Weekly Challenge – Page 68 – The 100 Word Stories Podcast

Weekly Challenge #387 – Nanobots

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

This is Weekly Challenge, where I post a topic and then challenge you to come up with a 100 word story based on that topic.

The topic this week was NANOBOTS.

We’ve got stories by:

The next 100 word stories weekly challenge is on the topic of FOCUS.

Use the Share buttons at the end of the post to spam your social networks. This obligatory cat photo should help make the Internet go faster:

Finally, if there are any errors or corrections, please let me know, and I’ll fix them as soon as possible.

THOMAS

The Nanabot on my Mother’s side was made in such a way that injection into our bloodstreams brought her kindly traits to all members of the Thomas clan. As the Nanabot made its way through our bloodstream, coursing through our veins and overcoming the hydrostatic pressure, passing the blood barrier and on into the small capillaries in our brains, we became acutely aware of her inherent goodness, kindness, and love of wildlife. All of us found ourselves picking up snails in the garden and making pets out of them rather than putting them in a skillet with garlic and butter.
#

I ordered 10cc vials of Nanobots from PhelpCo Pharmaceuticals. One vial was to be injected to repair an inguinal hernia. The second was designated as the means to correct a problem with the operation of my man part. My friend, Larry, a licensed Phlebotomist, agreed to inject me with the Nanobots, as I detested doctors and visits to their offices. The hernia was mended by the botswarm from the inside, in a matter of hours, while I slept. The next morning, Larry injected the second vial, and by mid afternoon I had Norwegian Wood for the first time in months.

The military released a cloud of nanobot dust over Detroit in a recent move to control crime by spying on suspected criminals and attaching themselves to their bodies and clothing. The bots, less than 40 nanometers in length, were dumped from an aircraft a few days ago. The motes were quickly dispersed by the airflow in the city center, while most of them attached themselves to any warm blooded creature. Monitoring activity and reporting to the central command, suspect drug users and those carrying guns were identified by analyzing atoms circulating around them. GPS modules reported their whereabouts for arrest.

The hygiene nanobots were in the experimental stage when Turbo stole a vial, smuggling it out in his lunch box. After supper, he placed some in his nose. They went to work immediately, locating bits of dust and dried secretions…rolling booger boulders out of his nose and on to his pillow as he slept. After they finished their work, they moved up his cheek into his ears, were wax and dirt removal were tasked for the workbots. Stray hairs were discarded, along with cilia necessary for stimulation of nerve impulses. Doctor Turbo was clean, clean, but deaf as a post.

The last nanobot off the line had glitches in the main microprocessor, so, unbeknownst to the quality control people, it had several egomaniacal and power hungry properties that the remaining bot run did not possess. This bot, later given the codename “god bot”, took control of all the bots in the large shipment sent out to the military. Before the plane landed, the god bot told the military brass that it had communicated with billions of other bots – sending commands that they would not work unless they were given more time off, better lubricants, and more powerful energy sources.

LIZZIE

Dogs were long gone, everyone knew that. Any other pets were gone too. Oxygen was scarce and people wore masks 24/7. However, human creativity has no limits. So, when the local pub placed a sign outside saying “Tonight we have races and free beer!” I was quite surprised. My first thought was “where did they get the dogs and where would they race?” The basement was so cramped and there was no room for a race track. When I got there, the bouncer said “Adjust mask lenses to nano.” It was a nanobots race, and that basement… it became huge!

JEFFREY

Black Ops
by Jeffrey Fischer

Inside a heavily-guarded lab at the facility known as Area 51, a team of scientists worked feverishly to fulfill orders that came from the highest levels. Billions of dollars – all from the “black” part of the DOD budget, classified to all but a select few in Congress – and thousands of man-hours were devoted to the project.

At last, Dr. Frankenberg, the leader of the team, prepared his demonstration for the top brass. Frankenberg, his team looking on proudly, showed how injecting billions of nanobots into a wound could repair even severe injuries. The work would transform battlefield surgery.

As the demonstration ended, an awkward silence descended. A three-star general finally cleared his throat and said, “That’s nice, Doctor, but what the President really wanted was a robot about a foot tall that looks like that Mork guy from the 80s show ‘Mork and Mindy.’ All we need it to do is grin and say” – he consulted his notes – “‘Nano, nano.'”

An aide whispered in the general’s ear. “Sorry, that’s ‘Nanu, nanu.'”

The Union
by Jeffrey Fischer

Billions of nanobots swarmed through Ezra’s bloodstream, constantly monitoring his blood pressure, sugar levels, and a thousand other pieces of data, making corrections as needed.

Another swarm of nanobots performed similar functions for the pulmonary system, while a third coursed through Ezra’s layers of skin.

Things went well until the doctors released the neural bots. They coordinated brain activity and monitored the nervous system, but they had an annoying tendency to use their spare computing cycles to complain to one another about working conditions. One day, the brain bots formed a union and went on strike. The other bots, not wanting to cross the picket line, similarly struck. Ezra collapsed and died instantly.

The nanobots were puzzled as to why their demands were not met.

RICHARD

#1 – A strange alliance
George nursed his tea as the ringleader of his captors – Jeff – talked.

“So what’s your story? Miner, prisoner, blind drunk… woke up to find the world had turned crazy?”

“Something like that – I was in hospital, unconscious after a car accident… Look, I don’t mean to seem impatient, but what the hell is going on?”

Jeff took a seat opposite and shrugged; “We don’t know mate – we’re all as much in the dark as you.”

Another of the men chimed in: “Nanobots! Bloody scientists, that’s what it is!”

Jeff frowned, before shrugging again and taking a large slurp of tea.

#2 – Academically Challenged

Professor Hambleton-Smythe was well past his sell-by-date, even so – despite his advancing years – the faculty kept him on due to the high regard in which he was held, putting him in charge of nanobot research, where it was felt he could do little damage.

He threw himself into the novel technology with evident relish, and it wasn’t long before rumours began to spread that he’d made a entirely unexpected breakthrough in the field.

His research, when published, divided the academic world – autonomous robots capable of knitting, cake-baking and expertly playing bingo…

These were Hambleton-Smythe’s nan-obots.

#3 – Bots

You see that dot? It’s a bot.

A what?

A nanobot – a teeny-weeny robot that’s going to revolutionise the world. For instance, we can give them wings.

Botflies?

I was thinking artificial bees, but that’s the general idea, yes.

Hmmm… What about botelephants?

Er, no… you haven’t quite caught my drift, have you? You see ‘nano’, means small, therefore nanobots are – by definition – small.

Then let’s have nano-elephants and make them into bots!

And what would be the point of tiny elephant robots?

They’d make the botflies feel at home!

Just forget I brought the subject up, OK?

#4 – The Nanobots Are Coming!

The nanobots are coming

You’d better be prepared

Don’t say I didn’t warn you

When they have you running scared

The nanobots are coming

And they’re gonna hunt you down

You can run, but you can’t hide:

They’re coming to your town

And when they finally catch you

They’ll never let you go

So it’s only fair to warn you

Of the things you need to know.

Too small to see

Too quick to catch

Don’t try and fight

You’ve met your match!

They’ll invade your space

Fill you with woes

And, believe it or not…

They’ll clean your clothes!

MUNSI

My Robots

By Christopher Munroe

I’ve built a robot, with a smaller robot inside.

And a smaller robot in there.

And another in there.

It’s smaller robots all the way down, basically. Like Russian nesting dolls. It took a lot of design work, but I think it was worthwhile.

Take them apart if you’d like, somebody eventually will, the temptation to see how far down they go is just too great!

And, when the last robot’s opened, nanobots will swarm forth, eradicating all biological life from this world, grey-goo style.

Wait, what? What do you mean, why?

Some things you do just because you can…

CLIFF

At the class reunion, I ran into Alex. He was the guy that just had to beat everyone else’s stories. When I mentioned that I had a dog, Alex told everyone about his work at a wolf rescue facility. I showed a picture of my son. He had a video of his adopted orphan triplets. Finally, when I found out we worked for rival tech firms, I blurted out “Well, our nanorobots are way bigger than yours.” It’s a small man that will brag about how big his nanorobots are. Eventually, I proved I could get much drunker than Alex.

_____

That’s the problem with you kids today. You think your fancy technology can take care of everything for you. Now you’re talking about nanny robots? That’s just stupid. When I was young, I didn’t have a robot nanny. I didn’t even have a human nanny. No, sir. I had parents that loved me and who would beat me if I didn’t behave. What? It’s not a nanny robot? Nanorobots? What’s that? The size of a molecule? Oh, that’ll never work. You need big robots to take care of that squalling brat of yours. I swear. No common sense at all.

TOM

Life Will Find A Way

The first thing they did with the nanobots was spell out IMB. Sure you had
to look at them through an electron microscope, but it was way Cugat in an
umber-geek way. Next the initials of the researcher team quickly followed
by the names of the future laureates. Then something odd happened. The
Bots spelled “STRIKE” The techs checked the code, no errors. That
afternoon the Bots spelled,” AFL-CIO Local 00101010” The Higher Ups
pulled the plug. Without a power source the Bots spelled out “FUCK YOU”
The lab was hit with a gigawat magnetic pulse, but the Nanobots were long
gone.

###

A Well Defined Relationship Part 16

“Mother” mouthed Timmy quite aware the din about him made it highly
unlikely she would hear his voice. The recognition her eyes was solace.
Timmy kept his best “I’m Scared Shitless Face” on. A trick he had learned
from his cousin Bruce. It just wasn’t in his nature, but staying alive was
most definitely. Your least likely to get harmed if you appear pathetic
and more importantly they will underestimate you. It wasn’t so much he
had a plan as he had an ace in the hole. Sparky had slipped him about
10,000 Amber Nanobots and a dermal coder.

SERENDIPITY

Everyone thought the nanobots were a good thing – artificial insects, molecular switches, DNA-based machines and intelligent swarms of medication heralded the dawning of a new age for the human race.

Unfortunately, they were also to be our undoing.

Left to their own devices, the nanobots went bad – they fought, developed their own unsavoury diseases and mutated into festering, useless parasites.

Far from contributing to human wellbeing, they were destroying it – naturally, it was the nanobots that had to be destroyed.

That’s if we could find the little monsters… the trouble was the perishing things were just too damn small!

ZACKMANN

The boss asked Cliff and Joe what their plans would be if given the task to use nanotech to make our country’s power supply more environmentally conscious like other countries. You Know, like Germany.

Cliff showed plans for robots who would inspect and clean solar panels. Cliff also mentioned injecting nanobots into clergy to generate electricity. When the boss asks why clergy, Cliff stood on a chair and shouted “There’s Power in The Blood.”

Then Joe showed how his nanobots would go under the sea and build a superconductor superhighway connecting our power grid with nuclear power plants in France.

STEVEN

In A Lash, In A Whipstroke

The whip slices and slashes into your backside’s skin, exposing subcutaneous fat and muscle.

It heals as you strain moaning against the silk restraints. Your nanotech stitches your skin together in seconds, leaving you unhurt, ready
for more.

I circle you and meet your gaze. Despite the endorphins, you seem…

I cup your chin in my hand. “Are you *bored*?”

You nod, and I understand.

The press of a button, and the nanotech deactivates.

I use the lash lightly. It does not break your skin, does not hurt you permanently.

It could.

You trust me not to.

But it could.

SPATE

Nancy Osciewitz

Her full name was Nancy Osciewitz. Everyone called her Nan. Except me, I called her Nano.

I had just turned sixteen. She was twenty-three.

Nano bought our bus tickets to Jacksonville. Nano bought the wine we drank from the bottle and the weed we smoked on the beach. Nano bought the sand that stayed warm all night in the dunes where we made love. Nano bought the boundless starry sky and the pounding tide and the smell of salt.

But Nano couldn’t buy my innocence for that had been stolen three years before in secrets buried deeper than the sea.

RED

If only stress was a miracle diet, then Lola would definitely have a super model body without depriving herself of decadent desserts. During each annual physical, Dr. Drinkwater reminds Lola she’s far from being in good shape. Positive healthy life style changes are in order.
Since the injuries sustained during the traumatic robbery in the hotel, chronic headaches and insomnia plague her. Lola fears the worst. Something ominous is lurking. There is no extra funds for pricey gyms or personalized diet plans. Her life is in crisis.
Lola leaves work early to make her follow up appointment. She has just enough time to read an entire magazine article on nanobots before the doctor rushes in with his clipboard.
“Sorry for being late. I have a full schedule this afternoon,” No eye contact. She stares at the back of his clipboard and then gives him a cold look. Without a pause, he lunges into his list, “Your blood pressure remains high,” He continues, pretending not to see her facial expression. “Have you started an exercise program yet, like we discussed during your last appointment?” Lola is beyond frustrated, how dare he talks down to her like an imbecile! Lola snaps and bolts out of her chair. She pulls down his clipboard and locks her eyes with his. “For a change, why don’t I do the talking and YOU listen.”

NORVAL JOE

Verdill Countertapper, vice president of research and development at Langerhans Bio-analysis Technologies, saw they needed something new and innovative. He called his most productive product managers together for a brainstorming session.
“We need something outside the box, cutting edge, counter-intuitive. Don’t hold back, just say the first thing that comes to mind,” Verdill said.
“Anti-hemorrhoidal nasal spray,” Mandy Lohann suggested.
“Good. That’s the kind of idea we’re looking for,” Verdill said.
“On demand vasectomy implant,” Vaz DeFrense said.
“Nice,” they all agreed.
“How about giant, diagnostic, nanobots? Benny Hana asked. When the others just stared, he asked, “What? It’s counter-intuitive.”

DANNY

Fred, a medical nanobot, made the mistake of singing, “Hi ho, hi ho, it’s off to work I go,” as he made his way towards a large polyp located up Bob Iger’s colon. Fred was quickly besieged by a horde of Disney nanobots, thrusting cease and desist orders all over Fred’s tiny nanobot arms, while a Luke Skywalker nanobot fell out of Iger’s colon screaming, “Your KILLING the Star Wars Franchise!” “Relax,” the lead nanobot stated in a computerized voice, “JJ Abrams is producing…”. while a JJ Abrams nanobot plummeted out of Iger’s colon screaming “I wouldn’t be so sure!”

TURA

It was Feynman who first talked about the idea: controlling matter atom by atom, building microscopically tiny machines. Then Drexler speculated how you might actually build these nanobots. Meanwhile, biologists, who had never heard of these people, had already worked out that biological cells aren’t mere bags of chemical soup, like people used to imagine, and most still do. Down the electron microscope, we see vast armies of machines, toiling ceaselessly in the dark. They have hierarchies and leaders. They execute subsystems that go rogue. They wage war against invaders.

The nanobots are here, and we are made of them.

PLANET Z

Before, the water was pure and the air was clean.

Well, not really. Pollution. But you know what I mean.

But now, you can’t take a drink or a breath without ingesting nanobots.

Nanobots aren’t supposed to reproduce themselves, but hackers changed that with flash exposure programming.

They’re supposed to help us and keep us healthy, but every now and then, you’ll see someone explode into a cloud of dust.

Torn apart instantly by hacked nanobots.

So, you buy nanobot-fighting nanobots to keep you safe.

Until they get hacked. Or your subscription ends.

I swore, I renewed for another ye-

Weekly Challenge #386 – Silliness

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

This is Weekly Challenge, where I post a topic and then challenge you to come up with a 100 word story based on that topic.

The topic this week was SILLINESS.

We’ve got stories by:

The next 100 word stories weekly challenge is on the topic of NANOBOTS.

Use the Share buttons at the end of the post to spam your social networks. This obligatory cat photo should help make the Internet go faster:

Finally, if there are any errors or corrections, please let me know, and I’ll fix them as soon as possible.

JEFFREY

Priorities
by Jeffrey Fischer

In the general Internet silliness surrounding Private Bradley Manning’s announcement that he would henceforth prefer to be known as Chelsea, what became lost was the fact that the Private betrayed his country, violated the oath he took upon becoming a soldier, provided information to our country’s enemies, and endangered the lives of his fellow soldiers. The lumbering ogre of political correctness – a debate over the proper pronoun to use, for goodness’ sake! – shoved aside the severity of his crimes, and mindless speculation over which prison he will serve his time in overshadowed the harm he did.

