Author: R.

Welcome to the Weekly Challenge Number One Hundred And Ninety-One, 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 Hat!
The excellent theme music is by Guy David.
VOTING

Which were the best stories this week?
	Norval Joe
	TJ
	Justin
	Lynda
	JRadimus
	Zachmann
	Steven
	Jeffrey
	Planet Z
Free polls from Pollhost.com

Go ahead and listen to them and then vote for your favorites (multiple selections are allowed):

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Norval Joe

It looked like Santa’s hat, red velvet, trimmed with white rabbit’s fur. When the boy plucked it from the ground it felt rubbery and floppy, like wet leather.
Unthinking, he sat on a log in the forest glade, and placed it on his head.
He dreamed of fighting dragons. He rescued a captive princess. He aided the sick, fed the hungry and sheltered the homeless.
When the fungus on his head finally dried and crumbled to dust the hallucinogenic effect of the narcotic spores dissipated.
He was an old man, then.
There was a new king.
Nothing had truly changed.

TJ

“I found him!”
Sentox wurbled over to the console where a subordinate monitored 95 active blips representing tagged humans across the large central continent below. Or, rather, 96. Farjox Elbatia #03942/H5, or Herbert Weigel of Mott, N.D. – or rather, the red blip that represented him – had reappeared on the monitor.
Sentox furrowed his brow. H5’s signal was weakened from when he fell off the radar three years ago. So Sentox ordered an away team be deployed to install a booster suppository.
They were about to secure his tag when the blip suddenly vanished. Curses! Herbert had replaced his tinfoil hat.

Justin

The rocks filled the tunnels behind me as I slid into the dark mineshaft.
I felt around the dirt and rocks and found a helmet.
I put it on my head and felt for the light switch.
I flipped it and unbelievably it illuminated the ghosts of the miners who’d died working and toiling here.
Blind to everything but the ghosts, they led me down a series of shafts to a lift that I used to pull myself to the light.
When I looked, I was alone again.
I lowered the helmet back into the shaft to rest in peace.

Lynda

One December, I forget how long ago, a hat fell from the sky, right in front of me. It was one of those freaky red and white ones the guys at the mall wear when they get sadistic and want to be peed on by hysterical kids.
At first I was worried a bunch of reindeer poop was going to follow, but it never did.
I didn’t know what to do with the hat, so I took it home and now every year I wear it while sneaking into kid’s rooms to give them books and coats. I get arrested.

JRadimus

I re-awoke at the shock, ice-cold water mixing with warm blood and sweat. The pain that knocked me out re-awoke as well. I winced. I fought to open my eyes against the swelling. It was pointless: the light was in my face; everything was shades of black.
“Put your hands through the armholes.”
“Why?”
“So the fire ants can bite you.” – “No? OK. ‘Or else’.” He back-handed me, then squeezed my cheeks, forcing my broken jaw open. I winced again.
“Whaih?”
“Ah – Because…” He slid a forceps between my toothless gums, grabbed my tongue and pulled. “You insulted my hat.”

Zachmann

My cousin got a new hired hand named Jeff, who never took off his hat. This drove my cousin’s wife crazy at the dinner table and she almost refused to feed him but Jeff has so much skill in husbandry and horticulture that she decided let him wear a hat at the table. Jeff even wore his hat to bed. On day my cousin’s wife got too curious and took off the hat when the Jeff slept and under she found a head full gears and steam. Do tell anyone because it’s hard to find such a good farm hand.

Steven

My son puts on a newsboy cap, picks up a newspaper and his voice rings out: “Extra, extra, read all about it!”
I laugh, and he tosses the hat aside. He grabs a cop’s hat and waves a baton. A helmet, and he’s lowcrawling along the floor.
I see the fedora, but I’m not fast enough. Steel eyes gaze from under its brim.
“Couldn’t wait for the inheritance,” my father says through my son.
I stumble backward as my son, wearing my father’s hat and my father’s eyes, raises the knife.
“You never could wait,” he said.
“But I could.”

Jeffrey

I have a hat that I like a lot, but I almost never wear it out of the house. My wife says it makes me look like I am in a bad western. I think it makes me look like Jones, Dr. Jones. You know, Jr.
My kids all call me cowboy dad when I wear it, and that gets me to goofing of and saying things like, “Now you cow pokes get yerselves in the car before I have to brand ya.”
Which of course leads to my wife saying things like, “You’re a dork you know that right?”

Planet Z

Sleepy Hollow gets all the press, what with that Hessian maniac chopping off heads.
He’s gotten so popular, Salem’s complaining that nobody covers the witch trials.
Other villages hold festivals, carnivals; but they can’t compete with a monster on a horse beheading townsfolk.
Good.
You see, I’m the Headless Horseman’s agent. And his contract is an absolute gold mine.
At first, he just took panties and hats in Boston. Got branded as a pervert.
So, we relocated to the forest and tried a new tactic.
There was another agent here. Tried to sign him.
That head, I kept for myself.

