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 Seventy-Nine, 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 Shrink

How about voting for your favorites?

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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.)

Tom
Derry
Thomas
Chris Munroe
Gideon
Zackmann
Gabriel Tambunga
Xerxes
TJ
Danny
Norval Joe
Liadona
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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Tom

“Vi dost you hate your mootar?”

“I don’t”

“Mr. Marquette how are V to make progress vhen you are resistant to the process?”

“Look you Viennese Pin Head

Psychotherapy is a crock

and you have the empathy of Sand Flea.”

“Good Good. Vi do you hate sand fleas?”

Tom rolled his eyes.

“Let me make this real real simple.

My cat died I’m grieving.”

“Oh you do da on the ledge of 40 story building

….vell our hour is up. See you next week?”

Sure. Fine. Whatever.

The shrink handed Tom a bill for $250

And complementary tab of Thorazine

Derry

Half a bowl of guacamole. Lovely, green, smooth and spicy. How can I leave it there? Should I eat the rest? Should I toss? If I keep it, how to keep it fresh? I will cover it with plastic wrap! I pull out a bit from the roll, and it gets all tangled. I pull out another bit, and it grabs the first and merges with the first. I pull out more wrap and suddenly it grabs me in its grip and tightens and shrinks until I am in the bowl with the guac. I am one with the guac.

Thomas

He awoke and realized he was trapped at the bottom of one of his woolen socks. He had shrunk to the size of a button on his pajamas. He worked his way out of the sock and managed to get to the edge of the bed. He was too far off the floor to jump, but he slid down one of the sheets to the floor. His wife was calling, and she couldn’t hear his tiny voice answering. She came into the bedroom with his coffee and, frightened, stepped on the gruesome, pink bug on the floor near the bed.

He would never shrink from duty. When he was six, he’d stand at attention for hours, and he knew the Code of Conduct by heart at seven. His military bearing was excellent, and he could field strip an M-16 in seconds. He joined the Army on his 18th birthday and as a gung-ho volunteer, went to war as a foot soldier right after boot camp. The military transport landed in Germany on the first leg of the journey, and when he stepped out of the plane, he tripped on the stairs and tumbled to the tarmac and to his death.

Chris

I’m having panic attacks again.

I can’t seem to shake the notion I’m becoming… smaller?

If that makes any sense.

I know, I know, of course I’m not. It’s just anxiety and the feeling I’m not properly respected in my work and home life. But in spite of that understanding I can’t shake the feeling that as more and more of my decisions are taken out of my control I’m actually… shrinking.

It’s crazy, isn’t it Doctor?

Doctor?

Can you even hear me?

No?

No, I suppose you wouldn’t be able to hear me, from all the way up there…

Gideon

My weekly therapy sessions had not been going well.

The couch doctor seemed to concentrate on my problems but could not condense her thoughts to something I could understand.

“Listen Doc, we have a contract. I come here to drop off and decrease my problems. I leave feeling deflated, diminished, weakened. You aren’t helping!”

She said “I understand. You feel constricted, smaller, wasted away”.

“Doc, aren’t you listening? I feel that way after I leave; shriveled, dwindled. Reduce your verbiage, narrow your focus. Help me!”.

“I’m afraid I need to shorten our time today. See you next week”.

——————————–

They say a picture is worth a thousand words, so we designed our application to use pictures.

Every action requires the user to click on a picture.

Want to open something? Click on the picture of the closed door.

Want to close something? Click on the picture of the open door.

Want to edit something? Click on the picture of grizzled editor from the Times.

It was a great application. It was adopted quickly by users. The test users said it was a very effective paradigm.

Then they said the application was too big, shrink it. So we used thumbnails.

