Weekly Challenge – Page 66 – The 100 Word Stories Podcast

Weekly Challenge #325 – Life (RFL Challenge – Part 5)

Welcome to the 100 Word Stories podcast at podcasting.isfullofcrap.com. I’m your host, Laurence Simon.

This is Weekly Challenge Number Three Hundred and Twenty-Five, 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 Life, a special Weekly Challenge for Relay For Life.

(For more information about this challenge, please read this page and go to the show notes for part one)

Weekly Challenge #325 – Life (RFL Challenge – Part 4)

Welcome to the 100 Word Stories podcast at podcasting.isfullofcrap.com. I’m your host, Laurence Simon.

This is Weekly Challenge Number Three Hundred and Twenty-Five, 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 Life, a special Weekly Challenge for Relay For Life.

(For more information about this challenge, please read this page and go to the show notes for part one)

Weekly Challenge #325 – Life (RFL Challenge – Part 3)

Welcome to the 100 Word Stories podcast at podcasting.isfullofcrap.com. I’m your host, Laurence Simon.

This is Weekly Challenge Number Three Hundred and Twenty-Five, 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 Life, a special Weekly Challenge for Relay For Life.

(For more information about this challenge, please read this page and go to the show notes for part one)

Weekly Challenge #325 – Life (RFL Challenge – Part 2)

Welcome to the 100 Word Stories podcast at podcasting.isfullofcrap.com. I’m your host, Laurence Simon.

This is Weekly Challenge Number Three Hundred and Twenty-Five, 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 Life, a special Weekly Challenge for Relay For Life.

(For more information about this challenge, please read this page and go to the show notes for part one)

Weekly Challenge #325 – Life (RFL Challenge – Part 1)

Welcome to the 100 Word Stories podcast at podcasting.isfullofcrap.com. I’m your host, Laurence Simon.

This is Weekly Challenge Number Three Hundred and Twenty-Five, 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 Life, a special Weekly Challenge for Relay For Life.

And we’ve got stories by a lot of people:

The entire show is available here: https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B-8mB8LyHDc2Y2ZCbmhOZWRqZkU

If you’d like to contribute to the Relay For Life in Second Life, the Relay Wizards For Spunky is the team that I was hiding behind while putting this together.

And if you want to spam your social networks with this episode, use the Share buttons at the end of the post…

JEFFREY

(No text sent)

VIVIENNE

Sunlight seeps through the darkness into her dream. She is young again. She wakes up smiling and excited. She is at her Grandma and Grandpa’s farm! She jumps out of bed and climbs onto the chest in front of the window. The clothes’ line below is filled with birds, cheeping and squawking. It is a new day and anything can happen.

Across miles and time, another girl wakes up in that same bedroom to the morning song of the birds. She screams for her mother. The ghost is back, kneeling on nothing in midair, looking out of the window.

BOTGIRL

“Stop!” Jim gasped, struggling to free himself as the sizzling red hot poker inched its way towards his spasming sphincter. “That was a fucking rhetorical statement.”

“I’m sorry Mr. Jones, but I’m a literalist,” Satan said without even the faintest trace of sarcasm. “You humans talk about hell LIKE it’s some sort of metaphor. How quaint. But a promise is a promise . . .”

“It was a stupid bar bet,” Jim interrupted in urgent desperation. “You didn’t tell me who you were.”

” . . . and a bet is a bet,” Satan continued. “You bet your life. Now it’s mine to use as I please.”

LETTE

She’d play Laura Nyro in the car. These days it’s mostly talk radio. She wasn’t expected to have these days. Years ago she wasn’t expected to have a daughter either. On the way to her last treatment (for half a decade), she heard Laura had passed, when she herself was becoming a survivor. Again. But not the last time.

Some take their second chance at life and follow the cliches up mountains and pyramids, down the Nile or out of a plane. By the fifth, it became simpler, about cherishing the gifts of music, talk, and her grown, improbable family.

ANN

In 1966 he gave me a silver ring.

The ring was tight, but I got it on.

I wore it on my right hand for years.

Then I took it off.

None were fooled.

I put it back on and bought him a silver ring for his right hand.

He wore it for years.

Then he didn’t.

I repaired his ring, giving it back to him for our 10th.

In 2009 I said, “Buy me a silver ring that fits, like the one you gave me years ago.”

I tried on every ring to fit my older fingers.

_one fit.

DK2MOM

Quality and Disaster

We had storms and lost power for several days. It amazed me that without power how quiet it was. Once the storm damage was cleaned up I had little to do so I sat on the front porch fanning myself, watching life go on around me.

It was business as usual for the robin on her nest who had survived the storm. Neighbors walked around chatting about the fallen tree that blocked our street. They wondered when power would come back or where the best place was to find ice or food.

Quality of life was still there, just different.

CHANTE

Moss lay on the floor, eyes clinched. Her legs stretched parallel while her arms extended at ninety degrees. She breathed shallowly to control the rise of her flat chest. Now Momma and Daddy would feel bad for grounding her.
“What are you doing?” Daddy asked. His toe prodded her.
Momma joined him. “What’s going on?”
“I think she’s dead.”
“We’ll miss her.”
Moss fought a smile.
“Well,” Daddy said. “I’ll put her in the garbage can.”
Moss resurrected. Her eyes popped opened. “I’m alive!”
“Thank goodness. The can was already full.”
He winked, and she forgave them with a smile.

MUNSI

It’s been said that life’s what happens when you’re making other plans.

And that’s why I make a lot of plans.

Some general plans, moving in with the woman I love, reworking my schedule to include more time to write, those sorts of thing.

Others are grander plans, building superweapons, using them to subjugate mankind, world domination.

I’ll tell you, the second thing’s better.

With that in mind I’d like to offer an addendum to the expression.

Life’s what happens when you’re making other plans.

Living is what happens when you’re blackmailing the United Nations using an orbital weapons platform.

SAFFIA

That summer before the war in the cottage in Provence. Father fighting with lecture notes and Mother with the domestique. Bobo, Josh and I running wild in the lavender hills with Lily and Veronique from the Villa Remin, and Martin, the schoolmaster’s son. Lovely Lily, so adored by Martin – yet it was me he kissed that night. As I felt his lips, I was already preparing the story for the girls at school.

Years later I met him again, a famous actor. He didn’t remember me, or the kiss, so I asked about Lily. He shrugged. “They were Jews.”

BOTGIRL

I’m lucky and know it. Not a single person I’ve been close to has died during my fifty three years life. I haven’t even had a pet die on me. It makes me nervous.

I know it’s only a matter of time. My father was in the hospital a year ago with what could have been a fatal illness. But he o recovered before death could pry my clutching hands from the icy numbness of denial.

I intellectually accept the inevitability of sickness, old age and death. But my heart won’t go there. I will not mourn until I must.

GRACE

They’ve told me that it’s peaceful. A gentle exhale. A whisper. One final note. But I don’t really know – I have never been there at that moment. Once I had the chance, but I decided to stay safely at home – far enough away so the last pulsating patterns of molecules would dissipate before they reached my face.

Now we have magnets on the refrigerator that remind us: “Don’t let yesterday eat up too much of today.” And “Finish each day and be done with it.” and oh shit, we better use this half off coupon before it too, expires.

MISTLETOE

When the golden-eyed baby came to the temple, the elders said her destiny was to bless us all with gifts of the gods.

I raised her, alone, sheltered from disease, death, heartache, betrayal. Her soul would remain pure, uncorrupted by life.

But as time and age took my strength and made me frail, she grew worried.

“I will go,” she said at last, “and find a way to cure you!”

Helplessly I watched her walk blindly out the door, into the world.

Now the elders say the girl is lost, that life will destroy her. I say they’re wrong.

VERIDIAN

They cant always get better..
But this is the dark side of life, it ends.
Sometimes, even the end is a grey area
.Here in this grey, I walk often.
keep them breathing,
beating,
blinking
. Is that life?
What quantifies the noun?
Communication?
Warmth?
or just simple function?
The answer varies

These lungs breathe,
this heart beats,
these eyes blink
but the soul lifted out of the vessel, leaving behind what others need.
Giving quality to the term for many
. Perhaps quantifying it for those left here to weep.
Simply
Life is a gift
Yours to have, to give.

KAYDEN

A Rabbit’s Life

A rabbit must hop. This one was crawling, his two back legs paralyzed. I named him “Earl”, and took Earl to the animal shelter.
“Not good,” the vet said. “He can’t live in the wild with those bad legs. Leave him here. We’ll see what we can do.”
Six weeks later, I went back, afraid, wondering if Earl lived.
“He was shot with a pellet gun,” the vet said. “The pellet lodged next to nerves. Good news, however – the paralysis was temporary, caused by swelling from movement of the pellet.”
Earl went back to the park, twitched, and hopped away.

A Meaning of Life

“It has no meaning,” Tony said. In great pain, he looked at Mary and held the gun to her head.
“They will be here soon, Mary. Our work will be done.”
“I choose to fight,” she responded, with a defiant radiance. “My life, and my death, will have meaning.”
“I can hear them, outside the door,” he pleaded. “An army – cold, soulless and bent with anger. They will pass no mercy or will not care if we offer a show of bravery.”
“Give me the gun,” she ordered.
One shot pierced the air. Then another. And two hearts stopped beating.

ABERNATHY

As much as Nora wanted to believe this was for research. She knew in the back of her head all research funding had been pulled six months ago, she was just obsessing. At this stage her obsession had taken to watching movies and listening to music. She went on speed dates just to hear what men thought the meaning was. No one knew the answer. People called her crazy. Her family begged her to stop the madness. Nora would not have it. She knew there was an answer. Returning the movie “It’s a wonderful Life.” She was struck by another vehicle and thrown from her car. She lay in the grass. With her final breath she whispered. “Oh. I get it now.”

CADY

KRISTIN

The estate was to be liquidated and part of the proceeds used to pay for her cats’ care for the rest of their lives. The remainder would go toward her lifedata storage, backup, administration and power costs. The development team agreed that since she had been both an investor and an early adopter, the digitization of the cats would be bundled with her package. They would be a familiar comfort for her once the conversion was complete. Thanking the attorney, the team carefully picked up the carriers. The lawyer silently pressed “Upload” and she began her journey to the cloud.

THOMAS

Mom brought me a cold drink. I had been under her car, ready to tackle the inspection and rebuild of the automatic transmission in her Mustang. I pried the transmission loose from the engine’s flywheel. A couple of quarts of warm, red, transmission fluid ebbed from the transmission tail section as I rested it on my stomach and between my legs. I started laughing. She asked, “What’s so funny?” I said, “I think I know a little of what it’s like to give life to something…you know, a baby.” She laughed so hard, she held her stomach with both hands.

Life begins at 80, or so I’ve heard. Only ten more years, and I can look forward to really letting go, letting it all hang out, and not be arrested for indecent exposure on public transport. I will be born anew, and the memory and consequences of all of my dastardly and despicable acts will vaporize. The abandonment of three families and nine children, a very large, overdue, income tax bill, scores of credit card balances, my military service, the theft of mother’s diet pills, and the promise of the donation of my vital giblets pledged to the organ bank.

LAUREN

Morning light crept through the slivers curtains sparkling the joy of a new day. Wake up. Brush teeth. Shower. Dress. Ready to meet full light. Java in hand I head out to machine ballet movement. Engine purrs. Garage door opens. Roar. Park. Elevator. Office.Daytime noise smart phones, printers, fans, electricity harnessed. Lunch plastic packaged greens. Spacemen squeeze dressing. Green Tea. Afternoon light diffuses through clouded glass. Time clicks by. Elevator down. Shift to drive and home. Dinner, glass of wine, salmon colored salmon. Coffee. Chocolate. TV, Internet as the light turns to darkness. Bedtime. Life one day at a time.

ZACKMAN

I took a teen who is overly sensitive to noise, smell, sound, and touch, to Independence Day festivities in a Carnival like atmosphere with classic cars built before catalytic converters, diesel engines powering food stands, and crowds.
We watched a parade. The smell of someone smoking who walked behind us displeased the teen. He jumped when someone touched his shoulder to apologize for being too close to him. Sparks from someones illegal firework hit his jacket. As we stood on the pier on the river I thought Maybe life really is what happens on the way to see the fireworks.

LIZZIE

I put it in the jar, that glimpse of life I still had, to keep it, to preserve it, to be able to go back to it any time I wanted. But the more life withered the more I panicked. So, I opened the jar and let it fly. I freed life. Go, even if you leave me alone here to struggle with my pain, go. But life would not leave. It floated about and even when it seemed to go away, it always came back to sit on my shoulder and watch over me. There’s hope. And life nodded.

LELANI

“Life Is Whacked Sometimes,” by Lelani Carver

“Go in health, and come back in health,” she’d say. Then she got sick every time we traveled… so we stopped traveling.

We all texted updates compulsively that last week:

“Dad took Mom to hospice, but only until they deliver the bed.”

Later, “Dad says he might take her home tomorrow!”

But, “Your dad says she’s not going home. Bed delivery cancelled. Headed down.”

After the funeral: “Stopping off for raincoats.”

First shiva: “Your brother is creeping me out right now.”

Second shiva: “The smoked fish tray arrived. AWESOME. ETA?”

Next week: “I got the job! Life is whacked sometimes.”

GIDEON

I paused at the door, glanced back and said “I love you”.

She looked up from making dinner, “Hurry back. I love you”.

We had pledged to always say those words when we parted, no matter the reason or how long we’d be apart.

If something happened, we wanted the last memory in life to be “I love you”.

It seemed silly. I was going to the corner store. I’d be back in 10 minutes. I was.

But she was gone. Her note said it was some guy she met at an RFL fundraiser.

“I love you”. Right. Life sucks.

CINNAMON

They are gone!?!? I had no idea until someone told me. I look everywhere. Some are close by, others scattered and hidden. I pick up as many as I can find – under the couch, out in the yard, the cat is batting one around. I hold them in my hands – beautiful, jewel like, cold and smooth. My Cats Eyes, Steelies, Aggies and my favorite Clearie make a beautiful picture collected together in one place – almost… organized. I let my fingers feel them again. Stunning! I pluck one out, close one eye and let it fly. Another one – another direction… Shoot!

SERENDIPIDY

It was the crowning moment in human history – a moment that justified the enormous expense and endeavour of a generation committed to the exploration of space.

First contact? Not quite; but it could be extremely close.

