Usually, I miss or forget one story, but this time I totally brainfarted with two.
Here they are:
TOM
Badger and Bolin weren’t the smartest tools in the shed. What they lacked
in brainpower they made up in steadfast loyalty. Even though Bolin was
heisted to make the 100-mile trek through Grubber’s Swamp he matched
Badger’s led right into the pit of Unending Suck. “Well I guess this is
the end,” sighed Badger. “No my end is at the bottom of the pit,”
countered Bolin. “Then we’re saved,” cry Badger and scrabbled up Bolin’s
shoulders. Pulling his friend to safety, they lay exhausted on the ground.
“Maybe 100 miles is a bad idea, lets do rocky road instead.”
BONCHANCE
Pablo the black and white springer spaniel was devastated.
His best friend Espi, a cute furry mutt has moved 100 miles away.
They licked noses late last night, and said their goodbyes. Pablo was all alone.
He sprawled out on the grass looking up at the sky, pondering how he could endure the 100 mile trip alone to be with his best mate.
He worried about his pristine soft paws, gently cared for by his wonderful owners, they would not endure hard pavement for 220 kilometers.
Pablo rolled over nuzzling the patch of grass Espi last stood on and whimpered.
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 Nineteen, where I post a topic and then challenge you to come up with a 100 word story based on that topic.
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
The 100 mile race began in downtown Sequim and trailed up through the foothills. It was the annual EZ electric, shopping cart race, sponsored by Safeway and Kroger’s. Local retirees entered every year, some succumbing to the excitement and temperature, pushing 65. Last year, Monica Smithereen won, but it was later discovered that she had juiced, so the 2nd place winner, Horace Morris took the prize money and trophy home. No one discovered the plasticizers in his urine, as a result of Mrs. Morris hooking up her IV to Horace before the race and pumping him with B12 and amphetamine.
##
The first 100 miles of the southern border with Canada had ultimately been sealed with high walls of wire and concrete. It was hastily built to keep out the hordes of Chinese Yuppies, sneaking into the states near Vancouver to buy foreclosed homes, vacated restaurants, Hummer dealerships and real estate offices in Washington. Xenophobes panicked and rushed to their druggists and psychic counselors. The border was policed with air and sea drones cobbled together by local computer and RC hackers…among them J. Gordon, who built his armed drone out of recycled foam board and parts from his uncle’s weed whacker.
SERENDIPIDY
With legs horribly bruised and bleeding, he dragged himself across the finish line. Quite an achievement:100 miles, crawling on hands and knees, but where were the cheering crowds, the welcoming committee and smiling sponsors?
Coming to think of it, where the hell had any of them been throughout the whole, laborious route?
Throwing his rucksack to the floor in disgust, he watched as his trusty compass bounced across the tarmac.
That was odd.
He picked it up; shook it – the needle never moved.
In horror, realisation dawned… he’d successfully crawled 100 miles, but only in the wrong blasted direction!
TURA
Kate and I start together, but we’re both going at our own pace, so we separate fairly soon. First refreshment point at 20 miles. I drink some water, stop a minute, then carry on.
East Anglia is supposed to be flat, but on a bike it seems to be made of hills. Halfway point at 50. Food, water, and press on.
Sheringham, Cromer, Happisburgh, Horsey Mill. 75 mile stop, ten minutes.
At 80, I’m counting down the miles left. 90. Kate catches me up and we ride the rest together. Counting half miles now.
100 miles! Free water! Free BEER!
TOM
Badger and Bolin weren’t the smartest tools in the shed. What they lacked
in brainpower they made up in steadfast loyalty. Even though Bolin was
heisted to make the 100-mile trek through Grubber’s Swamp he matched
Badger’s led right into the pit of Unending Suck. “Well I guess this is
the end,” sighed Badger. “No my end is at the bottom of the pit,”
countered Bolin. “Then we’re saved,” cry Badger and scrabbled up Bolin’s
shoulders. Pulling his friend to safety, they lay exhausted on the ground.
“Maybe 100 miles is a bad idea, lets do rocky road instead.”
LIZZIE
The bright orange sun hid in the horizon as a light breeze unsettled the weary soul foretelling the storm. Politicians, millionaires, artists, common people looking for oil or peace all tried to buy their land. “Why do you need it? It’s just sand.” They didn’t know about the trap door behind the house, the tunnel, and the living thing in there. One day, it would travel the 100 mile long tunnel back to the surface and rule the world. They just had to feed it till then. They always wondered why no one ever noticed all those missing nosey visitors.
TJ
SIGHTING
Flickering images of drunken celebrations, couples rehearsing their
passionate intentions and lonelier hotel guests texting to absent
friends whizzed through the lobby and hallways in the security feeds I’d
loaded to my thumb drives. There was otherwise nothing remarkable until
about halfway through the third one. Karen let out a gasp to see her
missing daughter, Laurie, swimming in the hotel pool. The time stamp
said she’d been there from about 10:57 to 11:23, at which point a young
man appeared, tall and blond, wearing shorts and a t-shirt. They chatted
for about 20 minutes, and disappeared from our view.
PURSUIT
Karen’s face was hard to read. Her 15-year-old daughter had disappeared.
She had, however, been spotted. She’d not been kidnapped, locked in a
stranger’s windowless van and already 100 miles away down the highway.
She’d just met a boy and gone off with him, willingly. Was probably
still in the hotel. Mom, however, wasn’t entirely relieved by this turn
of events either. We did, of course, have an image of the boy she’d met.
And it was now after 6 a.m. So we made our way to the front desk to see
if the desk clerk was back on duty.
MUNSI
Within 100 miles of here is a place I’d love.
Maybe a restaurant that serves cuisine from a country I’ve never visited, or a club playing music I’m unfamiliar with but would dig if I gave it a chance…
The specifics aren’t relevant, the point is it’s the perfect place for me, it’s within 100 miles of here, and I’d love it there if I ever went.
I might never find this place.
I get too trapped by routine to really look.
But it exists.
Can you say for certain there isn’t a similar place within 100 miles of you?
ZACKMANN
“It is a great day for a walk” exclaimed Joe
Mike replied “We still have over 26 miles to go. Like a marathon. Who do you think I am, Charlie White?”
“The car manual said charge will last 100 miles.”said Joe.
“I don’t suppose you read the fine print about using Air Conditioning or driving highway speeds.” taunted Mike
“Yes , but I still thought it would go farther than this. Maybe I should have bought a plugin hybrid but appeal of not having to do an emissions test was too hard to resist”
“Time to call the auto club”
STEVEN THE NUCLEAR MAN
Shane sighed in the backseat and tried to get his parent’s attention.
“How far is it to Grandma’s?”
“It’s a while yet, honey.”
“How far is that, Mom?”
Her sigh echoed his own. “A hundred more miles. Shush so Daddy can concentrate on driving.”
Shane looked out the window. Even an irritating sibling wouldn’t be boring.
“Mom, how far now?”
“Shane, just read one of your books.”
She’d used the “Mom” voice, so he stopped asking and looked out the window again.
When the first zombie shambled from the woods, he smiled.
It wouldn’t be a boring trip after all.
CLIFF
Marvin was a lazy monk. Marvin belonged to an unusual order. They believed that, since Jesus walked everywhere to deliver his message, then they had to walk to earn the right to tell their stories. Words were earned by walking. One mile equaled one word. A powerful sermon could involve a pilgrimage from Virginia to Oregon and back again. Marvin only made it from Philadelphia to Baltimore before sitting down to write. One hundred miles means one hundred words for Marvin. The Abbot was furious. After all, who would want to read a story that’s only one hundred words long?
LOGAN
The sky is the same color as the sand, a luminous Photoshop-layered, grainy, noisy, soft-focused, glowing, diffused, warm, creamy, grey-and-yellow. There is no safe horizon to guide me on my journey, no compass, only the feel of unreliable sand beneath my feet and the sure knowledge that I must move, or die. I am halfway there. I smell my own stale, dry, hot, recycled breath through the scarf wrapped like bandages around my nose and mouth. Move, or die. Finally, finally, I am there. I have travelled the 100 miles. I have travelled the 100 words.
GUY
It was a long but fruitful walk. Every word was a mile, and there where always 100 of them, but he pushed on, walking, stubbornly advancing word by word. He just had to. Everything depended on it. Laurence fought off the evils of procrastination, the monsters of the writer block, managing to release a new story every day for 7 years, accompanied by the ever loyal midget, the man from planet Z and an ever increasing army of cats, the Mariner robot pressed on to conquer the world, 100 words at a time, and thus the next 7 years began.
NORVAL JOE
The walls of the house appeared to bow inward as the intensity of the demon’s screams continued to climb.
“Farmer. Do you have a cellar?” Shareeka asked.
“Yes,” he said, “You stand on the trap door.”
The company and farmer crowded into the cellar and linked their arms, forming a circle. Shareeka chanted. Instantly, all was dark.
“What happened?” Owen asked.
“I moved us 20 feet north of the farmer’s cellar,” Shareeka said.
“Great,” Traveler said, “Do that for another 29 leagues and we’ll be at the mines.”
“I’m sorry,” She said, “Moving that much earth is beyond my ability.”
REDGODDESS
As guests whisk by Lola’s desk, they yell gleefully “TGIF.” Who can forget Friday is Margarita day at the hotel. Since Lola is on duty, she can’t drink alcohol but can still mingle. Two giggling women in their 20’s, wearing sundresses, designer dark glasses hurried to the gift shop. They seem immersed in chatter and trying on perfume samples. Lola suddenly misses her childhood best friend. She appreciates a good cocktail. They had a big fall out after collegel and have not spoken since. They now live 100 miles apart, yet the memories they shared are always a heart beat away.
PLANET Z
My science book says that if you laid all the blood vessels in the human body end to end, they’d stretch 100 miles long.
So, me and Bobby picked up a hitchhiker, killed him, dumped him in the back of the pickup, and got to cutting.
Parkersburg is fifty miles, so we figured we’d just head out there and back
A mile out of town, we look back, and birds are picking the goods out of the gravel.
Bobby said ignore ‘em. They’re just picking up the stuff we already measured.
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 Eighteen, where I post a topic and then challenge you to come up with a 100 word story based on that topic.
(An additional story from Circe Broom will be posted in the Weekly Challenge: After The Bell once it arrives. My apologies to Circe for not spotting the mistake earlier.)
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.
LIZZIE
He twiddled his thumbs impatiently. That rule of thumb everyone kept referring to in the local contest was bullocks. “Thumbs down to that,” he thought. As he thumbed through the plants catalog it was pretty obvious; it stuck out like a sore thumb. His green thumb was the envy of the whole village. Yes, he always thumbed his nose at the whole commotion and never accepted to be under anyone’s thumb. So, it was time. He decided to simply thumb a ride out of there and start somewhere else where thumbs would not even be mentioned! Thumbs up to that!
GUARD
There was once a little girl named Jane. They told her she lived a fairytale life and had a green thumb. She was a young servent girl, that did not hold back her dreams. Jane knew with all her heart that she would one day rise to rule them all.
Then came the day where she thought she’d get her magic wand or something else to change her life. Nothing special happened on that day, so she grew quite sad. She had nothing left but her green thumb.
Now she uses it to scare away others and get free food.
THOMAS
Fran had a green thumb. Each of her children were under her thumb, raising kohlrabi for the local markets. The children spent hours thumb wrestling in the greenhouse. Her eldest, Assende, was all thumbs, and had no interest in the family business, so she thumbed a ride to the city, where she earned cash drawing thumbnail sketches for a web designer. Her thumbs opposed her, so she had to overcome her disability. Each sketch grew more complex, getting a deserved thumbs-up from the director. Assende applied all the rules of thumb she knew to produce work, faster and more diligently.
##
Thumbelina had wild adventures with marriage-minded toads, moles, and cockchafers. She was very, very tiny, frail, and hunchbacked. She had to defend herself with her pal Tom Thumb and an assortment of supernatural beings her father put in her hands as her creator. Her Father, Hans Anderson, was a shoemaker and part-time author, writing hundreds of drabbles for the entertainment of the other Danes. He sang and recited until he turned fourteen, escaping to New Zealand, where he took up with a band of thieves and miscreants, spending his later teens under the influence of native potions and wild mushrooms.
