump backside. Ladies fainted and a few leaped for their cell phones to call the police.

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As a boy, I used to swim in irrigation ditches. The result was an ear infection that necessitated the lancing of my ear drum when I was in grade school. They said it was fluid in my middle ear. Since the procedure, I walk with a little hop, skip and slide due to the cacophony of rhythms playing inside my left ear. Folks wonder why I do this little “dance”, and often at such un-opportune moments—such as the funeral of friend, Chuck. His family made quite a fuss over my impromptu dance steps, but it could not be helped.

Taralyn

I remember a time gone by, when I was 10 years old and my family took me to Friendlys. It was a great place that had awesome ice cream and chocolate malts.
I was sitting across the table from my brother who thought it would be funny to shoot his straw wrapper into my hair, which flew over the back of the booth.
Then I heard someone behind me drumming on the table. I looked over the back of the booth just in time to get the wrapper shot back in my face, and hear his Dad yell SIMON, no.

Chris Munro- MUNSI MUNSI!

For his ninth birthday, I bought him a drum kit.

When he opened the box his face lit up. I knew I’d chosen correctly.

As I set it up for him, I explained how much practice it’d take to learn to play really well.

He assured me he was willing to put in the effort.

When my coworkers heard I’d bought such a gift for a child, they thought I was insane. They said I’d never sleep again!

I wasn’t concerned.

He wasn’t my child, after all. He was yours.

So, tell me: Was stealing my parking space worth it?

Tura

Gad, the heat! And the drums, always the drums. The Colonel stood
stiffly on the verandah, in full black leathers and a pink tutu,
because dammit, one had to keep up standards. He rang to summon tea,
then remembered that the native servants had all left weeks before,
when the rains had not come. He looked toward the inert computer in
the corner, its power supply burnt out. Was the network still running
out there, were the others still hanging on? The natives would know.
They always knew. If only he knew what the drums were saying, the
talking drums.

Zackmann

The drums beat softly as we mourn a formerly unknown loss to the world. Although he was secretly buried a decade ago, today we have his reveal. I remember my grandfather participating in The Weekly Challenge. The host vowed to write a hundred word story everyday for the rest of his life but often he did not stopping at one. He loved his cat so much that Nardo was turned into a cybor robot as he aged. Cybor Robot Nardo carried on reading as Lawrence N Simon until yesterday when the drabbles ran dry. Rest in
peace Mister Crap Mariner

Abernathy

Now that Nora was eighteen, it was time to move out on her own. She sat in-front of the wooden trunk under the window of her bedroom. She opened it up, revealing many of her childhood treasures. On top was her beloved tin drummer, she turned him around and wound his key before placing him on the window sill. His little metal arms tapped the drum repeatedly. She smiled and started going through the rest. Each time the toy stopped, she re-wound him. So lost in her childhood memories. Nora never noticed the asteroid that plummeted to earth…destroying everything.

Danny

The army sergeant stared Daryl straight in his beady little eyes and screamed, “I’M GOING TO DRUM YOU RIGHT OUT OF THE ARMY CORPS!” Yes, Daryl deserved to be drummed out of the army, but not for this. It was that fateful night he and his girlfriend Jenny decided to play chicken with oncoming traffic. Daryl pushed Jenny into harms way. Daryl was eventually charged with involuntary manslaughter. Given the option of 15 years prison, or a stint in the army, Daryl chose the army. Yelled at by a sergeant today, a corpse in Afghanistan tomorrow. And the drums beat on.

TJ

So my daughter plays the drums and that’s really why I’m here I mean
I don’t know why I’m here really do any of us really know why
we’re here it’s a completely weird question isn’t it I mean the
question of why we’re here it’s so strange to even think about it I
mean we are, aren’t we? Here, I mean, so we should just enjoy it! But
she’s practicing right now and if mommy doesn’t get out of the house
for a few hours a week on a nice quiet date she’s gonna STRANGLE
someone how’s your wine?

Norval Joe

If he’d realized what a difference it would have made with meeting girls, he would have learned to play the drums.
Of course the first one the girls go after is the lead singer, but he couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket. The next guy the girls like to chase is the bass player. All he has to do is play four stings and smile.
The band played Stairway to Heaven, and Milo knew there would be no girls clamouring for him at the end of his solo as he picked up his accordian and stepped onto the stage.

Planet Z

The original Thompson machine gun game with a stick magazine that could feed twenty rounds, but it didn’t take long for Oscar Payne to come up with larger sticks and drums for it that could feed up to a hundred.

Why so many rounds?

Because movies were getting longer and longer, and so were car chases. So if you were a gangster hanging off of a sideboard, you needed a lot of ammo to reduce the time spent on reloading.

As film drums got bigger, so did the ammo drums.

Until Hollywood figured out they killed less actors with blanks.