A hushed mission control watched in awe as the images unfolded on their screens… remarkable, unbelievable alien artefacts.

And now, looming closer – a doorway.

The first astronaut approached, paused, then passed into the darkness beyond.

“My God!”, he exclaimed, “it’s…”; his voice cracked…

“What do you see?”, came the urgent enquiry from Mission Control, “is it alien life?”

“Not exactly… it’s full of pizza!”

SHADUW

Rain trickled down slowly. The man didn’t care. He zipped up his jacket, grabbed the handlebars and started to cycle. Gushes of cold wind tried to slow him down but failed miserably. Switching gears, the bicycler rode uphill. He could feel the pressure in the muscles of his legs. Controlling his breathing, he focused on the road ahead. With a quick swerve to his right, the car barely missed him on his left. It did not matter. Clouds broke and a warm blanket chased away the cold. He stopped, leaned forwards and smelled the roses.

EXPLORER

On Sunday, at The Perfect Landing restaurant inside a small airport that houses
private jets, small planes, and Flight for Life medical transport.

After brunch, we went to see a traveling B-25 WWII plane. Fanny was
introduced to the pilot, and Fanny said, “I’m a Holocaust Survivor.” The pilot
said, “There’s an older man in the plane who flew during WWII.”

Fanny said to Captain Bond, “In Muhlhausen Concentration Camp, we could hear
the planes above us, and we begged for them to drop a bomb on us.” Captain
Bond flew his B-25 Bomber over the camps.

Life is never scripted.

JEFFREY

A New Life in the Darkness

The entire solar system was at war. The pains and horrors of that war stretch from the blistering inner planets to the frozen chunks of rock that no one argued any more about their status as planets. The Earth started it, they would argue that point, but no one was blameless, and everyone had blood on their hands. Father Thomas stood in the center of the room holding the new life in his hands as he blessed it. As the world outside tore itself apart at least this made sense to him. The baby cried as he poured the water.

TOM

We of Martin Club Industries Biolabs Division are excited to announce a new product: LYFE a 2.00 bio-linker. Alpha testing proven so conclusive we’ve moved the ordering cue up six week. After winning the X Prize for irrigating the Sub Sahara, the link to Brooms Across Africa YouTube, is up on the web, our founder C B was quoted as saying “Well, what the fuck.” We took that as a big flashing green light.

“How does LYFE work?”

It so easy a child could do it. Just pour a cup of LYFE on a surface, add water, and 1.21 gigawatts.

Seicher Rae

The rulebook was ancient, ornately bound and worn. She spent days reading and re-reading its pages. With finality she closed it, hugged it tightly to her chest, and from memory whispered aloud each page’s content of intricate moves. This time the game was hers to win. With bated breath she waited for the countdown. Anticipation was a fist squeezing her entire body. Starting lights blinded her. It had begun. She could do it! A sharp yank to her abdomen caused her to gasp and cry out while her memory drained in panic. With newborn eyes she blinked, unfocused, into oblivion.

BONCHANCE AND SEVI

Don’t you just love that expression, “that’s life”?

The world comes crashing down all around you, one thing after the other.
Job stresses, family matters, economy freeze. Usually it all comes in threes!
Yeah shit happens!

Then some bozo who thinks they are being “helpful” spews out from ignorant lips: “Thats life!”
Let’s do something! Take a deep breath…nice, deep, slow…
Hold it! Don’t cheat now! No more breathing come on let’s do it we can do it!
Damn! Yeah we both had to exhale didn’t we? Now let’s take us a nice regular breath. There!

Now that’s life Scooter!

Life!
Through birthing
The journey begins
At first, caring essential
To grow strong and independent
Mentors guiding you on your path
You take your first few steps timidly
Confidence builds quickly within, you begin to run
Breaking free, setting your own path, desires dance dangerously within
World full to temptations, teasing you with bright shiny crisp apples
Past care and unconditional comfort, the guiding luminous light
Carefully protecting you from falling too far
Seeking out the worldly familiar wisdom
Floating on protective feathered wing
Light, gently pushing you forth
Purse strings, catch your fall
You are supported
And loved
Life!

Pablo and Espi began to rebuild their friendship.
He could not give up the evil scotch, it gave him such amazing dreams.

One star filled night, Pablo convinced Espi to mix a bit with her water.
She had a stressful day of resting in her owners lap, constantly being brushed and cuddled.
The scotch laced water disappeared quickly.

Pablo confessed his undying love for his dear Espi. Two star crossed lovers spent the night under the bright moonlight.
A cloud passed over the moon. A new life was created.

Pablo woke up feeling miserable but at least he had company.

PAPILLON

Life!

It’s 9am as I sit at the pc staring at blank screen; a hand hovers over a mug of tea, finger pads frivolously caress the warming porcelain shell which gives the outer elements protection from what lays within.

My world consists of walls there set in place to keep me safe from people who want to connect and cause disarray sending my safe world into a shattering tornado of uncontrollable feelings of inadequacy, doubts, fears, rejection, judgmental-ism. Even while typing these words causes me to panic, hands tremble; mouth grows parch fear rising while I type ‘Welcome to my World’.

DOC FRAN

No text sent.

DERRY

Strutting

I live with six females who are much more popular than I am.

Of course they are lovely and sweet with sunny dispositions; so why am I surprised?

The first suitor strolled into the house on Halloween, can you imagine?

He walked right in like he owned the place.

The next lives 3 doors down, he’s got ginger coloring and flirts with me sometimes, too.

Last night a new one arrived…strutting around the back deck, yelling for one of the girls to come out.

Oh Silly cat! They’ve been fixed, they howl for you to go away, not for romance!

BEAR SILVERSHADE

Life is what you make it. Unless you happen to be Death. Then, Life is just your smart-aleck sister.

Managing to look harried and blissful all at once, Life looked up as Death ran into their mansion, shouting, “That one was mine and you know it!”

“Oh, you don’t mean that peace treaty?” Life smiled in the irritating manner of older sisters. “I know you wanted a war, but I don’t want noisy gunfire during my big party.”

“No, no. You ate the last Ding Dong,” Death ran a finger along the sharp edge of his scythe. “That was mine.”

JULIE

Life is not fair.
Life doesn’t owe you anything.
Life hath more awe than death.
In my life, I’ve loved them all.
That’s life.

You only need to spend about five minutes remembering things your mother said long ago, or looking through Wikiquotes to find countless quotes, observations, and aphorisms on the topic. But the bottom line is this: As my eighteenth century literature professor was fond of quoting, “Life is short, nasty, and brutish.” Perhaps we live longer these days than folks did back in the days of Alexander Pope, but in the grand scheme of things, it’s still the truth.

MARIANNE

It’s In The Mix

The old worker scoffed, “Every day they truck in four types of flour. four! Sure, you’ve got your oat flour, That’s just obvious. But we have wheat flour, corn flour, and even rice flour in there. There’s a bit of sugar in there too, but it’s not like those guys on the Cap’n Crunch line. That stuff is swimming in it. Rips up your mouth.” He paused, and nearly whispered, “You know, some of the heath nuts complain about us having yellow number five in the mix. Gives it a nice toasty color. Sure, they complain, but hey… that’s Life”

JUSTIN

The phone rings.

I don’t usually answer, but who am I kidding?

Today, I’ve got nothing better to do.

“Is Mr. Payne there?”

Sigh. “Speaking.”

“May I call you Les?”

“Uh…”

“Great. Thanks. Man, Les, have I got a deal for you.”

“Uh-huh.”

Its a state-of-the-art digital picture frame, and it comes with –

“Uh-huh.”

a high resolution screen,

“Uh-huh.”

“Wireless remote,”

“Uh-huh.”

“Batteries,”

“Uh-huh.”

“You can surf the Internet…”

“Uh-huh.”

“It even has a touch screen. Just flick-”

“What about the pictures? Do they come with it?

Silence.

Then the Salesmen laughed. “No, ‘Memories not included.'”

Sigh. “State-of-the-art, huh?”

QUEEN

The Primal Gloop was depressed
if it had had fingers it would have tapped them.
Here it was, alone with itself
primal …and gloopy.
Every eon same as the others.
Not even a rib to make company from.
Its only friend more of itself…
which sort of obviated conversation
and any need to dress up.
Then a sharp blob of gloop
playing with its blocks, found it had
made some glup, which replicated more glup.
Soon a tall multiplied Glup-Form loomed
looking down, its hand out-stretched…
PAY YOUR TAXES it whined.
SHIT, thought Gloop, now …HOW do I make Death??

GUARD 13007

In 2070, it was discovered there was a universal field that determined where and when life occurred.

For thirty years, this discovery was a closely guarded secret. It turns out that if you can look at life as a map, you can see not only where it will appear, but where it will move to, and when it will die.

Due to a loophole in the laws of the UFE, the discovery was released at the turn of the century. A new corporation was founded, with the intent to use this field to extend lives. For a price of course.

LONDON

Everything started in darkness and silence. Then BANG! The universe was created, and millions of billions of stars shone their light. One of those bright suns created a tiny blue ball, 4.5 billion years ago. Within the next billion years a miracle occurred, LIFE. Microbial mats of coexisting bacteria swimming in a vast primitive sea. Years passed, things evolved into bigger forms. Plants and Animals. Synapsids,Archosaurs,Acanthodians, Gastropods, Therapsids,Insects and even Mammals, who we are. A big family alive. After that, Androids came…ooops but that is another story I forgot I only have 100 words to tell this one.

BIG SEAN O

“Yet the French orangutan steadfastly maintained that it was just a matter of time before his countrymen regained their senses, and resumed squealing curses and flinging excrement at tourists, as the French have done for centuries. What he couldn’t have foreseen was the dawn of the Great Banana Warfare gathering on the horizon, or as history would call it, ‘The Day the Split Hit the Fan’…”
“I’m curious, teacher.”
“About what, George?”
“Another war? Why does the split always have to be hitting the fan?”
“That, George, is life. Curse often, fling excrement, and you are guaranteed some nasty split.”

DR THOMAS

Today I watched my final sunrise and did the things only a mortal can do. Tonight I was becoming. I knew the way of it. We’d planned it for months. He would drain me, fill me with his blood, and I’d rise to my new unlife. Sunset. Dark. There he was, at my neck, drinking. When he paused I was nearing unconsciousness. He looked into my eyes and laughed. His head darted back to my neck. In that instant I knew. Planning was his foreplay. Betrayal was sex to the monster killing me and my death would be his orgasm.

CLIFF

Looking back, I have to admit that skipping college was a mistake. Sure, I got into the work force sooner than my friends, but there was never enough money. Of course, I got married because…well, I think it’s like a rule or something that you have to get married. Then came the kids. Now, don’t get me wrong. I’ve got nothing against children but it would have been so much easier if we’d stopped at four. More than that and they just fall out of the car. Ah well. That’s Life. You spin the wheel and you take your chances.

TERESA

My Children are my Pride and Joy. I had five beautiful Children. Two Boys that I lost and Three Girls that I still have. I could never replace the boys I lost. But My girls kept me going. I was fortunate to help raise Three Boys that weren’t mine, giving me what I couldn’t have with my own boys. All the kids I’ve raised fill my heart with happiness everyday, my own children especially. Thru the good times and the bad We’ve always been a Family. I love my kids and will always be there for them no matter what.

SPUNKY

How Do I Escape

The air is escaping I feel like I’m suffocating. Never getting to leave, always left at home. feeling misunderstood, so alone. It’s like I’m in a box moving through the motions. Things never change, it’s always the same thing. Time flies by so fast, yet at times it feels so slow. I never know what day it is, never know the time. Tomorrow’s just a day away and still it’s always the same. Sometimes I can get away in my dreams. Then I awake and realize I’m still stuck in this body in this Life. When Can I get away?

KIMBERLEY

It’s painful going thru the motions of trying to get Pregnant. Being in Suspense when you take the Test. Hoping, Praying for Positive. Crying when it says Negative or Invalid. Feeling Hopeless when time continues to fly by with no results. I believe every Woman Dreams of being a Mother. Being able to Feel the first kick. Going thru the Pains of Childbirth, just so they can hold their Baby for the first time. Loving them thru the good times and the bad. Being so proud when they say their first word. Almost crying when they take their first steps.

ANNE G

How Long is Enough

My Life was Great, I had everything I ever wanted. A Husband and Three Kids to keep me crazy. A sister to keep me from insanity. A house to run, a car to drive. I did whatever I wanted, when I wanted and where I wanted. I went shopping all the time. Thats just how I was. I may not have alot of time. But I was able to spend time with my Sister on a Cruise. I got to say bye to my Daughter and leave this world to go to a better place. I never had enough time.

CATHY

He’s crawling towards the couch. He grabs on, pulling himself on his feet. I’m not sure what he’s doing. He looks at me as he takes his first step, still holding the couch. I scream with delight when he takes his second step an lets go. I almost cry when he starts to wobble, fearing he might fall. Then he straightens, smiles and takes another step. I call his name telling him how good he’s doing, saying he’s almost there. Four steps and he’s in my arms. I embrace him, telling him how much I love and care about him.

MARK K

My Life

My Name is Mark. I am 21 years old. For the past two years I have experienced several hard ships. I have been homeless, hungry, gotten into some pretty bad things. I was pretty much alone. I was forgotten by all of my friends, and neglegted by my family. My life had no meaning. I spent all of my time living and sleeping in a park. That is where I found hope. I met this amazing woman who took me in, even though she didn’t even know me. She gave me a home, unconditional Love, and a life worth living.

MARX DUDEK

The flowers. The trees. The warm grass against the soles of her feet. The weight of the summer air. The steady drone of the cicadas. The condensation on the glass of iced tea trickling over her fingers as she held it. The noise of the world in the distance as it moved along its well-worn path, oblivious to the phenomenal now taking place moment by moment. The hat that covered her bare head. The nausea that followed each treatment. The preciousness of each heartbeat that meant one more moment to appreciate on its own merit. One more moment. One more.

JUNE

Slither

Your death slithered up on me. In life, you were the most vivacious
person I ever met.

In eternal repose, you looked a creampuff, powdered and pink.

This is why I don’t like viewings. I managed to stay for yours. Hers,
I ran, I ran so far away, and knew nothing but tears until my brother
found me.

He’s the cold one. Encouraged by all fronts to swallow pain and make marmalade.

I wish we’d made jam with the peaches that grew next to your driveway.

Did the radiation kill you, or the loneliness?

The cancer did.