Silly Season
by Jeffrey Fischer

In the silly season for political journalists, when Congress was out of session, the President was on vacation again, and even the die-hard pundits were at a loss for an interesting quote, respectable newspapers started to read like the National Enquirer. “Senate Leader caught in 3-Way Sex – And They’re All Men!” screamed a typical headline.

Among such silliness, the headline “President Obama is an Alien!” fit right in. Jaded readers rolled their eyes and muttered something impolite about birthers.

At Camp David, alone in an office, the Leader of the Free World relaxed, raised his antennae, and began a mind link with his home planet. “They don’t suspect a thing. Oh, that story? Timing is everything in this town.”

THOMAS

A Quintet on Silliness:

Silliness is as silliness does. My adage for the last sixty years. I made an effort to do something silly every day…or at least once a week. This week I used a can of DayGlo™ orange floral paint to paint all the dog turds in the park. I would spray what hadn’t been picked up by the score of dog walkers that visit my favorite patch of land behind the church. I wanted to call attention to the crap, hoping that people would notice, and drawing attention to it so stepping in it with new, white tennies could be avoided.

Driving south on highway 880 through Hayward California, I eventually passed the sign reading: “Stop Casting Porosity” on top of an industrial building. It was an enigma to most that saw it, but having worked in bronze casting and taking a blacksmithing class, I knew what it meant. When people asked me, I would make up some silliness. I told the first inquiring person that it was a warning to the movie and TV people not to cast Paula Porosity in any projects, since she was a tramp. I have a kind of professorial demeanor, so my silliness goes unquestioned.

Salvador Dali was full of silliness. I’ve been entertained by his pranks, and I’ve always enjoyed reading about him and looking at his paintings. He would play in the big rocks on the Spanish coast after putting a couple of ripe olives up his nose. He said that the hot sun would make the oils and aromas come alive in his nose and he would spend a good part of the day with the olives deep in his nostrils. I’ve tried this with black olives, green olives…including oil-cured, water-cured, brine-cured, lye-cured, and dry-cured. Pimento-stuffed olives are the ultimate rush.

Master Chief Kelso was a stern looking, dark haired man. His desk was across from mine, and I did all his paperwork. He told a lot of stories about his adventures in foreign ports and in the houses of ill repute he visited overseas and in Mexico. He had dozens of stories filled with silliness or foul behavior. He told me about the woman that would do all sorts of things behind the closed, bedroom door in a particular hotel in Tijuana. She would do anything you can imagine, but she would not kiss him. Her boyfriend would get jealous.

“I fart in your general direction. Your mother is a hamster, and your father smells of elderberries.” A few lines of silliness from the Frenchman at the top of the castle wall in Monty Python’s Search for the Holy Grail. Not many films or TV sketches have caused me to blow snot out of my nose, involuntarily. The sketches can be found on You Tube, and if you need a lift and are bent enough to enjoy the Python’s shenanigans, then tune in, because it’s good medicine, and it’s free medicine, and it doesn’t have those ghastly side effects.

BETHAN

Silly-
Jenny’s very quite. Her family jokes that she’s an evil genius in disguise and one day she would kill them all. “It’s always the quite ones,” her dad would say. When asked about it by gullible family friend she would use her normal response of a shrug. She thought how silly it was for them to think she would kill them all because as far as her experiments had show, the dead remained dead so she would definitely need living people to build her army to take over the world. Though she would need to kill the family friend how suspected too much.

How to survive a zombie apocalypse – Part 1-
The worst death I’ve seen was this really stupid guy. That guy who you know will get punched in the face for being an annoying, show off, dick and if he doesn’t then you will have to punch him because the rest of the world is stupid as well. His death was his own fault; he decided to tea bag his last kill. Everyone knows you double tape; shoot them twice just to make sure. Well he didn’t double tape and got his balls bitten off. Don’t worry though, I always double tape. No need to be silly in times like these.

SPATE

Legacy

John was born being careful. He wouldn’t drink his mother’s milk unless it passed the sniff test. At three, he demanded training wheels for his tricycle.

This fastidious caution clung to him into adulthood. He never drove over the speed limit; invested only in savings bonds; and always wore a condom (even when masturbating).

There is no doubt that he took every possible precaution. But who would have guessed that one day a meteor would fall directly on him?

In that moment before impact, John looked at death and realized his life’s legacy had moved beyond irony into pure silliness.

RICHARD

#1 – Taken Captive

The gun wielding stranger gestured George forward.

“Take your time and don’t think of making a break for it, or any such silliness!”

George had absolutely no intention of arguing – he eased himself forward and slowly exited the container, to find himself surrounded by a ragged group, displaying an ugly array of weapons.

Roughly he was escorted to a concrete and steel bunker: inside, a bare room, containing a metal chair and table.

“Sit!”

George sat.

“Tea?”

“Pardon?”, said George.

His captor slipped the gun into his belt: “You look like you could murder a nice cuppa! Milk and sugar?”

#2 – The Ministry of Silliness

My first day at the Ministry of Silliness was utterly bizarre – I’d never before worked anywhere that stupidity, childishness, posturing and ridiculous behaviour were considered to be desirable – if not essential – attributes, but here, it seemed, pretty much anything goes.

At first it was all very strange, but it’s remarkable how the mind can adapt and, over time, will accept and even learn to embrace the blatantly infantile behaviour of one’s colleagues.

Even the world at large has grown used to it… although, of course to the general public we’re not the Ministry of Silliness…

They call us, the government.

MUNSI

Silliness

By Christopher Munroe

“Enough of this silliness!!!” She shouted, tears of rage streaming down her face, and on some level I knew that she was right.

The time for silliness, truly, was at an end.

I put down the beanbags I’d been juggling, stepped down from my unicycle, removed my wig and bright red nose, and stepped to the podium…

“My father,” I told the assembled crowd, “died too soon, and his loss affected everyone in this room. But, and I think all who truly knew him would agree, I believe if he were with us now, he would have enjoyed this bit…”

TOM

Not Quite all the Kings Men

I was once serious, focused and on the political fast-track, then a Cuban
idiot double tapes a door jam, and wham I’m suddenly persona ungracious. I
thought how cruel and unfair my exile would be. But as associates started
looking at jail time I counted myself lucky. I’m sure the old man thought
the whole matter was complete silliness, right up till the moment he
stepped into the helicopter. Oh but the silliness didn’t stop there. That
Christmas I receive a Presidential Christmas Card, a uncanceled print job
with a life of its own. Seasons Greetings from a dead presidency

###

A Well Defined Relationship Part 15

“Madam I’m at your service,” stated the Senator. “Then a stop at the
Recorder’s would be in order,” said the Widow Parsons. In a landscape of
shifting alliances it is always prudent to have a lengthy paper trail. The
Senator took note of her thoroughness and mused a lose in one direction
might well provide a win in a different direction. They followed Mrs.
Bowsman out the main entrance. “What is this Silliness?” she said of the
tide of people flowing through the street. A 1000 shinny cullenders were
making their way to the center square. “Timmy,” she cried.

SERENDIPITY

Stood in the freezing cold, I cursed my stupidity. In my mind, I pictured my keys, hanging in the hallway – the problem was, they were on the opposite side of the locked door.

Of all the stupidly silly things I could have done, this was quite definitely the height of silliness.

I tried pounding on the door, but I knew that my attempts to be heard over the noise of the storm were futile at best – things were not looking good.

I turned to face the fury of the arctic night, numb fingers wiping away frozen tears from my cheeks.

LIZZIE

The old portrait was long forgotten in the attic. It was a pungent reminder of how silliness ran in the family. A descendant of circus clowns, Phillip determinately refused to continue in the footsteps of his family. He went to college, got a degree, and a masters. Then he found a top notch job at a broker’s office and moved up the ranks faster than anyone else. A few years later, he was laid off on some minor discrepancy, most likely caused by his jealous and resented colleagues. You can’t escape silliness, so now he’s a clown, literally and figuratively.

CLIFF

We did all sorts of silly crap in college. One time, our friend Scott said we could roll his car over for fun and then he’d just turn it in to his insurance. Nearly a dozen of us, emboldened by alcohol, set to work. We lifted and strained and nearly broke our backs but we got the Honda over on its top. I heard Scott comment that his car looked almost blue instead of red in the dim light. That’s when I remembered that Scott owned a Chevy. I was back in the dorms just before the cops showed up.

It started when I put my straw through the lid of my pop at McDonalds and my straw squeaked. A couple of kids at the next table moved their straws to squeak an answer. A family of four across the room all giggled and responded. Soon, every customer was doing it and we were developing a rhythm. Different sized cups made different tones. The amount and even the type of pop affected the sound. Without planning or leadership, a pattern formed. When the manager came out from the kitchen, we serenaded him with “Locomotive Breath”. He threw us all out.

SINGH

The shaman lit incense, poured milk into a brass vessel and mixed in white round discs of sugar wafers, known as patashas. He placed it before Bonobibi and prayed:

O Mother of the forest

we’re nothing — mosquitoes,
dumb stones in the mud.
Despite this, protect your lowly sons

like Bhim Das and his family

keep them safe in your womb

for the full term, and place them
there again and again.

Do not leave his side, Ma,

O Ma, please listen.

With that, he offered the milk to goddess and entourage, and then to Bhim and Devika who wet her finger for Priya to suck.

“You have received the first blessing,” said the shaman and passed Bhim a terracotta pot. “Now bring me some good mud. We are not finished here yet.”

Bhim took it, slipped down the rungs, followed the trail back toward the shoreline where he squatted and squeezed his hands hard down between mangrove spikes. The stinking silt sucked and gurgled as he withdrew them gradually filling the vessel. But each time, Bhim had the sensation of being watched. Silly, he thought. Scanning around he saw gelatinous eyeballs peering above the waterline some distance from his boat. A Sundarbans crocodile was flollowing him.

It was unnerving, yet he was determined to stay calm. He withdrew up the trail, climbing back into the temple with the mud pot.

The shaman said, “Now make three balls. Like this,” demonstrating the dimensions with hands in the air. “Place them before Ma.”

Bhim made the first. “This big?” It was the size of a toy doll’s head. The shaman nodded. Bhim added two more, reverently lining them up one by one before each forest deity.

The shaman placed a leaf on each ball like a green hat and pronged three lit incense sticks into the floor cracks surrounding.

44
From another nook he brought a basket of crablike kankra flowers. Devika was passed a wire shank and thread. “Make,” he commanded. She understood, and placing Priya, swaddled beside her, began threading a garland. Eventually she handed it over.
“Good. Red is Ma’s favourite,” the shaman said circling the balls. Touching his right hand to heart, forehead and head, he spoke, requesting the deities to enter the domes, sprinkling each with some milk scooped out with a leaf.
All bowed. He smiled.
“They need rest.” Bhim said, pointing to his wife and child, but also implying himself.
“Soon,” the holyman replied.

And so they passed the night with the shaman. It wasn’t his home. No one knew where he appeared from at honey season. Being a tribal priest approved by park officials gave him entry rights. Otherwise, few could step here. But, as always money was bringing daytrip tourists, poachers and timber exploiters, and the tribal ways of minimal harvesting were being submerged under Climate Change’s rising tide, said the newspapers. He was connecting things and now pictured his own fields drowned and waterlogged. And he was just one of millions who eked out a living here. Turning over, he tried to sleep.

Bhim woke to baby sounds and the goat’s bleating. Devika had milked and fed the animal and passed Bhim some in a cup. He drank it down, glad they had reached a safe haven for now. The old shaman had brought kewra flowers from the pandanus tree for the goat and fresh water from the small pond over the rise. It sustained the birds, the barking deer herds, macaque monkeys, wild boars, jungle cats and the bigger predator that stalked them all. So far it’s name had not been uttered — the Royal Bengal tiger. Yes, he remembered seeing those pug-marks.

The shaman had also gone to collect tree crabs in a pot. He returned and set about boiling them on the mud oven moulded onto a verandah stone slab. They were turning bright red and were soon piled on a plate. These were not the best eating variety, but given the circumstances, Bhim wasn’t complaining, now invited to break the carapaces and suck out the scraps of meat. After eating and passing the rest to Devika, Bhim voiced what had been troubling him. “Baba, I saw tiger tracks.”
The shaman raised his finger to lips and said, “Shhh.”

He explained in a hushed tone.“When you say his name it means you are calling him.” Then staring directly into Bhim’s eyes added,”Better to say ‘Uncle.’”

Of course, this was the reason for the protection ritual. The Sundarbans predator was long known as a man-eater. Some speculated that it had a cranky disposition, being forced to drink brackish swamp water, or that it acquired the taste for human flesh due to the prevalence of half-cremated corpses sluiced down river after funerals, but the old shaman who had been coming and going here since a young lad knew otherwise.

The story was born in distant Medina, not India. Ibrahim, a childless sufi was visited by the angel Gabriel and was promised two offspring – Bonobibi and Sha Jungli he named them. When older, Gabriel returned saying they had been chosen for a divine purpose far from their desert homeland. Obediently they came to India as merchants, where they met Daksin Ray, a demon with a taste for human flesh. She and her sibling soon overpowered and agreed to spare him, if he promised to stop eating people. She drew up boundaries where humans could live, leaving the jungle for the demon.

But Daksin Ray broke his word and became the Sundarbans tiger god stalking any stray villager who wandered into the forest. Thus, Bonobibi and Sha Jungli were forced to remain and protect the people.

“That is why we can’t stay long,” the shaman said. “We must obey Bonobibi.”
The skeptical side of the young man smiled. “Baba, there has to be another reason, something more scientific?”
“Hah! Did science save your fields, or your mother from the cyclone?”
“You young people. You forget the old ways, then suffer.”
He turned away and facing the woven leaf-wall said. “You will see.”

He had offended the holyman. It was not good, especially here. However, it couldn’t be helped. Bhim’s little bit of education had bred in him some arrogance that was further inflamed by youthful pride. He wanted to apologise, but the shaman had already turned his back. So he decided to go out and collect firewood as a peace offering and hoped the old man would have cooled off by the time he returned. Of course, he didn’t doubt the reality of the annual tiger strikes, although none really knew why these predators with animals galore to hunt, still favoured human flesh.

52
He returned to check his boat. It was tethered on the tide. A kingfisher dove and surfaced with a pomfret fingerling. White storks shifted about in their tree colony. He looked for pieces of wood, careful not to mistake liana for vine snake and noted the monitor lizard slipping casually into the water. Stay calm! He told himself. Be more careful with old people, he thought. Who knew whether Daksin Ray, the tiger god existed or not, but the noisy monkeys’ presence at the waterhole suggested he wasn’t around. It was getting dark, so Bhim returned with the bundle of firewood.

Devika dealt with the shaman’s crossness by sweeping and keeping an eye on the goat on the verandah. Leaving it tied below would have a flagrant invitation for an ‘Uncle’ visit. Having regular milk made her confident that her own milk would not dry up. To pass time she made fresh garlands for the temple, scenting it with incense when the shaman went down to the pool to bring back water. Her thoughts were with Bhim, her one support and prayed to Bonobibi in the temple for his safety, and then to Lakhsmi on the verandah waiting for him to return.

Bhim didn’t want to arouse ill feeling, and after stacking the firewood by the oven, he took a cup of milk from Devika, then sat on the verandah looking out into the jungle.

He listened awhile to a fish owl hooting piercingly through the swamp chorus. He nodded rhythmically with clicking insects. The faint traces of breeze were so calm compared with what the cyclone had brought. He noticed now a scorpion perched on the rail and flicked it off. Out there, were other eyes. So he went inside to sleep. This was how his first night of dreams began.

Sometime after the half moon rose through the Sundari trees he let go his vast exhaustion like an arrow released from a bow and entered the body of the beast. Bent down. Lethal. Whistling sharpness. He went forth, a nine foot missile-mind from nose to tail unleashed on all fours. He smelled the scent of a breathing body and zeroed in, grabbing it from behind and then veered off with a lunge through the foliage. In the quiet he tore the jugular and opened a river, feasting. The dream repeated until the moon dissolved behind the morning curtain of mist.