Welcome to the Weekly Challenge Number One 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… was…. um…
It’s Work!
The excellent theme music is by Guy David.
VOTING

Which were the best stories this week?
	Steven
	Katharina
	Zachmann
	Justin
	Planet Xray
	TJ
	Norval Joe
	JRadimus
	Planet Z
Free polls from Pollhost.com

Go ahead and listen to them and then vote for your favorites (multiple selections are allowed):

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Steven

Kethin’s legs squeezed against the dragon’s scales as they rose into
the winter night. His furs warmed him, but his eyes were freezing
behind the goggles. The mountain cave fell away behind the dragon’s
wings. The cold moonlight shone on fleeing clouds and glittering snow
below.
Kethin spotted the town lights below. He leaned forward, and the
dragon dove for the city. At the last moment, he drove in his spurs
and pulled up. Dragonfire lashed out, and they rose high over the
street, wet with newly melted snow.
“One of these days,” Kethin thought, “I’ll get an interesting job.”

Katharina

Today, I was the first one in the office. I had only just sat down when I heard the doorbell ring. The only reason I got back up was that it just didn’t stop ringing.
Opening the door I started to complain. As I looked up, I stopped mid-sentence. He was here. He was mine.
Wordless, he took my hand and led me to my office. If only to assure himself that I was still his, he lifted my skirt and took me then and there.
When we got back up, I heard the key in the entrance door turn.

Zachmann

The Nissa, the Norse little people, who followed my grandparents form the old world are trying to get me into trouble by going on my computer and posting on my facebook and twitter when I am at work since I would never do that myself not even with a smartphone.The Nissa watch youtube and Hulu when I am at work. I think they using the gaming systems since they are still turned on when I return home from work . They have a special affection for Link. Anything I posted when I’m at work was done by the Nissa

Justin

Robots tried cloning a human workforce, but the bodies grew to awaken brain dead. Clones work well for spare parts, but growing them takes months. I was always an advocate of workplace safety, but it has gotten ridiculous. The robots take over humanity, then because we are hard to “repair” quickly, they require us to wear ultra-powered safety armor so we don’t hurt ourselves. Why not just control the armor themselves? Hold on, if I can just override these security functions, done, and send this code to everyone, we fully control the system! Lets see how safe we are now

Planet Xray

I have always been a backward guy.
My week went something like this.
Mondays, I spent the day cleaning my BMW.
Tuesdays, I cruised the beaches looking at the sights and the ladies.
Wednesday, I set aside for sport, it didn’t matter what it was, as long as it was athletic.
Thursdays I would spend the day flipping the TV between Showtime, HBO and the Discovery Channel.
Fridays I would hop from bar to bar, ending up at a dance club.
Saturday was my rest day.
And then there was Sunday, what can I say, you have to work sometime.

TJ

We don’t always hear positive reinforcement concerning the things we do, but if you ever wonder if your work is appreciated, copy editors: misspell someone’s name in the paper. Stockboys. Let the toilet paper aisle run low. Pharmacists: Forget to order Pepto-Bismol. Bankers: Make a bunch of thoroughly indefensible loans and sell them to each other. Mechanics: Replace brake fluid with motor oil. Chefs: Switch out vegetarian lasagna with regular. Farmers: Leave off milking for a day or two. Baristas: Forget to unlock the doors for a couple hours. Whatever it is we do, indeed, we are all deeply appreciated.

Norval Joe

They quietly slipped through the sliding glass door into the backyard.
“What is it?” he asked the older boy, eyeing the silky black wad of material his brother clutched close to his chest.
“It’s a Batman cape, just like the one on TV. With this cape, you can fly,” he said with believable sincerity. He’d seen the show on their black and white TV, and it looked like the one.
He helped his little brother into the cape and onto the roof of the house.

JRadimus

Let’s see… What’s the Weekly Challenge this week…? Hmm… “Work”… Huh. One of those “broad-strokes” topics. I like those: they don’t shove you in a particular corner. There are so many directions I could go…
…“Hard work”…
…“Yard work”…
…“Job I hated”…
…“Job I loved”…
…”Old job”…
…”New job”…
You know what? Just give me some direction!
…Wait a minute. This is an easy topic! I could write any story I can think of, and just work the topic in- wait: -“work”- the topic in. That gives me an idea – How many words am I up to? …98, 99, 100!

Planet Z

Even though Fred worked in banking, he loved to make up occupations on his tax returns.
“Rodeo Clown Consultant” was his latest. He’s also claimed to be a Psychic Fishtank Cleaner, an Elevator Repair Superhero, and The Number Twelve.
He’d get audited every year, and laughed as the auditor came up with the exact same figures he did on his returns.
Every year, he’d get the same auditor, and given a choice between becoming enemies and friends, they chose friendship.
Both retired the same year and, soon afterwards, died in a horrible elevator accident.
Well, Fred obviously couldn’t repair it.