CHRIS THE NUCLEAR KID
I pressed the doorbell and ran to hide behind the bushes. My neighbor opened his front door and looked around with a confused expression on his old, wrinkly face. I stifled a laugh and waited for my neighbor to go back inside. I ran back up and pressed the doorbell again. I yelped in pain as a thumbtack pricked my finger. Apparently my neighbor had placed a thumbtack on the door bell when I wasn’t looking.
“Ha gotcha, that will teach you to mess around with a poor old elderly man like me!”
“Ow that hurt a lot!” I whined.
BONCHANCE AND SEVI
Thumb by Severina Halostar and Bonchance Longfall
Andrew and Hope had waited desperately for the day they found out they were with child.
The injections and constant monitoring was worth it.
They saw the test strip turn blue in front of their eyes while they cuddled in bed.
Her debut came too early. Anxiety filled the delivery room until little one pound Esperenza made her entrance to the world.
The day arrived; Esperenza was swaddled in soft brush cotton and placed on Hope’s bosom, Andrew protectively watching over. The little babe settled and drew her thumb to her mouth, softly suckling, a sweet gift to her parents.
Thumb2 by Severina Halostar and Bonchance Longfall
Clarence loved to tease Jake!
Running through the yard, beating Jake to the door and slamming it shut.
Clarence would then wiggle his thumbs and point at the door knob.
“I will have a piece of that inbred human”
He panted, looking up at his worthless owner. Clarence teased him with his thumbs.
The mutt turned his head as his new play buddy came over to see what was happening. Caesar the spider monkey glared at Clarence.
The deft monkey smiling a monkey smile, curled his fingers, human like, around the handle.
Jake relished Clarence’s look of surprise just before he pounced.
L CORONET
The big man explained the workings of the machine to Hameed. The Somalian mathematician found his first job in Holland in a factory, stamping pans from aluminium sheets. He was determined to do well.
“As a rule of thumb we expect you to stamp out 250 pans per hour,” the man said and Hameed thought: 4.1666 per minute. He kept count of pans and time and found his rhythm.
But then his nose itched insufferably. He had to scratch. Three pans a minute, then two. He panicked and frantically started feeding the machine aluminium.
Until it caught his thumb.
TOM
Outside of Bishops Gate Timmy lurked. He simmered with a deep hatred for General Tom Thumb. Timmy’s career had been eclipse by Thumb. Tiny Tim was ill equipped to compete with the likes of the General. So In his darkest hour Tim contrived a plan to gain back his glory and forever besmirched that American upstart. He had learned of Tom’s deep seeded fear of rats. One gentle drop into Victoria’s coach and bedlam would ensue. Unforchantly for Tim the coachman swung hard right and knock him into a second story window of Bedlam; from whence he was never heard.
SERENDIPITY
The king was a wise and powerful man – just in his judgments and respected by all. Throughout the empire his edicts were respected and his word was law; in fact whenever any question was in doubt, the people would simply say, “how would the king answer?” In this way, all matters of doubt were resolved.
Unknown distances were estimated in ‘King’s Miles’, sacks of barley were assumed to be a ‘King’s Hundredweight’ and, when planning journeys of indeterminate length, the people would say, “It’ll take around a King’s hour”.
Sadly, King Thumb died… and so ended ‘The Rule of Thumb’.
CLIFF
Jake’s Green Thumb
When I was a child, we had a gardener named Jake. He was the quiet sort, always happiest when we left him alone to the lawn and flowers and shrubs. My father always joked that Jake had a green thumb. One day, I noticed that Jake really did have a green thumb. His left thumb was a deep forest green. I wanted to ask him about it but Father always said to leave Jake alone.
Then I saw Jake’s thumb fall off. It didn’t seem to bother him. I guess that’s one of the advantages of having a zombie gardener.
MUNSI
I’ve made a movie!
Basically, it’s about a high school girl who’s really into archery who falls in love with a car that transforms into a giant robot. But at the same time a pirate, played by Johnny Depp, falls in love with her, and she must make a fateful decision about who to be with before an asteroid collides with the earth, destroying the world.
Nobody’s hands have enough thumbs down to review this movie, but that’s okay.
With the money I’ve made, I can pay somebody to look me in the eye if I can’t do it myself…
HOLOCLUCK HENLY
I thought I could fix my own deadbolt. The lock cost $35 but a
locksmith hundreds. It required firm application of the thumb and
bird fingers. Weeks later a bottle of juice dropped through my hands.
Specialist diagnosed it as Flexipolicus Longus Tendonitis or Trigger
Finger. “People with your chronic condition have this tendency.”
Surgery was weeks away. Clever ways to hold a sketch pad or wipe.
You learn to miss your thumb and everything it does for you. “It’s
that pincer effect,” someone said. It took ten minutes to fix and
worked immediately. Was this worth forfeiting a locksmith?
NORVAL JOE
The farmer sat dumbfounded at his table as if the company crowded into his small sitting room weren’t even there.
The house shook like a whirlwind danced circles around the clapboard building. Dust drifted from the wooden slats of the shingled roof.
Elbownor swirled his hands in front of him, chanting at the hearth. Shareeka formed a rectangle with the forefinger of each hand to the thumb of the other and whispered through it, facing the door.
The door buckled inward as if rammed by a mad bull, but it held.
Outside, demons screamed and tore ineffectually at the walls.
GUY DAVID
Ten Thumb Joe set in the bar, drinking his usual poison when Strike Team Alpha walked in. “You’ve been blowing smoke long enough” they said, “it’s time we blow your cover”. Back in the hotel, the moon shaped alert went off and his two lazy bodyguards sprang into action. Hugs and kisses followed. Sensing that he won’t get any help from them, Joe mattered “you are a bunch of sick bastards”. The team just smiled and said “you have been a fool if you thought you could get away with it”. What they did to him afterwards rhymes with itch.
LOGAN BERRY
3 Rules of Thumb for Happy Hitchhiking
1. If your hitchee is male and pulls over to the side of the road near a picturesque but abandoned farm in rural France, leaves the Citroen and stands at the rear of the vehicle for several inexplicable minutes, DO NOT turn around or look in the rear-view mirror.
2. If your hitchee offers to drive you and your co-hitcher a ride to the next town in the middle of the night because the hotel in Skopje was full and you were lost, then stops on the way out of town to pick up a burly friend who needs a shower, DO NOT pretend to be convent-educated virgins because that will only encourage them.
3. If your hitchees are nudist organic farmers in Devon who ask you to babysit their three children in a rainstorm while they attend a protest against fruit-machines-in-pubs, DO NOT agree to look at their wedding album in exchange for breakfast.
GINGER J
my how I would suck my thumb
when I was small and very young
I’d snuggle a little blanky
it’s not odd when you’re young
to think that a thumb
is something worth gnawing on
how grievous to me
they should take my blankee
and make me disengage from my thumb
for it had become
something to rely upon
and was never squirreled too far away
but, time came soon
when all I could do
was learn to sit on those thumbs
sit on my hands
and pretend I had plans
just as my mother intended
then boredom set in
and I was chagrined
to learn that puppets were also a tool
to keep fingers out
of my small mouth
because my sitters just couldn’t stand it
they’d rotate and shake
if my thumb I’d take
and offer them a view of my callous
for I had a thumb
that was a little numb
from all the sucking it got
so finally they put my hands into socks
and Ozonol on besides
because, when you’re not two
sucking thumbs is taboo
and I was the saintly age of five
ZACKMANN
I am beginning to suspect that the Crap Mariner is practicing some form of mind control. Lawrence Simian, who is pictured on this very website next to his typewriter, likely assisted the Crap Mariner in making you think about Thumbs this week. It is just as likely that they also have you thinking about cats. What surprised me is how they got Lawrence Santoro thinking about thumbs therefore choosing to have “4 AM, When the Walls are Thinnest” by Allison Littlewood narrated for Tales To Terrify number 20, a story in which Stumpy Ellis tells what happened to his thumb.
TURA
When I were a lad, we made proper black pudding. Dad would clout t’ pig in ‘ead wi’ ‘ammer, ‘ang it up by hind legs, slit throat and drain t’ blood int’ bucket. Us littluns would be set to stirring’ it wi’ ‘ands and suckin’ fingers, while they’d throw in lumps of fat and brains and everythin’.
When it ‘ad set, our ma would put it through big ‘and mincer into pig’s own ‘testines. Once she tore ‘er thumb off, but it didn’t bother ‘er, she just kept on crankin’ the ‘andle, and that were the best black pudding ever.
RED
“It’s official, spring is HERE!” declares the weather guy. Lola has caught the gardening bug after watching too many DYI landscaping shows. In one hour, she can build a lush city garden or bump into a handsome handyman at the home improvement store like on TV. He will then buy all the plants, come to her apartment with an army of skilled laborers, to transform her asphalt yard while being held in seclusion until the big reveal. Lola is a jack of all trade at her job, but she’s embarrassed that she doesn’t have a green thumb like Martha Stewart.
PLANET Z
When I was little, I remember biting my toenails and getting an infection in the corner of my right big toe.
The doctor cleaned it out, smeared some goo on it, bandaged it, and warned me about biting my nails.
I kept biting them anyway, and suffered infected toenails, fingernails, and thumbnails.
Then, six years ago, I stopped.
I trimmed them with clippers and a nail file.
Still, every now and then, I clip them too close, or I peel off a hangnail into the corner, and it’s back to the bathroom where I keep the antibiotic and small bandages.
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 Seventeen, where I post a topic and then challenge you to come up with a 100 word story based on that topic.
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
The bar was put up higher. Dubbie thought she could handle the change when it was put up, but she quickly learned that it was beyond her reach. She knew she had to, so she began working extra hard, after school and on Saturdays…practicing and going over everything again and again. When the contest came, Dubbie felt fully prepared. She got in line, and when the bell rang to begin the games, she climbed onto the high stool at the long bar and drank herself silly, beating all the locals in the chug-a-lug, Zambrano, Sink The Battleship, and Who Shit?
##
Ronnie asked the artist to put a bar in her nose — 18 carat gold and heavy, so it pulled her nose down until it touched her upper lip. Punks and hipsters that saw her remarking how beautiful her jewelry looked, but how bad her nose looked. Her friend, Salli, told her what others would not. Ronnie returned to the shop that installed the gold bar. The shop was closed. Ronnie asked Marvin, to cut the bar with bolt cutters, as the threads were jammed. Marvin was stoned. He clipped a half inch off her nose on the first try.
TJ
Security
Karen’s missing daughter could be anywhere. My first thought was to
rouse the night manager, but it was 4:50 a.m. and he was nowhere to be
found. There was a camera in the lobby and a door marked “Security,”
where I imagined the video would probably be. I unclipped a scanner from
my toolkit and fitted it to the slot in the door. Karen’s eyes
widened. “What are you,” she asked. “Strike Force Alpha?”
“I’m a locksmith,” I shrugged. “Who do you suppose installs
these electronic locks?”After some negotiation the scanner beeped, the
lock flashed green and we stepped inside.
Video
Along one wall a bank of monitors showed images from the lobby, as well
as from the kitchen, the laundry room, the bar and the pool. The
kitchen, bar and laundry room feeds covered the rear alleyway entrances
and there was a gated garden enclosure beyond the pool, so along with
the lobby itself, if Laurie – Karen’s 15-year-old daughter’s name
was Laurie – had passed through any of these spaces in the last eight
hours we should be able to track her. I loaded five jump drives from the
recorders and padded back to my room with worried mother in tow.
SERENDIPITY
Every team talk is the same old nonsense – “Gotta do better, try harder, reach further, we’re talking about raising the bar…”
It’s all talk, of course. We nod, make noises in agreement and secretly look forward to a beer and a joke about it after work.
Same again this week: “…we’re gonna raise that bar!”
Yeah right. We smiled inwardly at the mantra and yawned.
We stopped smiling when clocking-off time came round – the damn fools had only gone and done it!
How can you buy a beer, when you can’t even reach to the top of the bar?