ANHAYLA

Kumihimo

I’m teaching myself how to do Kumihimo this summer. It’s a form of Japanese braiding with beads. There is something soothing, almost meditative, about the rhythm and repetition: pull thread, slide bead, cross, rotate, lather, rinse, repeat. Also? It’s time consuming and a little boring. The thing is, at the end you have this lovely, intricate length of beaded rope. I think it makes a nice metaphor for life. While you are in the process, actually living it, it may seem like you are getting nowhere, but then one day you realize you have really accomplished something intricate and beautiful.

RAILS BAILEY

100 words

As life goes it wasn’t a very spectacular one. I was born, I skipped through childhood always one step ahead of trouble.

I wasn’t well educated, I didn’t like sport, I was more a hands on type of person. Destruction was my forte. If it was breakable, then I was the person to break it.

I should have refused the challenge. It was only a van. Locked and silent. Begging to be broken.

Now I sit on the bed in my cell and ponder the thick door that keeps me in prison. Maybe I should have read more, that’s life.

FLEEP

I didn’t realize it, but I was actually holding my breath. I’m not sure what I thought would happen, I just knew something once said can’t be unsaid. I must have re-read it a hundred times, searching my heart – did I REALLY mean that? Could that be phrased better? I can’t think of anything I’ve written that I agonized over more. I wanted people to understand, not just be angry or knee-jerk, but really get why what happened happened. It wasn’t because we didn’t care, but maybe because we cared too much. SLCC was always complicated that way. I’m sorry.

SHAWNA

Striped yellow and black, a creature crawled onto the warm ledge. She shivered, as if with pleasure and unfurled her wings to the breeze. Her feet held tight as the ledge moved violently, and strong air currents buffeted her. Finally, the gentle breeze returned. The ledge stopped shaking, and sanity returned to her world. The delicate creature eagerly crawled off the ledge, back into the safety of her nest.

A gentle rocking and a loud noise as happened sometimes. The unintelligible noise grew fainter, “What the hell am I going to do about the wasp nest behind my truck mirror?”

RIVEN

RFL Campsite — The Steelhead Salmons, 2012

She turned her radiation therapy tattoos into a game. Connect the dots.

Four birds played major roles, all locked within their cage as she was locked within these walls.

The robin spoke of hope, but she could see his breast was red like hers.
The cardinal prayed and reassured her none of this was punishment for sins.
Two mocking jays dispensed advice, discussed her past mistakes and loudly squawked out clues.

A busy squad of shining robots kept her warm and clean, her faithful golden caretakers.

Above them all, the black cat stared and waited for the game to end.

Haley

Second life friendships are an ever changing stream of loves. Love
for your best girl friend….. love for your queendom and for your partner.
love for your relay team ,for your many many best friends.
the . loss…… is like a empty stage with the scenery
still there. …… as friends fall in love …..get married .
AS REAL LIFE RAMPS UP
in good and bad ways …….
they fade away and my second life is
never the same
I AM happy for them but will miss them always
.this is dedicated to the ones that stay ..they are the jewels in my
CROWN

UNCAS

The wizard of the village said the world will end at sunrise. So tonight we dance, play and remember how this world is amazing, beautiful and full of wonders and tell ourselves that next time we will love it more. But the sun came up. So we did it again on the following night. Sun came up again. And again and again. It’s a small village lost in the forests of Hungary,we have been doing is for over 3000 years, waiting patiently. When we meet in the morning we say “It’s tomorrow the end; today… have a good life”

AMBER

Just a few more clicks and she would be finished. Vacuous blue eyes stared back at her underneath a cute upturned nose at just the right angle.

The mouth was a pout with just a hint of a smile …Perfect! She adjusted her hair placing the tendrils framing the face.

Clothes next: jeans,t shirt and sneakers twisting and turning examined from all angles..Yes looked OK.

“This way ! Come on!”

Is he talking to me? “ How ?”

Slowly she tottered along walking in a straight line was not so easy. Already he was a blur in the distance .

An addiction was born.

PRAD

I woke up this morning, and lay in bed pondering life. It’s a strange, bizarre world which is constantly moving, yet nothing ever really changes. Then, I realise that life isn’t about the various things in the world that we live in. It’s about creating ourselves.

People were created to be loved. Things were created to be used. The reason the world is in chaos, is because things are being loved, and people are being used.

So then I got out of bed, and smiled at everyone I saw that day. And stopped caring about the materialistic things in life.

ATGET

He stood by the cathedral. Things around him weren’t the same. It took him some time to understand what was happening. He had gone to the past achieving his dream. Time travel. He felt euphoric and decided to sit in a cafe . Looking at the people going by, he drunk and thought to himself how easy things were going to be ,yes!! . From behind the columns, two men, in military clothes walked towards him. Sir, the War has started, you have to come with us. He was drafted, and boy, you bet his life was certainly going to change now!!.

DIONYSUS

Praise Dirt

Life? Still a mystery.

In the beginning, we got together Fridays, and He talked, whatever came to Mind. Something to do. That’s where eating and drinking came from.

This time, He started about how He came up with it — the Crown, the telos, all that. Never thought of us as life.

Said He had all this dirt, rocks, water, etc. etc. etc., and He thought, It all wants to go somewhere meaningful.

We didn’t get it either.

But we were throwing rocks in the lake next morning, and Lucifer skipped this rock about a thousand times, and said, Praise dirt.

Speculation

One of my three grandfathers approached life as speculation — he speculated in oil, in land, in hogs, in securities, and even in women, which partly explains why I had three grandfathers.

One early morning I found him on the shore of Batousis Lake, going to run his lines with his brother-in-law.

We were both hard drinkers in our younger lives, and I happened to be there after a night of carousing.

My grandfather hardly noticed me. He said, What are you doing here?, pushed out onto the lake, and left me standing there, speculating, as I still am.

NATASHA

The night had been tremendous. Apart from drinking and laughing , he couldn’t remember a thing . The bathroom tiles were cold and dirty. The light fought to penetrate the rotten ambience. A mirror on the wall hung from a rope. He washed his hands and stared at the face reflected in the mirror seeing a stranger. He jumped back and fell to the ground closing his eyes. He breathed in and out quickly. From the other side of the door he heard a knocking. Hello? Are you OK Son? It was his mother, suddenly he remembered everything. Oh what a life!!

PAM

The old man was heartbroken watching what his granddaughter went through;
Loss of hair, daily injections, chemo, missing school – all she had to endure;
Grieving and desperate, he prayed;
All his choices carefully weighed;
Take me lord instead of her;
My decisions made – I’m absolutely sure;
This child’s life has just begun;
While for me – well, mine is almost done;
After a few months, healthy and cancer-free;
She watched them bury her grandfather in the cemetery;
And within the year, her grandmother was also gone;
For you see, the price of this life was actually two for one.

AMALIA

Life is a blink of the eye. A moment on a cosmic clock. Humans are dawdlers and as such they miss the best of life. The smile. The happy tears. The giggle of a child at play. Humans are plugged in, logged on, connected. To machines. Not to each other. Afraid to touch or feel, unless it’s the click of a cursor or the push of a button. And when it’s over, it’s too late to go back and start over. The moments are lost, gone like wispy tails of a dandelion blown into the wind. Scattered over the landscape.
**

Next week’s challenge suggestion: looking down the well

I don’t have a recording of this but would be pleased if it’s read by someone.

ISAAC’S MIND and SHARON LEE

THE FIRST THING THEY told him when he emerged from the catastrophic healing unit was that his wife had died in the accident.

The second thing they told him was that her Clan was pursuing retribution to the fullest extent of the Code.

They left him alone, then, the med techs, with instructions to eat and rest. The door slid closed behind them with the snap of a lock engaging.

Out of a habit of obedience, he walked over to the table and lifted the cover from the tray. The aroma of glys-blossom tea rose to greet him

PAMALA

Stretching and deep breathing, I awake from a confusing dream to face, the comforts of my familiar room.

Yeah! Another dawn on the shadows of reality, as my life spins the plot of my thoughts and desires.

Life’s new day, is jiggling me awake with the promise of a new canvas to paint my creativity and vision upon.

Give me this life. The joys, the pain, the drama, triumphs, the anguish… all emotions comfort me, that I am indeed alive.

The fragility of life is its value, even if getting up is the biggest hurdle of the day. Transitions suck!

STEVEN THE NUCLEAR MAN

I was fifteen when I first saw a woman naked. My older girlfriend, in her bathtub, holding a bottle of wine.

She took a long gulp of the wine and threw her one-month chip at me. She smashed the bottle against the porcelain, red rivulets of fermented grape running across her pale skin. She threatened to slit her wrists with the glass.

She’d taught me that mayonnaise in cookies kept them soft. Soft like her lips, not like her fists hitting me when she tried to leave before help arrived.

Later, she thanked me.

Wine and flesh and soft cookies.

ANIMA ZABALETA

Get a Life! Jill sneered.
So I looked.
Hmmm… Costco…. bulk purchase… multiple personality. Un-uh.
IKEA? The designs are clean and simple. The assembly instructions are maddening. Do I want a life just like my trendy neighbors?
A Harley life has appeal, all loud and rumbly, but WOW that price tag!!
Hey, look at this… Here’s something on Craigslist. It’s not quite what I’m after, but close enough, gently worn and the price is right – CHEAP.
Think you could give a ride to check it out? I’ve been couch surfing at Sylvia’s, just until the band gets going, you know…

SELINA GREENE

Dignity

I view your profile, your avi glamorous as ever.

Offline.

You reserved your temper for those medical incompetents but to us, you were translucent and shimmering, already at peace. You stayed home for your girls, refusing opiates, in a wretched race against rupture to make it to your send-off party. And the very next morning, it all came down to a hundred capsules, a little apple sauce and the arms of those who love you, easing you away from pain and from us. In death, as in life, you went on your own terms.

For that, I am grateful.

(In remembrance of Sandy – one of the bravest people I’ve ever known.)

SCOTT

I was sitting in the comfy medical grade barcalounger watching her administer the chemo when the nurse saw my traitor of a tear.

“Sometimes its the biggest guys who crack a little,” she offered, along a stuffed bear.

I was not ashamed to admit that I clung to that bear when the sludge she pumped into my vein made me so sick I forgot I was doing this to keep living and wished for death.

I named her Mrs. Parker, keeping her on a shelf to remind me that I could stare down any fresh hell life wanted to present.

ESHI

God took a liking in Wendy because He felt He did a great job putting her facial features together. Also because
she laughed with such reverberance it would make His heart skip from infectuous joy. She was to be fortunate.

“What do you wish to be when you grow up?” – He asked.
Wendy looked up, squinted and wrinkled up her nose – “I wish … I wish to be wise!”

God’s heart started breaking as He ordered a nerve cell right above Wendy’s left adrenal to initiate
Neuroblastoma.

“Wisdom AND Fortune would have been too much.” – He comforted Himself.

SNIGDHA

For the past many years my life had consisted of the following: get dressed in the latest trending outfits from Prada , Gucci, Louis-Vuitton, Chanel. Get up in my luxury penthouse or in a suite in the Plaza or Ritz. Enjoy the best of everything that my talent fuelled.
But all this was about to change. A new species had crept into this world of extravagance. It was a species that wore faded jeans, ate doritos and lounged on the couch, bent over from hours of TV viewing.
Survival of the laziest: that was the new norm for the living.

DAISY MAE MAE

battle with uterus cancer

in march eight years ago..doctor told me when they were doing a some surgery they found some bad cells and it was stage two uterus cancer. i went in for surgery on the may the sixteenth

came close to deaths door..so i’m so glad i live to tell my story and to give other strength to deal with the battle..istill got to watch because i’m a care of the gene ..so i take one day at a time keep on fighting the battle

WHISKEY

Two hundred twenty. Two hundred twenty-one. Two hundred twenty-two. Two hundred twenty-three road signs since the last question. Quiet is a precious commodity, purchased with answers.

“What did you do when you were my age?” she asked with her cheek pressed to the window.

“Did you like middle school?” she wondered from the back seat.

One. Two. Three. Four. Sixty-two phone poles.

“How many books have you read? Like, millions, you think?” she mused, twirling her hair around her finger.

One. Two. Three. Thirty-eight exit signs.

“When we get there, will you hold my hand?” she whispered. “Are you scared, too?”

HOPE

Life is worth living even on the days you think it’s not! In the end when it comes the wave of triumphs through your challenges will be the light that defines you. The magic key to a successfull life is patience, persistence and personal self love. When you have these three P’s life will become clearer.

Or just say “Fuck You Life” and just not think about it. My “fuck you” stage is starting on its course. I’m learning that without the real risks there are never rewards. Jump in and gamble, you are only going to remember this life.

FELINE

I sit in the echoing Library of Life, pulling volumes from the dusty shelves.

His book is filled with cramped handwriting, like he wanted to fit extra words on every page. One passage makes me blush, and I reshelve the book.

Her book is a series of sketches. I smile when I recognize that coffeeshop in New York.

The next book is only half-filled, the text stopping mid-sentence. I wipe away a tear and slip the book back onto its place.

What about yours? Are you writing? Drawing? Tearing the pages? What will you contribute to the Library of Life?

KATFANCY

Ellie drove her neighbor, Rose, to and from the hospital daily for radiation therapy. The doctors caught the cancer early, so she had a good chance of surviving. Several months passed when Rose told Ellie she was now cancer-free. Ellie noticed that Rose was full of life, but she felt her own health deteriorating. She was uninsured and afraid of medical bills she could never pay off. Seeing Rose happy made Ellie finally get a checkup, but it was too late. Stage IV and no treatment improved her health. She passed away in bed as Rose cried next to her.

TISH CORONET

My father liked clocks. He would passionately explain what he’d done to get uncle’s souvenir cuckoo clock going again. It was mostly dirt, and he gave all those crusty gears the same bath. But he’d check for other problems as well. The tiniest thing could bring the whole mechanism to a halt just like that.
Like the tiny fibre he picked up fifty years ago, on his knees, carving tiles, carving out a living. He carried that bit of asbestos with him all his working life. Just after retirement it brought his whole mechanism to a halt. Just like that.

SARAH

The guardbot prodded Tressa in the ribs. “Step into the transport, Prisoner 5386U.”

Wincing, Tressa obeyed. The transport pod’s door slid shut. Tressa’s heart pounded and her secured hands grew slick with sweat. She closed her eyes and thought of her “happy place,” the rolling hills of her childhood.