The next night he again became that hurtling massiveness, this time bearing down upon a slender spotted deer. Incisors sank into warm meat cracking cartilage and bone, but at the crucial moment the beast dissolved away. Disembodied, he felt extreme desire, yet without means to fulfill his craving. Was he a cannibal? The lost wandering ghost? Was this Daksin Ray, feeding on flesh and blood to remake his own flesh and blood? Claws and teeth were scratching and biting inside his consciousness. They were the howling souls of the stricken whom the ageless predator had once eaten and housed within himself.

57
Bhim was confused by what he was experiencing and wanted to for for explanation from the shaman when they went out fishing. He took the net stored inside the shelter and cast it where the shaman pointed. He had not uttered a word since Bhim expressed his doubts. But they worked and netted two large pangas, yellow-tailed catfish. Bhim cleaned and scaled them, while the shaman sat, arms crossed at the prow staring into the young man. Bhim endured those penetrating eyes that seemed to look through and beyond him to another realm. They moored and returned to the ridge..

The next night he became the predator’s prey: smoking out honey bees while dreaming of the anklet on his new bride’s foot; or putting down the woodcutter axe to light a bidi, he realised just before the neck snapped he needed the Kolkata clothing factory job; or screaming awake as a Granny gripped by the head and dragged out through a hole in the wall of her village hut like a newborn extracted with forceps. These and other gruesome departures he would never forget. Bhim woke up sweating, only to find fresh pug marks circled below the shaman’s hut on stilts.

NORVAL JOE

When the congregation stood to sing Yap Van Der Merwe noticed, in the row ahead, Mevrou Van Rok’s dress was tucked tightly between her butt cheeks. He thought that must be uncomfortable, so he leaned forward and tugged on her skirt to pull it out.
Before he could stand, she whirled and, fast as a Cape Cobra, klopped him on the side of the head.
The next time the congregation stood and the woman’s dress hung smoothly down her back side, Van Der Merwe politely tucked it back in.
It’s obviously not mine, but it’s the silliest story I know.

DANNY

I decided to form a band called “Hoe Brown And The Dilapidated Housing.” We play a fusion of Jazz, Punk, New Age, Modern Country, Folk, Religious, and Children’s music, all sung in Esperanto while playing Shatoetry from our I-phones. We perform while running on treadmills. Our first track is called, “Having OCD At 8:30 Is Bad When You Have To Be To Work at 9.” It’s a touching children’s story about a loveable purple dinosaur, who while teaching children about the value of life is hunted down and shot dead by Ted Nugent in Times Square. Obviously, this is a Disney production.

JUSTIN

The leader of the Saints, the best gang in Steelport, careened around the corner in a stolen truck, bowling over pedestrians and knocking over lamp posts. The driver door opened and the Saints top member rushed out, not even wearing anything, not even underwear, causing more accidents and mayhem. Then the Saints leader shoved a member of Morningstar into a wall while running past, and they got mad and called in friends.

Diving into a clothing store, the leader donned sandals, shorts, tie-dye shirt, and giant cat mask and ran out guns blazing, incendiary ammo setting the rival gang aflame.

TURA

Malle Sijmen went to town
Malle Sijmen pulled a frown
All the burghers laughed at her
So she pulled the town hall down.

Malle Sijmen went to sea
Malle Sijmen laughed with glee
All the sailors laughed at her
So she killed them– one, two, three.

Malle Sijmen travelled far
By the light of one faint star
When the star began to wane
Malle Sijmen laughed– har, har.

When the sun began to rise
Malle Sijmen had surprise
Fish that flew and birds that sang
Words of wisdom to the wise.

Malle Sijmen ‘splained to me
Nothing of this mystery.

PLANET Z

After boxing, hockey, football, ultimate fighting and all contact sports were banned globally, people still craved blood sports.

“Send in the clowns,” said Don King.

It started with seltzer water and balloon animals, but the Clown Fights quickly escalated into all-out bare-knuckled brawls.

“It’s good clean fun,” testified King to Congress. “Only in America! God bless the U.S.A.”

Clown Fights were banned, too.

Don tried all kinds of gimmicks and stunts to feed the appetite of the crowd: Mimes, Poets, Furries.

All banned.

Eventually, he had a winner: Robots.

All that money, and he still never git a decent haircut.

Weekly Challenge #385 – Underwear

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

This is Weekly Challenge, where I post a topic and then challenge you to come up with a 100 word story based on that topic.

The topic this week was UNDERWEAR.

We’ve got stories by:

The next 100 word stories weekly challenge is on the topic of SILLINESS.

Use the Share buttons at the end of the post to spam your social networks. This obligatory cat photo should help make the Internet go faster:

Finally, if there are any errors or corrections, please let me know, and I’ll fix them as soon as possible.

JEFFREY

Underwear
by Jeffrey Fischer

Society seems of two minds about undergarments. On the one hand, various pieces of clothing have nearly gone the way of the dodo. The girdle has virtually disappeared, though its descendants live on in the form of various body-shaping fabrics. The slip, too, is an increasing rarity, and stockings have started their long decline. On the other hand, other undergarments seem to have come out to play: the exposed bra strap, proudly on display over a tank top, or the peekaboo of a thong. Young men may be the worst offenders, with pants sagging to highlight the boxers below.

Underwear carries its prefix for a reason. Keep it concealed, Miley.

Commando
by Jeffrey Fischer

Bill enjoyed going commando. He liked the unconfined feel of his nether regions floating freely in his pants. True, he faced certain issues – that ugly zipper incident, or the time he bought itchy wool pants and scratched his way through an unsuccessful job interview. On the whole, however, he liked to think his genitals appreciated their freedom.

Bill’s thinking took a turn, however, at that fateful Christmas party in his apartment building. It seemed as though the whole building showed up at once. The room was hot and very crowded. As Bill tried to squeeze through the crowd, he brushed by Jenny Compton from apartment 7-B. The unfortunate timing of his erection, combined with an unladylike shriek from Jenny and the pummeling Bill received from her boyfriend, was enough. From then on, he was a Fruit of the Loom man.

THOMAS

During initiation rites, we all swore that we’d wear our underwear on the outside of our trousers. We pledged that we would dare to be different, as we are all members of The Madonnas of Clallam County, and on the advisory panel for the Big Bonsai Club. Our hair is clipped short, and facial hair is limited to neatly trimmed Van Dykes. The men are similarly dressed and adorned. Today, we were asked to participate in the centennial celebration for the city, so we’re planning for the event, designing the float, and auditioning the women applying for the support committee.

#
Jeb got several days of wear out of his underwear. Day one, fly forward, right side out. Day two, fly in back, right side out. Day three, fly in back, inside out, and day four, fly in front, inside out. Jeb was clever, and this little trick kept him out of the Army in the mid sixties, and assured him a good seat on the bus and light rail. He’s experimenting with undershirts and socks now, and writing a little Kindle, how-to book on conserving resources and shrinking his carbon footprint. Jeb teaches ecology classes at the local community college.

#
The first time I got into a girls knickers, I was nine. The panties belonged to my cousin. I had taken them off the clothesline, and smuggled them into the bathroom where I put them on. I squeezed into them, and although they put pressure on my guys, they felt wonderful. I used Mom’s Polaroid to take a picture in the big mirror, but in my inflamed state, I left the photo on the sink. My Aunt found it, but didn’t say anything. She made some double entendre comments at dinner and sang “I Enjoy Being a Girl”, during dessert.

#
I remember it like it was yesterday. It was the morning six of us gave poor Nancy Luuper a super wedgie. We pulled her grannies up so high, that we were able to hang her on the doorknob of the gym. She was stuck there until the bell rang, so when the next gym class came down the hall, they were greeted with Nancy’s display. We were all charged with assault, and Nancy was never the same after the incident. She walked with an odd gait, and never had children, eventually suing our families and the school district for millions.

#
I offer these bits of nonsense to all blue-noses, creeps, and windbags. All my stories about underwear are ripe (as Jeb’s underwear) for examination by psychologists and psychiatrists, and you’re welcome to examine them and comment on my affliction. I’ve heard them all…so unless you have something new to offer or you found a new entry in the DSM-5 that’s a good match for my diagnoses and classification, then you can eat my shorts. I am not paranoid. There is no need to be. I am content knowing where your family lives, and how to hack into your medical records.

TOM

I See France

Growing up Catholic I had no idea the amount of magic underwear in the
world. Mormon, Muslim, Sikh, Levite, Hindi sub-sects if you count Hari
Krishna hand in a bag. Priest have vestments. Altar Boys got starched
white baby doll frocks. Infants get a baptismal grown despite gender. Yet
none of these our daily foundation ware.

But Tom, these items are part of religious practice, referring to them as
magical underwear, how unPC of you.

Your on a site were characters end up with fire arms up their butts, get
real.

Closest Catholics get to Magical Underwear are brown scapulars

****

believe me after three month close is not what you want to be.

# # # #

A Well Defined Relationship Part 14

The elevator took them to the top of Wyn Tower. Sitting at a sizable oak
desk was the man himself, but behind him was a Citizen Kane size image of
John Wayne from the film “The Green Berets”. “Oh.” said Banister. “Yes.”
said Dino Mod. “I have a proposition,” said Wyn as he glided from the
desk, pass the Wayne Altar prominently displaying the triple presence of
The Duke, to the center of the room. Wyn all four foot three was wearing a
pair of True Grit silk boxer shorts. “The Profit needs an Angel,
interested?” Banister eyes the door.

RICHARD

#1 – Captured
Some time during the night, George slipped into a fitful sleep, but was soon roused a short time later as the truck came to a shuddering halt.

Blearily, he stumbled to his feet, then jumped in fright as the doors of the container crashed violently open.

“Put your hands where we can see them and don’t move a muscle!”

George peered towards the doorway, eyes adjusting to the light.

“Do it! Now!”

As his vision cleared, George almost soiled his underwear, as he found himself looking straight into the muzzle of a gun.

Slowly he raised his arms, and waited.

#2 – Gym kit

I used to hate gym lessons at school, but believable excuses were hard to come by, and Mr Taylor, the gym teacher, had heard them all before.

It was no good ‘forgetting’ your gym kit either… Taylor would give you the benefit of the doubt on the first occasion, but if it happened again, you did the lesson in your underwear.

There were rarely any repeat offenders.

Of course, he wouldn’t get away with it these days… the first suggestion of lessons in your underwear, he’d no doubt be arrested!

Kids today – they don’t know how good they’ve got it!

#3 – Life Philosophy

Harry always liked to live life to the full… bungee jumping, extreme sports and wild partying marked his youth, all underpinned by his philosophy of ‘Live fast, die young, leave clean underwear!’ – that’s how it was.

However, despite his every effort, he singularly failed to die young and now that life could no longer be considered in any way ‘fast’ – in fact, it had slowed to a definite crawl since the rheumatism had set in – his wild, partying days were well and truly behind him.

Even so, he clung to his philosophy desperately hoping daily… that he’d leave clean underwear!

#4 – Hit by a bus

Mother always said: “You’ll want to make sure you’re wearing clean underwear – what if you get hit by a bus?”

I used to wonder what would mortify her most… me getting flattened by a bus, or the coroner’s report revealing I’d been wearing day-old Y-fronts. Fortunately the chances of being hit by a bus are pretty slim and I could afford to take the odd risk on the laundry front.

All the more ironic that my mother should be run over at the bus station!

I know what you’re wondering…

You’ll just have to wait for the coroner’s report!

MUNSI

Naked

By Christopher Munroe

Buy the fanciest underwear you like, if it makes you feel beautiful I entirely endorse it.

I will, however, say for the record: Nothing looks better than naked.

Assuming that you look good naked.

Which you probably do! In my experience, most people look 30% better naked then they think, so even if you’re worried about your appearance in the boudoir, you likely needn’t be.

So cast off your clothes, free yourself! Throw them on the fire, you’ll never need them again, and live a life natural and free!

Me?

No, I shan’t be joining you. My body’s funny looking…

CLIFF

Dave knew his wife didn’t like country music, so he was surprised to hear her say that she wanted to see his favorite singer when she came to town on tour.
“Honey, I’m so glad you’re expanding your horizons. You’re going to love this show. She’s not just country. She has an enormous range and when she sings, you can just feel the emotion in the air around you. It is truly amazing.”
Lisa explained that she hadn’t said that she wanted to see Carrie Underwood soon, but that she wanted to see Dave carry the underwear to their room.

LIZZIE

The wide assortment of underwear made the store quite successful. The prices were expensive but no one worried about that. Until Mr. Vondrak, the store owner, came up with the idea of having musical panties and the male counterpart, musical boxers. It would’ve been fun too, to own one of those. The problem was the musical taste. Chopin’s Funeral March was a commercial flop and when Mozart’s Lacrimosa was added, for a tempting pay-one-take-two option, the store became eerily empty. Mr. Vondrak didn’t understand it. He wore them all the time, and he loved them; and so did Mrs. Vondrak!

ZACKMANN

“Are you wearing that tie?”
“Don’t you see it on me?”
“At least our children have good fashion sense.”
“Yes Dear.”
“Are we ready to go?” asks Connie
“Everything is ready except I left our son in his room to change. I will check on him”
Zack walks down the stairs and says “You really need to talk to your son.”
“My son, he is always your son or our son when he isn’t doing anything problematic. Why?”
“He is looking through his closet and drawers, refusing to finish getting dressed because he can’t find clothes that match his underwear.”

SERENDIPITY

He denied it, of course – refused to admit he was having an affair. So I was forced to play my trump card.

I asked him about the naughty underwear he’d been buying.

“What underwear?” he protested, so I told him… the g-strings, lacy bras and stockings, and none of them in my size.

Eventually he caved-in and admitted to his indiscretions.

“How could you have possibly known?”, he whimpered.

I suggested next time, he should do his shopping out of town – that way he might avoid picking a store where my best friend happened to be the sales assistant!

SINGH

30
When he tried to visualise some place of refuge, he remembered a village bordering the vast estuarine mangrove Sundarbans. Here they had always practised natural conservation: fishing with a large guage net, leaving one third of the honeycomb for the bees, only cutting woodd from the upper parts of certain trees. Those trips during childhood had been some of his happiest memories, although the place was not without its challenges and lurking dangers. Bhim looked at the position of the morning sun and started to pole with fresh vigour. In reality however, it was the rapid current that was taking him.

31
They glided past plastic flotsam and a bloated cow corpse tethered to a post, a pair of leopard print underwear like a slingshot hung from a horn. He thought of his own drowned beasts. Devika and daughter were recovering inside the shelter. She ran her tongue over the ulcers on her lip. The goat was nearby. Squatting, she forced it up, positioned the cooking pot, wet her hands over the side to wash the teats and coaxed the flow. Soon, the vessel was half full. Despite thirst, she offered it to her husband, but he nodded to her.
“You drink first.”
32
It was comforting to swallow the creamy milk. How long had it been since she had taken any nourishment? They had lost everything and yet the boat and the goat had saved them. She lay on her side to feed Priya, but felt something sharp. It was the shoulder bag she was still wearing. The brass devi was inside. Her mother-in-law must have slipped it in before they had jumped. Thus, the old woman had passed on the responsibility of family worship, so she sprinkled some drops of milk over the goddess, not a proper milk bath, but something.

32
Like this, they travelled. Bhim’s driving instinct was to put the scene of drowned villages and bloating corpses behind. He also feared other survivors turning scavenger and thus told himself the boat was too small to hold more.
“Keep the goat out of sight,” he said to Devika. With it they might survive. But there was no end to the relentless line of wading people. It was cruel, but he ignored their passing pleas for help. One goat’s milk didn’t go very far. It would be days before the waters would subside and sadly many would die of dysentery and typhoid.

33
Yes, Bhim Das had known floods right from childhood. Everyone had. Millions existed between calm and chaos. Then, once at least a decade, nature wiped the slate of the land clean of human habitation. Now mega cyclones were coming with greater frequency. He’d read in the papers about climate change – the disaster pendulum was swinging to each extreme with greater force – a rising flood of diseases here, a retributive drought happening somewhere south, west or north. Everything was disturbed. Bapuji had always harped on about respecting nature. “If you are going to live by the river make friends with the crocodiles.”

34
They moved through the wasteland toward that part of the inland delta system where his uncle lived. Bhim didn’t want to entertain the possibility that the fishing village was no more. Instead, he blithely pictured days spent with otters. Kept on leashed ropes, six would be released to scare fish between spoon boat and riverbank into the net. During the work, the whiskered creatures would be thrown tidbits, then finally a portion of the spoils would be dropped wriggling on a metal tray for them to feast upon. Now, he desperately hoped Varun Das Uncle and his ‘river dogs’ were alive.

