Author: R.

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 Eighty, 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 Wings

How about voting for your favorites?

[polldaddy poll=5476170]

Or, if the poll is broken, just go to everybody’s site and heap much love upon them (since nobody ever leaves comments here, you know.)

Thomas
Tom
Chris Munroe
Guard 13007
Zackmann
Liadona
Gwenette
Gabriel Tambunga
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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Thomas

A 225 pound pigeon. He tested his wings, flying low over town, with messages written on his naked belly with a felt-tip marker. He had put together the flying suit in his garage, cobbled together from spare bicycle parts, synthetic fabric, and a few gears out of the grandfather clock in the hallway.

Swooping lower on his second pass, he skimmed the feather on the mayor’s hat as she stood , arguing for a rate increase in city services.

Diving lower, Laurence let the major know what he thought of her and her plans, and he left his mark.

On a Friday in 1964, Dominic was tending bar at Uncle Kenny’ s in Buffalo, NY. Late that evening, after a bout of heavy and irresponsible drinking, a group of Dominic’s friends arrived at the tavern with ravenous appetites. Dominic asked his Aunt Angie to prepare something for his friends to eat. Using a part of the chicken that usually went into the stock pot for soup or to the family Doberman, Angie deep fried the wings and flavored them with her secret sauce. The sauce, sprinkled liberally with his ashes, was stored in the cloakroom, under Uncle Kenny’s photograph.

Tom

Timmy tested his wings

Up Down Sideways

All in working order.

Dead 20 minute and he was zooming around

with even the higher order celestial beings.

“I’m an Angle!” cried Timmy

“Well, not really,” said Ralph

“Angles are a specific race of beings.”

“Humans can’t be Angles.”

“But I got wings,” said Timmy

“Mighty nice pair,” said Michael

“Want to race?” Off they flew

“See, I am an Angle!”

“Good point Timmy, hows bout

I make you an honorary Angle?”

He pinned tiny gold wings on Timmy’s white gown

“See that guy down there?”

“Go give him a hand.”

Wooooooshhhh.

Munsi

It’s the wonder of shiftwork, you never know what schedule to expect.

I worked Tuesday to Sunday one week, Monday to Saturday the next. Since I got a day off each week, they didn’t have to pay overtime. See? Brilliant planning on their part.

Now every part of my body aches. But I try not to be bitter. I’m finished now. And I won’t be doing squat with my day off.

I’ll be downtown, headphones on, exploring a city I love and listening to classic rock.

Paul McCartney.

Band on the Run.

I won’t be coming home ‘til I’m relaxed.

Guard13007

What is the thing? We don’t know, but we assume you do. The thing is red, it is large, it is attacking a child over there, and it is shaped vaguely like a radiometric device from the Netherlands from the lab of the mad scientist called George the Crankpost.

We wonder what a crankpost is, but we don’t know that either. We shoved two words together to make another word. The point is to make this officially stupid document filled with exactly hundred words. Because, we don’t know the topic.

We don’t think this counts as a story, do you?

Zackmann

Tom convinced me to spend two weeks in a holiday camp off the grid. We were dropped off
by helicopter on a mesa. No Internet. No phone. There were crafts and books even a stage. I
never expected the effect it had on Tom. I will always remember Tom’s last words to me before
jumping off the cliff “You don’t need wings to fly.” I tried my best to distract him before he hit the
ground but alas The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy is no flight manual. I wish Tom had taken
up archery because he didn’t miss.

Liadona

She took to the stage as she was wont to do. Act II, scene I – a wood near Athens. Over and over. Night after night. Stuck in the same skimpy costume where only the wings were substantial. And the same words were uttered over and over in total disgust.

“Over hill, over dale,

Through bush, through brier,

Over park, over pale.

Through flood, through fire,

I do wander everywhere.”

The lines tripped lightly on her tongue, each word sliding off as if were a jewel that dripped between her teeth onto the forest floor. She must remember to pick those up before she left, escaped was more lie it.

And yet, each word was so precious. If only she could spread her wings and truly fly away from this place. Not just hold onto the wire that helped her to fly. One more night of this and she might sprout her freedom in other ways.