The pod landed with a thud. The door slid back and flooded the pod with bright sunlight. Tressa blinked until her eyes adjusted.

“Welcome to Penal Colony 56,” the guardbot droned.

Verdant fields spread before her. Women in jumpsuits like hers labored amidst the greenery, unfettered by chains.

Tressa smiled.

SHINIGAMI KAYO

Sitting on the edge of the bed, the morning sun bathing the room. I could feel the heat already and knew this day would be a cooker; but my attention as always was elsewhere. The ideas and plans I would line up that gave me a sense of purpose would of course never be started. I needed to organize them in my head, pretending all was still normal. Depression is not about being lazy. Only unmotivated. Empty. You spend too much time here, unmotivated becomes a lifestyle. So if I speak to God sometimes, its because I am lonely; not necessarily salvation.

ALEX HAYDEN

He knew he was wearing a huge grin on his face, but he didn’t care.

He was in the moment.

He watched her sleep. How many times had his friends told him about this? More than he could count. He hadn’t believed any of them at the time.

Not now though.

He could feel his eyes begin to well up with tears, but again he didn’t care. He was happy. If he did nothing else in his life, he knew today he had done something worthwhile.

He gently stroked her face. And in her sleep his newborn daughter sighed contentedly.

ISHTAR

This time of year is very special to me. Behind the camera I see everything.

On that dark desert highway I see a light in the dark. A smile.

Others have asked “Why take photos in a virtual world, none of it is real.”

Through the camera I see the only real answer. I see the emotions, creativity, the passage of time”

Crying and Loss, Tears, Joy, Laughter.

“The people are real, their stories should be told, there not living it up in the “Hotel California”.

Then I take the shot. Click. I am a photographer, It’s what I do.

LOGAN BERRY

Jeremiah was a bullfrog who had recently taken to hiding in the far corner of the swamp behind a slimy green stone and protected by a canopy of bulrushes. Jeremiah was afraid of croaking.

The Green Angel appeared to him while he slept and gave him three choices: “Would you rather live and die, have never been born at all, or die and live forever?”

Jeremiah loved life and trusted the Green Angel, so when he awoke from his bullfrog dream, he climbed to the top of the slimy green stone, took a deep bullfrog breath, and croaked.

CICADETTA

She poked her long, slender beak into a long, slender blossom. “What are you doing?” the quivering petals seemed to ask.

“Babies are hungry. Gotta go!” The green bird zipped off with a sonic boom. Actually, it was a hum, but such flowers are really quite sensitive.

A few minutes later, the bird was back for more. “You know,” said the blossom, “I just feed my babies through my roots, if I have to. It’s much easier.”

“Yes, well,” the bird replied between gulps, “we all gotta live somehow.”

As the bird zipped off, the vine casually dropped a seedpod.

SEAN MCPHERSON

“Voice chat?” I said derisively. “I don’t have any interest. Besides, I sound like I’m 12. And no one needs to hear my voice. I’ve been communicating through a keyboard since I was 5. I don’t have to worry about the dog sitting on my feet and making me say something in a silly voice like “That’s a good girl!” Plus, I don’t want to worry about someone from work calling where I have to think about privacy. Why should I ever use voice for anything to do with SL?”
“It’s for Relay for Life” she said.
“Consider it done.”

BROKALI

When the judge said the word I couldn’t help but ponder it at length, before commenting for all to hear. “James David Prakter you are hereby sentenced to life without the possibility of parole,” she said. Why use the word life? I pondered. After all what she just said sounded much more like death. I’d never have sweet potato pie again, or make love to my wife. I’d never cry or laugh at a movie while sipping soda and eating popcorn. All this punishment because I killed an intruder escaping from my home, how is this justice? Thanks. I said.

REDGODDESS

(No text sent)

HUGH

He found a likely corner and put on the little red hat. It was kind of a cliche, but people expected it. He set up the bucket and rang the bell. Somewhere time ticked by. One more coin, he promised himself. Then, he could get out of the cold. Someone tried to dip their hand in the bucket. He couldn’t have that, So he ran out and jumped on the thief’s head. There was a satisfying bop. Somewhere, a chime rang. That made a hundred coins. Which meant an extra life. The Save a Princess Foundation was finally getting somewhere.

LANDON

I remember my savior, someone I looked up to for making me a better person. I was bullied quite often as a child– physically and verbally. This person stood in their way and protected me, and taught me how to protect myself. She brought me to the world of charity fundraising and allowed me to coordinate my own carnival to raise money for the American Cancer Society. We raised over 3000 dollars together. My savior was Sheryl Ferguson, my 4th grade teacher, and her efforts will never be forgotten. I was honored to be able to give my teacher Teacher of the Year Award, awarded by the State of Ohio, just three months before she died.

TARALYN

A Second of Your Life

There have been several times when I have wondered, is life worth living. If you let yourself lose track of how beautiful nature is, and how amazing it is to smell a flower and only focus on the pain you are feeling, the answer can easily be no it isn’t. Someone told me you choose to be happy, and in the scheme of life the crap you are feeling is but a second of it. So when you get those thoughts during a bad time, tell yourself. ….I can make it through this second of my life, it’s worth it.

STRAWBERRY

I was raised to always live my life for others, to give as much as I
can and sacrifice for the sake of my family. Until recently, I was
pretty content with that situation.

Lately though, I’ve been starting to feel a bit trapped. Why should I
feel guilt or regret for going after my own desires? Why should I not
be able to live my life, for myself?

Am I being disloyal, disrespectful or ungrateful? Whose life am I
living anyways? Mine, or theirs?

Is it my fault I’ve ended up this way?

It is my life after all.

SARAH

Sometimes, when things are bad, I pray. That might seem trite, but I figure if God put me here He can at least listen to the crap I am going through. I usually imagine Jesus sitting in my kitchen (barefoot, robes, full beard and all) eating a peanut butter sandwich. He’s just eating and sort of cocking an eyebrow at me while I rant. When I’m done, I imagine he licks his fingers, hops off the counter, hugs me and whispers “I love you.” And suddenly, it all seems better. Maybe it’s childish, but it stops the aching in my chest.

ALEXANDRA

My life is not a story, nor is it entertaining. Yet, it is real. A huge part of my life is Relay for LIfe. Relay for Life has heavily impacted my life. Because of this, I dedicate a great deal of my personal time. Many do not understand the intensity of this. Relay for life has a real meaning. A Cause!
I relay for those fighting, those that will fight, and that no one ever has to make that fight again!
I relay for everyone; your friends, loved ones, neighbors, co-workers, acquaintances, and mine, too. I relay for you. I relay for me. I Relay For Life!

CELESTIALL NIGHTFIRE

As a small child I was fascinated by my father’s hair. My father had a full head of nearly black hair.
Until, he showed signs of aging. First, there was a touch of grey at the temples, and then salt and pepper colored hair covered his head. Finally, all white hair.
Last month my mother called to say, “Your father still has a full head of hair. Most men his age don’t even have hair, and after two years of chemo and radiation, your father still has all of his hair”.
I was smiling, as my mother disconnected the call.

Dr. Evealine heard the HG’s signal and realized…”Too far back, I’m unraveling too far, MUCH TOO FAR!”
Five years passed before Dr. Eve conceded that she was beyond the known Time-Strand, and there was no way to Rewind the HG’s pod. This Unravel had deposited Dr. Eve into a glorious garden of peace and plenty. In another 300 years, Eve realized exactly where. Despite not aging or suffering, the realization was not joyful. Everyone she loved would cease to be.
In direct opposition to the first 32 years of her life, Eve now spent her time looking for…a Man. Just…one…Man.

Live ansible feeds showed the Exo-Planetary Sci-Lab’s unauthorized experiments. My instructions: Terminate any life-forms created in the Copy Lab.
Three hours later, all live specimens were destroyed. The Copy Lab Synthesizer was all that remained. My hand had barely touched the Synthesizer, when I felt the jolt. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him. We both stared, and I saw the cut from my morning shave…on his face. “My name’s David”, I said. He replied, “My name’s David, so let’s pronounce your name… DaVID”.
Our ship ascended, David glanced over, nodded, and I fired the Destroyer Blast.

The package said, “Miracle Seeds”. “Guaranteed to Grow, Like Magic!”
Radiation Suit on, Richard climbed up to the hatch, and stepped into The Desert.
As Richard pulled open the package, a sudden wind knocked him to the ground, and swept away the seeds.
Next day, the hatch would not open. Nor, would it open any other day.
Over time, the seeds were forgotten. One morning, voices from the hatch, startled Richard.
“We‘ve found The Jungle epicenter!” “25 years of growth….oh, bring a chainsaw, I see an old shelter. “
Radiation Suit on, Richard stepped from the hatch, into The Jungle.

Jackson looked at the scene. House split in two by a tree, and the family’s cat killed. Man’s wife had survived, but still, bad luck for this Butch guy.
“Hey Butch, looks like 2012 is not your lucky year, but I’ll bet 2013 will be great”. Jackson thought it helpful to say something positive to those with bad luck.
Butch paused, and thought back three years to his colon cancer diagnosis, colostomy bag, being bed-ridden. May of 2012, he was cancer free and ran the Mini-Marathon with his oldest son. “Actually”, Butch said, “2012 is a lucky year for me.”

DANNY

I like tacos, and you like burritos, lets get together and make chimichangas. This is our mexican food love story. Run! Run! Run! Poliocia! Run for the bell; Taco bell. Thats were our love is safe. Thats were our love is sacred. Extra taco seasoning, extra chipotle sauce, extra love salsa. girl your so spicy, like
my favorite jalapeño. Cola in a glass bottle, open the top and lets float away in the fizz bubbles, just you and me. And we can eat tacos and burritos, and maybe even chimichangas until the night turns to a sunrise fiesta. Good times

PRETTYKITTY GUMBO

Why I Relay

I relay for the wonderful friends who have touched my life, who are fighting this horrible disease… For my dear friend Theresa, who had a huge smile, even when hopelessly sick. A hurricane badly damaged my home, and we could not get a contractor. Another Hurricane lurked, off-shore, and I declined help, not wanting to burden people who had problems of their own. A car pulled up, filled with Theresa, her Husband, tar paper, and tools. Despite the heat, Theresa worked on that roof with the men. I will NEVER forget the spirit and love of our friends!

I Pray for A Cure To Cancer

SHANDON

A rubber ball, two screw eyelets, a broken toilet brush. Did I say broken? There are NO bristles at all! Why would I want that? Tom Sawyer and Nancy Drew.. First Edition?? Nah. Since eBay no more first editions. Aaaagggghhhh!! My ears!! Quit pinching him!! What is that smell? Seven days ago I saw her ride up on that flaming yellow bicycle with the flowery basket. She spoke to me, not a long conversation, Hello. Sorry about your foot. But she spoke. To ME! Seven days ago. Haven’t seen her since. Every Tuesday at the thrift shop – Hope springs eternal.

DIRK

Each star is the soul of one departed
A bell sings out, an angel receives wings
One close takes a new path where I cannot see
Have they ceased to be?

No…

While the light of their face shines for me
their voice echos in my ears
their memories fill my heart

… they are here.

I travel my own road, but always feel them close
They are gone, but not. They will forever live in me

Hurt mellows, tears dry.
Stories shared bring back the smiles
… some day, I, too, will be a memory

For today, I live.

CALEDONIA

It’s on the TV. I can see it. At least it seems so. You’d hardly recognize it, all illuminated RGB Plasma (or something), as what I live every day. I flip over to the Hallmark Channel where there’s yet another sappy movie I don’t want to watch. I flip over to watch a travel show on PBS. My attention wanders from “Salsburg and Halstatt” to the bee buzzing around my strawberries on the deck, the sound of sunset breeze in the poplars next door, the cat happily languishing in a patch of bright sunlight. Life in not on TV.

DANNY

Life is Magi, that awesome Spanish beef, chicken, or vegetable boulion that makes every homemade dish just perfect. Life is the woman you swear undying love for, knowing she will never feel the same about you, but you just go on knowing you had the privlege of mere fleeting moments just standing by her side. Life is spending the weekend with your mother who survived cancer. Life is the pain of losing of your entire lifes work to a faceless corporate bank, only to face the thrill of victory in the Supreme Court.

JAIMY

I have so many emotions going through my head. can’t control how I feel or what I say. I hurt everyone I love, but at the same time I feel like they’re hurting me. I wish this thunderstorm of emotions would just pass, let me free. Sometimes I cry out of nowhere and I laugh when nothings funny. What’s got my world turned upside down, I’m afraid every time I open my mouth I might say something I don’t mean. I worry that I’ll never be the same, never get over my issues. When I get back to normal.

NORVAL JOE

Elbownor sprinted across the field to the castle and skirted the wall to the gates. Owen felt his stomach turn as Spleen, the half-goblin, bolted from the company and followed the elf, running at times on all-fours. Elbownor turned and waved the company to come, even before the goblin shot past him, through the open gates.
“Such a horrible loss of life,” Shareeka said as the company joined the elf. Countless rotting bodies littered the narrow streets of the city.
“But why?” Owen asked.
Spleen trotted back around a corner, wiped his mouth and said, “I’ve found one still alive.”

DANN

Maine: The way LIFE should be.
It was sad to watch everyone. Because no one wanted to be sad. They wanted to be normal. Regular. They wanted today to be a regular July 14th, just like 2011, 1992, 1985, when cabins 2 and 9 and the rest paid their bill and went back to Virginia, New York, Massachusetts, wherever was on their license plates.
But for two weeks every July they’re from Maine.
Maine means four pm cocktails on the beach. Maine means a floating cooler in the middle of the lake. People show up and a Fire happens. It’s what they do. I mean did.

MATTHEW

“Holy Jesus!” Carla said. “What is that thing?”

“It’s life,” Fred said. “I just made it.”

“That’s the creepiest shit I’ve ever seen! It’s got, like, toes around its mouth!”

“I don’t think that’s its mouth.”

“You don’t know?”

“I just followed the directions on the box, see?”

“This is a box of macaroni and cheese.”

“What? Oh. I guess it didn’t come out right.

“Didn’t come . . .? You’ve attained whole new levels of fucking up mac and cheese!”

“The milk was expired.”

“How expired?”

“Thirty seven years.”

Carla stared at Fred.

“I found it,” he said, answering her unspoken question.

TURA

We reinitialised Robbie today. Strange how a robot can work fine for years, then one day it just goes “ur-ur-ur” and you have to wipe its brain and start over.