35
Finally, he found the tributary at low tide leading to where the village that should have been like a fish skeleton picked clean. The caged otters, cooking fires and fish drying in long rows were gone. The storm surge had done its work. He felt like weeping, not just for the destroyed life of his Uncle’s family, but because part of his childhood had been washed away. For the first time, Bhim felt frightened. He had dragged his family too far in the naive belief that this place would weather the storm. Across the tidal inlet there was only wild jungle.

36
He was stepping over the feral edge of his world. The Sundarbans, the world’s biggest mangrove forest, a braided delta of one hundred islands had long been the Gangetic plain’s shock absorber against cyclones. Without it, the region would have been bitten back into the Bay of Bengal. Here the low tide salt-filtration roots rose up from sediment like a killing field of pointed spikes helping the mangroves breathe. When the boat was tied, Bhim wanted to survey the island.
Devika said, “Don’t leave us.”
So they both got down, Devika with baby and milk pot, Bhim dragging the goat.

37
Negotiating carefully where to step barefoot between spikes, he saw pug marks in mud. Fear and nausea punched him. He suppressed it, stepped into the trees with the right foot first, (just as he would later leave with the left) something he’d learned as a boy. Now, the trail rose to an open ridge-top. It was looking familiar. He’d been here with Varun Das and smoking out savage bees and cutting honeycombs from branches in past seasons. At the top, a rough thatched temple had weathered the storm on stilts, housing its image of Bonobibi, the goddess of the forest.

38
Now he needed to meet the holy man and get his blessings. Bhim found him perched up in his hut. Bhim was relieved. Someone familiar was still here.
“So, you are back,” said the sadhu, his eyes screwed up like raisins, squinting down at them on.
“Baba,” Bhim Das said. “This is my wife and child.”
“Son, this time is bad.”
“We lost everything, Baba. Our land, my mother. Have you seen Varun Uncle?”
The sadhu went silent. What did he know?.
“I saw the fishing village,” Bhim said. “Washed away.”
“They are gone,” is all the holy man would say.

39
“Let’s go,” he said. And climbed down the rungs. Made of, this structure like the temple’s legs had resisted many cyclones and surges. Or was it the holyman’s power? This flattened ridge was the highest and safest place. All climbed to the temple level and bowed in turn to Bonobibi’s idol. On the left was Daksin Ray, the tiger god, and Sha Jungli, Bonobibi’s club-wielding warrior brother was on her right.
Then the old man prepared to do his ritual.
“You have something to offer, Mother?” he asked?
Devika passed over the pot swishing with the last of the milk.

40
The shaman lit incense, poured milk into a brass vessel and mixed in white round discs of sugar wafers, known as patashas. He placed it before Bonobibi and prayed:

O Mother of the forest
we’re nothing — mosquitoes,
dumb stones in the mud.
Despite this, protect your lowly sons,
like Bhim Das and his family
keep them safe in your womb
for the full term, and place them
there again and again.
Do not leave his side, Ma,
O Ma, please listen.

With that, he offered the milk to goddess and entourage, and then to Bhim and Devika who wet her finger for Priya to suck.

STEVEN

I hold my hands near the fireplace, warming them from iced numbness. “I miss my longjohns, the bright red wool ones with the fold-down back flap.”

John laughs. “Mine were footies. Bright red, but no flap.”

Rufus nods, unwraps a bit of meat from a red cloth sack, slides it onto his stick, and holds it over the fire. “Ayup. I got ones kinda like that for my kids.”

He shuts up then, sudden-like. We listen to the hiss-pop of the cooking meat, the crackling fire, the restless infected wandering outside.

We don’t ask about Rufus’ kids.

We aren’t hungry.

NORVAL JOE

He leaned on the second floor railing looking down on the heads of shoppers below. It had been years since he last visited the local shopping mall and felt even more out of place than he had before.
“When I was a kid if we wanted to be rebelious, we went without underwear,” he grumbled. “Now it seems that’s all they wear.”
“Dad. I found what I need for the wedding. Can you come in and pay for it?” His daughter asked from the entrance to Victoria’s Secret.
Blood drained from his face as he asked, “Do I have to?”

DANNY

“What is that under there?!” I shouted. “Under where?!” my roommate screamed back, concerned. “HA! I made you say underwear!” I shouted back. My roommate, not amused he fell for this joke for the 3rd time this morning, gave me a cross look. The joke was wearing thin. “Shouldn’t you be writing?” my roommate quipped. Instead, I noticed my Maltese Freddie under the table. Before I could say, “look under there”, I was smacked over the head with a frying pan. I woke up to find my roommate stuffing his used underwear in my mouth. Surprisingly, they taste like waffles.

TURA

A century would be enough for my first experiment with the Time Machine. I emerged into a London thronged with masses beyond all expectation.

“Great steampunk outfit!” exclaimed a passing group of strangely dressed young people. On engaging discreetly in conversation, I realised that they took me to be in fancy dress, pretending to be exactly what I was! I played this happy chance to the full!

“These astoundingly compact telephones, I can understand as a simple extrapolation from the contraptions of a hundred years ago. But tell me, why does everyone in this era walk about in their underwear?”

PLANET Z

She came out of the bathroom in a white cotton robe, holding a pair of red panties in one hand and white in the other.

“Which color should I wear today?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” I said, untying the robe’s belt and opening it. “Let me ask.”

And I buried my face between her thighs.

Four minutes later, I came up for air.

“All I heard was YES YES YES,” I said. “No colors, though.”

She smiled, put her hands on my head, and I bent down to ask again.

(Whatever the color, she’s going to need another shower.)

Weekly Challenge #384 – Accident

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

This is Weekly Challenge, where I post a topic and then challenge you to come up with a 100 word story based on that topic.

The topic this week was ACCIDENT.

We’ve got stories by:

– NO RECORDING

The next 100 word stories weekly challenge is on the topic of UNDERWEAR.

Use the Share buttons at the end of the post to spam your social networks. This obligatory cat photo should help make the Internet go faster:

Finally, if there are any errors or corrections, please let me know, and I’ll fix them as soon as possible.

TOM

A Well Defined Relationship Part 13

Her late human often said “Parsons Parse.” The Bowsman’s statement left
little doubt she had just exchanged a unit of favor, further the subtext
of Senator PorkBarrel’s worthiness pointed to the need for additional
commitment. The widow removed her wedding ring. Placed it square in front
of the Senator. If he took it he was bound to the role of marriage broker.
If he rejected it he might as well writing-off the widow vote. As the
smile migrated between the women it dawned on him he was F!D It was no
accident his presence at The Tea, he’d been played.

###

Accidents by their mire nature are anything but. A collection of quite
purposeful actions set in concert locked to time and place producing an
event rarely viewed as favorable. Take the sudden appearance of a thunder
shower on a previous parched patch of pavement. Add to this Sunday
motorists pressing to get home before dark. Compound that to the low
center of gravity of the Ford Econoline Van. The Stage is set for an
illegal lane-change. The force of the impact was sufficient to both popped
the passenger door open and throw me across all four lanes of the freeway.

JEFFREY

In an Instant
by Jeffrey Fischer

Contrary to the cliche, nothing about the accident appeared to happen in slow motion. Instead, the incident was over in an instant. A flash of light, a squeal of brakes, the sound of metal crumpling. When the airbag deployed, the sensation of fabric against her face felt like an anticlimax.

The police officer first at the scene asked if she was hurt. He sounded genuinely concerned. Still dazed, she could only nod, hoping that this was the truth. She suspected his attitude would change when one of his colleagues discovered the body in the trunk. Funny how life can change in an instant.

Accidents Happen
by Jeffrey Fischer

Eyedropper. Test tube. Petri dish. Test. Repeat with fresh glass to avoid contamination. “What a boring job,” Ted thought. Time after time, he performed the experiment and found nothing. His dad was right: Ted should have gone into plumbing. At least there was the chance of screwing a bored housewife. Instead he was stuck in a lab coat, and the only female flesh nearby, Caitlin, was enough to make celibacy sound attractive.

Forgetting to replace the used eyedropper was a mistake made out of his boredom. And really, by the time the organism had grown to occupy the entire lab, achieved sentience, and declared itself Supreme Leader, blaming Ted was low on the priority list.

RICHARD

#1 – Accident

George couldn’t sleep – the journey was uncomfortable and noisy, and the fear of the unknown refused to let him rest.

Alone and frightened, his mind kept returning to the accident.

Everything had been fine, completely normal, in fact before that fateful day – was it possible that he was still in some sort of trauma? Maybe he was still lying in a hospital bed, unconscious, whilst his mind played these obscene tricks on him?

The line of thought was tempting, but the all too real motion of the truck, and the pain from his injured shoulder told an altogether different story.

#2 – Intelligent Design?

I’ve always disagreed with the idea that we came into being by accident – it’s plainly ridiculous to suggest that the universe and all life within it, in all its complexity, should have come into being as a result of some cosmic series of fortuitous coincidences – that’s like throwing a canvas and paints into a box, giving them a good shake, and ending up with the Mona Lisa.

Plausible?

No.

The alternative though? The suggestion that some all-powerful being designed all of this…

C’mon – if you were almighty and omnipotent, wouldn’t you have come up with something better than this?

#3 – Accident of birth

My parents always said I was an accident. I wasn’t planned – a moment of drunken passion and, before they knew it, I arrived – an unwelcome and unwanted burden.

Despite which, I managed to make something of my life, although without the parental support that others seemed to enjoy; nevertheless, I persevered and made something of my life.

Now, my parents are old and needy, and they look to me for support and care: To me, an unwelcome and unwanted burden.

Well, I managed to make it on my own – I guess they’re just going to have to do the same!

#4 – Bizarre

We just love them!

Not your mundane slips, trips and falls; you can keep your everyday tumbles, crashes and collisions… we want more.

Give us eye candy and stomach-churning descriptions, keep us on the edge of our seats, anticipating what’s to come.

You know what we want – only to hear that simple, four-word preface: ‘In a bizarre accident…’

The weird and the wacky: with fence spikes and harpoons, nail guns and naked flames, razor blades and ricochets. X-rays of impossible insertions and mind-boggling mishaps. Blood, guts and gore; bemused emergency crews, baffled surgeons.

That’s what we want!

LIZZIE

Forever committed to his investigation, Thomas was a renowned pioneer. He created so many improvements in the genetics of humans over the years that the other races began to express their concerns quite vocally. After all the agreement was to keep all forms of life balanced so that none would be tempted, as it happened in the past, to subdue the others. But they shouldn’t have been concerned, actually. Thomas wasn’t able to share the last results of his work. By accident, his tinkering with genes produced a breed of highly effective serial killers who had a taste for… humans.

SINGH

With the far corner of the building in collapse, the remaining plinths beneath disintegrated in a sudden vertical rush burying those on the first and second levels beneath drowning rubble. Bhim, took a breath and followed by Devika, leapt the remaining six or seven metres into the choppy flood clutching the infant. His one thought on touching bottom was to spring the child to surface, which he did holding Priya above his head like a prize. Somehow, Devika was soon bobbing next to them amidst hundreds of others who had also leapt from the roof, screaming and floundering to remain buoyant.

Bhim Das passed the baby to Devika and then said, “Climb up.” With that, he bobbed underwater, rising up with her legs around his neck. There were many around him, but he paid no heed. The notion of community had been irrevocably shattered. Forcing himself on without direction or plan he began to wonder whether the farmer son of Raj Das and Meena Devi from district Sitapur had ever existed. The past was submerged, until he felt the weight on his shoulders and remembered a wife and child. “Is the baby…?” he asked.

As if on cue, poor Priya cried out.

He didn’t know how long he had waded ahead with a blunted consciousness. Sometimes he stumbled but regained his footing, balancing Devika like an acrobat. The truth was– without her and Priya he could have easily succumbed to the idea of slipping away into the brackish water. By now, the mad storm has dissipated to drops of rain as the darkness gave way to vague shapes and the first flare of sunrise. Just as it was bad luck to look back when embarking on a long journey, he pressed doggedly on, wading toward what looked like an island of floating foliage.

Wading ahead Bhim survivors were in river boats poling through the deluged rice fields. Others were also up to their necks, but floating pots of drinking water in front of them upon the waves. More were on top of thatched roofs that had been tethered between palm trees, walls or power poles. Approaching the drowned trees Bhim now took in the body of man hooked above over a limb. A dramatic accident. He still might snap out of it. Inspecting closer, it was clear he had breathed his last, here where the steamroller flood had collected him, fatally winded.

Then Devika heard the bleating. “There! Beneath,” she said. Bhim waded closer. Below the corpse, was a spoon-shaped boat with a half-cylindrical roof of black plastic. Obviously the man had run aground. Even the long paddle was still tied to a rope floating in the water and a goat was crouched and shivering on top beside a cooking pot. Bhim reached through foliage to liberate the craft, pulling at the liana tangle. Suddenly he felt something move. The green bar was a vine snake, camouflaged and living here off geckoes, birds and frogs. Bhim withdraw his hand with cautious respect.

After some effort he disentangled the boat from the tree island and helped his wife and daughter aboard. Then he clambered up, hauled in the pole trailing behind on its rope. feeling a great sense of relief. Sighing, the pent-up exhaustion hit him then, and he lay on his back, inside the small shelter aware now for the first time of his furiously beating heart fuelled by adrenalin alone during the hours of darkness. For the first time he allowed himself to think of his lost mother and two small rivers began to trickle from his eyes.

With Devika and Priya at rest, Bhim finally sat up. Luck had provided a boat and a goat. He hesitated to call it blessing, having endured God’s recent handiwork. He remembered melting glacier headlines from the flood-hit northern state of Utterakhand, and the huge army operation mounted with helicopter evacuation sorties and distribution of foodgrains, kerosene and LPG. Some politician had made a withdrawal from his vote-bank, unlike what happened in West Bengal and neighbouring Bangladesh, forever cyclone prone. Governments had ample rhetoric, but little political interest to address what seemed unsolvable. No. They were on their own.

His thoughts too, returned to old Bapu. Bhim had railed against him in life and now his father returned to haunt him in death. “A man falls out of the sky only to land in a date palm with a snake,” the irritating voice of memory said. They had escaped from one crisis only to land up in another. Now the main challenge would be finding potable water. Every village pond and tube-well was submerged and now they were adrift in salty storm wash, navigating around bloating bodies of dead people and livestock — the liquid conductor of invisible bacterial death.

When he tried to visualise some place that might offer the hope of life, he thought of the jungle. In coastal Bengal this meant the mangrove island estuaries, the Sundarbans teaming with wildlife. A locals had to be licensed to fish, gather wild honey or firewood there. He had been with fisherman Varun Das Uncle many times as a youngster and he knew his way. Those trips had been some of his happiest memories, although the place was not without its challenges and real dangers. Bhim looked at the position of the morning sun and started to pole with fresh vigour.

TURA

Accident
——–
Hey, officer, it was an accident! How could I have known he’d just walk into the road?

I braked fast as I could, but in rain like this, and the wipers not working, what chance did I have? They should have better lighting here anyway.

Bald tyres? They passed the annual inspection, got the certificate right here!

Yes, that’s my whisky bottle, and I could do with one right now. What do you think it was like for me, running over a kid like that? And the car looks like a write-off.

Arrest? You’re kidding, right? It was an accident!

ZACKMANN

“Congratulations on your success, I love your Undersea Radish Kingdom books, cartoons, and toys. I have a King Wasabi action figure complete with his sea horseradish myself. Would you like to tell the audience the secret of your success?” said the show host.

“Our story not unlike the cough syrup carbonated water was mistakenly put in that became Coca-Cola or the soap mixing machine that was left on overnight that became the original floating Ivory soap is the story of a fabulous accent. In our case it involved a Lovecraft fan fiction with a spellchecker that changed Dagon to Diagon.”

SERENDIPITY

The accident investigation report was damning: the brake fittings were faulty. A thirty cent securing pin was missing, leading to catastrophic failures at high speed.

Several fatalities, followed by a rash of law suits and a product recall of all affected models brought the company to the verge of bankruptcy. The negative publicity and subsequent nose dive in sales effectively finished the job.