BOMCHANCE AND SEVI
Bar by Severina Halostar and BC
Dave leaned back waiting, anxiously awaiting an answer from Megan, a reply to his comments.
As usual he agreed with his girlfriend 100%. There was way too much government supervision into peoples’ private lives. Big brother has bigger ears and eyes now that social media has become popular.
Megan had strong opinions on privacy laws, she frequently ranted about this subject.
He looked at the clock, downed his coffee and closed his laptop.
2am.
People poured out of the narrow bar entrance.
Sgt Dave Anderson smiled, watching a couple stagger to their car.
Eureka!
He would make quota this month!
Bar by Severina Halostar and BC
Tom laughed to himself, hands down, he knew he could do it. The day goes by slowly. As afternoon approaches, the earlier conversation is forgotten.
Tom stops in at the local watering hole with his buds after work, as usual. His enjoyable evening ritual.
Past 1 am, Tom attempted to sneak into the apartment without waking his wife, but she was wide awake and waiting for him.
“You were right honey, looks like I can’t pass one without stopping in.
Already upset, now furious, “You never listen to me fool!
I said I can’t pass the Bar without nonstop studying!”
TOM
Mark slid the Bombay and Schweppe across the bar to the nun. Mother Theresa nursed the drink while maintaining a 10,000-yard stare. In a delightful Belgium slur she mused “What the F! Does Mother Senton got, I ain’t got?” Mark stops polishing a tumbler and posed the possibility of still being alive as a deterrent to actual sainthood. “Ya, but was she a Martyr, No, and a bloody American too boot. Did she personally meet three, three popes? I’m a goddamn living legion.” “I think you meant legend.” “Whatever. Saint Theresa it rolls off the tongue, T-res-a. Damn Nazi”
GUY
I watched the progress bar as I uploaded myself into the new body. It was a fashionable one, female with huge wings, white as snow. As the upload completed, my old body slumped down lifeless and I was ready to test the new model, invigorated and youthful. I stood there for hours, naked in front of the bathroom mirror, examining every pore on my naked skin, feeling myself. My breasts where heavier then I thought they would be, my wings lighter. I would make a new life for myself, start anew with this new body. I was at last reborn.
TURA
On the glass shelves behind every bar there is always a display of strangely shaped bottles full of strangely coloured liquids, and you know, I’ve never seen them used.
At one bar I discreetly photographed them every few days. The fluid levels never changed, but the bottles themselves moved from one picture to another, so I made a time-lapse movie. They’re alive!
And they know I know. I haven’t been in a bar since, but this morning at home I found a miniature of some garish yellow liquid with a long Italian name. I took it outside and smashed it.
MUNSI
So last week’s mission didn’t exactly go smoothly…
You were caught slipping the note into the book, the librarian alerted an international network of booksellers and librarians, and now you’re on the run, legions of angry, literate assassins hounding your every move.
I can’t help, in some small way, feeling responsible.
Tell you what, run to Canada, hide here until it blows over. I’ll meet you at Tipparary’s, even buy the first round.
It’ll be okay.
Because here, at the bar.
You’ll feel safest of all.
We can lock all the doors.
It’s the only way to live.
In bars…
LIZZIE
It was right there, they thought. At least, that’s how they remembered it. But it wasn’t right there. Hours of roaming the city, blinded by neon lights, and the two could simply not find it.
“You didn’t bring the card,” John said.
“Again?!” sighed Peter.
Suddenly, one wrong turn and there were four of them… The strike hit Peter on the temple.
“What are you looking for?” asked the stranger.
“Nothing,” replied John.
“Finish him off.”
A faint “No…” was muffled by the cold iron bar swooshing in the air.
A card slipped from John’s back pocket saying Pigeons’ Bar.
CHRIS THE NUCLEAR KID
When I awoke I looked at the map I had noticed the night before. Putting the paper on the map I found that it made an outlined tunnel system that supposedly ran under the town. The entrance was under my room’s bed.
I moved the bed from the wall and saw a trapdoor with a old lock. I kicked the lock breaking it lose then opened the door. A gust of dusty air rushed out and I climbed down the old ladder.
Following the tunnel I came to a large bronze door. But, sadly it was locked. So, I left.
JUNE
When I dropped out of college, home became a hotel room.
This is because my parents lost their house two weeks into my “journey”.
Homesick, my brother and I smoked pipes and watched reruns of Cheers.
When he passed out, I left the room.
Insomnia is a way of life when your bed is an armchair.
The hotel bar was closed to me, and no one knew my name. So I wandered
the dead streets outside, writing songs of loss.
Eighty songs later, I am glad I could not get a drink.
Though I found other ways to destroy myself.
CLIFF
I used to work at this watering hole that attracted a bunch of cartoonists. I don’t know why. Apparently we were just the closest joint to the animation studios. This was back before all the cartoons were done by Korean computers, of course. So this one day, an Artist comes in and I thought all hell was going to break loose. He was drinking his Cosmo and putting down our regulars as hacks and sellouts. I really thought it was going to come to blows. So, I took care of it with his second drink. I slipped him a Mickey.
This story is dedicated to my friend Tom who is the artist behind the webcomic ThoseFunkyIdiots.com. I’d record the story and shameless plug myself but a tiny ninja stole my recording equipment.
NORVAL JOE
The farmer sat at his dinner table, alone, too tired to eat. His wrinkled face sagged, his sun-spotted pate tipped forward as he dropped into sleep.
He might have thought it a dream if his heart wasn’t pounding through his rib cage, as the wizardess burst into his home.
Her grey eyes flashed and she asked, “Are there any windows in the house?”
An elf stepped to the hearth and began to chant.
“No, none,” the farmer grunted.
“Good,” the woman said. “Owen, bar the door.”
“We beg your hospitality, good man,” Shareeka said. “A storm is about to break.”
REDGODDESS
Lola woke up twenty minutes after her alarm went off. After a quick shower, she threw on her plain blue uniform, and busted out of her apartment for the bus. She was welcomed by the dragon lady fuming about incomplete service requests. By midday, there was a smoke smell complaint, an overflowed toilet in the penthouse and accident by a dog in the elevator. She was ready to walk out for good, when she stuck her hand in her pocket for master keys, instead found a business card with a handwritten message, “meet me at the bar for a surprise.”
ZACKMANN
“I found a recipe for super great cookie bars that are said to taste even better than those coconut collision cookies you love from the coffee shop next to Boarderlands Books sf.” boasted Dylan
“Wow, are those supposed to be so big?” said Zack
“I followed the recipe. I can’t imagine what went wrong.” replied Dylan.
“Which spoon did you use for measuring the baking soda?” asked Zack
The one that is marked with Capital T for tea spoon.” said Dylan.
“That is for Table Spoon. Lowercase ts is for Tea Spoon.
Sometime you can raise the bar too high.“
PLANET Z
The last time I saw Ricky, the rollercoaster attendant lowered the lap-bar into place.
The cars went up, teetered over the hill, and raced along the track.
Everyone screamed and raised their hands.
At the end of the ride, people laughed and got up.
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 Fourteen, where I post a topic and then challenge you to come up with a 100 word story based on that topic.
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:
(That’s Gray Stripey. He visits us a lot. Bruwyn and Myst get along with him and let him enjoy the catnip piles.)
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.
GUY
The first Bread-and-Butterfly was documented by the good reverent Charles Lutwidge Dodgson in his celebrated book about the origin of the species, titled “Through the Looking Glass”. When his conclusions came out, whole teams of other researchers came out on strike claiming the human race didn’t evolve from some Bread-and-Butterfly alpha. I guess most of them didn’t even read his book. They just confused his with that other Charles, the one who wrote the book about the origin of chess. Or, was it the other way around? Guess I should ask the red queen about it.
ZACKMANN
The teen boy excitedly squeed “Are you Munsis Minions of Team Alpha? It is so exciting to meet you.”
The public relations officer replied “Sorry to get your hopes up kid but Team Alpha and Team Beta are stuck in Alberta. The zombie task force has had some setbacks but don’t worry team Sigma is here and we shall prevail. It’s your lucky day kid. We got a truckload of something from Louisville. The good news is today is Team Sigma Bat Day. The bad news is you’re likely to need it but when we succeed only to play baseball.”
THOMAS
Strike Team Alpha released the earworm virus in midtown Manhattan a few weeks before Christmas when the whole area was already inundated with Xmas music and sales jingles spilling into the street from storefronts. The team’s purpose was to drive the Xmas shoppers mad and to cause them to riot, destroy local landmarks, break windows, throw bricks at the police, and bang tourists on the heads with homemade picket signs. The Strike Team Commander, Wallace Gloatbridge, was a disgruntled ex, government worker, and fiction author from Massachusetts. The virus spread rapidly, and the team fled to their squat in Brooklyn.
##
Strike Team Alpha was a tight-knit group of fiction writers from South Texas. They wrote fiction on spec and contract, selling to magazines and small shopping guides. The team commander, Mary Alfalpha, and her lieutenant, Sarah Dipity made sure all grammar and spelling was correct, and any team member stooping to profanity would have to surrender their membership and privileges. The team met their demise during an particularly brutal attack by a gang of black booted grammar Nazis from the Carolinas that stormed their headquarters wielding dictionaries and thick thesauri. The team fell to overlooked braces, semi-colons, tildes, and em-spaces.
CHRIS THE NUCLEAR KID
It was not that long ago when I made a promise I was unable to keep. I promised to protect the one I loved. But when she needed help most I was not strong enough to save her. I then swore to train myself and become stronger. I joined the military training force for a few years.
A day ago I received an application to the Strike Team Alpha. Now it’s my first day I am slightly worried due to the stories I’ve heard of the place. But its probably worth it. Well I’d better get going before I’m late.
SERENDIPITY
Strike Team Alpha were supposed to be the cream of the crop, but their legendary failure is a textbook example of what happens when you have the wrong tools to get the job done.
Skills honed to perfection, they moved in under cover of darkness – their orders: ‘Light blue touchpaper and retire to a safe distance’.
It should have been simple.
Instead, it was a complete disaster – forty failed attempts later they withdrew; the mission, a disaster.
At the court martial the truth came out: “They sent us out with safety matches… How the hell were we to strike them?”
TURA
Spy-in-the-sky sees Team Alpha coming two miles out. Textbook-perfect manoeuvres but they’re running through it like a replay.
Bam. Landmine. They weren’t expecting that, no landmines there in the videogame. Come on, show some initiative, Alpha! No, they duck for the trees.
I settle behind my sniper scope. First one emerges, right on time. Second. Then mine. Bam. First two panic and run into the rest of Team Delta. I guess we can strike Team Alpha.
There’s one left, hiding in the trees, but we’ll capture him for interrogation, ho ho. The ones with just paintball splashes get it easy.
TOM
The 5th of June 1943 Strike Team Alpha crosses the Potomac under the cover of night. Lt. Bronski hands each member of the team the battered dispatch from HQ. In large black letters it reads as follows: The president of the United States is named Shiklegrubber. Execute Plan Omega. “Smoke Em if you got em,” whispered Sergeant Rock. Little Joe lights up a Luck Strike, which given the circumstances seemed a bit ironic. “We’re not come back are we Sarg?” “We got to get the Spaniard inside the White House and his infernal contraption. That’s the mission private.” Arnesto paces.
STEVEN THE NUCLEAR MAN
The team deployed from their chopper. Strike Team Alpha looked like any other crack military unit…. except for two things. Their unit patches simply had a Greek letter alpha, and they were completely unarmed.
They went from home to home, offering free hugs, and were met with bullets, knives, and shrapnel.
As the final member of Alpha breathed his last, the Old Man turned off the monitor and gestured to his XO. “Send in Strike Team Omega,” he said.
The XO nodded. He reached into the lead locker and started handing suitcase nukes to the members of the final team.
Munsi!
What’s your favorite book?
No, don’t tell me. I wouldn’t be able to hear you, podcasts are a one-way form of communication.
Instead, open word on your computer, write the title of the book, the name of it’s author, and how and why it changed your life.
Write a love letter to the book.
When you’re done, print the page, fold it and put it in an envelope.
Now: Head to your local library or bookstore, find a copy of the book, tuck the envelope inside and return it to the shelf.