Sometimes it happens to people. Crackpots, conspiracy theorists, alien abductees.

And then, some just go on getting better. I met this robot in India once, the locals treated it like a saint, and I couldn’t say it wasn’t. It was doing more for them than any stone statue, and all their offerings went into upgrades.

I reckon that life, you’re born with, but a soul you have to work for.

SALOME

Life’s Defense

It began with the nothing from which all somethings grow.

I was there, vulnerable, germinating. I crept into your dreamery and took what was mine to take; left what was yours to bear.

You walked with me; breathed me in. The fear and beauty. The eternity of every lonesome moment, the ecstasy of each acquiescent howl.

So you invented hope and you invented light. Metrics to account for me. The slow precious pulse. The beat. The beat. The beat.

I am not against you. I have never been against you. I am just the nothing from which all somethings grow.

PLANET Z

Sure, the commercial showed Mikey eating Life cereal, but when the director yelled “CUT!” and the cameras stopped, Mikey ran to the back of the set, stuck his finger down his throat, and vomited.

“Can’t I eat Cheerios?” he asked. “I like those.”

“No,” said the director. “Cheerios are round. Life is squares.”

Mikey whined for a bit, and his mother shook him until he stopped.

Ten takes later, the director shouted “THAT’S A WRAP!” and everybody heaved a sigh of relief.

Mikey heaved up his stomach’s contents back into the bowl, and forced one of the other kids to eat it.

Weekly Challenge #324 – Rain

Welcome to the 100 Word Stories podcast at podcasting.isfullofcrap.com. I’m your host, Laurence Simon.

This is Weekly Challenge Number Three Hundred and Twenty-Four, 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 rain.

And we’ve got stories by a lot of people:

And if you want to spam your social networks with this episode, use the Share buttons at the end of the post… this obligatory cat photo should help make the Internet go faster:

TOM

It seemed like a good idea at the time. It’s likely they’ll put that on my tombstone. After all we were in Hawaii and the hike/climb to the top of the volcano was rated gentle to moderate. How many chances do you get to go to the rainiest point on the planet? The first 90% was more a fire road. Now the last bit was as bit more tricky. First rocks, then wet rocks, and finally like sitting inside a vaporizer. Just before reaching the top a pair of slime covered hikers passed.

THOMAS

In nearby Forks, Washington, the rain is measured in feet. The average about ten feet a year. Folks there are moldy and smell like damp dog fur. The people are plain, unassuming, country folk that work in lumber and the nearby corrections center. They also pick the wood’s floor clean of morel mushrooms. Forks is the wettest place in the United States. Flooding is so common there, many new homes are built on stilts, and they are all made in such a way, that they can cast off and float, uncoupling quickly from their utilities with special connectors and fasteners.

The game rained out. When it comes to sports, Fran Lebowitz said that she was not particularly interested. Generally speaking, she looked upon them as dangerous and tiring activities performed by people with whom she shared nothing except the right to trial by jury. I agree. The cancelled game was no loss to me, but a big disappointment to the gang at the tavern. They got together to buy combustibles, and burned down the old coffee shop, next door. At this time of day, they were drunk, and they had to find another diversion for the rest of the weekend.

When it rains, it pours. A spate of bad luck put Cameron in a funk. He failed his bar exam for the third time, with an even lower score, and his encounter with Jezabeth–by talking about himself through the date, and texting while she tried to make conversation. He made up his mind that blind dates and dating services were bunk. They took time away from his drinking and telephone conversations. Cameron failed his second speed date by getting to the restaurant early and drinking so much wine that he dozed off twice as the waitress took their order.

ZACKMANN

On a rainy day My teacher Corky, yes this was in tech school therefore many teachers had first names, told me how he was shorter than he should be because he grew up in Minnesota and three fourths of the time he walked with his head down to avoid the rain, sleet, and snow.
This somewhat confused me since I grew up in Minnesota too and grew to almost six feet tall.
Later, I found out that my former teacher was really a very tall elf who came to our realm to study science since his world was losing magic.

SHRUTI

The Dragon Slayer

The mud had turned to slush and the town was still far away. The dragon’s head was getting heavier by the minute.

He would need a change of clothes before he presented himself in the king’s court. He was drenched down to his underwear.

Like all good fairytales, the king had promised him farmlands and the choice of any girl in the kingdom to be his wife.

This would prove to them why his books were more precious than swords and gold.

After all, the 74 royal knights before him hadn’t figured that dragon’s couldn’t breathe fire in the rains.”

Hope you like it! My other stories can be read at the link below

BONCHANCE AND SEVI

After a grand performance to great ovations, Clumsy the Clown emptied his flask of scotch into Pablo’s water dish.

Faint memories of hitching a ride, in the rain, on a truck full of chickens, rolling around in feathers.
He awoke in a strange town near a fire hydrant, covered in feathers.
His head hurt. Pablo felt awful. No more scotch for him, he thought as he drifted back to sleep.

A few hours later, a vision appeared in front of him.
Espi, his best friend who had moved miles away, was looking disapprovingly down at him and shaking her head.

RAILS

Deep in the recess of my mind, where the dust gathers in silent piles, where distant memories evade the light and refuse to come forth to be relived lives a silent corner, where all the horrors hide.

Its darker than the deepest coal mine, its silent, a place where even I dare not tread. Boxes of Horrific memories are stacked, each one sealed, never to be opened.

As time passes more dust gathers, burying the horrors of a life lived.

The thunderstorms of my mind cannot wash away those horrors, the seals prevent cleansing rain entering the dark haunting places.

SERENDIPIDY

It courses down my face, soaking me through; clothes clinging to my skin.

The cold rain rouses me, causing me to shiver, to remember who I am and how I came to be here.

Both the feeling and the thoughts are deeply unpleasant.

Yet the relentless rain cleanses and purifies me – washing away the horror of what I have done.

Through rain-streaked vision, I watch each ruby drop fall from the tip of the knife, tainting the swirling eddies at my feet, then swept away into darkness, like the lives of my victims.

Revitalised, I return to my task.

PAM

Jen leaned back in her office chair glancing out the window at the rain running in the gutter. Sure enough, it was falling so hard it was only a matter of time before . . . minutes later, she was being led to a basement by a woman who was definitely not happy. The Roto-Rooter guy was already there – a guy she’d known all her life. He had dated her best friend. Funny how one day you’re young and out causing trouble on a Saturday night and next thing you know you’re middle aged and standing in the middle of sewage.

Jack took a drag on his cigarette as he walked up. “Hey, some rain last night, huh?” He glanced out over the basin, “It was so bad, looks like most people stayed home and had some fun.” Joe followed Jack’s gaze over the tank. Hundreds of rubbers bobbed up and down blown up like balloons among all the bubbles on top of the aeration bay.

“Yeah, damn rubbers. Do ya think people ever consider what happens to em after flushing em down the toilet?”

“Nah, are you kidding?! Come on – I’m hungry, let’s go eat lunch.”

MUNSI

Milli Vanilli sang that you should blame things on the rain.

I’d thought this was a cop-out, a way of avoiding responsibility.

But as I’ve grown, I’ve realized they’re right. Some things in life are beyond your control, they happen TO you, not because of you.

And at times like that, the best you can do is blame it on the rain and hope for better next time.

Though I can’t help wondering…

Stripped of their Grammy, tour cancelled, Milli Vanilli were the laughingstock of the music industry. A punchline, forevermore.

On that day, who or what did they blame?

RICH

He heard them that day and took their command to heart.

From the time he was old enough to be enlightened to the social structure he worked to establish his position. Moving from his humble beginnings as a lowly serf to the time when he ruled all he surveyed he was able to establish his position in the hierarchy. He commanded armies, debated politicians, collected taxes and heard the platitudes of his court.

One morning as he rose from slumber he heard his queen from the window exclaim, “Sigh. Rain again.” It was then that he realized his earlier misunderstanding.

LIZZIE

Drip, drip. It was difficult to walk on one leg. Fortunately Lord Heavenly had chopped John’s leg, not his life. John crossed the patio and searched for the gold coin. It was not under the vegetable cart or the empty wine barrels in front of Wimpey’s den. He searched everywhere. He would buy a nice sword, he thought, lusting for the gold. Soaked and impatient, he suddenly slipped and fell against an abandoned sickle. It dropped violently. Well, now he had done it, John thought. Drip. And he didn’t even remember anymore why Lord Heavenly had chopped his other leg.

TURA

God, what was I supposed to do with the giant lizards? No way would they fit on board. And about the unicorns, sorry, but after forty days and forty nights we’d run out of food. Tasted of horse, if you want to know. You ask me, we’re better off without. Wicked temper and a big dagger on their heads.

If you want them, why don’t you just make some more? You can’t, can you? Well, well, how are the mighty fallen. Created all of this in six days and now you can’t do any more than piss on us all.

SNIGDHA NAUTIYAL

The strain of a cloudy day was beginning to take its toll on him.

A headache wandered along his mind’s edges; it was terrible to be walking down the street at this godawful early morning hour, under the vestiges of last night’s abundant alcoholic intoxication.

He made his way over to his favourite tea-stall; climbed onto the bench in his regular corner. The little boy who acted as server there brought him a cup of weak, thinly composed tea with biscuits.

Close by, a group of people played carom. It was that sort of day.

Soon, it began to rain.

GUY DAVID

The last of the Porcupine Caribou waded through the snow. The hunter pushed on, already thinking about the money this stuffed animal would bring him. He could see it in the distance, a brownish white spot on the spot white snow. He just had to get closer, within shooting range. He moved stealthily and quietly until he could almost smell the prey. Suddenly, the reindeer looked up, his eyes intelligent and sad. A shot was heard and the hunter fell dead to the snow. The protector smiled, walked to his beloved pet and gave it a rubbing behind the ear.

AUSTIN

Droplets of water plinked off the cold windows of my house. A knock on the door gave reason for father to answer. As the door swung open, a man humbly asked for shelter. Being Christians, we couldn’t say no. He stayed in my room. I slept in the basement, it’s door had a cross painted with lambs blood, so to speak, and the stranger was the angel of death. That night, the stranger stumbled silently from room to room. Each time, his knife became bloodier. My mission “given” to the man was complete. I could eat my cookies in peace.

STEVEN THE NUCLEAR MAN

My mother’s hand slicked back my wet hair. I fidgeted in the damp polyester suit. “Rain is when God is crying,” she told me, as I watched my father’s casket lowered into the ground. My tears mingled with God’s.

Now I watch from outside the League’s satellite. I watch the normals slaughter each other. The suited UN politicians argue whether to chastise genocide. The spandex-suited heroes of the League debate whether to intervene at all. My tears boil away in vacuum before they join the rain.

Enough tears.

My tears may not reach the Earth’s surface.

My heat vision will.

REDGODDESS

April triggers more than pouring rain in the city. There is a flurry of work projects and birthday celebrations, including Lola’s. She purposely doesn’t share her birth date unless someone asks directly. She does not like surprise parties. Today, she visits a French bakery for her favorite hotel guest. Standing in front of the glass counter, Lola’s eyes widen at the sight of the sugar painted wonders. A double layered velvet chocolate cake suits her dessert loving guest so perfectly. As the cashier hands her the boxed cake, Lola suddenly realizes, she did not eat cake on her last birthday.

CLIFF

Sheets. Buckets. Cats and dogs. There are a thousand terms for rain. It can come in the light annoying mist that turns your windshield translucent. It can come in huge driving drops that batter you as you dash from car to house. There’s the needle sharp rain that penetrates no matter how tight you pull your coat. And of course, there’s the gentle soaking rain that feeds the ground and grows the crops. I remember all of them. Back when we had rain. And crops. Back before the sky burned and the ground died. Back when we still had hope.

DIONYSUS

The rain shower approached through the wood with a slight rustle of leaves, some huge but invisible beast. Darkness — a second primeval power — had fallen around the two children, wrapping them in its thick embrace. The mysterious beast and night approaching they huddled together beneath the fallen tree, each clinging more tightly to the small security of the other. The dense coagulating smell of rot held them immobile, and with each drop from the gaping maw they trembled. The older one, the girl, whispered childish, incomprehensible syllables, which did not soothe. The dark chthonic drops pulled them, always down, into the earth.

DANNY

A group of friends steal the sneaker off a drunk friend, jumping on a subway train, abandoning him on the platform miles away from his home. Drunk, he stumbles right off the platform onto the tracks, falling onto the 3rd rail, where he is electrocuted to death. His friends return home to his mother with the sneaker they stole from him, stating he refused to leave the platform, never revealing the prank they pulled. 3 days later, after searching for her son, Mom learns the truth, and swears to rain hell on the friends whose actions led to his grizzly death.

NORVAL JOE

Crouched in the edge of the pine forest the company peered across cultivated fields at the walls of the city.
Wind blew at their backs and shook the tops of the tall trees. Pine needles dropped on them like rain.
“Why are we hiding and watching the city? Why don’t we just go in?” Owen whispered to the ranger.
“Something’s wrong, Owen. There should be guards walking the walls,” Traveler said.
The wind shifted directions and blew at them from the city. A stench of rotted flesh overwhelmed the company. Only the half-goblin was unaffected.
“Smells like dinnertime,” Spleen hissed.

PLANET Z

Heat shielding tiles came loose from the space shuttle, causing the vehicle to burn up and break apart on re-entry.

Pieces rained down over Texas, and investigators hunted down as many of them as they could.

One piece landed in a lake, and it was found after the drought caused the water level to shrink.

The pieces were reassembled to determine the cause of the failure.

Which, as I said before, was due to the failure of heat shielding tiles.

We glued the thing together, and then shipped it to New York instead of sending one of the remaining shuttles.

Weekly Challenge #323 – Flies

Welcome to the 100 Word Stories podcast at podcasting.isfullofcrap.com. I’m your host, Laurence Simon.

This is Weekly Challenge Number Three Hundred and Twenty-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 flies.

And we’ve got stories by a lot of people:

Thomas
William R. Davis-Kenmore Swipe
Guard 13007
Colonel Terrance
Pam
Chris Munroe
Serendipity Haven
Tom
Guy David
Lizzie Gudkov
Logan Berry
Cliff
Steven the Nuclear Man
Dionysus Clowes
Severina Halostar and Bonchance Longfall
Zackmann
Danny Dwyer
RedGoddess
Norval Joe
Planet Z

And if you want to spam your social networks with this episode, use the Share buttons at the end of the post…

Obligatory cat photo:

The more people see this on Google Plus, Facebook, and Twitter – the more explaining you’ll have to do with your loved ones, coworkers, and parole officers.