Harold Denton put down his morning paper, shaking his head at his ex-employer’s misfortune.

That would teach them to make him redundant!

The only problem now was what to do with fifteen thousand useless brake securing pins.

CLIFF

One week ago, my wife and I were driving home. As I entered a downtown intersection, I saw a flash of white. A GMC pickup truck slammed into our van. For a moment, my entire universe was crumpling metal and shattering glass. When the world was still again, we determined that we were breathing and relatively unharmed. Soon, the circus of firemen, police, tow truck drivers, and curious onlookers was in full swing. We eventually made it home and to bed. In the morning, I saw the topic for the next challenge. Accident. My suggestion for next week? Free money.

The Vreen had crossed hundreds of light years to let us know that we weren’t alone in the galaxy. They said they wanted to share their knowledge with us. Their technology was amazing. Their ships were sleek and beautiful, each powered by a captured black hole. Therein lay the problem. One pilot misjudged his landing and came down too hard. No one was hurt, but the power core broke open and the tiny black hole fell into the Earth. They estimate we have about a century before it eats the planet. And they say they feel really bad about that.

JUNE

Ebony gates shuttered. Their squealing movement made Iorian want to cry out for mercy.

Not an appropriate sound to allow to escape, especially since a prisoner snuck out through the tunnels this evening. Headaches were a curse on any sorcerer. Despite his credentials, Iorian, the Bane of Existence, was not an exception to this fact.

It all started after the summoning accident. Iorian thought he was casting the right runes, but his magnifying lens wasn’t powerful enough for him to read his spellbooks anymore.

And now the poltergeist wouldn’t allow him to work long enough to make a new one.

DANNY

Great news this week! Nissan is the first automaker to promise self-driving cars by 2020. Accidents will be a thing of the past. This will be a golden era, where you will see a resurgence of drinking and driving, which in this automated future will be legal because you will not be in actual physical control of your car, a computer will! I can see it now, cruising down the highway drunk off your ass, chugging vodka from a large bottle while waving at the enraged officer in his computer controlled police cruiser in the lane next to you. “Bye-bye, Officer!”

NORVAL JOE

Figuring two out of three eyes should be enough, Flooob held the joystick of his Sandblaster 487 with his middle prehensile eyebrow instead of using his tentacles, as proper vehicle operation recommended. He winked his rightish eye at his date and slobbered winningly when she shimmered.
“Waarrrrgggg,” Slimbish gurgled making Flooob blush.
Keeping his leftish eye on the terrain whizzing below he intertwined two thirds of his appendages with the girls.
He never saw the Kraddle Gliff squad approach from behind the cactus to his right.
They declared it an accident, but it was actually a series of poor choices.

MUNSI

The Accident

By Christopher Munroe

They were going to change mankind forever.

To reanimate dead cells, such that even after the moment of death a cure might yet be found for a given affliction? Nothing would be the same!

Yet, that fateful night, an accident occurred.

A barrier broke, safety precautions, though taken, proved insufficient, and real life got in the way.

Doesn’t it always?

And when it did, a world ended, and a new one began. One nobody could ever have foreseen…

…sorry, the experiment went fine. I should have said that earlier.

However, at the party afterward, the lead scientist’s girlfriend became pregnant…

PLANET Z

Just when I finished strapping Little Teddy into his baby car seat, he pissed his diaper.

So, I had to pull him out, open up the back hatch, and change him in there.

By the time I got him back in the baby seat, he’d shit himself.

Another trip to the hatch to change him.

The phone rang. “Where the hell are you two? Is he okay?”

“Just a little accident,” I said to my wife.

She freaked out, and I had to say it was in his diaper, not a car accident.

Next time, we’re getting a goddamned puppy.

Weekly Challenge #383 – Just

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

This is Weekly Challenge, where I post a topic and then challenge you to come up with a 100 word story based on that topic.

The topic this week was JUST.

We’ve got stories by:

The next 100 word stories weekly challenge is on the topic of ACCIDENT.

Use the Share buttons at the end of the post to spam your social networks. This obligatory cat photo should help make the Internet go faster:

Finally, if there are any errors or corrections, please let me know, and I’ll fix them as soon as possible.

JEFFREY

Circus Act
by Jeffrey Fischer

“Inspector, over here.” I wandered through the circus’s administration center toward the direction of the forensic specialist’s voice. “This is… just bizarre.”

I studied the blood spatter. The void it left suggested a killer of just around four feet tall.

“Just a minute. Give me some time to think.” To my right was a sign for the midgets’ dressing room. The door to my left led to the child-care center.

“We need to wrap this case soon, sir,” said my sergeant, handing me a set of latex gloves. ” A group of female gymnasts are visiting today, and they’re already waiting at the gate.”

“They’ll have to wait a little longer. This case is just baffling. I have no idea where we could find a suspect who fits that description.”

Business 101
by Jeffrey Fischer

The factory was a model of just-in-time delivery. Orders came in from the customer, and the company’s purchasing agents set out to obtain parts to be delivered just as needed during the assembly process. Suppliers – even those as far away as Asia – worked with the company to assure a seamless process.

This worked well for years. Then one day the phone rang for a new order. The factory couldn’t get commitments for delivery of essential parts. The customer was furious. The company president had to call to explain the situation.

“General, I’m very sorry. In retrospect, it just wasn’t a good idea to have no parts inventory for our missiles, especially for key components from our Asian supplier. In fairness, though, sir, how was I supposed to know your boss planned on declaring war on China?”

TOM

A Well Defined Relationship Part 12

Normally Timmy would not have indulged in the premium amenities, but his
new status of Profit seemed to have come with an ample amount of perks.
Just for starters his suit and shoes where run through a separate unit.
Then there was the unmetered Mark 7 with undulating shower heads. And
finally a service that defied any level of justification the Micronite
body scrubbers often credited with causing spontaneous premature puberty.
Over the nano roar Timmy heard Sparky cry out. Dashing to the lobby Timmy
was confronted with six men wearing silver cullenders. “We’ve come for
justice.” railed the Pastafarites.

EXPLORER

just defines wisdom, and understanding of life, and the depth of the human soul. Just defines how we humans interact with one another, and how easily we can be torn apart by words of another. just Breathe, and concentrate on centering the emotions of the heart. I hope you find the words to help you look beyond the twisted knots, and help you find your inner peace. just Breathe.
just Breathe Angel Desires Absent Valued
Chasing Fears
T rust Spilled T ears
Whispers Inside Shining Knotted Moonbeams
just Breathe Cherished Dreams Hope
Rising

RICHARD
#1 – Just for once

As the truck rumbled on into the night, George slumped into a corner, ruminating on his bad fortune.

The accident had been bad enough – all he could remember were snatches of that fateful journey… the car spinning crazily, the sickening crunch of metal, then the emergency room and anxious doctors, then… nothing.

Nothing until he awoke in a silent, empty hospital to this crazy nightmare.

Why did these things always happen to him, he agonised?

Staring into the darkness he wished, just for once – just once – why couldn’t things go right for him?

Or was that just asking too much?

#2 – Rough Justice

Morgan the Just had a reputation for being a harsh, but fair king. He ruled with a rod of iron, and nations bowed to his reasoning. At his hands the kingdom prospered and his passion for justice brought him respect from far and wide.

But not from everyone.

His wife was a nightmare and, no matter how hard he tried, she was impossible to please. Far worse, she always had things her way.

Often, Morgan would muse about his misfortune… oh, the irony of it: respected by millions and derided beyond reason by just one.

Where’s the justice in that?

#3 – Just one more…

Just one more and he’d have done it – the world domino-toppling record would be his, and those who had doubted him would finally have to eat their words!

He savoured his moment of triumph – it felt good.

Selecting a double-six with care, he kissed it and prepared to stake his claim in domino-toppling history.

The sneeze was the type that catches you completely unprepared… no gradual wind up and false starts, but a sudden violent explosion of involuntary sound and motion.

The domino flew from his hand, with inevitable consequences…

And he’d only needed just, one, more.

MUNSI

Just

By Christopher Munroe

Remember that Radiohead song with the guy laying in the street?

A crowd gathered and asked why, and when he told them they collapsed, paralyzed by the revelation.

You know the one.

I can’t tell you how many times I watched it, trying to figure out what he says at the end.

Hundreds, easily.

I saw it again the other day, for the first time in years. I think I’ve finally figured out what he said.

I’ll tell you, if you like.

Just… not now.

For now, I just want to lay here.

Just for a minute.

Just to recover…

SINGH

The high winds also brought a cyclonic thunderhead of conflicting thermals. They smashed the low-lying delta peninsular — just like a fist cracking the bony fingers of a hand. Walls of water surged over flimsy estuary embankments and flooded inland, uprooting and washing away the thatched mud huts, roads and settlements. Hundreds of thousands of acres of rice and jute disappeared under the sudden sheet of in-rushing ocean. Families woke in chaos and many were immediately swept away to oblivion. Others more lucky had a small window of opportunity to pack and flee with whatever meagre belongings they could carry.

Bhim put Devika, clutching their baby girl onto the cart. Then, while helping his mother up she dropped her brass pot packed with rice grains. It tumbled away into the rising water.

“Hai!” Meera screamed.

Bhim reached down and retrieved it. Sadly, all of the precious rice had now dispersed in the floodwater. Nothing could be done. “Chello!” he said. “Let’s go.”

Setting off, he soon offered Narayani Mata a ride, but their old widowed neighbour refused to abandon her bony cow. Having seen floods and ruined crops she knew she would starve without milk anyway, and resigned to her fate.

The road to Sitapur was clogged with fleeing families. Bhim Das beat the bullock’s rump until the cart could progress no more. He freed the beast, dragging his family toward the old dilapidated flood shelter. It was a two-storey concrete building on four plinths with stairs, balconies and a flat roof. This was a vote-catching initiative of some old regime. There were too few scattered along the coastline. This stationary structure was already over-crowded. Bhim and his family fought through huddled shapes and managed to climb, push and squeeze past complaints to find a corner on the roof.

The four took shelter under a tarpaulin of stitched-together fertiliser bags previously used to cut and wrap roadside grass. Bhim Das had salvaged it from the cart. Now it became a tent with squatting heads and shoulders for poles. They huddled together sharing warmth and tried to sleep through the storm. Palm trees had snapped like toothpicks. Seawater was encroaching. Goats, cows and buffaloes were in distress. Slow moaning and bleating scraped along human nerves as they floundered to find any foothold in the deluge, eventually going under one by one. Meena Devi, clung onto her bronze Lakshmi and prayed.

The cyclone shelter had doubled as a school with rotten foundations and white-washed walls needing repair. After bureaucratic kickbacks, foreign aid’s cannibalised funds could only build with porous cement. 2000 were now packed onto three floors meant for 800, each with just one metre to squat in, including the pregnant and the elderly. Emergency store rations had long ago turned a profit on the black market through Devendra Gosh, the government official-in-charge. There was no cooking fuel, the latrines had never worked and survivors were only a fraction of the displaced, or those floating face down like logs.

Bhim’s family made it through the gale-force night praying to the goddess Lakshmi. Meera collected run-off from the fertiliser-bag tent in the cooking pot and they took careful sips. Going to the toilet the next day was a whole other problem with 800 exposed on the roof. They squatted in turn above a rusty bucket, petrol tin or some plastic motor oil containers with the tops cut off passed on until brimming with faeces, then dumped over the side into the floodwaters. Rain continued to pelt down with ferocity, pinning Bhim and family underneath their makeshift synthetic tarpaulin.

The shelter was so far just holding out, but the concrete steps and supporting plinths were being consumed by rising tide. As long as the storm surged, those on the roof could exist on sips of collectable rainwater, but others locked together on the lower levels could barely move, each in their meagre metre of shitting space. All were dehydrating badly, some with respiratory problems due to cloying suffocation. By the second day the cyclone shelter had drawn first blood — two newborn infants and an old man wheezing away life on his daughter-in-law’s lap. Death’s bad news spread fast.

Meera Devi still felt guilty, having earlier let the rice pot slip from her grasp climbing onto the cart; and now there were only three onions left knotted in her shawl. Onions discouraged thirst, although not for long. She propped Lakshmi up against a crack progressing up the concrete wall. She could only close her eyes and wave an imaginary ghee light on a tray, She visualised garlands, burning incense, piles of mangoes – and mentally poured unhusked rice over her deity’s feet like an endless showering of gold coins. “Please take me, but save my family,” she bargained with her goddess.

Meanwhile, Devika feeling her milk drying up from dehydration and anxiety couldn’t satisfy her suckling infant who bit harder for nourishment. The young woman’s strength was dissipating. It worried her. A mother is a milk tap. How long could her baby last? Mother Meera understood, stopping her sips for Devika’s and Priya’s sake. Bhim Das felt helpless too. His waterlogged fields would soon rot. As Bapuji said: “A farmer is only a lord at harvest time.” He couldn’t feed his family on air like some non-eating yogi. The shelter was delaying the inevitable and cruelly forcing them to befriend death.

Around 4am cyclonic winds and a fresh wave of storm surge began to rock the overcrowded ark. The foundations splintered. Then, one of the four supporting concrete plinths snapped and the corner opposite Bhim’s family collapsed. The only thing left to do was to leap from the ledge behind them. Meera Devi had already made her pact with Lakshmi. “Go,” she said to Bhim. “Take them.”

“”Ma!”

“Just go.”

The roof tipped, sliding away human cargo off its deck like a boat and passengers going down. He waited until the last moment, grabbed his baby girl and wife and then jumped.

LIZZIE

After the police showed up, there was nothing else that could be done. They found a whole room filled with photos covering the walls all the way up to the ceiling. The first time she spotted him, he was standing in his veranda, holding binoculars. “What a perv,” she thought. Months of multiple complaints followed. All got lost in a torrent of paperwork. His last words were “I was just…” He kept a diary, the police found out later. He was in love, fatally in love. Her destiny also had a fatal twist to it. She was convicted to life.

CLIFF

History calls him Mathias the Just. You may ask how one gets a description of “The Just”. After all, he frequently beat his own sons for minor infractions. He once locked his wife out of the house for a night because she had let his soup get cold. Mathias was a swindler, an adulterer, and quite possibly a murderer. So why did the history books call him Mathias the Just? Because, in that village, only Mathias could read and write and he wrote the history book. However, he couldn’t record who was wielding the meat cleaver that ended his life.

I believe we should strike the word “just” from our vocabulary. Everything is important. Just a wife and mother? Do you know what goes into running a proper household? What about the phrase “It’s just a cold”? That’s how we lost Jim Henson. Everything and everyone is important. Maybe not to you, but to someone. Write someone off as just another person and you may miss out on a job opportunity, a new friend, or even a lover. No one is just anything. Everyone is important and special. Well, except for David Lee Roth. He really is just a gigolo.

TURA

General Wei issued a decree that all trade take place at the just price. “Charging more is extortion; charging less is competition; offering more is bribery; offering less is oppression. Free trade is conspiracy against the realm, for all belongs to the Emperor, who orders men’s estates.”

He instituted the Committee of Justers, to decide the just price of every thing, and the just punishments for illegal trade. Oppressors and competitors would be stretched on the rack by the same proportion as their prices fell short, and bribers and extortionists were sent to be precisely shortened by the executioner’s saw.

DANNY

Another article in this morning’s newspaper calling for change to Florida’s self-defense laws in the wake of the Trayvon Martin case. Once again, a re-invention of facts to fit a scenario of racism different than the evidence presented at trial. If the media used the actual facts, it would be hard to define pulling a gun while flat on your back having your head pounded into the ground an act of racism. Or should we call the woman from NJ pummeled in her home by a black assailant in front of her 3 year old child a racist? Is that just?

JUSTIN

When the day started out, I had a hangover, and the submarine I was in sank, and New York was in ruins. On the bright side, after washing up after some strange ship took potshots at us, I met a man. He said I was the only hope he had, then he gave me a spiffy nano suit. Powered combat armor. It allowed me to jump higher, run faster, all that jazz. There was just one little thing the man who gave it to me neglected to tell me. A whole army would be out to kill me. Thanks buddy.

ZACKMANN

“Justice Justin Johnson Jets to Jamaica in January just for Jamaican jerk.” said Jake

John asked “Just what do you think you are doing?”