Congratulations, you’ve just connected meaningfully with a stranger.
Logan Berry
Capitalism sucks.
Not on paper. It looks like a good system on paper. May the brightest minds prosper. In the real world, capitalism has become a conglomerate of faceless corporations who strive to deprive us of the basics of health and happiness so they can charge us money for manufactured, second hand, sub-standard and unnatural versions of the things we need to function with dignity.
So when my partner has a heart attack, as he did this week, I have as much faith in the system as I would a shark in a swimming pool. Hospitals underfunded and drug companies overfunded mean that someone profits obscenely, and someone suffers.
I need Strike Team Alpha to overthrow this most unethical and soul-destroying system; or, if possible, to sit by my partner’s bed, and hold his hand.
LIZZIE
After years of attacks, the authorities called in the big guns. They were tough, they were dangerous. They were the reason children played in the streets now and women walked home from work late at night. Thieves, drug dealers, murderers and serial killers didn’t stand a chance. Tenacious and all geared up, they would roam the streets hunting predators down. Their motto was KISS. KISS them and KISS them again. They were Kimberly, Ivy, Suzy and Samantha, the Strike Team Alpha of the neighborhood. “Can I have an ice-cream, Granny?” asked 5 year old Peter. “No,” replied KISS in unison.
######
“Not good,” Strike said peaking through the window.
Team nodded.
“What are you talking about?!” Alpha was angry.
“You go first, Strike.”
“First?!”
“Yes, explain what we mean,” replied Team.
“Ah!” said Strike with a sigh of relief.
“This is a covert operation. What’s the problem?” asked Alpha annoyed.
Strike and Team looked anxious.
“Let’s go,” commanded Alpha.
Suddenly there was a loud noise, a shot.
“Uh-oh…” said Strike.
Team nodded.
“See, I told him. His wife wouldn’t like the surprise. This Strike Team Alpha anniversary gift was a bad idea. Too kinky…”
Strike nodded.
“Coffee?”
“And cream,” replied Team.
Cliff
“You are part of this Strike Team Alpha.”
He wasn’t very imposing. His three goons were, however.
“Strike Team what?”
“Don’t play stupid.”
“Who’s playing?”
Actually, I was. As the new guy, I’d gotten to play bait. I’d sat in this café for three days waiting for the Literature Purity League to notice me. They were self appointed censors. They censored writers, not words. People had disappeared. In response, Strike Team Alpha was born.
From where I sat, I could see Munsi and Treed blocking the exit. These fools were about to see what writers could really do.
SACHY AND ABERNATHY
and now a word from our sponsors…
This is Captain Arctic here to tell you about my new ice cream; Strike Team Alpha. If you have ever wanted to be a superhero like me, you need Strike Team Alpha. This is a supernatural cold blast chalk full of American Pride with red, white and blue candy tidbits that will make your taste buds soar to new heights.
Side effects may include; Jumping over buildings in a single bound, shooting webs out of your wrists, laser and/or x-ray vision, invisibility, turning green, super human strength and explosive diarrhea.
RED GODDESS
There is a undying war being waged on low wage workers and the working poor. During new employee’s orientation, there is high optimism and promise to solve problems together. Human resources department really exists to protect the rights of companies not to ensure the employees are treated fairly. Then, who can employees turn to for grievances and better treatment in the workplace? There is only one group that can come to the rescue, “Strike Team Alpha.” Since this team is action oriented and militaristic, they will go in there, unlike mediators, and solve all the problems with one permanent move.
DANNY
“Target has been spotted!” the Captain screamed into his headset, command control responded, “Mission is a go!” “OK, Go, Go, Go!,” the captain screamed, as Strike Team Alpha jumped from the B21 bomber, plummeting to their target below. Parachutes deployed at 500 feet, the strike team quietly descended on their target, the buildng below. The door was kicked in, weapons fully drawn, the team was confronted by, an unarmed 4 year old child surrounded by 10 other toddlers. The 4 year old quickly responded, “Thhhpppppp!!!!” “Uh, command control, you just had us raid the Tiny Tots Pre-School.” The laughter from command control was deafening.
NORVAL JOE
The targets stood like ancient warriors, tall and silent, awaiting the attack. Fearless and stoic they stared back at the champion chosen to lead the assault.
Unassuming, almost pitiful in his weakness, like David of old facing Goliath, the first in the band of competitors stared across the field of battle. He took the projectile in his hand, stepped forward and hurled it toward the phalanx. With a crash they flew about knocking one another down.
“Strike, Team Alpha,” the announced called.
The first player of Team Bravo dried his hand, retrieved his bowling ball and stepped onto the lane.
The dwarf sat on his stool and stared at the ground.
“How long must we wait for an answer?” Owen asked.
The ranger replied, “dwarves live much longer than humans and therefore take much longer to make decisions.”
“Yes, but,” Owen said, “he’s sat all morning without movement or word. We only have so much time to get the princess. Do we really need him?”
“Ours will be the first group to enter the caverns since the goblins overran them,” Shareeka said. “Though he was a child when he escaped, his memory of the caves will be invaluable to us.”
PLANET Z
My company designs shoulder sleeve insignia for military uniforms.
Those are the patches you see on a soldier’s arm that says what service unit they’re a part of.
The strangest request came from the Army for their elite Strike Team Alpha unit.
Not only did this clandestine group not wear uniforms, but they were not supposed to ever identify themselves.
Due to regulations and bureaucracy, though, they had to have a patch.
So, they had a solid black patch made.
Their first mission was to kill the idiot in the Pentagon who ordered them to wear the patches.
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 Fourteen, where I post a topic and then challenge you to come up with a 100 word story based on that topic.
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
The flat black hat rimmed the edge of the horizon obscuring a piercing glaze. Slowly a rough-hewn match makes contact with a pencil thin cigar. The high plane drifter sends a vale of tobacco smoke upward, setting the rains to the left, the pallid horse beneath him descends into the valley below. He has come to smoke out a soul hiding under the mantel of propriety a pillar of the community. He knew better. Puffs on the cigar sets glow to the end sparking the wick of twin sticks of dynamite. Looping end over end dropping death through the window.
Dann
New Hampshire December froze our sweat to our skin. The windows HAD to be down. Had to be down. We took quick shallow breaths in a feeble attempt to stay warm. Only twenty more minutes. Fifteen. Ten.
Bolt out of the car.
Sprint up the stairs.
Who has the keys? Where did you put the keys?
Tear off every piece of clothing we had on.
There was nothing sensual, nothing fun.
Our heads were already starting to revert to long-lost craving mode.
Coat. Shirt. Pants. Turn the shower on. Throw them in the wash. Rid ourselves of the smoke.
Thomas
Jenny knew where there is smoke there is fire, so she spent the day looking for smoke, since she had five pounds of ribs and needed to barbeque them before they went bad. She walked around the neighborhood, peering over fences looking for smoke, until she found an elderly couple throwing some burgers on a kettle barbeque. She inquired, telling the couple her plight, and they agreed to let her cook her ribs when they were finished. She cooked and shared them with the couple. In this way, Jenny was able to dispose of the grisly remains of her crime.
##
Her singing voice was a smoky, throaty, and whiskey, mellow alto. She took the stage, sitting at the piano, ready to play one of her own tunes. The trio that backed her up were magnificent, and the audience moved to the edge of their seats with their cell phones and digital cameras high in the air. Ms. Darlene Apple was the hit of the Seattle jazz scene. Her beauty was shadowed by her lyrics, original compositions, and nudity. A chilling breeze came through a door off stage, and Ms. Apple picked up the tempo, to the delight of the audience.
Tura
“New car smell. New home smell. Gen-fem — generic feminine — used a lot in low-end clothing stores. Commercial stuff.” She shrugged.
“High-class ambients, they’re something else. But…times change. Here’s a classic. They don’t even make the ingredients any more.”
She showed me a small bottle, a quarter full of a deep amber liquid, labelled “OLD SMOKE”.
“You’ve never experienced anything like this before.” She took the stopper out for just a few seconds. Suddenly the room was redolent of old cigars, well-worn leather upholstery, brandy glasses, and — oh! — the subtlest grace notes of a beautiful woman glimpsed unattainably far off.
Serendipity
The fragrance drifting through the doorway as I passed by unlocked a forgotten wealth of fond memories.
Malacca, 1963… bartering for supper in the night market – the babble and hubbub, the sweaty, prickly heat of summer and the press of the excited crowd as they jostled at the market stalls, all came flooding back.
Then, an unexpected respite.
The temple, quiet and serene – a welcome escape from the tumult outside. The somnolent monotone of a Buddhist chant, drawing me in. And everywhere, the smouldering tapers of rising incense.
Wonderful memories, rekindled by the simple fragrance of that blesséd, holy smoke.
Munsi
Yes, I do still smoke.
I know I shouldn’t. I know that it’s expensive, and I know what it’ll do to my teeth and the lines around my eyes.
I also know that cigarettes are the only product that, used as directed, kills 100% of it’s customers. Cancer, heart disease, I know what smoking does.
But I also know that twice a day, at work, regardless of how long my scheduled shift is, I will hear a manager say, in essence: Smokers, take a five minute break. Non-smokers, shut up and get back to work.
So yeah, I still smoke.
Guy David
A man, or a mere impression of a men. He rises from the chimney of some factory or another, taking shape from the smoke. He hovers above the city, an illusion perhaps, more likely a secret project. Eyes are cameras, ears are microphones, recording silently. No door can hold him. He just blows underneath like the smoke he’s made of. His brain has the computing power built into the latest in nanotechnology. The results are being sent for processing at a secret facility. He is just the prototype. More are being created. Watch out for the fog, it’s coming alive.
Logan Berry
Until that moment, panic had turned me to ice. But the touch of his
hand on my skin was the lick of a blowtorch and I felt its heat,
suddenly, shockingly. Something stirred in a place I thought had died.
I felt, as if for the first time, my own breathing, sharp and hot.
Smoke curled out of his nose and drifted towards the ceiling fan like
the ghosts of small birds.
The fan spun slowly, each rotation clicking softly, the only sound in
a deathly silence.
He inhaled again in the darkness, silhouetted against a grey window.
He thought I was still dead as he leaned over me, pressing his lips
against mine and forcing the ghostly birds into my mouth. When I felt
his tongue scorch the back of my throat, I bit down, hard.
As his screams broke the silence, I floated to the window, spread my
wings, and flew away.
Zackmann
“I never saw your shop before. Do you sell anything in addition to tobacco like loose leaf tea or tee shirts?”
“I don’t think you understand that is a smoke shop, the only thing we sell is smoke. Except election years than we also sell mirrors.” answered shopkeeper
“Do you mean like liquid smoke for cooking?”
“Liquid smoke is one product we sell. We currently have a sale on smoke from 1980s rock concerts.”
“Too bad,I was looking for tobacco because I read a gardening article that touted its uses.”
“Come back when they write an article about smoke.”
Lizzie
“Smoke them out, smoke them out!” one soldier barked throwing a smoke grenade in the hole.
“They are coming!” another yelled.
They thought dozens of enemies had been hiding in a trench for more than a week. No food and no water left.
“Come out of there!” the first soldier barked again. “We’ll go in, if you don’t come out, right now!”
They were the winners. The losers would have to obey.
“Yeah!” they all yelled.
The thick heavy smoke was unbearable.
In the end, the hundreds were five teenage soldiers scared to death.
Soldiers and kids, no winners there…
Steven the Nuclear Man
Sullivan lights his and Murphy’s cigarettes, then shakes out the match. Night floods back as the flame dies.
Thompson’s eyebrows arch. “What about me?”
Murphy laughs as Sullivan strikes another match. “Thompson, you weren’t military?”
Thompson draws on the cigarette, lighting it from Sullivan’s match. Treetrunks loom until Sullivan shakes the flame out. “Nope.”
Murphy takes a drag. “You light two ’cause it’s too short for a sniper to aim.”
Thompson’s brow furrows. “We’re hunting demons, not snipers.”
Sullivan tosses his cigarette at the other men’s feet. “Demons that see heat,” he says as his horned master enters the clearing.
Buttermilk
From the very moment when we first met, there was just something about her,
something I couldn’t quite put my finger on. She is intoxicating.
