Welcome to the Weekly Challenge Number Two Hundred and Thirty-Three, 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… was…. um…
It’s Ten!
VOTING
Go ahead and listen to them and then vote for your favorites (multiple selections are allowed):
Chibi
Ten fingers and ten toes. That’s all she cared about when each one was born. But as time wore on, and each grew older, she began to wonder if the sense of independence she instilled in them would be a cause for future pain. One by one, they took off. Each child beaming at the possibilities, free from the confines of parental control. Each with their own dream of a life other than what she thought was to be. She anticipated the day would come when they all flew the coop. That time just came too soon.
Steven
The aliens told us to comply within ten hours, or face destruction.
We had to give them all our men. Forever. As bull studs.
Some men showed up. The female aliens weren’t ugly, after all. But a
surprising percentage of men preferred life with their families, their
lovers, their jobs.
We thought we had time to prepare.
The countdown clock had two hours left when we noticed the translation
was not ten hours, but “two hands of hours”.
The aliens looked a lot like us.
They had four digits on each hand.
We heard lasers, held our spouses, and prayed.
Lynda
When time travel became commercially available, it was used purely for entertainment. Hunting dinosaurs is cheaper than averting wars, evidently.
Then came the hyped and protested day when ten of history’s greatest warriors were gathered to fight a supreme death match.
The small man with the big voice stood in the center of the arena, introducing each fighter to a cheering crowd. His tuxedo and blinding white teeth were as out of place as his warning, “Keep it clean, kids are watching!”
The kids loved having their pictures taken with the referree’s charred, impaled head before all hell broke loose.
Zackmann
Ten little zombies all in a row. Out comes the twelve gauge where did they go.
Nine zombies. Cast iron pan hits one on the hat.
Eight little zombies really being where it’s at,at least until the baseball bat.
Seven little zombies. One shot by M-16 until again dead.
Six little zombies. More gunfire and where is the head.
Five little zombies one meets a chainsaw in a bathroom stall.
Four little zombies one has a nasty fall.
Three little zombies standing in a row seeing a hand grenade.
Should have used that sooner. Don’t yah know.
Since ten, ten, ten is binary for forty-two, like many others I am thinking of Douglas Adams. I
would like to tell you how by carrying ones in binary this is possible but there are Adam’s fans
smarter than I who have blog posts explaining that.
Every since a friend in high school introduced me to The Hitchhikers Guide, I started wondering
about Adams and his fiction universes.
My biggest question is about Gusty Winds from Salmon of the Soul. Why would a woman
whose pet poops in a different dimension want the rear end of her pet back.
I am Sirius Cybernetics Corporation’s GPP (Genuine People Personalities)
ebook reader. It makes me happy to serve you. Please read a book from me or
let me read a book to you. Ford told me Dale M. Courtney’s Moon People is you
favorite. Well after Twilight. I could gladly download you a brand new ebook for
an even higher costs than buying the hardcover or if you insist I could get you a
book in Public Domain free. When you are done reading or hearing me read, you
may put me back in that cold dark desk drawer.
Does my insurance cover acts of gods? What you mean if there was an act of thee God like
a tornado I would be covered but when Thor transports a military aircraft into my living room
there is nothing you can do? Just how do you think I am playing some kind of joke? I sent you
photographs. You sent an adjuster because you thought my pictures were photo shopped. This
is the tenth time I called you this week and I want my living room back. No, I don’t think the
military will let me keep the plane.
“Do you think if Douglas Adams would have lived longer there would have been ten books in a
trilogy instead of only five?” asked Zack.
“Maybe” replied the high priest “I believe there are currently thirty-five books in the Xanth
trilogy.”
“Should Doug Adams be considered the grandfather of podiobooks since his radio show proved
people will buy books even if they had heard the audio free?” said Zack
“No sir, Scott Sigler invented podcasting and the very Internet”
Zack wished he had not gone to an alternate universe in which Siglerism was taken seriously
and became the predominant religion.
by zackmann
Katwood
Ten minutes. Then everything will be in place and I can slip in. I’ve been observing for weeks, since the day when I first laid eyes on that golden cobra, with its graceful wings and minute details. It will, it must, be mine. Security will not be as much of a problem as in a major museum. I’ve studied this place, looking for a weakness, and I found one. I’ve been waiting in this unnoticeable spot for hours, waiting for the moment that it’s unguarded. The electricity and little explosive go off. I move and it is mine. Now, escape.
