Just say "Alexa, play the 100 Word Stories Podcast."
639156
I can feel the needle in my arm.
It’s been there for a long time.
I refuse to look at it.
I should take it out, I tell myself.
I can’t remember putting it in.
Did I put it in? Did someone else?
I can’t remember.
What if I take it out for a minute, to prove I can.
Will I be able to put it back in?
I’d better leave it there. It’s there for a reason.
I can’t remember why, but it should stay there.
So I look, and… it’s not there anymore.
I scream GIVE IT BACK!
639157
I don’t like boats.
I get horribly seasick.
I’ve tried drugs, but those seasickness drugs make me even sicker.
So, I stay off of boats.
Recently, I was diagnosed with cancer.
The chemotherapy made me really sick.
So they gave me anti-nausea drugs.
When the treatment was over and the doctors told me they couldn’t do anything else, I didn’t know what to do.
So I got on a boat.
And I felt fine.
“Give me more of those pills,” I said. “Enough to last me.”
So they did. Thirty yellow pills.
And I’ve been on the water ever since.
639158
I am sitting on a sofa, next to a sleeping cat.
He is purring in his sleep.
I watch his whiskers twitch, his toes wriggle.
He is dreaming.
What is he dreaming of? Walking through grass? Laying in the sun?
He’s twitching more. Maybe he’s running?
If he told me, I’d keep his secret.
But he never does.
A secret never told is a secret kept.
His fur ripples, his paws padding the air.
His whole body is writhing, orange stripes like waves.
And then, he wakes up with a meow.
Licks a paw, and drifts off to sleep again.
639174
This is my first Halloween owning a black cat.
Two of them, actually.
They’re indoor-outdoor cats, and they don’t like being cooped up.
But letting them out on Halloween, well, I’ve heard stories.
Bad stories.
Teenagers killing them and mutilating them and setting them on fire and leaving the corpses on doorsteps.
No, I’d rather that not happen to these cats.
So, they’re staying inside.
The orange cat, well, he can go outside all he wants.
The black cats look out the window and whine. On the other side, the orange cat flicks his tail proudly and goes off hunting.
639160
I don’t feel well. I’ve been pretty sick recently.
Doctors did some tests. Then they did more tests.
“You have cancer,” they finally said. “Real bad.”
No treatment will do any good.
So, I went home, took the phone off the hook, and got drunk.
Stayed drunk for three weeks.
I get a knock on the door. It’s a doctor. Says he’s been trying to call me.
He has a drug now. Nanobots. Kills the cancer.
“So, I’ll live?” I ask. He gives me the injection.
“No,” he says. “This’ll kill you too. We just need your organs for transplant.”
639171
The zoo pays me well enough.
What’s my job? I feed the lions during the day and bless the pelicans every night.
The rest of the time, I stand and smile.
Sometimes, I wave.
I do this seven days a week, every day of the year.
People ask me things and I tell them that’s interesting.
The bosses give me babies to feed the lions, and I toss them into their habitat.
Then I stand and smile to keep from screaming.
I drink vodka. Constantly.
I bless the pelicans, thinking they’re penguins. Just pink.
Or are those flamingos?
Or babies?
639164
She broke my heart, so I broke her fucking legs.
Well, I didn’t break her legs. There’s this guy who does that stuff for me.
I tell him what she did, and the guy said “Yeah, I’d break her fucking legs for cheating on me like that.”
Turns out that it was him. He was the one.
So, after he broke her legs, I told him to break his own legs.
That, he couldn’t do.
“I could outsource it to this guy I know…”
Never mind. Just don’t do her… it again.
He breaks legs, not promises.
Loyalty is everything.
639163
There’s some things people wouldn’t touch with a ten foot pole.
Which means there’s other things that they will touch with one.
Do you have a ten foot pole?
Well, then come on in. Look around. I have a mighty fine selection of ten foot poles to choose from.
If you don’t have room for one, then maybe you’ll consider a pair of five foot poles that you can connect into a ten foot pole?
Or one of these handy extending poles… folds down into a single foot. Fits in a purse.
You know you need one. Come on in.
639154
That’s a mighty fine looking baby you have there.
How much will you sell that baby for?
You don’t do drugs. You don’t drink. You seem healthy enough and so does the baby.
There’s no way you can afford that baby, no matter how healthy it is. All babies get sick, need diapers… all that stuff.
It’s not easy setting a price, and nobody likes an auction for a baby, even if for a healthy one.
The market rate is fifty dollars a pound, precooked weight, but this one looks like seventy-five dollars.
Try eighty, and leave the diaper on.
639165
John Lennon was half-right.
There is no Hell below us. That’s actually where Heaven is.
But above us, there isn’t only sky. In the void between the stars, that’s where condemned souls wander for all eternity.
Heaven is right under our feet, safe in the dirt. That is why we bury our dead, you know. To send them to their Heavenly reward.
It doesn’t quite work out for those who have led wicked lives. Their souls rise up, up through the clouds and into the cold vastness of space.
They never return, they never arrive anywhere.
Scattered, cast away forever.