Attractive doesn’t begin to explain it. I’d say it was chemical, maybe even
phermonal, if that was possible. I can’t explain the way she has
captured my attention. There is an ephemeral quality about her that absolutely
captivates me. From that first moment on, she has dominated my thoughts,
my dreams, and my fantasies alike. I have spent countless hours trying to define it, to describe it,
to understand it. It eludes me…. like smoke.
Cliff
The reporters and the faithful stood in the courtyard waiting. The College of Cardinals had been in the Sistine Chapel for several days trying to elect the new pope. The previous leader of the church had been one of the most popular popes in decades. He had helped the church grow and find new members the world over. When intelligent life had been discovered in the tunnels of Mars, missionaries had been dispatched and the Martians had converted in droves. There were even native Martian bishops now.
Still, everyone was surprised when the smoke rising from the Chapel was green.
Norval Joe
His lungs burned as he raced across the meadow to her grandfather’s cottage.
Smoke billowed from the windows and door. Fire danced up the thatched roof.
He grabbed a bucket at the well and dumped it on a sheet of canvas that covered firewood by the door.
Crouched under the canvas he crawled to her bedroom, wrapped her in the wet sheet and dragged her to safety.
Her eyes fluttered open, “You came back for me.”
“I’ll always come for you,” he promised.
Sitting with the company in the smoky common room, the memory came back to Owen with force.
TJ
“Can you help me?” she pleaded. “My daughter is missing.”
Although the suites were nonsmoking, a blue haze hung in the air behind
her. She waved off my glance. “She went missing… six hours ago. The
computer moved all our rooms around and… she’s probably lost.” Her
eyes worried about more sinister possibilities.
“How old is she?” I asked. “Does she have her cell with her?”
“She’s 15. It goes directly to voicemail. I called the police but
I’m out of my mind here!”
Well, I’m just a locksmith, myself, but I figured I could at least try
to help.
RedGoddess
Lola wears many hats as part of her job on the hotel’s guest services team. She’s not a magician but expected to make problems vanish in thin air. She’s not a superhero but have been known to leap out of harm’s way. Most notably, she’s no firefighter but can smell smoke from miles away. Last week, one of her guests decided to bake a special batch of biscuits for her fiancee who’s visiting from London. She has never turned the oven on since moving into the penthouse suite. Within minutes, the fire alarm was set off and triggered the sprinklers.
Planet Z
I like the smell of incense.
I have incense burners in the living room, office, and the bathroom so I don’t have to move them around.
But then, I keep the incense on a single shelf in the hallway. Kinda defeats the purpose of a convenient burner in every room if I have to get up to get more.
There’s also a smoke alarm in each room, but the smoke from the incense doesn’t set it off.
The smoke from burning something on the stove does, though.
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 Fourteen, where I post a topic and then challenge you to come up with a 100 word story based on that topic.
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
Cartesian grid
In a gentler age people lived in Hotels.
In a way it makes sense.
If you eliminate the need for all things kitchen
The room you need drops not only by square footage
But by raw functionality.
People bring you food; you eat, leaving the dishes for others
The restraint of Hotel life limits family building
So you don’t need more that one bed room.
Since there isn’t a financial drain toward child rearing
Moneys can go to the really important stuff
Books lots of books.
So you got a bed, books, and bathtub
What more could you possible want?
Thomas
The hotel was located a little off the freeway next to a meat market. It was a two story building, painted a bright red, and festooned with gaudy neon lights that blinked “Vacancy, Vacancy” Tom and Ellen pulled in late after their full day of driving South . Tom signed in as John and Nancy Smith, and they went to the room overlooking the large pool. The pool was empty, and there seemed to be no other people around. There was one other car in the lot. Tom appreciated the quiet and marveled at how reasonable the room rate was.
##############
The CostaBaja Hotel was full of kids on Spring break, so Tom and Ellen had to find an out-of-the-way room, far from the popular beach. The room was in a modest, old neighborhood, and the woman that greeted them at the door welcomed them and said they could stay in the room if they didn’t mind sharing the bathroom. During the night, nature called, and Tom went down the hall to the bathroom. There was lots of splashing and movement in the bathroom. The door was ajar and Tom looked in to see four, large, squidmen frolicking in the tub.
Tura
Welcome to the Aldebaran Imperial Hotel. These instructions are for your safety and convenience.
All rooms are colour-coded by environmental type. Yours is oxygen: blue. Public areas are vacuum: white.
Environment suits MUST be worn outside your designated zone. Remember that YOU may be toxic to THEM.
DO NOT ENTER PURPLE AREAS UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES.
Do not approach strangers other than hotel staff, unless you are sure that you are familiar with their species and their social customs.
The Hotel cannot be held responsible for injury or death, in whatever manner, resulting from disregard of these instructions.
Enjoy your stay.
Lizzie
“What’s he building in there,” the kids thought as they peeked through the dusty windows in the back. The old man stayed in the basement of the hotel for days on a row. Darkness engulfed his shadow even deeper as he paced back and forth. Strange noises, hammering sounds. The scar on his face, the tattoo on his arm, was he in jail? Every now and then he glanced at the windows and the kids cringed, wondering what he was building in there. They could swear they heard someone moaning the other day. Where is that poet who went missing…? (Inspired by Tom Waits song “What’s He Building in There”)
Serendipity
Hotel
A soft tap at the door; “Room service!”, then the clink and rattle of the breakfast trolley.
“I never ordered breakfast”, I protest, shuffling out of bed.
“Nonsense, Sir… The speciality; champagne breakfast with black truffle omelette. Enjoy!” – he smiles proffering my chair.
I shrug and sit.
It’s excellent and I tuck in with a hearty appetite.
“Just sign here, Mr Lambert”
Lambert?
The room number on the slip is 838… I’m in 833!
Half-eaten egg and popped champagne are cleared with a frown and now he’s stood at the door, hand outstretched expectantly.
“You want a damn tip!”
Zackmann
I was a little worried about working security for a hotel during a supervillain convention until I realised most are waiting for The Method to the Madness: A Guide to the Super Evil. I think it being especially calm for a convention likely because many of attendees are working on their submissions since they are due at the end of next month. I should have my kid help me write an essay for it about not using a security, housekeeping, or police job as a supervillain cover, Since we are the first people who investigators check. Everyone watches the watchers.
Munsi
Well since my baby left me, I found a new place to dwell.
I had to. She kept the house.
And the kids.
I see them every other weekend, but in between it’s just me, alone in the hotel I’m staying in until I find an apartment.
I should be looking for an apartment, but I feel like doing that makes it somehow more permanent.
This is permanent.
It’s my own fault, I know. One lapse in judgment and my life came tumbling down. I have nobody to blame but myself, but sometimes…
…I get so lonely I could die.
Guy
We are pretty sure there’s a dimensional rift on room 306. Every once in a while one of the guests goes in. Problem is it’s an exchange. What goes out looks like the guest, but we are pretty sure it’s a demon. We know it by the way he abuses the hotel employes, being rude to the maids and abusive to the bell boys, so we use our special anti-demon contraption aka demon cage. Once it’s inside demanding a lawyer, we dispose of it in the river. In fact, there might be dimensional rifts on other rooms as well.
Sevi and Bonchance
Hotel
One
Hotel bed
On borrowed time
Needed night of respite
To let your body rest.
Strange noises echo all around you
Forcing your dreams to be interrupted rudely
You pull the musty pillow over your ears
Trying to drown out the sudden banging and thundering
The constant comings and goings.
Counting sheep thinking it will help ease your soul
Your body weary, begging for slumber, you pray
For the sounds to go away momentarily
Staring at the ceiling, wide awake
Sleep stolen by thin walls
You count little white sheep
They float over fences
Wake up call
This hotel
Sucks!
Hotel
Tom stood at the floor to ceiling window of his hotel room. The latest winter storm raged outside. He took a bite of the complimentary cookie then sipped the hot free coffee, the perfect dinner.
He watched a motorist dig out an opening in the wall of snow to make another attempt to get his car out of the lot.
A twinge of guilt poured over him, he would miss his daughter’s first ballet recital.
He checked all of the road conditions. He knew he had made the right choice in not attempting the long drive home.
The guilt remained.
Logan Berry
The first Thursday of every month they meet at a hotel, a different hotel every time, according to the order they appear in the telephone directory. They alternate procuring reservations, under names selected in alphabetical order from the The Big Book of Surnames, in the chapter, ”Most Common”.
They don’t speak, except in private sign language. They turn on the TV, fairly loud, and then play a recording. The recording is mostly silent, with the occasional cough, or snore, or flush of a toilet.
They make love soundlessly.
Until one day when they both cry out at once, so intense is their passion. In horror they dress quickly, and leave separately, never to meet again.
Steven the Nuclear Man
The school’s playground equipment squeaks behind Gretchen and Harvey
as they crawl under the brambly bushes. Gretchen stands on the far
side, a smirk flitting between her pigtails as Harvey wheezes, out of
breath.
Harvey looks up, past his classmate, and sees it first. “Candy!” The
children run for the strange building, entranced by the candycane
pillars, the gingerbread walls, the icing trim.
Their teacher’s voice carries across the bushes. “Harvey! Gretchen!
Recess is over!” Reluctantly, the children leave.
Inside, two witches glare furiously after the children.
The older witch snaps off a bit of peppermint. “Don’t check out, huh?”
Chris the Nuclear Kid
I followed Firehawk to the hotel. It had a hard-to-miss, multicolored sign reading The Inn
“I have prepared a room for our guest Firehawk” said the innkeeper.
“Thank you.” “She will show you to your room, we can talk in the morning.” Said Firehawk.
“Thank you, you have been very kind.” I replied.
The room was small and there was a map and a piece of paper with holes in it in the corner of the room. Looking at the paper closer I could see writing on its edge. “I’ll look at it in the morning.” I muttered to myself.
Julie
Housekeeping
I asked the maid to clear it all away– the merlot-stained glass, the towels, your coffee cup—to remove any reminder that you had been here, even briefly.
It is now a lovely memory; however, I need to wipe away the tangible vestiges because it is all so sweet, so unreal, that dwelling upon it is causing me physical pain.
And so I stare out at this city, buried in the fog and rain. I check the windows. They do not, blessedly, open. I am given a reprieve.
I sob, I wait for sleep. I curl against a pillow, which still bears your scent. I wouldn’t let the maid change the sheets.
Cliff
Checking in at the Full Moon Inn
The sign said “No Vacancy”. I rang the desk bell anyway. The clerk looked like a beard with eyes.
“We’re full.”
“Really? This place has probably a hundred rooms and you got eight cars in the lot.”
“We’re full.”
I slapped a hundred on the counter. He smiled, showing more pointy teeth than anyone should have.
Anyone natural, that is.
Heading to my room, I passed several guests. They looked like rejects from the Westminster dog show.
In my room, I loaded the spare magazines with silver rounds. Tomorrow, I would be dead or finally have the title Wolf’s Bane.
Hotel
Jack, a volunteer test subject for an experimental drug that shrinks the human body to tiny proportions, was put up in a luxury beachside hotel on the Gulf of Mexico. ” I can leave a free Hotel,” Jack murmured, heavily sedated by the drug, “just like Homer Simpson’s cartoon show, what’s the name if it?” Tiny Jack was now living inside an actual Monopoly game hotel, on a cocktail table on the beach. Suddenly, Jack’s body expands, shards of Monopoly hotel slice through his body. Several 1000 stitches later, Jack is fine, but he still cannot remember the name of Homer Simpson’s show.
Norval Joe
Owen woke, cold and soggy.
His cloak had done little to seal out the continuous drizzle throughout the night. He warmed slightly as they found the road and picked up their pace. But he was still wet, increasingly muddy and the rain continued.
Only the thought that the ranger, Traveller, had promised he would sleep in a real bed that night kept him going.
At dusk the company stood before a hovel, not much more than a pile of boards leaned against one another.
“What’s that?” Owen asked in despair.
Traveller patted Owen’s back and laughed, “The inn, of course.”