Zackmann

“I brought the midget some plouts” said Zack.
“It’s my midget not your midget “said Lawrence stomping the ground.
“Of course it is, I have a Toyota”.
“Not my MG sports car, “said Lawrence”, my wonderful narrator, whom I lovingly care for in my
basement in his cage.”
Isn’t that illegal? asked Zack.
“Actually, “replied Lawrence”, it is a legal requirement. Remember the bite scene in Rise of The
Planet of the Apes? Like that only with the midget.
The midget was a Giant until he tried Doc Coleman’s Shrinking Man Formula. Although he is not
thinner he did shrink ”

Gabriel

Steam, cool, steam, cool, endless hours of working but the
reason to continue is important. Pulling
in and out of the steam, and so it shrinks to the familiar size of what it is
intended. Sometimes a wonder of who this
may be but is unimportant of what this is to cause. The cause is the less pain of the missing. Fresh and new this must continue to deceive
those who caused the pain, as what can be so affecting than a susceptible
familiar.

Approach but then flutter back, as they care not to be the
next heads on spears.

Xerxes

When I was a kid I’d spend hours out in the tall grass chasing grasshoppers. When I caught one, I’d hold it carefully, and examine it closely.

I was amazed at the intricacy of the hooked barbs on its legs and feet which enabled it to catch and hold on to slender blades of grass as it jumped hither and yon through the field.

Usually the creature would move its mouth parts, creating a nasty looking brown liquid that we called “chewing tobacco.”

Then I’d crush it.

I didn’t want it to suffer and die from mouth cancer like grandpa.

TJ

With little more to go on than a photo of the missing guinea pig, Martin
swept Tina’s room for clues. He opened her laptop, found her
cheerleading video blog and tracked some activity from rival North Shore
addresses. The creature could just be hiding in the house, but… that
cage was visible in her blog. Martin was no shrink, but he wondered if
Jellybean had been targeted by rival cheerleaders hoping to mess with
Tina’s head before playoffs. Either way, his choice was clear. He
headed to the pet store and – based on the photo – purchased a new
guinea pig.

Danny

I walked into my psychiatrist’s office, Dr. Zeinburg is already glaring at me. I nervously stated, “Look, I didn’t mean to call you a shrink.” “Stop wasting my time and sit down, Mr. Clifton! ” he screamed back. I sat down and started to talk. “Honestly, Doc, I feel like I’m Jewish, except I’m neither rich nor successful, you know, like you.” I started to shrink further into my chair as Zeinburg’s glare intensified. I continued, “O.K., I’m sorry, I know that sounded racist. Honestly, if my Jewish friend’s heard me say that, they would literally nail me to a cross.”

Norval Joe

Fly Paper Boy lay on the couch and looked at the voluptuous blonde sitting at her desk, and asked, “So you’re a shrink?”
“Doctor of psychology, actually,” she said, “but you can call me Donna.”
“Our mutual friend said you might like to talk with me,” her voice was a calming purr. “We can talk about anything you like.”
“Ok. So you’re a doctor,” he said with hesitation. “Well, then, there is something I would like to know. I’m sixteen, and, you know, A boy, and, you know…”
Then he blurted out in frustration, “when will my voice finally change?”

Liadona

Even as she stood at the edge of the pier waiting for the water, she know this was insane. It was larger than they had ever seen before. Not even crazy news presenters who thrilled at flying in the wind were finding shelter anywhere they could.

But Bella stood at the end of the pier with baited breath for her first brush with the storm. It would be a kiss to remember.

Then storm came roaring past. Bella shrank from the damage Irene brought with her. No kiss, all she would remember was that she shrunk.

Sadly, Bella gathered her equipment and her soaked team. “Let’s go figure out how how to shut her down.”

That would serve Irene right for making Bella so small.

Planet Z

During his morning appointments, Dr. Feingold found himself sinking deeper and deeper into his chair.

At first, he thought it was just a problem with the padding, and he needed a new chair.

It was when his shoes were too big for his feet that he realized that it was because he was shrinking.

He barely made it home before his feet couldn’t reach the pedals of his car, and he had to reach up to turn the knob on the front door.

Flopping around in his clothes, he yelled for help.

The cat came down the stairs, and hissed.