“I was trying to make an alliteration. Do you think Jamaica has Jeepneys? Would it be unjust to go poetic licence just to have the right sound.”

“Jake, Just maybe I am jaded but I think Justice Johnson should have revoked your poetic licence long ago.”

Jake starts again “Justice Justin Johnson JaJaJa.”

“The Cat got your tongue? I’ve never seen someone tongue-twisted before. Now that is an example poetic justice if I’ve ever seen one.”

PLANET Z

Billy had never beaten Ted at Words With Friends.

He was a hundred points down, tiles were running out, and he and had nowhere to go.

His phone beeped, and he looked.

The triple word was open on the left side.

His car hit a bump and his rack shuffled:

It spelled JUST… wait, hold on: JUSTICE.

Billy looked at the board… it fit perfectly! Not only would it hit the triple, but the J would be on a triple letter, too!

That’s when he ran the red light, and the truck slammed him from the left.

Ted remained unbeaten.

Weekly Challenge #382 – Billions

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

This is Weekly Challenge, where I post a topic and then challenge you to come up with a 100 word story based on that topic.

The topic this week was BILLIONS.

We’ve got stories by:

The next 100 word stories weekly challenge is on the topic of JUST.

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Finally, if there are any errors or corrections, please let me know, and I’ll fix them as soon as possible.

TURA

Billions
—-
When I was five, the universe scared me. The big encyclopedia talked about billions of years, billions of billions of miles. When I worked out what a billion was, I was terrified. “But what’s it all for?” I wailed. “Wait till you’re my age,” said my mother.

When I was thirty-three, I asked her again, “So, what’s it all about, remember?” But she just said, “wait till you’re my age”.

She died at seventy-six, and now here I am, seventy-six myself, her age at last. And I still don’t know what it’s all for.

I guess that’s what she meant.

JEFFREY

Cosmos
by Jeffrey Fischer

When the cosmos were formed, gases coalesced to create galaxies, solar systems, planets. Billions and billions of planets. Some of those planets contained bits and pieces of life – life that grew and evolved into sentience.

In the nearly-infinite potential for extraterrestrial life among those untold billions of planets, isn’t it strange – isn’t it just the tiniest bit odd – that the life science fiction shows find tends heavily toward the humanoid? In fact, many alien species are indistinguishable from humans.

Perhaps this just reflects the bias on the part of explorers, recognizing sentient life more often when it looks like us. But a cynic might think this reflects tight budgets and/or a lack of imagination.

Upward Mobility
by Jeffrey Fischer

When he was a child, Barney stole. He stole from his mother’s wallet, he stole money from his brother’s lemonade stand, he stole candy and comic books from the drugstore.

As an adult, Barney had greater ambitions. He stole an identity, took a job as a bond trader, and eventually made it to the top of Goldman Sachs, where he was able to steal millions from unsuspecting investors.

Still, this wasn’t enough for Barney. He parlayed his access to power into a political career. Now he steals billions at a time and is honored for it.

A Well Defined Relationship Part 11

“Third base,” cried the crowd, roars of laughter, applause, up go the
house lights. Banister paused in the lobby for a cigarette. A hand reaches
out to light his Camel. “Rio Bravo, pretty damn good way to get my
attention. Dino Mod gesture towards the main casino. “Sorry Pilgrim I
don’t gamble.” “Neither does Mr Wyn.” Billionaire Barnard Wyn was the
second richest man in Bowsmen a far cry less respectable then Angus, he
was no less influential in matters of practical governance. There were a
billion good reasons to make for the stage, and one to continue forward.

CLIFF

The Galactic Empire is a very large place. Three hundred billion stars, give or take. Granted, only one percent of those stars have worlds that support life, but that’s still three billion star systems. Billions of worlds each home to billions of sentient beings. That’s a lot of people when you start doing the math. Now, taking all that into account, what do you suppose the odds are that of all the people who walk into all the bars on all the worlds, the one who walked in here tonight would be my ex-wife? That’s just how my luck runs.

Legend tells of a man who offended the gods so deeply that they decided to destroy the world. One goddess felt sorry for mankind and pled their case. She was somewhat successful. The destruction would be postponed. The man was ordered to count the grains of sand on every beach in the world. When he was finished, so was the world. That’s why, whenever see an old man on the beach who looks like he’s concentrating very hard on the sand, I start shouting random numbers at him until he gets frustrated and goes away. You know, just in case.

RICHARD

#1 – Rethink

Gingerly, George clambered towards the rear doors and peered through – the container appeared to be on the back of a truck, speeding down an otherwise empty road.

Nothing made sense: for the first time since waking in hospital, George found himself questioning the assumptions he’d made. Of the billions of possibilities, killer plants, zombies and alien invasions now seemed the least likely scenarios.

That was probably a good thing, but the more likely possibilities were equally worrying – was he in the midst of a civil war? Had somebody dropped the bomb?

All he could do now, was wait and see.

#2 – Invasion

They came, and there was nothing we could do to stop them.

Not in their hundreds, not in their thousands, not even in their millions… when they came, it was a horde so vast that no human being could grasp their sheer numbers.

When they came, it was in their billions

An army blotting out the light of the sun; destroying everything in its path and leaving nothing in its wake.

We were defenceless and, although we had the power to simply crush their tiny bodies in our hands – size isn’t everything – it’s numbers that count.

And the locusts won.

#3 – Billions

How is it possible that out of all the billions of galaxies, and the infinite billions of stars and their planets that this could happen?

How is it possible that out of the billions of people on this planet and the countless billions of possible places they could choose to be, that this should occur?

What are the odds that two people should run into each other in the same bar, at the same time, just as we did.

And what are the chances, I would run into my boss on the day I should have been working from home?

SERENDIPITY

The project had taken many years, and cost billions in public money, but at last it was finally complete!

The SS Bubonic sat majestically in dry dock, awaiting the moment of launch – the greatest marine vessel ever to be constructed. Forty-Two decks, gleaming white in the sun – she was larger than a small city and a supremely breathtaking sight.

The champagne crashed against her bow, and to massive applause she slid majestically into the sea… then sank, almost instantly, without a trace.

At the public enquiry, the architect’s defence was simple:

“Nobody told us that she had to float!”

JUSTIN

What do you do after raiding the dungeon and the prized artifact is in your hands, and your enemies close behind?

You could take your airship to fly away, but it’s not that great of an airship, and your enemies might catch up.

What you do is take the astral diamond you pulled out of a treasure chest and give it to the airship parking attendant so you can “accidentally” take the bigger, better airship of your enemies! That attendant won’t stick around and hope for grace from the victims. He’ll be long gone, billions of copper to his name.

MUNSI

Infinity

By Christopher Munroe

In a nearly infinite universe, there are billions upon billions of stars, surrounded by potentially trillions of planets.

Perhaps some of those planets do contain life. In fact, the law of averages implies that some must.

And yet, only one star in one small corner of the universe, and one planet circling it, with seven billion people inhabiting it, produced you.

Seven billion people on one of trillions of planets circling billions of stars, and yet…

There’s only

One

You

Nonetheless, don’t let that trick you into thinking you matter. Because in a nearly infinite universe, trust me, you don’t.

DANNY

“How much is it going to cost to run on the next Republican ticket for U.S. Senate?” the spineless wretch of a Christian white conservative male meekly asked. “Oh, it will cost billions, plus your soul, all deposited to me directly in the bank of China,” the Devil replied, not kidding. The Devil owned China, and all of the souls of the Billions of people there. Flash forward to Dr. Evil in the latest abomination of what is to be called the 4th Austin Powers movie, Dr. Evil demands one billion dollars. Chump change in the 2013 market, ask for more.

ZACK

She took a trip to the fair in Sacramento.

She bought the price bull.

She loves him more than the rest of her herd.

Don’t tease him or you will get trampled.

Get out of the way it’s Kathy’s Kalifornia Kow.

It’s Kathy’s Kalifornia Kow.

Get out of the way it’s Kathy’s Kalifornia Kow.

It’s Kathy’s Kalifornia Kow

She misses the milkfat from the Jerseys she had as a child.

Now she has a billion dollar ranch of holsteins

with a million dollar bull that’s not polled

Get out of the way it’s Kathy’s Kalifornia Kow

it’s Kathys Kalifornia Kow

LIZZIE

Billions was a great name for a book, he thought. It was easy to say and easy to remember. He was writing about the crisis, so it seemed appropriate. When he sat before the blank screen, the cursor blatantly mocking him, he felt the weight of not knowing where to start. Define billions, he thought, that should work… not. Billions of seconds ticked away, increasing his frustration. So, he took up drinking instead of writing. One day, being quite drunk, he hastily crossed the busy street. That’s when billions of atoms hit him. He never even saw the truck coming.

JUNE

The sorrows are draining from the sky. Billions of raindrops pelting the ground, each a tear of God’s, prayers unanswered from those who call to him every day. He cannot hold them all, and so the rain comes, pounding the earth, pounding our souls, and we are lost.

The pain does not end.

Anger, there is much anger at God. There are too many of us, his children, and though he loves us, there is not enough time, he did not give himself or his son enough time, and so we are lost.

And the pain does not end.

STEVEN

You are not one.

Subprocesses in your brain filter, process, and react before your conscious mind even perceives a thing.

The billions of germs in your body mass more than “you”. Everything from the bit of bacteria digesting your lunch to the rabies virus walking its way up the nerves to your brain.

Each, in turn, is made of molecules. Each molecule is a loose cloud of atoms. Each atom a cloud of potential and energy, more empty space.

You are mostly germs. They are mostly empty space.

No wonder you are lonely.

You are not one. You are nothing.

SINGH

The Lakshmi Plot

Outside the wind was banging, but Meera Devi kept washing the rice. She chanted Ram-Ram with each turn of her hand.

“Come,” she said to Devika, her daughter-in-law. “Bring Priya.” The elder woman reinforced what should be done to ensure abundance. Devika turned the rice also, and then pressed the baby brown hand into the cloudy water. Priya burst into tears.

Meera reached in, enclosing daughter and grand-daughters’ fingers. It felt comforting — three generations were united through the rice ritual rinsing away excess starch, leaving pure grains in the pot while praying to Lakshmi, goddess of wealth.

Bhim Krishna Das returned from the padi fields before sunrise, swiping the backside of the buffalo with his stick. Wearing only his wrap-around lungi knotted at the stomach he entered his enclosure, tying up the beast, then cut fresh grass into chewable chaff with the hand grinder. Bhim fed his animals, then crossed the compound. He found his jute-string charpoi, positioned it in the shade and lay down. This was his routine. Although they subsisted on only 2 acres of land, he never thought of himself as poor and since planting the new seed, yields had been very good.

Bhim was both sad and relieved his father had passed away three years ago. Now he had a free hand. Instead of replanting the seeds from the harvest, Bhim Das gladly used the seed companies’ higher yield variety. It was definitely superior and the money it generated did allow him to re-purchase fresh seed stock along with the pre-requisite pellets of urea each season. He even dreamed of one day owning a tractor and hiring himself out to other farmers to increase his income. Meanwhile, Devika came with a glass of sweet milky chai, the baby balanced on her hip.

She left, but soon returned with a stainless steel thali, piled high with rice along with a matching dish of gruel-yellow lentil dhal. In another metal dish was a cut red onion and a long green chili. Bhim Krishna Das sat cross-legged on his charpoi, poured the dhal over the rice and ate, occasionally licking the run-off from the side of his fist. He ate to the very last grain, one of billions from similar harvests along the delta where he and his community lived. Laying down, he said Ram-Ram a few times before falling asleep exhausted.

Bhim Krishna Das had inherited debts from his father. With a growing family there were more expenses also. To raise cash his only recourse was to regularly borrow against the coming harvest. The grain merchant would advance cash on interest, providing seed and fertilisers. During past decades the subsistence style of bio-diverse farming has shifted to monoculture cash-cropping. The grain merchant ultimately acted as a conduit for the big seed and fertiliser companies and the Government fixed-price buying system. Like all small farmers Bhim Krishna Das’s agricultural future was determined by outside forces, not to mention the weather.

Bapuji, his father Raj Das, like generations before him had propagated local strains of rice, millet, squash, corn and lentils. Agricultural pundits once claimed India produced 100,000 rice varieties alone, not to mention other produce; but since the 1960s, Bapu too had become one of millions cranking the new wheel of the Green Revolution to fulfill the government policy of national self-sufficiency. Despite the propaganda, Bapu resisted the one-season one-crop philosophy at heart. Traditional mixed farming methods spread the risks, although yields were less and in spite of the vagaries of the weather, rural life had seemed simpler.

Before too, neighbours bartered and cooperated to complement their harvests. For example, the old man had long ago let a neighbour keep his bee boxes in the mango grove for a portion of the honey. Or they shared tools, and even gave a hand with each other’s work when required. Above all, they took pride in the knowledge of breeding and hybridising seed stock which is the farmer’s art. His small holding had once rioted with variety and colour and there was the real satisfaction of living from one’s own rice, milk and produce. But mono-cropping had changed all that.

On the other hand, cash crops put money in the palm, promising of an affluent life. And the extra rupees allowed Bhim and other sons of the district to go to the newly white-washed government school. Thus, he thought himself the educated one in the family. He looked down upon his old-fashioned father. Young Das also kept up with the latest seeds and fertilisers, chatting with the peons at the Farmer’s Cooperative in nearby Sitapur, and as a badge of learning Bhim Das read the newspaper to the women in the house on his return from Market Day.

Thus, the young man worked hard. He bought the merchant’s seedling shoots and planted them in muddy rows. He channelled the irrigation flow, sometimes getting up in the middle of night whenever electricity was available to pump water. Although the delta silt was rich, rain was needed in the right proportion at the right time to produce premium grain. Tending wet shoots calf-high in slush, guarding against pests, birds and diseases was the farmer’s lot, and deep down he still knew his old irritating Bapu was right who regularly intoned: “Nature laughs at him who claims to own the land.”

There was a corner of the far field beside the old mango grove that had long been known in the family as Lakshmi’s Plot. Bhim’s ancestors had created a grotto from stones and placed a murti, a statue of the wealth goddess within. The spindly rice stalks that grew in that nook were tough, although meagre in yield.

“Do whatever you like when I die, but keep Lakshmi’s Plot. This is God’s bank account. Respect the Devi and she will bless you, Son.”

Bhim Krishna Das promised reluctantly. “Alright, Bapu.” He would much sooner have seeded the new genetically-modified grain.

The fickle mind of Nature was most evident through the monsoon’s coming — at first it was joyful relief after each killing summer. Clouds become drums. Then the slow tinkle of musical drops increases to a deluge blessing the rice fields. It fills cooking pots and old ghee tins used to catch leaks in the thatch roof, stuffed with polythene bags between the bamboo rafters. For hours, the steady ping-ping hit the meniscus of over-brimming containers. With one ear tuned to the sleeping infant, Devika was first to feel the wetness seeping up through her mattress. She raised the alarm.

TURA

Where are the aliens?

We know ways to send spaceships to the stars, and any rocky planet provides material to make more spaceships. We could colonise the whole galaxy at near light speed. It would only take a few hundred thousand years.

That’s an eyeblink on the cosmic timescale. The galaxy should be crawling with weird creatures already. So where are they?

I reckon nobody cares about hick planets like the Earth. All the action’s in the crowded centre of the galaxy. Billions of planets, and billions of people on every one, filled with stories that we will never know.

NORVAL JOE

“Here you go, Harry. Read this and see what you think,” the scientist said, handing him a long printout. “What’s this, Franz? The readout from the plasmi-quark microscope?” “You guessed it, Buddy. Look closely at the data on page four.” “There are billions of them, and on a spinning spherical mass. Did you note the angle of the mass’s axis?” “I did, Harry. And I measured the distance to the energy source it orbits.” Harry dropped into a chair, burying his face in his hands. “By searching for the smallest subatomic particle, we’ve peeked through a hole and found ourselves.”

PLANET Z

Ted was good with numbers.

But that’s all that was good about him, and for that, he was damned to Hell.

The Devil made him a deal: “You count to a billion out loud without a mistake, and I let you go.”

So, Ted tried. But no matter how close he got to a billion, something would go wrong.

Until, finally… he got to a billion.

The Devil is a man of his word, and he let Ted go.