THOMAS

Flies, flies, flies. Buzzing, unremitting, everywhere–covering our bodies, thick on our foreheads and cheeks, sucking up the sweat with their sponge-like mouth parts – eating the soil on our bodies, vomiting on the crumbs of food found on us, leaving a micro-swill of human and animal waste in their path. We had been on the big field for hours with no water or food. We kept getting pushed and driven by our tough, androgynous, tyrannical leader. We were knocked down, and pummeled. Eventually, the coach called “showers” and the girl’s middle school soccer team tryouts closed for the day.

Tad’s dad tied fishing flies for relaxation. His most exquisitely tied flies were the soft hackles and spiders, the midge selection, and the traditional wets. We knew that Tad’s father was committed, and often went to extremes to gather materials for his hobby. He liberated all the spools of dental floss in the house, collected squirrel tails, deer hair, pheasant tail, mallard flank, rooster necks and moose body hair from live animals. We had to put a stop to it. He was out of control. His wife was troubled when he snipped some of her red curls as she dozed.

WILLIAM

Her mother and father didn’t suspect, but Hanna Reitsch was an aviatrix. She kept it a secret from her family and her church pastor. In 1941, Adolf Hitler gave this fearless and skilled Luftwaffe Captain the first Iron Cross awarded to a woman for testing a device designed to cut the lines holding barrage balloons. Hanna, standing only 4’7” and weighing 322 pounds, had to fly in a custom cockpit, and her plane’s design was such that a limited amount of fuel was carried in the big Fokker as she landed near Hitler’s bunker, carrying a general to a meeting.

GUARD

I sit down at my computer to write, but amazing how beautiful a thing it is, distractions here, distractions there, I’m stuck at 27% and I miss another week… It’s time for a new plan.

A few weeks later, I’m standing over a shallow grave, surrounded by flies. Hah! He’ll never shovel such a deadline on me again! I .. shovel .. dirt on Laurence Simon, cursing him for .. shoveling .. away my ability to think of good stories and .. shoveling .. the word shovel into my mind.

I go home and wait for a new episode. Wait and Wait, but it never comes.

COLONEL TERRANCE

He was told that his idea flies in the face of everything known about matter and energy. He believed that the particle he isolated would shrink to a point where its density was such that it would weigh so much that it would sink through the earth, overcome gravity on the other side of the world, and continue on, ad infinitum, to the edge of the universe, where it would enter a parallel universe. He listened carefully to what his professors said during his doctoral orals, pondered a moment, and said…”Oh, sorry. You’re probably right.” He left the meeting, crushed.

PAM

The light shone on a tiny blob of clay. A booming voice announced, “Begin!”
Their eyes shall have thousands of lenses yet see little detail;

Their eyes shall have full 360-degree peripheral vision;
They shall feed on decaying flesh;

They shall be a food source for amphibians, birds, and arachnids;
They shall carry hundreds of diseases;

Their larvae shall be able to heal wounds;
They shall live for less than 30 days;

They shall lay thousands of eggs in a lifetime;
They shall have stingers;
Silence ensued. . .
“Counter?”
“Nothing sir.”
“Strike the stinger and send the flies to production. Next.”

MUNSI

HR sent somebody by earlier this week, to quell office discontent.

Davidson? Donaldson? Something like that.

We keep his severed head on a stick now.

We put it there to send a message. We’re no longer an accounts receivable department worried about layoffs, we’re animals. Naked, filthy, claiming the sixth floor as our own, refusing to be moved.

If they send another beast, we’ll kill it.

We’ll smash its head.

We’ll spill its blood.

And I sit among my tribe, upon a throne that once was an office chair, surveying my people like a monarch.

The lord of the files.

SERENDIPIDY

Thank goodness for poetic licence, I say… If language were purely descriptive, the world would be a very strange place!

Take flies…

Consider if house flies really were great, flying, buzzing apartments, or fruit flies took the form of bananas and peaches, (very messy for swatting!). Imagine horse flies, cantering through the summer skies… best watch out for, erm… ‘fall out’!

Of course, damsel flies would be lovely: All flaxen hair and diaphanous gowns; all very demure and pretty, but then again, just imagine the enormous hassle of having to constantly rescue them from gigantic, scaly, fire-breathing… dragon flies!

TOM

Welcome to the 60th Annual Lord of the Flies Island Iron Man. You will note significant rule changes to limit our mortality rate. Last year proved a bit lively and our designated “Piggy”, Norman Bacon, may he rest in peace, succumbed to a spear to the temple. Spear blows are now restricted to arms and legs. The Board has decided to retire our beloved Beelzebub after 20 years of service. The smell from the old sow was inducing projectile vomiting which placed our ESPN contract in jeopardy. Are we ready Jack? Ralph sound the conch. OH No he dropped it.”

GUY

At first, Hitchcock thought about using flies. He worked laboriously for months with a fly trainer before ruling that out. Then he thought about using cats. The cats had other ideas and putting them on telephone poles proved to be a near impossibility. Their inability to fly was also a problem, so he turned his mind to bats. It worked well at first until day time came and the bats decided it was time to go to sleep. He went for a long walk which ended with a bird staining he best vest with bird poop. The rest is history.

LIZZIE

Aim, target locked, shoot. Swoosh. And again. The whole afternoon. That damn tennis ball flew left and right. It was driving the neighbor crazy. Knock, knock. Yes? Can’t you knock it off in there? I’m killing flies. I don’t care; just stop it. Swoosh. Just stop it! Swoosh. Stop the goddamn ball throwing! Silence. The door slid open slowly. Here comes a ball, the neighbor thought, but I’m ready. He focused. A huge fly came through the door… Swoosh. The fly went in the neighbor’s mouth, the ball hit his forehead and the door slammed on his nose. And shot!

LOGAN

Garrett stands completely still as they set the wire on his chest, and he speaks in a normal, steady tone when asked to, in order to test the microphone and reception. “Test, test, test.” He holds out his arms accommodatingly as the heavy mesh vest is slipped over his torso.

He knows he will not survive; he knows it in his heart and soul and toes. Kara will never believe he has returned of his free will–it simply flies in the face of their history, their shared memories of the betrayal and of the lives needlessly lost.

He buttons up his shirt slowly and with concentration, nods to them without meeting their eyes, and leaves.

CLIFF

I was a stupid kid. When I was cross with my cousin for not letting me ride his bike, my grandmother admonished me.
“You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.”
I tested her theory. Outside, I laid out a bowl of vinegar and a bowl of honey. A few flies landed on both bowls but neither seemed to have any drawing power. I did notice lots of flies in the pasture where grandpa kept a bull.
“Hey, Grandma! You know what really draws flies?”
Then I told her.
I got my mouth washed out with soap. See? Stupid.

STEVEN THE NUCLEAR MAN

“The zombies stopped moaning,” she said, her back pressed against the doorframe. “Just stopped.”

I rose from the couch, checking her for wounds. For bites. “The vocal cords probably rotted away.”

She swatted my hand away. “I don’t care why! One almost got me because I didn’t hear it.”

I held her, whispering reassuring words into her hair. “We’ve survived this long. You can make it through this. We will find a way.”

I realized what I heard too late. That the buzzing sound, growing louder, were swarms of flies drawing closer.

Swarms of flies feasting on rotting zombie flesh.

DIONYSUS

Fleyes In a Bottle

I found this note in a stoppered bottle along the coast of Malaysia:

It’s been 300 days since I last saw Marie, and 200 here. I will never see home or her again, our son at her breast. If you find this, think of the fate that destroys lives in this haphazard

Where was it from? When was it written? I couldn’t tell. I returned to my own Maria. It was 9 months later, our child due, when I discovered these marks at the bottom of the page, and remembered the flies:

sigz daz ezgape no fleyez iz unlucky

Flies

It was either flies or piles of crap everywhere forever.

Of course at first nobody had a problem with piles of crap, since everywhere was pretty big.

It was Michael came up with the idea of “recycling” — when I first heard the idea he was calling it “eternal life.” Then everybody started throwing in this, that and the other — somebody called that “brainstorming” — and it got really confused, really fast.

Chaotic, because it was never clear what was supposed to be recycled or eternal or whatever it was supposed to be.

Anywho, we ended up calling them “flies.”

SEVI AND BONCHANCE

Pablo fell awkwardly into his comfortable bed. It was adorned with gold stars. He suspected that the liquid called “scotch” might be a big part of his new pal’s skit. He just realized, Clumsy was always sipping from his flask full of scotch.
Pablo finished lapping up some water laced with the golden liquid. Words swamed in his head as he drifted off to sleep listening as Clumsy the Clown waxed philosophically about audience responses and how they sometimes fly in the face of logic.
Pablo had nightmares that night. He was terrorized by evil flies buzzing around his face.

ZACKMANN

“Sure, I have a biplane replica that I can rent you and you can even hire me to pilot it but Why?” asked Manager John
“Because I heard Canada is a great place for fly fishing and catch a lot of flies” replied Charlie
“You mean you want to use artificial flies to catch fish, right?” said John
“No, my uncle was so proud to have killed a lion back in the day and I read in a nature magazine that flies and mosquitoes were so much more dangerous than any other animals that I wanted to show him up”

DANNY

I just finished reading Lord Of The Flies. Then I realized the conveluted story I’m about to weave here has nothing to do with that book. Have you ever noticed that flies have the cutest littel feet? Like this one fly I’ve had a crush on since I was in grammer school. She sprained her cute little ankle falling off an apple tree. She could not walk, so I gave her a foot massage. The light returned back to her soul, and she sprang back to life. I do not want to spend another day in this life without her.

REDGODDESS

Lola wakes up, soaking in sweat from a mind-blowing dream. She sits in the dark with a slight smile, flashing back to what she has experienced. After her mystery date, she walks through a hidden door. Lola is standing in a VIP suite, furnished with a massage table and king bed covered in peach petals. On the bed, lays a gift box with a purple bow. A round table, facing the water view, is set with a glass of red wine and platter of chocolate covered raspberry. Suddenly, a dove flies through the room and perches itself on Lola’s shoulder.

NORVAL JOE

The company had traveled more than two hundred yards underground. Though it had taken only a handful of minutes to get from the farmer’s basement to the safety of the woods, each split second spent passing through the solid earth felt like an eternity.
The demons still swarmed around the farmer’s home like flies on a dead dog.
“We must hurry,” the rangers said. “Those creatures will be distracted until they find we are no longer in the house.”
“What shall we do with the farmer?” Owen asked.
“Bring him,” Shareeka said. “Leaving him to the demons would be ungracious.”

The dining flies over the picnic tables snapped in a sudden gust of wind. The adult scout leaders snoozed in their tents, unaware the campsite was empty. Time flies when you’re old. When you’re just a boy your lifetime seems limitless, your body immortal.
The boys lined up under starlit sky at the edge of the cliff, their backs to the wind.
The quartermaster held a flashlight on his stop watch. The senior patrol leader called, “On your mark, get set, go.”
When the last boy called, “done.” He was declared the winner and they all zipped up their flies.

PLANET Z

My daughter reads her joke book aloud: “What has four wheels and flies?”

“A garbage truck,” I say.

She laughs. “What’s black and white and red all over?”

“A newspaper,” I say.

She doesn’t laugh.

“It’s a homynym. Red. Read. Spelled differently, sounds smiliar.”

She nods, and my wife takes the joke book from her. “You need to get ready for school.” Looking at me: “And you’re late for work.”

I kiss her on the cheek, put on my gloves, and walk out the door.

Ned’s parked the garbage truck on the curb.

“We gotta fly!” says Ned.

I laugh.

Weekly Challenge #322 – A beautiful thing

Welcome to the 100 Word Stories podcast at podcasting.isfullofcrap.com. I’m your host, Laurence Simon.

This is Weekly Challenge Number Three Hundred and Twenty-Two, 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 a beautiful thing

And we’ve got stories by a lot of people:

Tom
Thomas
William R. Davis-Kenmore Swipe
Chris Munroe
Logan Berry
Serendipity Haven
Colonel Terrance
Lizzie Gudkov
Severina Halostar and Bonchance Longfall
Guy David
Zackmann
Pam
Steven the Nuclear Man
Dionysus Clowes
RedGoddess
Danny Dwyer
Cliff
Norval Joe
Tura
Planet Z

And if you want to spam your social networks with this episode, use the Share buttons at the end of the post…

Obligatory cat photo:

The more people see this on Google Plus, Facebook, and Twitter – the more explaining you’ll have to do with your loved ones, coworkers, and parole officers.

TOM

I’ve a hyper-romantic view of Chicago. Though I only live there from 57 to
59 it’s the place of my earliest memories. We lived in a neighborhood
called Logan Square. From my room I could see the words DAD’S written
along the side of a smokestack. I couldn’t read them but knew will the
letters meant root beer. I must have been very young the day my mom had me
and my brother in a Tram. Through a slit in the cover in gap in the Lane
Tech doors I saw the rides at Riverview. Memory is a beautiful thing

THOMAS

He had a big, day-glo sticker on the bumper of his pickup. “A Man and His Truck is A Beautiful Thing.” Gilmore was a fat, hairy thing. Not very beautiful at all. Most of his breakfast of chicken-fried steak and biscuits and gravy still clung to his red beard. The ladies at The Sunshine Café knew that Gilmore had a good job on the oil rigs, and they flirted with him at the café. Last week, Nancy Creemcheze sat down and chatted with him, saying he reminded her of John Goodman. “Is he in septic work?” “No. He’s an actor.”

It was such a beautiful thing. It could win prizes. Showing it meant it had to be washed and rubbed shiny. He spent hours tending and admiring it. His girlfriend, Josie-Jean thought it was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen. It was purple, with some red undertones, and the first time he showed it to her, she flushed with excitement and her eyes widened. She knew that she would find pleasure in every encounter with it – able to brag to her girlfriends about what she had seen, touched and fondled. Larry’s custom, Chevy BelAire was a hit.

WRDKS

A Hebrew phrase reads: A beautiful thing is not always perfect. That goes for the girlfriend I had when I worked in New Jersey. She was dark haired and had a voluptuous figure. Her flaw was her family. Her father showed me his anti-gravity truck when I visited their home. He opened the rear door and pointed to the heavy, iron apparatus in the mid-section of the truck. He matter-of-factly described the problems he was having getting it off the ground, but I dismissed it all at the time in hopes of getting an early start with his lovely daughter.