Norval Joe
One wiener dog sought revenge against evolution’s ridiculous design flaw.
Two bricks fell in love, eternally separated across the chimney.
Three flounders swim in circles and make silly, bug-eyed faces
Four Studebaker Larks discussed the weather and slowly rust away.
Five small mountains entered official negotiations to form a range.
Six sub-atomic particles are still way too small to see
Seven eleven has Slurpees for sale in four different flavors.
Eight planets mourn the loss of one of their members.
Nine monsters under the bed wrestle for the best spot.
Ten bowling pins futilely brace themselves for the inevitable assault.
TJ
Ten tents attested to the intensity of the intent of ten Terwilligers to test their testosterone up the Grand Tetons. Tempestuous winds tore across the timberline as timberwolves took shelter in the trees. The Terwilligers trekked tenaciously toward the top but stopped for the night without attaining it. They?d trapped rabbit and stewed it with tomatoes, tarragon and thyme which made for a tasty repast. The trip would?ve been ten times better had they attained the summit. Tragically, Tommy Terwilliger took sick and his temperature topped 100, so they packed up the transport and returned to town tout-suite. Too bad.
AM Earley
“Ninety-four years is a long time to be alive. But I feel ten years old.” I looked at Granddad and instantly got the reference. He was diagnosed with breast cancer ten years ago, remission for seven. I figure I will wait a few days until I tell him the results of my test. I’m not going to do the chemo like he did. I do have a few days before I decide what to do. Today I watch Granddad blow out his pink ribbon birthday candle. In ten years I will celebrate with a candle but definitely not pink.
Ted
Everything should come in tens: commandments, fingers. hotdogs, armadillos. You name it, it should come in tens.
Sometimes I’m the only one who cares. Once I lost my job at the theater for drawing in the missing dwarves.
But the fans loved me: “Ten Inning Charlie,” they called me.
Until the accident, of course. When our jet went down in the Rockies, only the pilot and shortstop died on impact. The rest of us were unharmed.
“Pitcher Sole Survivor,” the papers said.
Sometimes at night I can still hear their screams, the copilot’s especially.
But everything should come in tens.
I won the lottery today. After ten years playing the scratch-off I finally beat that sucker! Who’s laughing now, Gamblers Anonymous?
Now I’m gettin’ me the royal treatment on a first-class trip to Vegas. Yes sir, I feel like Elvis: presidential suite; five course lobster breakfast; Olympic-sized Jacuzzi with a wetbar and a waterproof (I hope) flatscreen HDTV; four escort girls; and a mountain of cocaine.
All comped of course. Casinos don’t ask questions when they know you have a gambling problem and a winning lotto ticket.
But they should. A $10 scratch-off payout don’t buy too many of chips.
Planet Z
The gymnast chalks her hands, takes a deep breath, looks to her coach for the signal, and begins her run.
She remembers her training, years of pain and repetition.
The Party bosses watching her in approval, implied threats to her and her family.
“Only gold,” they said. “Only tens.”
Once she entered competition, that’s all she earned.
Now, at the Olympics, this was her big chance.
Still running, she turned at the pommel horse, made a beeline for the American judge, and shouted “I DEMAND AMNESTY!”
The crowd erupted in cheers, and she earned something more precious than gold.
Freedom.
Laurence Simon
Many years ago, my family took a trip to Washington, and we toured the Air and Space Museum.
Off in a corner, the Charles and Ray Eames film “Powers Of Ten” played in a loop.
I watched it zoom out from the man on the blanket out into the universe, and then shrink down to quantum mysteries 3 times before my family wondered where I was.
Would I be a scientist?
Would I be an astronomer?
No, I am neither of those. I never did follow those dreams.
Instead, I came away with something more valuable: a sense of perspective.