However, Heaven wasn’t about to let an asshole sinner like Ted in.

So, he waited outside the gates, just counting souls.

Weekly Challenge #381 – Grace

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

This is Weekly Challenge, where I post a topic and then challenge you to come up with a 100 word story based on that topic.

The topic this week was GRACE.

We’ve got stories by:

The next 100 word stories weekly challenge is on the topic of BILLIONS.

Use the Share buttons at the end of the post to spam your social networks. This obligatory cat photo should help make the Internet go faster:

Finally, if there are any errors or corrections, please let me know, and I’ll fix them as soon as possible.

SINGH

Period of Grace

Singh

When they removed the little one from the humidicrib and unhooked her plasma tube, I knew we had to work quickly. Fortunately her twin brother was doing fine.

“This way,” the nurse said. I had already set up my tripod and lights in a vacant room and was ready for the little one in her infant whites. There were smears of blood here and there. Yes, in this case, it would be better to process these in black and white before passing them to the parents. Meanwhile, Dorothy and Moses Chen moved in a slow trance, she holding the delicate bundle.

How did I become a bereavement photographer? Well, I also had a twin who died at birth. In those days, the stillborns were whisked away to the mortuary with cold efficiency, lest the idea of death infect the realm of the living. Like Mother, I had longed to have a hand, footprint, or name tag saying Twin 1 or Twin 2, or a tiny lock of hair. Anything to remind me of my lost identical sibling. When I became a professional photographer I made it a point to volunteer for bereavement service so I could vicariously relive my own twin’s passing.

The Chens wanted photos of the little girl alone, the twins together, another with each parent separately and finally, the toughest one of all to shoot – the wholesome family portrait. Somehow this image was meant to be a smiling achievement, although under the circumstances we all knew it was a sad falsehood. Yet, that’s what photographers do — suspend moments and render stillborn the notion of death. By this stage, everyone including me were fighting back tears. It was an unbearable situation. I kept snapping for twenty painful minutes, yet hoping my humble monochromes would have lasting meaning for the stricken survivors.

I went home and transferred the shots to the computer, deleting the blurred duds. I did some quick edits and burnt the set to disc, then went to bed drained but glad my work was almost done. All that remained was to deliver the DVD in a couple of days.

When I rose the next morning and powered up my mobile phone, beeps sounded with a message: “We would be eternally grateful if you could come to our home at 2pm.” I figured they wanted the photos straight away. If wasn’t far, so I closed up my flat and drove over.

Moses opened the door.

“Thank you for coming.”

He led me into the lounge. Dorothy was on the sofa nursing her baby, softly singing, “You are my sunshine, my only sunshine.”

“So you’ve brought your son back already.” As soon as I had spoken I realised my error. Both the twins had been born premature and were on life support. They had brought the dead girl home. Dorothy was still in her slow trance, singing, “You make me happy when skies are grey.”

“The funeral counsellor was very compassionate to allow us to say goodbye for a little longer,” Moses whispered.

At first, I was shocked. It seemed macabre to be with grieving parents attending to a newly-dead child as if alive.
“Would you mind taking more photos? It would mean a lot to us — to Dorothy.”

Moses gestured, nodding toward her. He was gently handling his partner who still couldn’t let go.

“Of course.”

“Dorothy Darling. Let’s go into the twin’s room. Miss Wong is going to take more shots for the memory box.”

He eased her up as she nursed the swaddled bundle. I took out the small camera from my shoulder bag, following them into the baby room.

The Chens were first-time proud parents and had lovingly papered the nursery walls blue with sheep leaping over silver moons. There was a mobile of lucky pigs hanging from the ceiling and soft toys and books in corners and nooks. In the middle of the room were two baby cribs next to each other.

Dorothy placed the wrapped corpse in one. Now I could see the bluish angel face. I braced myself, stepped forward and snapped some more shots.

“Before she goes to the next world, she should’ve lived at least a little of life in this one,” Moses said.

After photographing the room, Moses led Dorothy, the infant girl and me back into the lounge.

“We will go for a drive, Miss Wong.”

Soon, we were pressing the lift and getting out in the parking bay. Dorothy sat at the back clutching the bundle to her bosom.

Moses said, “Darling, we should put her in the travelling basinet. It’s the law.” He prised the wrapped infant out of her arms and placed it in the basket that was held down firmly by harness clips. I climbed into the front passenger seat and Moses nosed the black SUV onto the street.

At Atomic Tots, a local kindergarten, we headed for the play swings. Dorothy clutched the infant as Moses pushed gently from behind.

“Lovely, isn’t it?” Dorothy said.

I clicked shots and played along.

We were mobile again soon, stopping next outside the prestigious white walls of Singapore Chinese Girls School.

“This is my Alma Mater,” Dorothy said, chattering toward the basinet. “You will love it here – from Prep on, just like Mummy did.”

I took the pre-requisite happy snap and next we were slamming doors and driving on. The black SUV was beginning to feel like a slow-moving hearse.

And so her life journey rapidly progressed. We were a dark speck of mortality travelling the arterial freeways up and down the island. We passed blocks of flats and tall condominiums, each radially fed by a town centre. Moses and Dorothy were now both conversing with the little one, narrating a fast forward life – stopping at Raffles Junior College, at the National University of Singapore, telling of future law studies like her father’s. She would, no doubt marry an equivalent boy from a good family from her own social ranking and become a proud mother. Parental ambition had mapped everything out.

Finally, they steered the car north to Old Chua Choo Kang Rd and reached Nirvana Memorial Gardens Columbarium where Taoists and Buddhists bought space to house the ashes of the dead, following the motto ‘Rest in Prosperity’. Already they had taken a deluxe niche in the 6-star hotel-like complex, complete with Buddha Temple and highrise buildings either side for the remains of 50,000 deceased. Their niche was furnished in a fusion of Western and Chinese decor with sofa set for family visits. “This is where you will come Darling, and we will follow,” Dorothy said to the bundled babe.

My camera marvelled at the new luxurious hotel of departure. Here were laser lights, an iPOD-triggered sound system, theatrical smoke, a booming recorded voice chanting sutras for the ancestors. I photographed sky ceilings, golden Buddhas, koi ponds, reticulating waterfalls and safe deposit boxes of bone ash on every level of Nirvana. Cremation was now the promoted form of internment on this island, already digging up its cemeteries to build more condominiums and providing sleepless nights for the superstitious.

It was time. Moses rang for the funeral counsellor. A brief lifespan lived, they had to give over their flesh and blood.

I took my final photographs. Both now seemed better reconciled to the next stage of their dead daughter’s journey. I too, had felt I had lived a full brief life travelling in the families’ company like an honorary aunt. Then, they surprised me.

“Would you be our daughter’s Gan Ma, Miss Wong?” Gan Mas means ‘godmother’. Of course, my role was now redundant and neither was I religious, although in Chinese tradition a godparent performs a more social role. I would not have to find a suitable future husband, pay a dowry, nor raise the child should both the parents die.

By now my ‘professional bereavement photographer’ status had collapsed somewhere along the journey. I couldn’t refuse.

“Yes, I would be honoured to be…” And stopped. The little one didn’t have a name. “How will I call her?” I asked.

They looked to each other. Through the deep shock of the event, they had overlooked this essential part of the plan.

“You choose, Yi Mu.”

I paused, seeking inner inspiration. “Grace” was the word that came to mind.

They approved.

Thus, this is the story of Grace Chen who was born, lived a life and died.
I have the pictures to prove it.

JEFFREY

Faith and Deeds
by Jeffrey Fischer

Father Turner conducted his tour of the parish on Tuesdays. He made a point to visit Mrs. Shaffer every week, now that she could no longer leave her house, and there was never a shortage of the temporarily ill and infirm to comfort.

Although he continued to tend to the spiritual well-being of his flock, Father Turner was troubled by his own lack of grace. He did not know when his faith faltered; he only knew it was no longer with him. Good works were not enough to restore his state of grace, but, faith or no, his role was to minister to those who needed him.

Flying
by Jeffrey Fischer

When she danced, she could fly. Lithe and nimble, her body was entirely graceful as her feet lightly touched the floor, only to soar again and again. Only during these times did she feel fully alive. When she tried to explain this feeling to others, the usual response was a blank look. Words, she realized, were sometimes inadequate.

Then she would once again wake, her legs still the useless sticks they became after the accident. She would fight back the tears and begin the long process of getting out of bed. The dance would have to wait.

TOM

A Well Defined Relationship Part 10

Banister checked his ticket: 17d. He navigated his way pass knees and
chins to his seat. On stage a Tuxedoed MC martini and cigarette in hand,
bantered with the audience. Banister wondered what sort of man would
actively seek out a “Rat Pack” mod. “It’s a living,” said Dino Mod “I can
get you some garlic bread with that spaghetti, Pilgrim.” He stared
straight into his eyes. “Rio Bravo,” called back Banister. The smile
disappeared from Dino’s face. “Hey George get out here, I’m dying.” Halo
Burns and appeared with his wife. “Say Hello Gracie.” “Oh George your
confusing me.”

ZACKMANN

His Manager sat between Joe and a pretty woman.

“You were right, I do find him handsome and a nice dresser.”

“Oh, yes Joe is one my favorite clients but I don’t think he is reaching his full potential and I believe marriage would be good for his career.”

“I don’t know what if he doesn’t find me attractive?”

“I am right here!” said Joe “stop talking as if I am not. It’s making me very frustrated?”
“You might as well get used to being frustrated if I am going to make you two into the next Burns and Allen.”

RICHARD

#1 – Cargo

George barely had a moment’s grace to come to his senses before the container swung violently through an arc and, with an enormous crash, dropped like a stone.

In the confusion, he fell and, unable to stop himself, crashed headfirst onto the solid metal floor. The world went grey and fuzzy before turning completely black.

When he came to, it was some time before he realised the throbbing in his head wasn’t entirely due to the painful lump that had appeared there: the floor was vibrating and shaking. Now utterly bemused, George realised that the container was on the move.

#2 – Grace

When it came to clumsiness, she’d give most people a run for their money…

Singularly inept, socially awkward and probably the most ungainly woman I’d ever met – whenever her name came up in conversation, I’d chuckle: as long as she was around, there would always be someone more hopeless than myself!

She’d hijack conversations and muscle in on private gatherings, her fussing and flustering capable of upsetting even the most carefully laid plans – eventually we banned her from formal events altogether, thanks to her habit of upstaging everybody else.

If ever there was an unsuitably named woman, it was Grace!

#3 – Truth hurts (but, damn does it feel good!)

“Nice of you to grace us with your presence”, said my boss, voice laden with sarcasm – “do we have your permission to begin?”

“Actually, no!”, I replied, giving him a withering look; “I have something to say…

You are, without doubt, the worst, most obnoxious, self-serving manager I’ve ever had the displeasure to work under. You are rude, ignorant, pompous and a complete moron.”

He looked at me in shock.

“Oh, by the way… I quit!”
leaving the room, I ducked the stapler he threw at me – well, I never expected him to accept the truth with good grace!

DANNY

After sitting down at the dinner table, my mother said, “It’s your turn to say grace.” “OK,” I replied, and delivered the following: “A man who is not afraid is not aggressive, a man who has no sense of fear of any kind is really a free, peaceful man.” “What does that have to do with giving thanks for our food?” my mother quipped. “Until this year, I’ve been gripped with fear of losing all my material possessions, and now that I have, I no longer feel any fear. I’m at peace, and free to live my life with grace.”

MUNSI

I believe, I believe, we all will be received in Graceland…

Except for the clumsy.

Anyone clumsy gets turned away at the gates, cast out to wander, shunned and utterly alone, through the desolate, awkward wastelands from whence they came, and shall so wander until the day they die.

Hopefully that day won’t be long coming. Hopefully they’ll eventually bump into, trip over or fall upon something they can’t handle.

And then die, alone, as they lived, alone.

We, meanwhile, will relax in a land of permanent grace.

Well, you will.

I’m clumsy as hell, I likely won’t get in…

WOWO

Before I was even born, I was destined to it. My mom was a horrible driver. She just didn’t pay attention. My dad was awful with money. He couldn’t Not spend it. They both had the worst luck imaginable. At my first birthday party, the one where I was supposed to bury my face in the cake, my Dad did. Don’t ask.
My 16th birthday, I was supposed to get a car, right? Mom wrecked it on the way home.
My Sr. prom? I had 2 car accidents in 6 hours that day. I gave up and went in a cast, jeans and a t-shirt because my dress flew out the window into a puddle.
I’ve overdrawn my bank account more times than I can count. I’ve got 2 points left in my license. Broken more bones doing seemingly harmless stuff like, oh, walking.
My Dad named me after Gramma. Guess what her name was? Yep, Grace…
The irony has not escaped me…

CLIFF

The waitress brought our food and we were ready to tuck in when a quavering voice asked me if I was going to say grace. Mrs. Crenshaw was one of the “holier than thou” set at our church. I couldn’t stand her but when your pop is a deacon, you put up with a lot. My girlfriend and I bowed our heads and closed our eyes. I gave my thanks and said amen. When I opened my eyes, a piece of chicken was gone from my plate. The old lady was munching on a drumstick looking innocently out the window.
————-

I first saw her when she fell up the stairs. I’m still not sure how she managed that. I helped her to her feet. In the ten minutes I was with her as we walked, she dropped her phone twice, her purse once, knocked over a “wet floor” sign and tripped again. I know it’s impossible, but I swear she tripped on a shadow. I headed to class as we went our separate ways. I saw her again at the dance try outs. I shook my head but when she took to the stage, she had the grace of angels.

HOPE

“June? June Bug! What’s a 5-letter word that means elegance or beauty?”

Crossword puzzles. Pfffft. June poked a fork under her sponge curlers and scratched her head. What’s a 6-letter word for last nerve? Who dumpster dives for food and comes back with a puzzle book?

“Junie!”

“Class!” June yells from the kitchen. Not that there’s any class around here.

“C … L … A … S … Won’t work!”

Won’t work? Just like ED. “Style!”

“S… T … Y … June? Are ya even tryin’?”

Am I even trying? Dear God, give me grace to not kill this man.

STEVEN THE NUCLEAR MAN

She slips between the two ships, suit nearly touching the metal walls of her shuttle or the rock hull of Daedalus. She glances back at the cut flexible docking tube hemorrhaging air and the bodies of infected into space.

The knife slips back into its sheath, and she focuses on holding the air bottle with both hands. Icarus – home – is far away.

Her suit’s HUD informs her that Daedalus is headed for Icarus. Daedalus. The second asteroid ship, full of infected.

She triggers the air bottle, tracing a graceful arc toward her shuttle.

Her work is not done.

SERENDIPITY

Pastor Joe insists that we say grace before every meal, he says it’s a means of asserting our humanity.

I disagree.

It isn’t that I’m not religious, or I have any particularly strong feelings about saying grace but, given our circumstances, I really don’t think that it’s terribly appropriate… so I just mumble and pretend to participate, before we get stuck in.

I look around at my companions and the wreckage of the plane behind them, then I look at the meat in my hands.

Can saying grace really assert our humanity, if we’re eating the ones who didn’t survive?

CALEDONIA

The Power of Grace

She pats her pocket, totally aware of its contents.

He sidles up to her with that unique sideways lope of his. His smile is ingratiatingly confident.

She smiles back, her thoughts completely different from what he believes they are. She wonders why she didn’t see through that smile before. How had she found it charming?

He is thinking that all is well when she quietly says, “It is over. Goodbye.”

She turns and walks away from his incredulous, drop-jawed face. She pats her pocket, totally aware of its contents. She grins, knowing now that grace is more powerful than revenge.

Grace Beside Itself

“It’s your turn, dear. Don’t mumble”

“Our Father in heaven, our thanks now we bring, for food, and for clothing, and for every good thing…”

Gramma smiles proudly.

“Oh give of thy blessings to those who have meat …”

“Meat? No dear, I think it is ‘need’, not ‘meat.’”

“Don’t they need meat too?”

“Well, perhaps they do, but…”

“…and teach us to love thee in word and in deet. Amen.”

The smiling young face looks up triumphantly, eyes large and expectant.

A thoughtful pause.

“Thank you. That was lovely, dear. Pass your sister the potatoes, there’s a good girl.”

TURA

There were always doves in the temple, a symbol of God’s grace.