MUNSI

I know you think your baby’s beautiful.

It’s your child. You brought it into this world and have a profound connection to it. it’s natural that you should find it beautiful.

To you, it’s the most beautiful thing that’s ever been. It’s your progeny, your precious darling, and moreover your shot at immortality.

You find it beautiful because you need it to be beautiful, it’s what will represent you to future generations.

I understand all of this.

All I’m saying is, it’s not MY baby, I have no responsibility toward it, and it’s a freaky, Winston Churchill looking motherfucker.

Sorry.

LOGAN

Why did I agree to this? I hate kids, and I hate poo. I want to take the kids to the bridge and toss them over, or jump into certain death myself. It’s not my fault. Who would hire me? I have a tattoo of a rat on my neck, where everyone can see it, and a rusted heavy gothic rod pierced through the left side of my nose. I think it’s a beautiful thing, but my mother now pretends she is childless. I overheard her tell my father she would like to have children someday. I will never have kids. I hate them. Especially when they poo into paper. This is NOT worth twenty dollars. Who would hire me?

SARAH

It was nail-biting standoff – the professor, arms outstretched between the armed police and the monstrous creature that he had brought into the world.

“It’s not a monster”, he protested, “It’s a living, conscious being… a thing of beauty, that deserves to live”

“Step aside, sir, or we will shoot!”, came the stern response.

The professor turned towards the beast, tenderly cupping it’s loathsome face between his hands; “I’m so sorry”, he whispered.

In a moment of poignance, the creatures actions mimicked the professor; the huge talons gently cradling the man’s face, before violently twisting the professor’s head clean off!

COLONEL

His encounter with the big red dog was a beautiful thing. No one would believe his story, of course, but he had to tell someone when he met the usual gang at coffee. He met the dog in the park as it walked quietly along the grass, bordering the bike path. He greeted her, saying “hello, pup”, and the dog answered “Hello, sir. Are you having a good day?” He was not surprised, as he suspected that all dogs could speak, but they kept it to themselves, only speaking to those that believed that dogs could talk. They chatted a while about nature, god, and each others fears and loves. Turns out, the red dog lived nearby, and she invited him to come by, any time, for a chat.

LIZZIE

The letter had two words “Beautiful thing.” She didn’t believe it. After the war, the devastation was everywhere making it hard to imagine something truly beautiful. Tired of annihilation, she packed water and food, and took the road. Three days and three nights lasted the journey until she found the bend on the road. A gate opened up to a pathway of wonders. She sat inside to enjoy the quietude and rest. The next day, the garden of wonders had grown a few meters. The day after that, the same happened. She thought that there was still hope after all.

SEVI AND BONCHANCE

Pablo was sniffing around the big top. As he snooped, Clumsy quickly snatched him up.

Clumsy the Clown started training Pablo. The new gag involved Clumsy pretending to bend over to pick up his cigar. Pablo was cued to jump on his back. As his paws made contact, Clumsy vigorously floundered around dramatically. The stunt ended with the clown landing on someone’s lap in the audience. The crowd erupts with laughter and roaring applause!

Pablo recalled Clumsy’s discourse, as they celebrated with a bottle of scotch. “It’s a beautiful thing when searching for a new star, the star finds you!

GUY

They say beauty is in the eye of the beholder, so scientists started dissecting eyes, searching for the exact spot where beauty resides. First they dissected eyes of mice, but it got them nowhere, so they dissected the eyes of convicted criminals, dead ones at first, but then someone reasoned that having real time input from subjects would result in important data. Didn’t work. Another suggested that criminals didn’t really have a sense of beauty, so they moved on to the eyes of artists, poets and musicians. When they finished, they looked around them to find a world without beauty.

ZACK

The mortgage broker told me how an ARM was a beautiful thing and how it could really free up my assets when I purchased a property.
I asked “ Wouldn’t there be trouble at the end of the adjustable rate?”
He told me “No, just refinance when the rate ends because California house prices always go up.”
It turns out the Adjustable Rate Mortgage was a beautiful thing, beautiful as in a devious supervillain they will never see this coming way. I loved the low monthly payments until I found out the payments don’t stay low and Neither do the rates.

PAM

All week the young engineering student scurried to keep up with the rushing tide of homework.

On Saturdays she hunted for illusory property lines only seen by engineers and surveyors. Her guide in these weekend explorations was a seasoned engineer. Old man, young girl both searching for ancient clues.

At lunch they break to eat. The old man looks up from his sandwich with a strange gaze,“ The water tower on campus – it’s a beautiful thing; very sexual.” He lowered his eyes back to his hamburger.

The young girl never looked at a water tower the same way again.

STEVEN

Conversation dropped to pure meaning when shit hit the fan.

Marc’s voice, terse, fast. “Four, suppression right, third advance
overwatch.” Squad leaders were moving as he spoke, diagrams and
instructions morphed into movement.

Susan loved it; loved ripping the bullshit social niceties away to raw
information and meaning. She hefted her rifle and sprinted. A
sprinkle of bullets at first, then a shower, then a zinging ricochet
storm. Marc hit the dirt next to her, panting. Cooper fell past him,
unbreathing.

Lead mosquitoes zipped between them.

Susan looked at Marc. “Love you,” she said.

It meant more than any poem.

DIONYSUS

#1: Da-sein

My father has just given me another lecture on Dasein’s inescapable anxiety. Other babies trade stocks or interact with small mammals, but these are not universal conditions of existence.

My mother seems to recognize a more basic set of necessities. She occasionally offers me a full breast, for example, and I am encouraged to suck. It is a beautiful thing.

My father insists we are born and die alone. As I recall, my mother was there, with a doctor and one or two nurses. I didn’t think to count.

He watches me sucking. I anticipate this will be a problem for us.

#2: Miracles

“Aesthetically,” said Wittgenstein, “the miracle is that the world exists.”

Paul Wittgenstein, the philosopher’s brother, was a concert pianist who lost his right arm in World War I. He commissioned a number of well-known piano works for the left hand. Their father made his fortune in steel.

My brother was killed in a hunting accident when I was 13. He was 16. There are times when I think nothing I’ve accomplished matters.

My daughter is practicing the piano, and my son, who’s more serious and alert than most, just walked by.

Existentially, the miracle is that the world’s a beautiful thing.

REDGODDESS

The rain finally stops. Lola is restless anticipating her date with her secret admirer, who drops a trail of cryptic notes at the hotel’s front desk. She works feverishly to finish all her duties to leave on time. The last handwritten note requested her presence at the coffee bar on the roof of the restaurant next door. She wonders how she will recognize this familiar stranger who has resuscitated her curiosity. She walks confidently through the restaurant doors and heads toward the bar. There he is. Whatever happens, it’s a beautiful thing to be the one catered to, for once.

DANNY

I wake up, finding myself hooked up to life support: an intibator tube down my throat, five heart monitors taped to my chest, a tube drilled into my skull draining excess fluid from my brain, and over 5 IV’s hooked up to my arms. Then in an instant, I’m up and walking down a long, endless hallway. I feel a breeze over my immaciated ass, which hangs naked out of the back of a polyester hospital gown. I didn’t think that was physically possible, to feel my ass hanging out of a hospital gown when I’m dead. What a beatiful thing.

CLIFF

“By the power of my magic, I bind you to my bidding,” the witch intoned. Humans. So dramatic.
“What is thy bidding?” I asked reluctantly.
“My husband does not love me.”
Oh goodie. Love. Why is it always about love?
“He says he only wants to be surrounded by beautiful things and that I’m not beautiful.”
She was hideous, but then, she was human.
“You will make me the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen.”
“Really?”
“That is my command.”
The warlock would be pleased when he found the ever full beer mug the following morning.
I love my job.

NORVAL JOE

Shareeka chanted again, her voice growing weaker with each iteration. She waived her hands and dropped to her knees.
“Why is it getting so hard to breath?” Owen asked. The the earth itself seemed to press in on him.
“I move the air with us with each jump. It doesn’t refresh much,” she gasped. “Our next jump will be up.”
Shareeka spoke the words and the night sky burst into specked splendor above.
Owen fell onto his back in the wet grass, took a deep breath of the fresh and and said, “the sky is a beautiful thing, isn’t it?”

TURA

People say we lived like kings. Ha! These days, king just means a bigger mud hut and a gang of men with clubs.

We could fly round the world faster than it turned, talk to anyone, anywhere, instantly. We had men on the Moon, nearly got to Mars. We knew the age of the universe, the speed of light. You’ve never even seen electricity.

You don’t believe any of this. You’re stupid. Everyone’s getting stupider, generation by generation.

Sure, we had wars, all that shit. But Goddammit, we had civilisation, and it was a beautiful thing, a beautiful thing indeed.

PLANET Z

At first, I thought I heard Bobby say he was a “sado masochist” but he turned out to be a “soda masochist.”

So, instead of beating the crap out of him, I got a Coke out of the machine, and handed it to him.

He frowned. “Shake it first.”

I took back the can, shook it, and put it in front of him.

He picked it up, held it under his face, and opened it.

The spray got in his eyes and dripped on his shirt.

“That’s a beautiful thing, man,” he said. “Thanks.”

Dammit. Now I have to mop.

Weekly Challenge #321 – 27%

Welcome to the 100 Word Stories podcast at podcasting.isfullofcrap.com. I’m your host, Laurence Simon.

This is Weekly Challenge Number Three Hundred and Twenty, 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 avoid bursting into flames, pet rock, circus, who let the dogs out, and butter.

And we’ve got stories by a lot of people:

William R. Davis-Kenmore Swipe
Thomas
Colonel Terrance
Pamala
Tura
Chris Munroe
Tom
Logan Berry
Serendipity Haven
Lizzie Gudkov
Bonchance and Sevi
Zackmann
Dionysus
Guy David
Danny Dwyer
Cliff
Norval Joe
RedGoddess
Planet Z

RedGoddess

And if you want to spam your social networks with this episode, use the Share buttons at the end of the post…

Obligatory cat photo:

The more people see this on Google Plus, Facebook, and Twitter – the more explaining you’ll have to do with your loved ones, coworkers, and parole officers.

ELECTRIC BICYCLES

His usual mixture was 27% bright Virginia, 15% Cavendish, 10% Latakia, and the rest, pencil shavings, gun powder and selenium.
He smoked an antique Meerschaum once smoked by Gertrude Stein. Resplendent in his tailored, velour-cuffed, smoking jacket,
young Mr. Thomas was the epitome of culture, class, and achievement until he was caught by the pistol-wielding security officer
last week, stealing ladies’ underthings off the clotheslines and sniffing the seats of bicycles parked in the garage. Embarrassed
and bringing shame to the Thomas family, young Mr. Thomas took his own life by sucking on the exhaust pipe of his father’s Bentley.

THOMAS

His usual mixture was 27% Xylene, 10% isopropyl alcohol, 20% acetone, and the rest, liquefied petroleum gas. He spent his working day cleaning graffiti from public property. The taggers were brain damaged skateboarders and grammar school gang members. The Central Foxpups was the oldest gang, but the Middleschool Jezabels was coming up strong. They used 4 inch paintbrushes and epoxy paint for tagging, and they traveled in packs of nine. There were five painters and a lookout for each compass direction. They could paint a park bench or a city truck in five minutes, wielding a brush in each hand.

The new president, a total whack job, proposed a flat, 27% income tax for taxpayers making less than 15 thousand a year. The people were up in arms, so he raised it to 16 thousand a year. Those making over the amount were to pay in flesh. A pound of flesh would pay half your taxes. Three pounds paid the income tax and earned a year of satellite TV. The underground formed, and meat lockers at military installations were filled with tax payments. The mystery of the disappearing “underclass” was never solved and along with it, their flat, 27% tax.

COLONEL TERRANCE

Kenmore was an endorphin junkie, and the son of a very rich family in Piedmont Hills. He spent the winter sledding the alps,
popping frozen grapes and sipping martinis as he traversed the hills in a monogrammed bobsled. His sled runners were waxed
with a mixture of 27% beeswax, 15% unborn mink oil, and the balance, baby fat harvested by Falun Gong practitioners.
Kenmore Singewick Puttiterd had no use for ordinary people – especially the poor and disabled. He employed full time
servants to gather, plastic wrap, and dispose of his bodily waste, just as his friend O. did, in Montecito.

PAMALA

Stretching and groaning from the pain of decrepit bodily muscles, which occurs on this side of the age- hill of life the marathon from bed to kitchen looms constantly on the daily horizon.

Getting a cup of coffee and trying to awake, falling into the kitchen chair to again face the nemesis of that horrific ceiling spot. It was a past spaghetti dinner explosion that shot straight up. Four months that spot has continued to laugh at my inabilities.

Today was an epiphany and a solution with a light weight mop. Small successes equals age Olympics.

TURA

After global warming, the oxygen crisis. We learned in school that the atmosphere’s 21% oxygen, right? Twenty years ago it was. It’s 22 now. So old folks get to breathe a little easier, nothing wrong with that? At 24% you can’t fight city fires. At 26, you see long-term health damage: blindness, strokes.

No-one knows why it’s happening. Humanity’s grown so big, everything we do bumps up against something, like Alice in the White Rabbit’s house, but we still know almost nothing about how the world works.

At 27%, it’s the end. All the vegetation will burn until it’s gone.

MUNSI

Team meeting, everybody.

Here’s what’s happening. Sales are down, industries change, and we’ve got to change or we’ll be left behind.

So, I’m trimming the department budget by 27%.

To prevent layoffs, wages and benefits will be cut by 27%, and your retirement packages will change to reflect this.

Thanks in advance for your co-operation.

Huh?

No, my bonuses won’t be cut. They’ll grow, due to my skillful crisis management.

But that’s not important. What matters is, nobody’s fired, and we’re sharing the sacrifice.

This is good news, we’ve really accomplished something today!

We’re the few, the proud.

The 27%

TOM

Case of the Amber Rose of the Amazon

“Watson mind the body draped over the ottoman.”
“But Homes where am I to sit?”
“There is a sinister force afoot.
What does a tuck on an ottoman tell you?”
“I have no place to rest my feet”
“No, we must parse the subtle relationships of
the terms and arrive at their precise meaning.”
“Well, a tuck is a tuck is a tuck.”
“Just as a rose is a rose is a rose.”

“Clearly Miss Stein is at the center of this affair
but my mind fails me, a 27% solution is in order.”