TJ
The knock was insistent. Which was the second unusual thing about this
night. My reservations at the Westwood Inn had been lost and reassigned
in a computer glitch, but the night desk manager assured me that my new
room, a suite, would be far more comfortable. Fine by me since they
comped the increased cost, but now, at 4:37 a.m., who did the person
knocking so frantically from the adjoining room suppose that I was? I
pulled my robe around my shoulders and opened the door to discover a
frightened, agitated woman. “Please help me,” she implored.
“It’s my daughter.”
Planet Z
Back in grade school, there was this kid who did magic.
He worked with cards, coins, and interlocking rings.
But his best trick was sticking four Monopoly houses in his mouth and spitting out a hotel.
We made him open his mouth to see if he had the houses under his tongue.
Nope. Because he’d swallowed them.
Plastic Monopoly houses are supposed to be non-toxic and safe, but one somehow caused an ulcer. They rushed him into surgery, and he died from an allergic reaction to the anesthesia.
At the funeral, his mom really let loose with the water works.
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 Thirteen, where I post a topic and then challenge you to come up with a 100 word story based on that topic.
And if you want to spam your social networks with this episode, use the Share buttons at the end of the post…
Obligatory photo:
Obligatory silly video:
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
The moon showed deep into Barlow’s room. It was so bright, that it woke him out of a heavy sleep and an exquisite dream. He stood, pulled his blanket around him and sat by the window looking out over his gardens. The moon was a dark, mandarin orange. Barlow could see movement in his back yard. Peering closer, and refocusing his eyes, he could see figures crawling close to the fence. It was his neighbor, Bob and his wife, Alena. They opened their mouths wide and howled like wolverines. Barlow had forgotten his neighbors love of the outdoors and astronomy.
Serendipity
The old man sighed.
He gazed affectionately at his now redundant, ropes, pulleys and pistons, then at the gleaming bank of buttons on the new control panel. “You can’t stand in the way of progress”, he thought, checking his watch…
It was time.
His finger found the button neatly labelled ‘First Quarter’ – huge letters appeared in the sky, garish in their intensity: * FQ * – he grimaced.
He paused to take one last look at his favourites… crescent, harvest and new, lying dusty and worn in the corner. The Man in the Moon sighed again and quietly closed the door behind him.
Lizzie
Not again… the moon was pink! Rose was tired of that sissy color. She liked red. So, Rose decided to do something about it. She climbed to the top of the church tower, as close to the moon as she could get. Then she pricked her finger on the cross and she stretched and stretched all the way to the moon. As she touched it, it turned into a beautifully bright red. The problem was when she tried to come down and lost her balance falling flat on her back. The last thing she saw was that damn pink moon.
Tura
When the Moon is full, with binoculars you can just see the construction works. It’s a lot bigger below ground — what you’re seeing is the solar collectors powering the machines that turn moonrock into everything else, including more machines. Building Moon City, that was the idea. But the off-switch isn’t working, and it’s invented a way of using its blasting equipment to fire on any spaceship that comes close.
The tunnel system doubles in size every year. They reckon it’ll take thirty years to cover the whole Moon. Maybe it will stop then.
But what if it invents space travel?
Katja
“Hey! You’re mooning the neighbors.”
Kylie drifts through the apartment in a cloud of smoke. Cigarette ash trails behind her, planting its seeds in the coarse carpeting. Here and there butts are already sprouting.
“Dude, I mean it! Wear something.”
She bends over to retrieve her underpants from the grease stained top of a pizza box, half hidden under the coffee table.
His beer hits the table, the glare hits Kylie.
Her belly squashes into two, three, four rolls as she maneuvers her second leg through the hole.
“You’re so beautiful… I love you.”
“Yeah, yeah. See you next week.”
Munsi!
There’s a whole lot wrong in the world.
The globe is warming, and we’ve passed peak oil. Our governments tell us we’re safe from terrorism, but you know we aren’t. A handful of bankers and lobbyists can destroy the global economy and be rewarded with billions of our tax dollars for it.
And yes, sometimes this gets me down, but when it does all I have to do is remember…
The moon.
We walked on the moon.
We walked on the fucking moon.
So yeah, please, look me in the eye and tell me we can’t overcome our collective challenges…
Logan Berry
Dear earth pen pal,
How’s waste? I’m wasting pretty good. No, unfortunately my girlfriend
is still constipated and may even be ready for the Big Recycle. Thanks
for the idea of the bran but we don’t have that here, and I have never
heard of a Telethon. We don’t really have much time for TV anyway as
we are mostly busy mining.
Both my parents have been Recycled but I still have twenty-four
siblings to keep me company if my girlfriend is reused. So don’t
worry, I will never be lonely, for though it may be barren and
lifeless here, all our mining, sleeping and wasting are done in
big, happy communal pile-ups.
And good luck with the new waste recycle program which you say earth
desperately needs these days. I am mystified why your people would
find the idea gross.
Happy wasting,
Your moon pen pal
Tom
In a previous life I ran pre production in a printing plant. We did custom work for a bunch of the Silicon Valley firms and a fair about business with Leland Stanford Jr. College. My favorite on going job was with the Student Union. They had a photograph of a line of a dozen undergrads with their pants dropped to their ankles and their butts facing squarely to the viewer. We printed this image on T-shirts with the following:Get your B. A.at Stanford. Not to be out done Cal students printed a shirt: Moon over your Masters.
###
Nelman Freder was back in the ER. He had severe laceration to his backside, which by Freder standards was not very noteworthy. The confusing element of this examination was the state of his pants. How do you rip your ass to pieces and not tear the pants? After considerable probing by Dr. Dan, and Nurse Betty, Nelman mumbled something about his Cousin Kevin. Seems Sub syllabic Cos Kev dared him a case of beer if he would “do it” “What was the IT?” “We were only going 10 miles an hour,” Nelman looked sheepishly out the window “A moving moon.”
Cliff
Alice was the queen of the moon people. She’d been born in Brooklyn and lived her whole life there with no notion that there were such things as moon people.
When she’d married, she’d done it for love, not money, which was good because there was never enough money. Her husband became bitter and angry and threatened to take out his rage on Alice but she loved him and never believed he’d do it.
When he finally snapped, the Moon Goddess whisked Alice away just as her husband had been about to strike her.
Bam. Pow. To the moon, Alice.
Zackmann
You mean to tell me after I forced myself to stowaway on a rocketship that I am only here because Skinner Co got bad intell? Your CEO is not an evil supervillain who is trying to build a moon base in order to take over the world but you are a group of science fiction and gardening enthusiasts who believe that garden domes on the moon will encourage interstellar travel.
Really, I mean Really, did you think just maybe you would have avoided a great deal of suspicion if you had not call your lunar botanical gardens The Moonraker Project?
Dammit, I woke up naked in a haystack watching the full moon setting in the morning sky. I am not sure if that means I should quit drinking or should get new friends with less sense of humor than my present so called friends. They went whole hog even tearing apart that pig as if a dog ate it. Funny I am feeling full and am covered with blood. Might explained my dream of eating Chocolate Meat from a running soup kettle. I fear this was not a practical joke. Must be a joke because I can not be werewolf
Chris
I put the tent away and went to the village.
The village was small but was still warm. As I walked I noticed a boy watching me.
“Hi I’m Strone, I’m not from around here could you help me?” I said.
“Hello Strone, I am Firehawk. I may help but you must be trustworthy.” He replied.
“I will try to earn your trust in me.”
“Good, do you know of magic?”
“I have heard about it, I heard that the moon is the source of magic.”
“Very well come with me, for now get some rest you have come far.”
Steven
“Captain, you are to take out the Russian guns.” The messenger begins
to turn his mount to return to the command point.
I cough, catching his attention. “Sir, which guns?”
“Those guns,” he says, and casually waves his hand toward the Russians.
My gaze travels down the length of his arm, down the wide open valley
past two ridges of Russian troops, and directly toward the enemy steam
mechs.
“We’re doomed,” my sergeant says.
But past the enemy guns, I see the full moon, still visible in
daylight. It has not yet set, and I smile a knowing smile.
Lizzie (For Circe)
Aim for the moon, said her friend. And she did. She collected broken tiles, blue, red, green, and glued them on a cardboard the size of the moon. People thought she was crazy obsessing over those tiles, but she didn’t pay any attention. She was on a mission. Yellow, purple, orange. She gathered all the colors except one. Should that color go in there too? Suddenly, a kid said “the black is missing”. No black, she thought. “The moon will look better,” and he smiled. Life is full of colors but the kid’s smile was the one she really needed.
Norval Joe
Spleen couldn’t wait to be away from the company. The stinking elf was too much for any goblin to stand, even a half-goblin.
He crouched and watched from a distance as they prepared their camp by the light of the moon. He’d given the witch his word he wouldn’t eat any of the people, but what good was a goblin’s word.
Spleen eyed the boy, alone, standing first watch. He licked his razor sharp teeth with his scaled tongue.
“Don’t get any ideas, goblin,” the ranger said from behind.
Spleen spun around, hissing.
Maybe he should eat the ranger first.
RedGoddess
Lola first fell in love with the moon as a child. She was transplanted, lonely in a foreign and unsettling new world. After landing at an overpopulated airport clutching her important documents, she looks to the moon for comfort. It’s her safety blanket in stormy restless nights, the only reliable roof over her head. It is the closest and farthest gift in her universe. She sees it from every corner of the planet among clouds of uncertainties. Revealing its soft light when least expected. The moon, her companion, till they part eternally.
Pale Infinity
it seems that a similar theme ran thru her
poetry/ a thread of sadness stringing together most of her poems./ There were some from the rare peaceful times
that ventured into/ larger subjects but most of them were
about lost love./ she couldnt stop thinking of her past
mistakes and move/ on. So when she started realizing
she was living with /a ghost she finally had something different to write about./
her new work attracted some fans. many people now believe / in ghosts and life after death. this particular ghost stole /butter knives and hid things. her weakness
became losing things,
TJ
The topic: The Meaning of Life – “The Meaning of Life”
Turned out the doll room was my grandfather’s attempt at a perpetual
motion machine. The rotating limbs and flickering eyelids eventually
released a catch and snapped open a side door. Inside we found a laptop
marked “The Meaning of Life.” I typed in, “Is it love?” “No.
People have lived meaningful lives without love.” “Is it sex?”
“Sex perpetuates life. It provides no context for meaning.” Other
inquiries were similarly shot down: “Is it kindness?” “Power?”
“Influence?” Until I typed in the question: “Does life have
meaning?” The laptop beeped. “No.” “Thus spake Zarathustra,” I
mused. We continued our exploration.
The topic: Game – “Artificial Intelligence”
The laptop had been nestled into a dusty confabulation of colorful
wires, exposed circuit boards, and blinking LEDs that seem to have
groaned back to life with the flickering doll eyes. Beyond this tangled
mess, my grandfather had cleared a space where a robotic armature
hovered over a game board, quivering like an arrow newly sprung, beneath
a heading of “Artificial Intelligence – Interface II” Grandma was
mystified – she’d clearly never been to this part of the hoard
before. “Should we play it?” she asked. I didn’t know what to say.
How much artificial intelligence was required to play “Sorry”?
The topic: Fingers – “Workspace”
Between the perpetual motion machine (still chittering away), and the
laptop and the game, we were moving into a part of the house that was
purely Granddad’s domain. But since he and my grandmother were both
inveterate hoarders, there was a generalized fluidity to the massed
collection of things, useful flowing seamlessly into useless. My fingers
traced a line in the dust along three steamer trunks held closed with a
hasp when there was a resonant CLUNK! from within. The five of us – my
grandmother, my sister, my Aunt Betty, Uncle Lou and myself – looked
at each other with dread.
The topic: I don’t know what this is – “Discovery”
Not having any idea what was inside the steamer trunks, I reached with
some trepidation for the hasp in the center. A shuddering creeeeaaaaak
sounded as a panel opened and a WHOOSH and a shriek from Aunt Betty as a
cat scurried past our ankles. The noise had come from a reel-to-reel
recording apparatus in some apparent reaction to the springing to life
of the creepy perpetual motion machine in the next room. Of course, I
may have just associated the two with the pile of extra doll parts that
poured out of the trunks. I shuddered, and hit “Play.”
