Welcome to the Fifty-fifth Weekly Challenge, 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 selected by Chris of Platypus Society, and it’s Transportation.
Nine stories were submitted this week. Oops!
The excellent theme music is by Guy David
And, once again, some disturbing madness from the one we all knew and loved as Planet Z.
Go ahead and listen to them by clicking on the grammophone thingy there in the left column and then vote for your favorites (multiple selections are allowed):
WE GOTS PRIZES:
I will be sending the winner a prize… it’s a packet containing at least 1 refrigerator magnet and a CD with the archive of the entire 100 word stories podcast. (Well, minus promos and junk)
It is your voting that determines who wins. So listen, vote, and tune in next week to find out who won!
PLANET Z
Norman Mineta stepped out of the back of his limousine and saw their faces.
The ghosts were waiting for him, as they did every morning outside the Department of Transportation.
Thousands of them.
They waved the memos, briefs, and studies at him, documenting the need for reinforced cockpit doors on all domestic airliners.
Others waved receipts from airline industry lobbyists – the ones who convinced him it made bad business sense to do so.
As he walked into his office, nineteen more ghosts welcomed him in.
They said “Thank you, corrupt Infidel!” before returning to their seventy-two virgins in Paradise.
TOM
Javert had known Val Jean for 20 years.
On the 15 of every month
Val Jean arrived at the border with his rig.
Javier tore that truck apart searching for
the contraband that the smuggler
had somehow concealed from him.
Each month the dispatch back to Interpol was the same.
Javert was retiring this month and
this amused Val Jean for he to was retiring.
“I got to know how you did it?” pleaded Javert.
“Then I will write it down for you.”
As Val Jean drove out of sight
Javert opened the paper and
read the single work message.
TABZ
What’s the fastest way to get from here to there? For Buffy Summers,
queen of the slayers, the choice was easy. Dawn, Buffy’s sister who
once was a mystical key is mystically now a giant because she had sex
with a thricewise (don’t ask me, I don’t write them, just read’m) Dawn
could bring Buffy anywhere she wanted to go. Dawn carried Buffy in
the palm of her hand, almost like a toy. Well, it was a good mode of
transportation until the day Dawn had a run in with the police who
said “Come out with your hands up.” OOps.
LAIEANNA
Shawn hated transportation missions cause of boredom. He was relieved this trip in the semi carried his buddies, Bernie and Tom. They played together on a set of Nintendo DS consoles, their faces ghostly lit by the screens.
Bernie chuckled over Tom’s gaming frustration before falling forward from the semi’s braking. The back doors swung open and a swarm of sixth graders piled into the trailer. They all held bats or hockey sticks and menacing smiles.
Shawn held his DS close to his chest. “Who thought kids need to play outside more often?” He whispered before the group rushed them.
MIKE
Toddlers believe that parents shoulders provide perfect transportation.
Kids know real transportation involves pedals and handlebars.
Teenagers are certain, anything with a steering wheel, dented, rusty, and barely running,
is the ultimate transportation.
Almost without notice, transportation becomes a family minivan.
Then in what many consider post traumatic 40’s disorder,
soon a rag top sports car appears.
Later, transportation grows large, boxy and slow.
You realize, peering over the steering wheel,
eternal rhythmic green turn indicator soothing your soul,
the LEFT lane really is nicer.
And the transportation never mattered, it was the friends,
and family who traveled with you.
KC KEYWORD
Ted didn’t need transportation to
find cheap Viagra, Russian sex
slaves or Britney Spears crotch
photographs. No, he needed transportation
to the International keyword optimization
symposium. It was getting hard
to find real valid Windows
Vista key-gen programs. Ted was
determined to figure out exactly
how keywords worked. As taxi
fourteen passed him by, he
reached in his pocked, hoping
to find some cheap Canadian
drugs for his headache. “Yes!”
he celebrated quietly, one oxycontin
left. Ted promised himself that
as soon as he received
his free credit report, and
his Nintendo wii in stock,
he was buying a car.
CHRIS
I hate flying. It’s not that I have a fear of heights; I have a fear of Phil.
Who’s Phil you ask? Phil’s the guy responsible for tightening bolts on the wings. Phil’s good at his job, but perhaps one time about ten years ago he got distracted while tightening a bolt and shorted it a quarter turn.
Over the course of a decade of takeoffs and landings, that bolt is probably hanging by its last thread.
Was this the plane Phil was working on? Is this the flight the bolt comes off?
I guess I’ll find out soon enough.
TED
The man in the long black trenchcoat caught my attention.
“Psst! Hey buddy, interested in something cool? I’m selling cheap today, but tomorrow, it’s going up.”
I stopped to see what he was selling.
“This is the latest and greatest mode of transportation yet”, he said with a sly grin.
“How much?”, I asked.
“500”, he said. “Remember, tomorrow it’ll be twice that”.
I thought about it. Decided I really didn’t need the cat-fur suit anyway, so I paid him.
“Here you go, pal.. Just push that button, and you’ll see..” he said.
I hesitated.. Then thought, “What the Hell?”
I pushed the button…
PATTI
Mike was the coolest school bus driver. He rigged a stereo system and six speakers inside the long yellow bus and he’d blast Frampton, Boston, Fleetwood Mac for us every day to and from Del Mar high School.
He was only three or four years older than the seniors, and every girl thought he was cute. He had an eye for the young ladies and he would flirt back at them from behind his mirrored aviator sunglasses.
On days when he wasn’t wearing the sunglasses, Mike’s eyes were glassy red and his pupils were pinned. He sold the best pot!
TO4M
After Bob and Julio’s disastrous Grizzly hunt in Seattle they headed
South. Just drivin’. No particular place to go. Despite Julio’s
objections Bob picked up a hitch hiker just past Goose Lake in Oregon.
They dropped him off in Arcata and moved on out to Highway 61.They
stayed Motel 6’s along the way east. Julio didn’t like the cheap
motels. But Bob didn’t mind – he thought that the measure of a good
organization was the smell left on one’s hands after using the
restroom soap and these places were just fine. Road trips ain’t what
they used to be.
Thanks to everyone for sending in their stories, and I look forward to what you’ve got to write (and say) next week.
The theme for next week’s Weekly Challenge will be posted shortly.