LOGAN BERRY

When I was eight, me and my best friend Stephen broke into a neighbor’s house. We were looking for cash. Not a lot of cash, but enough to buy a bowl of French fries at Bud’s Grill. We looked in all the obvious places (on top of the dresser where my mother kept coins, and in the cupboard by the fridge where Stephen’s mother kept change), but our take was precisely nothing.

We liked the neighbor-victim, Mrs Davies, and were horribly remorseful when she found out about our crime, and told us with sad eyes that we couldn’t play with her daughter Anna anymore. My parents were furious, and I endured a month-long grounding and united demonstration of disappointment in me, their eldest daughter.

Stephen’s mother cried. And his father, before giving him a beating, said “childhood criminals are 27% more likely to serve prison time as adults.” He was always a total dick.

SERENDIPIDY

You may laugh, but consider what it’s like being me!

There I was: just a few hours old and, as my mother slept in her hospital bed, dad twiddled his fingers, growing increasingly bored.

Turning on the TV, he flicked to the news channel, smiling broadly at the news of Facebook’s stock flotation… hurriedly scribbling some figures on a spare scrap of paper, his smile grew broader still!

He nipped out for a coffee.

The Registrar arrived to collect my birth registration. Reading it, she frowned, shrugged and filed it away.

And that’s how I ended up named, ‘= 27% Profit!!!’

LIZZIE

“How much is 27%?” the kid asked.

“As much as it sounds,” his friend replied.

“How much is that?”

“It depends on the total.”

“The total what?”

“The total thing you want the 27% of.”

In the waiting room, the dialog went on and on, people getting impatient. Suddenly, a man stood up and showed his four-fingered hand, lifting one finger.

“See this? This is more or less 27%.”

“Oh,” the kid said, “27% is a finger! You should’ve said so in the first place!”

The friend rolled his eyes.

And… Just for the record, it was not THAT finger!

BONCHANCE AND SEVI

27 % by Severina Halotstar and Bonchance Longfall

Pablo received a letter from Espi asking if he would donate his sperm for her to have a puppy.
Espi gave details about the fertility clinic that Pablo was to visit and make a “test donation”. It would ascertain his virility. Pablo would do anything for his Espi. Perhaps if he fathered her puppy she would want a more permanent relationship. He put circus life on hold.
He was told the results of his sperm donation would be mailed to him in the express post.
Five days later the results arrived. Typed in bold: Sperm Count: 27%! (normal > 85%).

27 % by Severina Halotstar and Bonchance Longfall

Tom always gave 100%.
Meetings wasted about 40% of his time.
60% could still be quite effective except for the fact that company emails ate up about 20% percent of his time deleting corporate updates that
no one reads, along with letters from the HR and benefits departments.
Cost savings strategies of all employees disposing their own trash in the dumpster and a roster to clean the employee bathrooms consumed another 10%.
Further distracted by suspicions that his mangy old cat was pregnant and his wife of 25 years was going to leave him, rounded down his effectiveness to 27%.

ZACKMANN

“So have you checked out the new Podcast Database?”
“Yes, I have Zack and even signed up. Now stop messaging me about it”
“Sorry, I was afraid there was someone who I messaged more than once. The website is Scott Roche’s baby but I do find a database for podcasts creators and podcast fans a really cool idea.”
“So Zack, Have you entered any of your favorite podcasts or content creators yet?”
“A couple but I might have only caused Scott to do 27% more work because I am very, you know very helpful but maybe not so technically inclined.”

DIONYSUS CLOWES

Lifespan/Bo Diddley’s Money

According to Wikipedia the average human life expectancy worldwide is 67.2 years. And according to Aristotle, human happiness, the good life for humans, is a measure that only applies to a whole life. So what does it mean that her smile, the way she lowered her eyes, only her lashes visible, over the delighted smile, the light like early fall off her hair when I told her what I’d written stopped at 18? Isn’t that only 27% of a good life, of happiness? Who gets the left-over happiness that was ours? Where’s that fucking happiness now, 27 years later?

Ottawa

I thought of immortality figuratively when I first heard of Ottawa. Then I contacted him, because I thought it was desirable. He entered negotiations in a way that, over time, impressed upon me the literal and serious nature of the process: by photographing me with the camera he had developed I would become literally immortal. I would elude inevitable death.

Negotiations. He claimed it was better to think in terms of how much life I wanted to keep and insisted on expressing this quantity as a percentage.

Now (always now), 27% through life, I ask, why not 100%?

GUY DAVID

It jumped out of the water and started walking on the sand. I stealthily followed between the shadows, curious. It walked into the badly misspelled gift shop, named “Everyone’s Persent”. Others of it’s kind where already there. Others followed. All in all, there where 27 of them. They didn’t talk in any common language. Instead, they used a sound that was half way between a gurgle and the rumbling of a mad man. Seeing them up close, I recognized them immediately and I knew I had to warn the mayor. There was no doubt about it. The Murlocs have arrived.

PLANET Z

The city of Bellaire put radar speed traps on Newcastle Road.

The sign only said 15. It’s not my fault it only has two digits.

We fly down the road, ignoring stop signs and lights, zooming past the houses and the school and community center.

Sally and I scream with laughter.

As we came up on Bellaire Road, I opened up the throttle and pulled back on the stick.

The plane pulled up and we soared over the intersection.

Heading back to the airport, her phone went off.

It was her dad. The sheriff.

Of West University.

(He hates Bellaire.)

Weekly Challenge #320 – avoid bursting into flames, pet rock, circus, who let the dogs out, and butter

Welcome to the 100 Word Stories podcast at podcasting.isfullofcrap.com. I’m your host, Laurence Simon.

This is Weekly Challenge Number Three Hundred and Twenty, 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 avoid bursting into flames, pet rock, circus, who let the dogs out, and butter.

And we’ve got stories by a lot of people:

Tom
Serendipity Haven
Thomas
Tura
Tom
Chris Munroe
Lizzie Gudkov
Bonchance and Sevi
Guy David
Zackmann
Logan Berry
Cliff
Norval Joe
Danny Dwyer
RedGoddess
Planet Z

And if you want to spam your social networks with this episode, use the Share buttons at the end of the post…

Obligatory cat photo:

The more people see this on Google Plus, Facebook, and Twitter – the more explaining you’ll have to do with your loved ones, coworkers, and parole officers.

TOM

Badger and Bolin decided to join the circus. What they lacked in skill
they made up in pyrotechnic-avoidance. Even though Bolin was heisted to
throw the last pet-rock into the flaming-butter he matched Badger’s led
right into the middle of the main-ring. “Well I guess this is it,” sighed
Badger. “No, who let the dogs out, the pit is chewing at my bottom,”
countered Bolin. “Save me,” cry Badger and scrabbled up Bolin’s shoulders.
Pulling the flame-thrower to the right the dog lay incinerated on the
ground. “Maybe 100 flaming-stones is a bad idea, lets do a water act
instead.”

SERENDIPITY

“STOP THEM!” – the fiery, furry cavalcade tore towards us, as people jumped out of the way to avoid bursting into flames themselves, the dogs slipped through the crowd in the Big Top like butter off a hot knife.

Reporters at the aftermath of what was billed as the biggest circus disaster in history asked the handler, “Who let the dogs out, anyway?”

He didn’t answer immediately.

Weeping over the charred remains of a small terrier, he whispered, “they weren’t just performing dogs to me”, looking at the dog’s nametag in his hand; “this one was ‘Rock’… my poor pet, Rock”.

i need a lie down!

THOMAS

Someone at the Mackey Brother’s Circus was always narrowly avoiding bursting into flames. It was the clowns and pet rock trainer most of the time. The fire chief’s first question, was “who let the dogs out?” as they were the first ones to get into the butter the carnies used for the popcorn machines on the midway. The butter kept being knocked over into the big propane burners and spilling on the clowns waiting to climb into the midget cars at #1 ring. Last year, we lost six clowns to the butter fires, and still haven’t found all the dogs.

Masie avoided bursting into flames as she heat sealed the shipment of pet rocks and teddy bears going to the circus. The Baha Men’s Tune, “Who Let The Dogs Out”, kept playing in her head. She moved from the sealing machine, and popped a few bags of corn, covering the fresh batch with cups of hot butter in order to feed her quintuplets the first meal of the day. Masie was a little damaged, having survived a serious head injury when she was learning to skateboard. Her company was successful, nevertheless, but the quintuplets all succumbed to a vitamin deficiency.

TURA

When learning fire-eating, the most important lesson is: don’t burst into flames. Every fire-eater has their own secret recipe. Mine is paraffin and butter. The flames are showy, but they’re no hotter than boiling water.

The next important thing is: do not work with animals. When the dog act got loose, and I had this can of burning goop, well, I’ll skip the details. The dogs got a bit scalded, but they were right as rain in no time. They still kicked me out of the circus.

So I took my act onto the street. Me and my pet rock.

MUNSI

I let the dogs out.

Didn’t mean to, I’d thought they were safely inside the house, but I guess you let them into the yard to… you know…

If I’d known, I’d have closed the gate behind me. I mean, it’s not like I wanted them to get out.

But by the time I realized, they’d run out into the street, barking and howling and enjoying their newfound freedom.

And now we’re going to have to track them down.

But yeah, I take full responsibility, and I apologize.

My bad.

Also: It was me who put baby in the corner.

LIZZIE

“First, some butter, then your rock. You need the hair of a dog too. Ok, who let the dogs out?! Now you’ll have to chase them, and this will never be done,” the magician said impatiently, stirring the pot.

“But… it’s my pet rock…”

“Stop whining! This will make you the strongest clown in the circus.”

“But I don’t want to be the…”

“Enough! Give it up!”

When he threw a stone in the pot, the magician exploded.

“And finally, you want to avoid bursting into flames,” the kid said holding his pet stone with the dogs by his side.

SEVI AND BONCHANCE

Pablo lay in the shade next to his new pet rock friend.
Hot summer day! Avoid bursting into flames was his goal.

He felt like a pool of melted butter.

He needed time to collect his thoughts after the accident in the kitchen. It rattled him when his master screamed
“who let the dogs out of the basement”?

Poor Pablo was having a really bad run of luck. Life was not fun here anymore.
He was thinking about running away and joining the circus.

He could be their star, after-all his Mistress
said he was the most beautiful of all.

GUY DAVID

The army of clowns slipped and fell. Child laughter could be heard from houses with barricaded windows. Apparently, someone buttered up the road. From near by houses, dogs started barking. Doors opened and the dogs started coming out, seeking out the clowns. Bites and screams followed. “You should have stayed in the circus” shouted someone, “You make a lousy army”. Some people started opening their windows and throwing flaming rocks at them. The clowns started running away in the opposite direction, trying to avoid bursting into flames and running out of town, and so the army of clowns was defeated.

ZACKMANN

“Where are we headed this time, Brock?”
“I have an interview with the Pet Rock Circus.”
“Pet Rock Circus, what is that?” asked Ash
“It had an odd start. An artist built a model of a circus and started to inhabit it with rocks with googly eyes pasted on them except two of these rocks were geodudes. After the Pokebattle that calmed the geodudes down about having googly eyes pasted to their backsides it was decided that Rock-type Pokemon would perform in this circus and the pet rocks would be sold as souvenirs. My interview is Tuesday in Goldenrod City.”

My friend convinced me that it was a good idea to buy a car with a rotary engine. He told me how cool the concept of a rotary engine is, I did see many Mazda over seven years old that were still on the road at the time so I purchase a nice rear wheel drive 626 for my wife. The rotary engines back then used quite a bit of oil. Months later a drive resulting in more flames than Katniss’ dress made me wish I had replaced the hood release cable sooner and add more oil before engine exploded

LOGAN BERRY

Four of them sat immobilized, facing the man with the bow tie. The fires raged. “When does it rain from impromptu?” he asked.

The four squirmed and struggled, sweat pouring like melted butter from foreheads bound tightly to headrests. Contestant number two squeezed the button, his gag was removed and he croaked, “Circus!”

“Wrong!” screamed the bow tie. Contestant two slumped in his chair.

Contestant three squeezed the button urgently. “Your grandmother’s pet rock!” she cried, hoarse from the smoke and heat.

“Correct!” Contestant three wept with joy as she was wheeled from the room.

“Last question,” bow tie said to the remaining three.

“Who,” he asked slowly, “let the dogs out?”

Silence.

Contestant two moaned, and tried, unsuccessfully, to avoid bursting into flames.

CLIFF

It seemed like a good idea at the time. After all, the pet rock had been a craze years before. Why wouldn’t a rock circus be even more popular? Well, the flying trapeze fell flat. The rainbow colored stone clown drew no laughs. The granite lion tamer impressed no one. The people were staying away in droves and I was quickly running out of money. I decided to risk everything on one last act. It had fire. It had pizzazz. Who knew that the pet rock human cannonball routine would turn into a real flying projectile whizzing into the audience?

NORVAL JOE

Flappy searched the neighborhood’s dark bushes with his flashlight. He was so angry that he felt like he needed to take deep breaths to avoid bursting into flames. He knew it was his older brother, Flippy, who let the dogs out then smeared butter on the kitchen floor to make it harder to get them back in. Life in his home was a total circus and he was always blamed for being the clown. Flippy’s only pet was a rock. Flippy was jealous because it couldn’t do any tricks. Flappy always stole the show with his fifteen dancing wiener dogs.

REDGODDESS

Lola plans to leave work on time. She has processed all administrative paperwork and requests from guests. As she’s packing her oversized bag, one guest stops by the desk to ask a burning question. Typical, she thought. Five minutes before her shift ends…grrr. She greets her with a smile and asks, how may I help you? The guest shyly replies, “I’m new here and not adventurous.” Any advice on what not to do? Lola quips, stay close and whatever you do “avoid bursting into flames, pet rock, circus and butter.” You do that, you’ll enjoy our world-class hotel.

PLANET Z

The gang initiation’s simple, really.

Empty a gasoline can over your head, stick a cigarette in your mouth, take out a lighter, and light up.

Either you do it, or they shoot you.

Usually, the can’s filled with water, so nobody gets hurt.

But sometimes, someone doesn’t want you in, and they put gasoline in it.

Water has no smell, but gasoline stinks like… well, gasoline.

So once the can’s dumped, everybody knows what’s coming.

I got the gasoline, and the only one who smiled was Johnny.

So, I lit up, ran to Johnny, and held him as we burned.

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