“Pass the pins, please.” The please was new. It wasn’t often that Octavia, a noted expert in her field, asked for anything politely. But I’m not sure if this was improvement or guilt.

Octavia’s designs had gotten us this far. We were in the final Games! The final Interview stage and then onto the island, that wasn’t really an island at all of course. It was one of the largest production sets I had ever seen.

I smiled. “Things are going to be fine, Octavia. Come on – this is Television! What could go wrong?”

Octavia sighed as she put the last pin on my beautiful wings, now fastened to my shoulders as long as the flimsy silk that now enshrouded me didn’t tear. Once finished, she stopped, grabbed my hand and held my eyes. “I’m sorry,” she muttered so softly I almost didn’t hear it before she turned away.

Leaving me on display like a proper butterfly.

Pinned down.

GwynetteWriter

“Fly away with me.” Your eyes shiny with tears, your broken wing dragging across the sands, you walked into the waves, beginning to float. I hovered, flying above you. We breathed in; we breathed out, finding our rhythm. The suns were setting. Stars clustered moon five . . . we breathed in perfect harmony. We sang the soft lullaby of our love’s history and our children came to our calling. Their wings brushed yours, softly caressing your chest. Far out to sea your eyes closed. Warm waters covered you and we dove with you to our sandy graves.

Gabriel

She watches patiently for what she desires.

She hopes they get along, because sometimes they don’t, but it doesn’t matter, when it comes time they work together anyway. One by one they gather, sometimes a disagreement, and despite their different colors and sizes they grab those in front, behind and to their sides. They hold each other as strong as they would hang on a tree, and now in the beautiful shape of her desire. She approaches to feel the wonderful embrace and softness and tiny winds of the little fluttering wings.
Flap, flap, her shadow on the ground below.

Danny

Professor Fredrick Finklestein stood at the edge of the cliff, clutching his latest invention. “Damn the Airlines,” he screamed, staring across the canyon. “I’ll never have to endure airport security again!” The Professor strapped on his mechanical wings, flapped them a few times, then took the plunge into the abyss. He plummeted halfway down the canyon, when much to the Professor’s surprise, the wings actually worked! “This is incredible!” he screamed. Finkestein put on his oxygen mask as the altitude increased, 5000 feet, 10000 feet, 20000 feet! “Look at me, I’m a bird!” the Professor screamed, only to be splattered by a passing 747.

TJ

The guinea pig switchout clinched it. The boy had excellent instincts.
Espionage, subterfuge, cryptography, collateralizing assets by extorting
that gym teacher, intervention for the public good by running that
homegrown virus to earth and neutralizing the hacker, the senator was
officially impressed. These were skills that could be honed. No, the CIA
wasn’t necessarily interested in 16-year-olds – even talented
16-year-olds – as operatives. But as Senate Intelligence Committee
chair Sen. Clark reviewed the reports assembled in front of him, this
Martin Winger stood out to him as a decided person of interest. And with
that, his senate internship application was approved.

Norval Joe

Fly Paper Boy slumped forward, staring into his mashed potatos, looking for answers.
His head snapped up when is sister said, “I think Fly Paper Boy is lame. He doesn’t have wings or a cape or anything.”
“Why bring that up?” He asked her.
“I heard the police are looking for Fly Paper Boy. They say he burned down a house.”
“You can’t believe everything you hear, Jenny,” their mother said, though her voice was clipped and hard.
“Mr. Dinkman was the one who told me,” Jenny said. “He had his uniform on and was looking through Jimmy’s car windows.”

Planet Z

The art classroom at Walnut Springs Middle School was full of flies.

We’d catch them and do all sorts of horrible things to them.

“If you take the wings off of a fly, is it a hop?” asked one kid.

I don’t remember his name, but he was the expert in our group of Middle School Mengeles.

He had a whole workshop bag of tools. Jeweler’s mount and magnifying glass. Tweezers and scissors to work monstrous modifications on the flies.

For Christmas, he tried to make a tiny Santa sleigh.

Instead, he got suspended and transferred to a special school.