The topic: Rhymes with itch – “Recording”
I hit play on the ancient recorder and we listened to the staticky voice
of my grandfather reciting a snatch of verse. “The sitch is this. It
rhymes with itch. And which rich bitch would snitch my niche will pitch
a fit to learn that it will not be her so SIT ON IT!” The rest of us
were mystified but my grandmother was pale with anger. “YOU sit on it,
you crazy old bedbug!” she wheezed before collapsing into a chair.
“What did he mean, Nana?” my sister asked, but my grandmother
grabbed a lamp and SMASHED the recorder.
The topic: Fool – “Epiphany”
“Crazy old fool!” she breathed. In another part of the house the
lamp she’d destroyed along with the reel-to-reel recorder would’ve
been defended as a priceless antique, although my guess was most of the
junk we were up to waist-deep in was non-functioning. As I spied what
looked like a sort of steampunk spider in the corner, my guess was also
my hope. “He swore he’d outlive me, one way or t’other,” Grandma
groused. “There was no viewing because he’d prearranged everything.
I bet he’s still here somewhere.” “In spirit?” Barb asked,
doubtfully. Grandma snapped. “And maybe in person, too.”
The topic: Sick – “The Awakening”
The thought that any part of my grandfather – or maybe his entire
corpse – might still be in this miasma of doll parts, cat waste and
scrap frankly made me sick to my stomach. The ashen faces of my fellow
explorers – all of whom had already encountered eyefuls and snootfuls
in this adventure – told me I wasn’t alone in this. I’d certainly
be more circumspect about any further steamer trunks I encountered. My
heart wasn’t ready for the churning metallic nightmare that sprang to
life in the corner. That spiderlike contraption resolved into a humanoid
android… topped with granddad’s embalmed head.
The topic: Hugs – “Panic”
“Greetings!” a voice said. It was not my grandfather’s, nor did it
come from my grandfather’s dead head, tumbling around in its jar of
embalming fluid. Rather, it was mechanical, probably programmed by him,
operating on the principle of an artificial intelligence that assessed
life as being ultimately meaningless. So it wouldn’t necessarily
matter to him that he’d died if his inventions lived on, although he
obviously thought he’d be living on as well, sustained by them. That
clearly was not the case. That didn’t stop his machine, however, its
metal arms extended, lumbering toward us. “Who wants a hug?!”
The topic: Moon – “Resolution”
The race down the stairs was unanimous. The android that pursued us was
hampered by Boolean decision-making, unmaintained hydraulic servoes and
its having been built by a kook. The cats raced out ahead of us as the
clanking, artificially intelligent machine cut its own path through the
hoard. At the entryway, I lit books of matches and threw them into the
hoard. The last we saw of granddad was his wild deathmask floating in a
blaze of fire in a mechanical mess stuck through the floorboard. We
hugged each other and wept in the moonlight. Distant sirens began to
wail.
Planet Z
Just as earthers construct their deities around their experiences, so do the denizens of other distant worlds.
The Kalpesians are skilled digestive-builders, creating temples to their butt-god Hrunghf, who shat out the world in various chunks and splatters.
It’s impossible the stop nautilusian Proog priests from droning endlessly about how we’re all “living inside a chamber of Ba-Proog’s mighty shell.”
And when a Liiiiiiiik gasbag starts talking about The Mighty Ssssssssssspop’s expanding and contracting with every sunrise and sunset, you’ll wish you had a knitting needle.
So, I’m sorry about serving that spaghetti for dinner.
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 Twelve, where I post a topic and then challenge you to come up with a 100 word story based on that topic.
And if you want to spam your social networks with this episode, use the Share buttons at the end of the post…
Obligatory 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.
Tura
I saw someone offering “Free Hugs!!” on the street. Well, that’s money lying on the table, I thought. But when I offered “Hugs, $1 each!!” no-one was interested.
So I built a hugging machine. Put a coin in the slot, get a hug. That did better, until I nearly got sued for injuries.
So I covered it with fur and turned up the strength. “Are you man enough? Test yourself against the Bear Hug!!” Every machine I install is pulling in a thousand dollars a day.
Peace and love is all very well, but it’s sex and violence that sells.
Thomas
The Tedesco sisters always competed. They competed for the bathroom, boyfriends and grades. When they were older, they competed in business. Shirley opened a massage parlor behind the library. Monica opened a handsome little counseling and Asian carpet boutique in a nearby mall.
Shirley’s business, Tugs and Hugs, was on the police watch list. Monica’s Business, Rugs and Hugs seemed totally respectable and in compliance of local law.
More rubbing and grinding went on at Monica’s business than Shirley’s in spite of appearances.
Monica would “counsel” her clients for a few minutes, then hug them like they’ve never been hugged.
##
Few of us know the derivation of the hug. The hug was first used by the Northern Greeks, and almost spontaneously, they were the first humans to stick out their tongue to signify dislike or jealousy.
The Greeks ran around in light, linen garments, and were constantly in a state of chill during the winter months. They initiated hugs or dispensed hugs as a means to stay warm, and it became a habit.
Among the Greek aristocrats, the hugs were dispensed freely–without consideration of the temperature. Many of the more flamboyant aristocrats spent hours hugging friends and their manservants.
Katja
Months of wiping shit. Spoon feeding. Sponge bathing. One conversation
on repeat.
Daydreaming of a pillow to the face. Death was waiting. No witnesses.
The ambulance wouldn’t even come anymore.
This wasn’t a call for the paramedics.
“Uncover her and open the windows. We’re sending someone.”
Sticky summer afternoon. You lose track of time. Every minute – check
for breathing, check for heartbeat. The family couch lulled me and she
took her chance and slipped away.
“Thank you,” I said, chicken arms dangling around me, as I dragged her
flat and centre onto the pillows. Our first hug.
Serendipity
This is why I rarely go to church and, if I do, I always aim to arrive late.
Today, my timing is way off!
Crossing the car park, I keep a low profile; head down, as I make my way to the entrance… but I’ve been spotted.
Inevitably, it’s a colourful, chunky guy wearing an equally colourful chunky sweater – ‘Jesus loves YOU!’ it proclaims in woollen script.
He spots me and breaks into a big bearded grin.
Resigned to the inevitable… I’m engulfed in a great, scratchy, coffee-breathed, stale sweat-tainted bear hug.
Christian hugs: The devil’s greatest friend.
Almo
The deafening roar of the engine was followed by the squeal of tires as Nelo and I watched Jimmy start to race down the canyon road. I wanted to be a driver and Nelo said we could stand up here and watch. Jimmy was the best.
“See how he hugs the curves then shoots to the outside?” Nelo said.
Jimmy’s car slammed the guardrail, which buckled. The car soared before it disappeared.
“What do you do if you want to survive?” I asked.
“You stay a little closer to the center,” Nelo said and he dialed 911 on his cellphone.
Chris
Come in, everybody, help yourself to a seat.
As you certainly all know by now, Johnson’s been let go as of this afternoon and the company is in the midst of an exciting new lawsuit, and so I’ve been asked to reiterate our sexual harassment policy.
We do not, never have and will never tolerate inappropriate or uninvited physical contact among our staff.
Ever. No exceptions.
In that light, effective immediately our “hugs, not drugs” policy will be rescinded. Hugging will be met with immediate disciplinary action.
And drugs, of course, are now perfectly acceptable.
So: Anybody got a hookup?
Lizzie
Alice was the sweet spinster everybody avoided. She had this annoying habit of hugging everyone effusively. She wasn’t weird; she just had a big heart. One day, a gentleman with a similar propensity for hugging moved into town. NO! Two huggers! Running an errand would now take twice as long! Until several months later, the two finally met face to face. To hug or not to hug! He smiled, she smiled and they kissed! The whole town took a sigh of relief. No more extreme hugging and people could now run errands in peace and… fast! Beware of kisses though…!
Logan
When I was a small child, chocolate milk was such a treat that I would drink it out of the glass with a spoon. It would take several delicious minutes that way. Now I pull a bottle of Milk 2 Go (”Laits Go” in French translation) from the shelf in the dairy section of the supermarket and finish it off before I reach the cashier. Glug, glug. Low blood sugar is the culprit, maybe. I still prefer my chocolate in liquid form.
Second best form of chocolate is a cookie from the UK called a Chocolate Oliver. It’s in the shape of a cookie but is really a hard solid real dark chocolate disc on a thin, negligible circle of biscuit. Chocolate milk and Chocolate Olivers– like a hug from a black and white cow. Or the Queen.
Tom
In times of severe financial compression how far you throw your net to seize employment opportunities increases to the point where you can’t see where it falls upon the horizon of an ever darken day. Case in point my new career path comes with a specific dress code, actually its more a uniform, well, truth be told I’m dressed as Seven foot CareBear. I could see the kids kicking, baby vomiting, drunk parents taunts as life draining afflictions of the soul. No, I see them as a challenge to rise to a higher purpose. My job is giving out hugs.
Guy David
H.U.G.S., aka “Hugs” or “Human Ultraviolent Guided Seducers” are our most advanced missiles. Guided by GPS, coupled by face and voice recognition software and hacking the world surveillance cameras using the latest software virus hacks, our missiles can recognize targets miles away. Once recognized, our missiles home in on it, closing in until the target is in plain sight, then they use our latest camouflage techniques, turning into robotic poodles. Our technology is so advanced that it can’t be distinguished from the real thing and the target can’t help stroking it, then the poodle blows up in the targets face.
Zackmann
United Nations negotiators today talked Canadian supervillain Munsi Munsi out of using a device called the Dead Beat Box which would have used the sickest of sick beats to cause sickness and death.
It turns out all Munsi wanted was a super bowl commercial, a few million dollars, and a bag of Hershey’s Hugs.
The Dead Beat Box was sold to the California penal system because lethal injection causes too much suffering for ax murderers. CNN and Fox covered the first execution that ended the moratorium on capital punishment. Too bad they filmed the event with the cameras’ audio on.
zackmann
The innocent young sailor wanted to make his mother proud. His shipmate told him he could get one of the women who work a red light district bar to be a guide and show him the town even help him pick a gift for his mother. He met a sweet woman only a couple of years older than he. They played board games half the day. She always won. After touring the town she took him to a hotel room. “I only wanted to be hugged” he said. Removing his clothes, She replied “Yeah well, You got the package deal”
Sevi
Some crave a hug like a drug
Others shun it reminiscent of a horrid poison
It can fill your essence with a warm glow
Or leave a never-ending chill in your soul.
They have the power to heal
Or cripple you to the point of death
Love can permeate from the skin on skin
Or force you to hate all that surrounds you.
Sometimes one craves the breathtaking connection
For others they beg for it to not present itself
It can make your soul soar to the greatest heights
Others dream of running from it
The power of a hug…
Cliff
When I started writing for the weekly challenge, I didn’t know how much power it would have over my life. When the topic used the word “Itch”, I got poison ivy. When the topic was “Fool”, I felt like I spent the week being laughed at. When “Sick” rolled around, it missed me but it nearly everyone around me was sick to some extent. And now this.
As ridiculous as it may sound, the current topic of “Hugs” has me absolutely terrified. You see, we’re going to the zoo this weekend to see their newest exhibit: two adult grizzly bears.
Steven
The mecha’s cockpit slides closed. My comrades stand three abreast of
me, our craft hissing as the boilers reach operating temperature.
Through the viewport, the XO signals us by semaphore. The English are
at the far end of the valley. We are to strengthen our artillery and
men emplaced upon the ridge. Our mecha will deny the British this
valley; their only logical move will be into the path of our
reinforcements.
I move my hands, shifting the mecha’s in a giant salute before my
squad moves to the ridgetop.
Surely the English will not enter our deadly embrace.
Botgirl
“Be careful, Shira,” Mira said. “You don’t want to break him.”
“Oh my god, Mira! I can’t keep my hands off of this little guy.” Shira bubbled. “Have you ever seen anything so cute in your whole life?”
“Just remember what happened to Mister Cotton Tail,” Mira warned, shaking her head with a queesy look on her face.
Shira thrust her new plaything high above her head and peered up at him with manic delight. “I’d never squish my cute widdle wuv toy,” she crooned.
Spock’s spine snapped like a twig as he finally comprehended the essential absurdity of life.
Danny
Hugs, well this brings back memories. Memories of the insincere hugs received by ever ex ever dated. Mushy hugs from Mom that reek of the sense, “I’ve come to terms with the fact that you are my only son.” There is memory of hugging my beloved Maltese Danny Lee for the last time just over a year ago when he died. I now reach down and pick up my current dog, a Malti-Mutt named Freddie. What’s the point? Freddie can’t hug back. Then Freddie licks my face, his way of saying I Love You. Hugs aren’t so bad after all.
RedGoddess
Lola doesn’t often hug. She hugs friends on special occasions, or to comfort a good girlfriend after a blindsided break up. Other people seem to hug everywhere. Airports, train stations, restaurants, clubs are all notorious for sudden thoughtless embraces. Most movies include at least one oddly placed embrace. But still, Lola thinks hugs should be reserved for crisis, or only when desperatly needed. Until recently,with the start of an intense romance. She has found serenity in her lover’s bounty of hugs. And needs no reason to open her arms.She realizes now a hug is an extension of heart.
Norval Joe
Owen tried to swallow the lump in his throat as he stood by his uncle. He alone, of the entire company didn’t pitch in to load the equipment onto the heavy wooden wagon. Even the elf prince did his share. “You’d better get your hugs and kisses over now, boy,” the ranger said. “We’ll want to be moving while the day is still young.” “Don’t give him a bad time, Traveler,” Shareeka said. “This is his first time away from home.” “And he’s to be king,” Elbownor, the elf prince, scoffed. “This journey will either prepare him, or kill him.”
Planet Z
Hugo “Hugs” Washington loved his girlfriend very much.
So when he found out she was cheating on him, he killed her and the guy she was with.
Despite mountains of evidence, he claimed he didn’t do it. Said it was a set-up by the cops.
The jury didn’t believe him, but his mother did.
She’d showed up at the trial, sentencing, and the appeals to protest and shout and to hand out bumperstickers and t-shirts.
The problem was, she’d had them printed up with “FREE HUGS” on them.
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 Ten, where I post a topic and then challenge you to come up with a 100 word story based on that topic.
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.
TURA
Zaprut is the oldest city of which we have any record. Only its name survives, for the city was overtaken by a calamity so sudden, and so total, that none survived to say what befell it.
The name became synonymous with disaster, and in Roman times, hearing of some military debacle, senators would angrily declare, “Sic Zaprut!” — “thus was Zaprut!” fearing that Rome itself might pass the same way.
And that is why, nowadays, when a footballer wishes to express the depth of his emotion when his team loses a match, he will profess to being “sick as a parrot”.
THOMAS
I’m sick. My eyes swollen, my ears ring,
I have a rash all over my thing.
When I walk, I stumble, my intestines rumble,
my nose is dripping, I’m constantly tripping.
My chest tight, my bowels are loose,
my guts feel like they’re in a noose.
My breath is stinky, I can’t use my winky.
My livers hard, my spleen is jumpy,
The back of my neck is red and bumpy.
My throat is tight, my teeth are loose,
my tongue tastes like mildewed moose,
No work for me today, but no work, no pay.
Oh, wait,
it’s a Holiday!
CHRIS THE NUCLEAR KID
Winter is Near
I walked and walked occasionally tripping over the immense weaving of roots and scratches covered my arms, legs, and face. It had been about two months when I first started my journey and it was getting colder so I knew it was nearly winter. I kept walking for a while then stopped to rest and eat.
Setting up the tent I had brought with me, I went to sleep. The next morning however, I felt sick. Looking around I noticed it had snowed during the night, which explained why I was feeling sick. Over the night I’d caught a cold.
MUNSI
I’m gonna drop some sick beats.
No, seriously, these beats are the sickest. You ain’t never heard beats this sick.
These beats are so sick the CDC has declared them a class one biohazard, and warned that exposure to them isn’t safe, dog.
The death rate from exposure to these beats is 96%, and they’re airborne, bro!
That’s right, airborne! No body-fluid contact required for transferral of these sick beats!
These beats are the sickest. The sickest!!!
…and unless the United Nations meets my demands, I will drop these beats.
You have been warned. You have twenty-four hours to comply.
SERENDIPITY
This is why you should always proofread your copy! Who’d have thought losing a single letter could cause so much grief?
“WANTED – Slick individuals who won’t take ‘no’ for an answer” – that’s what the ad should have said, but some bozo at the agency dropped the ‘L’ from ‘slick’.
Which is why I’m sifting through résumés with hobbies that include doing rather gruesome things to ducks and; ‘modelling with earwax’.
Then George turned up for his interview…
“So, why should I give you this job, George?”
He opened his jacket, revealing an arsenal of scalpels.
I gave him the job!
LOGAN BERRY
Genvie and Tolly had a contest: who could be the worst, in one week? Genvie kicked things off by parking illegally in a handicap zone at a mall, while she leisurely shopped for a new soft toy for her cat, Stinky. Tolly shared a dorm room with an academic exchange student from Indonesia, whom he made cry by shaving her head she was asleep.
Genvie kept saying she ”could are less” when she meant she ”couldn’t care less”. Tolly drove below the speed limit in busy highway traffic. Genvie painted an abstract picture in shades of yellow, to which she glued golden raisins in a random pattern.
The shellfish in Tolly’s ciopinno was so aggrariously undercooked that seven of his twelve guests were violently ill, and one died. Genvie purchased a shotgun and killed her next door neighbor, Gus, for continually allowing his dog out onto the roof at 6 a.m. on weekday mornings, where he barked and disturbed the neighbors. ”That was really sick,” Tolly admitted to Genvie on visiting day. ”You win.”
SEVI
Sick
Sick…
Of my life
Selected for me
No reason to go on
With the charade
All the lies
Sick…
Of him
His power
The control
Unable to make my own decisions
To live in a free world
Sick…
Of instilled fear
A life full of coercion
Unrelenting rules
No flexibility
To be who I want to be
Sick…
Of the lies
The ongoing propaganda
To be someone I am not
Trying to squeeze into an iron mold
It constrains me
Sick…
Of this world
The Earth
The Wind
The Fire
The Water
I am begging, transcend my soul to heaven.
BONCHANCE
The Car
Dave set out to buy a safe car for his daughter.
He was regretting his purchase.
It had everything on his list and within budget.
His wife followed as he drove the gift to his daughters apartment.
A kid must have been the previous owner, all black inside and out,
black rims, black tinted windows, oversized tailpipe. He only hoped his
daughter wouldn’t think it too hideous to drive.
He parked, stepped to the curb when a passing young man said
“dude sick car!”. He nodded confirming the judgment but
then noticed it was meant as a compliment.
He smiled.
GUY
The yellow acid known as a lemon smashed through my mouth, distributing throughout my body. I should have known that it would contain the virus. I could feel the nanobots working up and down my body, changing it. I knew what was coming. I’ve seen it happen to many of my friends before, too many. My body would change, my memories would fade and I would no longer be. Who knows which terrorist group released the virus. Maybe it wasn’t them. Maybe it was a madman in a basement somewhere. The end result – we are all ending up as trees.
STEVEN
She was sick. Lied about everything- her parents, her past. Did drugs and fucked her lovers in front of the infant. Blew a grand on a drug fueled orgy when we were reconciling.
Her child was sick. It explains the shit smeared on the wall, the threats and violence, the last videotaped assault, the knife and murder plan hidden under his bed.
His second mother was sick. Her father’s abuse, a string of others, the reinfected by the violent child. Gone now – maybe healing, maybe not.
But I see the common factor.
He’s in the mirror.
Time to heal.
TOM
Hello America I’m Morgan Freeman and I’m here this evening at the 100 word challenge at podcasting.is.fullofcrap.com to share with you the tragic tale of Tommy M. Yes dear listeners Tommy appears to be a normal health young man, but lurking under the surface is a silent killer.
Tommy suffers from a terminal case of Objectphela a compulsive drive to attain 100 mid-century objects. This condition is triggered by viewing the Lionsgate production of The Lost Room. Yes see Tommy blankly staring at ebay listings scrolling untill his fingers bleed.
I found the Motorola 17t13
Sad. Give so more may live.
ZACKMANN
I think I got that new mutation of the bird flu. Being the whitest of white boys, I should have seen my doctor when people started complimenting me on my dancing. Good dancing is the first sign of the Disturbed Strain of the bird flu virus. No really, it was on the news and everything. The worst thing was when I started growing feathers.The feelings of hate and anger were no treat. It was bad enough I could not stop physical activity until fainting from exhaustion. You can say that I got up and got down with the sickness.
zackmann
REDGODDESS
Lola was on alert to fight back sneaky germs during the flu season. She stocked on multi-vitamins, ginger roots and cold medications for a month’s worth. She’s been exposed to some sick zombies leaking fluids from everywhere. On the trains, she noticed some couldn’t breathe. While few were always on the brink of sneezing. Others were coughing non-stop in their oversized coats with tissues on the other hand. The rest were too weak to even dry their red droopy eyes. Lola was determined to beat these viruses before plotting and snatching their chance to trap her to a sick bed.
LIZZIE
Hidden in the corner of the attic under piles of dusty newspapers, she noticed a trunk. Inside, amongst old diaries, curls of hair and baby shoes, there was a letter dated 1905. She read through “… dangerous and… are sick. Stay away…. has purple eyes. Do not marry him… become killers…” She was shocked. Who was this person? Above the trunk was an old mirror. She looked up and she understood. The stranger did marry into the family despite the warning letter, because she too had purple eyes and this inexplicable urge that had driven her to a complete solitude.
DANNY
My dog peed on the carpet again! I had just taken him out two times in the past 40 minutes, yet he still pees right on the carpet. I can’t leave the litte monster alone, so I decide to sleep on the floor in an attempt to keep him from peeing on the carpet. Background noise from the television finally lulls me to sleep, the dog nestles beside me. I eventually dream of being trapped at the bottom of a foul, polluted waterfull. I suddenly wake up to a face full of urine from the back end of my dog. Sick.
CLIFF
The Waiting
“The king is dying,” the cry went up.
As my father lay still, all manner of charlatans came to the palace. Shamen and healers plied their craft, but his majesty did not awake. Physicians used leaches. Mystics burned incense. An exorcist cast out demons. Still, Good King Leonard did not stir. All in the land who claimed power over disease took their turn to no avail. All, that is, except the old alchemist up on Watchtower Hill, the one that sold me the poison. When my father finally died and made me king, the old man would receive his reward.
Hey, Mort! Did you hear about Mary’s kid?
What, the trouble maker? What did he do now?
He just came back from the dead, that’s all.
Dead? I didn’t even know he was sick.
He wasn’t sick, you idiot. The Romans crucified him.
Ooh, that’s gotta smart. That’s a tough way to go, ya know?
Doesn’t matter. He ain’t dead no more.
What are you talking about? Dead’s dead.
Nope. Some folks saw him walking around. Said he was going to bring eternal life to everyone.
Thomas, I swear you’ll believe anything. I’m hungry. C’mon. Let’s go find some eggs.
NORVAL JOE
“Some prince you seem to be.” The ranger laughed as he stood over the vomiting elf. “No stomach for the lesser forms of life?”
“Don’t badger his highness, Traveler” Shareeka said. “That trait is one of the reasons we need him along. He’ll feel sick whenever goblins are near.”
“What about Spleen?” Owen asked. “Will the half-goblin still go with us?”
The wizardess chanted some words and the elf climbed shakily to his feet.
“You could have warded the creature before we met,” the prince said, “and saved me the discomfort.”
“Yes,” Shareeka said, controlling a wicked smile. “I know.”
PLANET Z
The comedian Spike Milligan wanted to have his tombstone inscribed with the phrase “I told you I was ill.”
However, despite his fame and stature in society, the church said no. Apparently, they followed the principle of John Waters the filmmaker, who said that he wanted a plain tombstone with just his name because humor ages, and eternity is too long for a joke.
The church and Spike came to a compromise, where the phrase would be added to his tombstone translated into Irish.
John Waters, on the other hand, is still alive, and his pencil-thin mustache remains fabulously rakish.