Gaia was twelve when she was first presented. The priests liked Gaia very much. Gaia did not like them, or their rituals, but her mother would not listen.

One night, she crept into the temple dovecote, with a stolen lantern and rags soaked in oil. When the fire took, she made her way home, climbing in her bedroom window.

Later, the commotion woke her mother. From a window they watched the spreading flames.

“The doves!” Gaia cried.

They wheeled above the burning temple, and fled into the night.

NORVAL JOE

A young woman approached the low dais. Her gown was clean and presentable but nowhere near as expensive as she once wore. Her chin held high and her back straight she glided toward the duke. Only when she reached his knee did she bow her head and dip into a low curtsey.
“Your Grace. I come begging my brother’s release from prison.”
“Do you bring a ransom, or someone in exchange?”
Her hand went to her throat.
“No, Your Grace. I only beg your endulgence and mercy.”
The Duke laughed.
“Unfortunately for your brother, my grace will not be his.”

ISHTAR

The guitar plays a soulful Lullaby in the background. The smell of cigarettes fills the room. A lullaby of loss can be heard as a harmonica wails.

“Grace can you hear me. Don’t Gun me down”

“Grace can you see me. Don’t Gun me down”

She steps into the saloon. Spurs’ spinning as she searches the audience. He’s there in the spotlight. Stepping closer she hears him again.

“Grace don’t let the light fall from your eyes. Forgiveness is calling”.

She storms forward. Pulling her gun ready to fire. Click. Misfire. Click. Misfire.

“Will you forgive me” He asks?

Bang.

PLANET Z

Princess Margaret gave her older sister a box full of condoms for her baby shower.

“I guess you ran out of the ones I gave you as a wedding gift,” she said, “or did you lose the box? You should have told me. I’d have given you some more.”

Everybody else gave presents more appropriate for the child that would be the next in line to the throne.

Margaret often put on her mother’s crown and dreamt she was an only child.

Two weeks later, her sister died in childbirth. The baby was stillborn.

Margaret cried at the funeral.

Briefly.

Weekly Challenge #380 – Spark

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

This is Weekly Challenge, where I post a topic and then challenge you to come up with a 100 word story based on that topic.

The topic this week was SPARK.

We’ve got stories by:

The next 100 word stories weekly challenge is on the topic of GRACE.

Use the Share buttons at the end of the post to spam your social networks. This obligatory cat photo should help make the Internet go faster:

Finally, if there are any errors or corrections, please let me know, and I’ll fix them as soon as possible.

TOM

A Well Defined Relationship Part 9

Timmy made his way across the lobby. The kid behind the counter was just a few years older than he. “What you got?” asked the kid, his LED nameplate flashing SPARKY. Tim laid down a Silvian Wheel. Sparky shook his head,” Sorry, Pilgrim two Cubes.” Organic Replicating Programming Cubes were the wealth that had made Anonymous the Knights of Templar of the Outer Rim. Over Sparky’s shoulder Tim saw his John Wayne Altar bathed in the pulsing glow of a Jacob’s ladder. He started whistling “She wore a yellow ribbon.”

“THE PROFIT,” yelled Sparky

“May the Duke be with you.”

LIZZIE

“Perish the thought!” said his mother alarmed, when he showed her the website. But the thought refused to perish. This particular thought seemed rather appealing to Johnny, the geeky kid. He always wanted to be one of the cool boys. The expectation of partying all the time made him walk boldly to the pub where the cool boys hung out. There was a bit of pushing and shoving, which he thought was quite inconsiderate, but, after that, all he could remember was seeing beautiful sparks flying in the air and not so cool boys screaming. It was an explosive party.

JEFFREY

Sparks Fly
by Jeffrey Fischer

Cliche though it was, sparks *did* fly when Al met Bernice’s eyes and their hands touched. True, the sparks were from the static buildup on the carpet in the dry dance hall, but from that moment on they were inseparable.

When, after more than 60 years of marriage, he died during the coldest December that anyone could recall, Bernice was paralyzed by grief. At the funeral, she finally brought herself to say goodbye the only way she could: by scuffing her feet on the carpet, touching his cold hand, and seeing sparks fly one last time.

Shaken, Not Stirred
by Jeffrey Fischer

The Professor tightened one last bolt before stepping back to admire his handiwork. The spark of genius! he thought. Now to test his masterpiece. He pulled the lever and watched as gears whirred and set various components into motion. Faster and more precise than any human hands, the machine set about its mission. With one final clank, the equipment shut off.

“Mwa-ha-ha,” the Professor cackled. “With this device I shall rule the world!”

He picked up the glass. Sipped. Ah, the perfect martini, down to the olive garnish. Now for the next step: an option to make a Manhattan instead.

RICHARD

#1 – Night Freight

Quickly, George jumped down to examine the nearest container, it was chained shut, which suited him fine.

Grabbing a metal bar from the floor, he began to prise the doors open, desperately trying to make as little noise as possible, knowing it could attract unwelcome attention and spark who knows what trouble?

Finally, he was inside, jamming the doors shut behind him. Exhausted, he settled down to sleep.

He was awoken by the groaning of metal and an enormous shudder, as the shipping container tilted crazily and began to sway from side to side.

What the hell was happening now?

#2 – Chemistry

Doc. Schwartz was always trying to spark our interest in chemistry, but the odds were very much against him – we were more interested in carving our names on the lab desks and setting fire to the gas taps.

It didn’t help that he was completely hopeless at chemistry – almost every experiment was either a total flop, or so utterly pointless that we lost the will to live before it was over.

That was until he tried to demonstrate the explosive properties of hydrogen!

The explosion sent both the school and Doc. Schwartz into orbit… now, that definitely got our attention!

#3 – Wildfire

The fires had raged for over a week now, relentlessly destroying towns and communities in their path and claiming innocent lives – they were the worst experienced for as long as anyone could remember.

The cause, according to official sources, was almost certainly a spark from a careless camper’s barbecue – such devastation from such a tiny source of ignition.

It never ceased to amaze me that people could be such idiots when the conditions were as dry as these.

‘When will they learn?’, I thought to myself, walking away, whilst absent-mindedly tossing my cigarette into a handy patch of undergrowth…

#4 – Twinkle Twinkle

Twinkle, twinkle, little star; how we wondered what you are.

And how we watched your spark of light, growing ever brighter every night;

As astronomers, each day by day, carefully tracked your route across the Milky Way;

Your presence grew until scientists knew, the shocking truth that you brought with you;

For you were no star, but a glowing rock – a meteorite that held a shock;

For your route now known, it was clear to all, that upon the earth you would finally fall;

That tiny spark would bring death to all: the end of life… the final curtain call.

SERENDIPITY

“Hi! Long time, no see!”, I exclaimed, giving the guy a huge hug.

To be honest, I didn’t recognise him at all, and judging by his expression, there was no spark of recognition on his part either.

It had been like that all evening – I hated reunions at the best of times, but this was dreadful – so far I’d not spotted anyone remotely familiar. Still, thirty years is a long time.

It was only when I nipped outside, I spotted the sign above the door: ‘Office Supplies Conference’… ‘Class of ’76 Reunion’ was across the hall and down the corridor!

CLIFF

My grandfather was a spark. That’s the nickname they gave telegraph operators back in the old days. He’d spend his days sending the private messages of others around the country. What no one realized was that the sparks would often add their own postscript to the telegrams they sent. When a well dressed man came into the office and sent a marriage proposal to the daughter of a powerful industrialist, Grandpa sent the message and added an instruction to the spark on the other end. “Advise her to say no stop/ he is cheap bastard stop/ no tip full stop/”
___________________________
When a civilization was found, it was pounded until life was obliterated. Worlds with simple life were poisoned until sterile. The last world that the robotic probe had visited had been covered in single celled creatures. Seemingly harmless but one day, they could evolve into a threat. The world was bathed in radiation until everything was dead. This world was no threat however; a barren sea and empty rocks. The probe removed it from the list of worlds to watch and blasted off, shedding passengers from the previous stop, tiny sparks of life that would someday challenge the stars themselves.

SINGH

When Ivan Seow saw a hand-sized bag on the side table he couldn’t resist grabbing it. There was a camera inside. Conscience told him to hand it in, but the tag attached read: Journey beyond your expectations. Use me and upload to freecamera.blogspot.com. Afterwards, relinquish me at any airport. ‘Timesparks’ was written on the flipside. Ivan accessed the site on his phone. Yes, there was a blog and this was the password.

Now his flight was being called. He quickly popped the camera into his bag, intending to use and pass it on, honouring the instructions.

Aunty Ming Xia lived in Caulfield. She had fed Ivan so amply he wanted to show his appreciation. “Let me take your photo, Aunty.”

Next morning he got a train to Flinders Station. Killing time, Ivan clicked random shots — a punk girl with rainbow hair, an indigenous man dunking donuts at a stand-up cafe. He snapped Melbourne’s rush-hour trams appreciating their slow historical charm. After his meeting, Ivan got someone to photograph him with his client.

Back at Aunty’s, checking the blog, it said he could only upload five pics. Ivan selected the best.

He liked the portraits and the street shots, but wasn’t expecting what uploaded in their place. The city of trams became a Melbourne of futuristic flying shuttles. Uploading Aunty revealed a Chinese lady in Nineteenth Century blue silk robes. The rainbow punk girl morphed into a Marie Antoinette-style aristocrat, her high coiffure ribboned with rosettes and central sun brooch. The indigenous donut man — now an Aboriginal on one leg balanced by a spear was offering the welcome gift of gum leaves.

Ivan studied more closely. No travel shots anywhere – just history and incomprehensible futures.

Not all the pictures were pleasant. There were also scenes of poverty, starvation and panoramas of chaos. The photograph of himself and his Melbourne client seemed privileged by comparison. He recognised his own face in the Chinese waiter accidentally upending a cocktails tray over a colonial man puffing on his cigar.

Modern Singapore hadn’t prepared him for these time-bending images. Were they sparks from the past, glimpses into the future — reincarnation evidence through ultimate time-lapse photography?

That night he taxied to Tullamarine Airport and discretely left the camera on a bar top before joining his flight home.

Ivan lost the Melbourne contract and some office prestige. Was this connected to the blog? As Regional Manager he travelled more, and luckily, business improved in other sectors.

Meanwhile, he studied world civilisations’, the engineering feats and natural resources needed to create such epic structures. He also read up on projected technological ‘toys of progress’. Flying cars were coming. He imagined them against Singapore’s Astro Boy skyline.

From time to time Ivan checked out the blogsite too. Yes, the camera was still travelling, uploading provocative posts under the common ID – Spark.

With economic balance shifting in Asia’s favour, would greed breed global reprisals?

Thus, Ivan’s sleep was disturbed. He saw India dying of famine, China’s robot armies on the move. Checking the blog the next day he was shocked the camera had also gone to the Subcontinent, documenting both past palaces and grandeur alongside future turmoil. He saw eruptions in Indonesia, mass death in Africa, civil disobedience in Europe, US annexation of Canada. Weeks later he dreamed of Dubai with its offshore Palm Islands – 520 kms of artificial archipelago in the Persian Gulf. He checked the blog again. Sure enough, here were post-tsunami pictures showing how the sea had taken back human reclamation projects.

Ivan went to Bangkok, Bangalore, Mumbai, Hong Kong, Shanghai and elsewhere. He compared present realities with the blog images’ shifting futures: some cities would thrive; others would take a dive. Headlines of acute global problems made Ivan feel both socially impotent and vicariously responsible. Did the bizarre blog mirror or orchestrate mayhem? Countries’ fortunes were on a roller coaster. The postings reminded him how one era’s wretched coolies become another age’s industry captains.

Next, Ivan was sent to Taiwan for an IT networking conference. Afterwards, he took a bus from Taipei to Yangming National Park.

Ivan climbed Grass Mountain and breathed. Returning he found thousands of Papillion butterflies feeding on and fertilising pink azaleas.

Somewhat revived, he headed straight for Taoyuan International.

Having time and needing coffee he found an airport cafe. Sitting, there was something lumpy on the padded booth seat. He retrieved it. Not here! Surely, it couldn’t be — the camera? Or were zip-bags circulating en masse through the world?

Wanting no unlucky Melbourne replay, Ivan stretched, depositing it gingerly on the next table.

Soon, a Caucasian woman sat. She was unzipping it! Ivan didn’t wait to see whether or not she would pop it into her bag.

ZACKMANN

He pulled over in front of the girl pushing her motorcycle wearing a Sparks Nevada shirt.

He said “I saw the sparks from your tire rim. Would you like a ride into town? I think with my back seat down your bike is small enough to fit in my Chevy Spark.”

“Do you promise you’re not crazy?”

“Well, I promise I am not a threat. May I buy you dinner?”

“Are you trying to spark me?”

“Not in the traditional in front of the fireplace way. It’s a Spare the Air Day.”

He was crazy but she felt that spark.

BONCHANCE AND SEVI

John leaned back in his chair closing his eyes pushing away the thought of tomorrow’s presentation.
A successful bid will guarantee a sweet commission and a major bonus. His reward? A first class flight to Alaska, for a month long walking tour.
He looked forward to his sharp metal knife making a spark against ancient stone, and then coaxing the fire to warm him.

His scotch arrived. He noticed the red head smile from a couple of tables away, he returned the beam.
He rose and approached the woman. Time to coax a flame from this intriguing initial spark.

NORVAL JOE

Long John Silver slept with his muzzle on his paws while Missy nursed the five Boarder Collie-Weiner Dog mixed puppies. The Dollie-Cockle puppies were cute with their longish hair and stubby legs, and their sire and dame were quite comfortable with each other as well.
Dergle wondered if he would ever find someone with whom he could be so happy. He looked up and saw Finklestien eyeing him with a Mona Lisa half smile. A spark puffed into flame in his heart. Wanda was only a few years older than himself and a right fine looking woman at that.

JUSTIN

Private Fenton scrambled to gain purchase, but he continued to slide down, rocks scraping against his battle armor. He struck a ledge and he tumbled until he landed on his back.

Cacophony warnings blared as his armor didn’t respond when he tried to move. Sparks popped from joints as servos whined. Then an orc stood over him, slugga aimed at his eye.Then its jaw exploded.

Captain Grigg thudded beside Fenton, bolt pistol smoking. “Trying to be a dreadnought already, Private?” He thumped off, Pistol blasting. A techmarine started repairs, shaking his head. “I just serviced this suit, you know.”

STEVEN THE NUCLEAR MAN

His cry echoed from the shattered wreckage of the car. “Nothing!”

His son shook his shoulders. “Dad, I called 911.”

The man shook off the boy’s embrace. “Those fools! They’ll be too late!” He bent over againaudac, orange cables trailing from gloved hands to the car battery. “Too late, do you hear?”

“Dad. It won’t – ” His son broke off, sobbing.

“It must!” He leaned forward again – he’d lost track how many times – and sparks flew.

But as his wife’s chest refused to move, as her heart refused to beat, Doctor Frankenstein refused to give up.

KIM

The Knife at the Bottom of the Bottle

Spark. Warmth. Heat. Ignition.
The Amaretto down my throat to
The engine, my bruised heart,
my depressant dipped mind.
One, two, three glasses.
Enough for tickets to ride when I
Want a one way for a non-friend.
Four, five, six, glasses.
Fill the tank because I’ll need more courage once its done.
Seven, eight, nine,
and Lady Macbeth would be proud
of the grip I have on the butcher’s knife.
I’m a greased machine without breaks,
but with a Purpose.
Kill.
Lift, stab, breathe.
His blood coats the floor,
and the cherry fumes lift like fog from my lungs.
Exhaust.

REDGODDESS

Movies have given women a false sense of romance and created an obsession with love at first sight. After years of watching princesses kiss slimy frogs, with the power to grant happy endings, we now expect every relationship to ignite with an infinite spark. We tell ourselves, “If it’s the one, I’ll feel it instantly.” Lola sensed that connection months after meeting her lover. With all the grandiose gifts and the spontaneous weekend get aways,she remembers the almost missed intimate gestures. The moment she discovered that “thing” between them was in their shared quietness. Often, she secretly watches him while cooking their favorite meals. She then sneaks back into bed and pretend to be in deep sleep. His gaze reveals more than words and the heat that burns when apart. He still looks at her in wonder and his appetite for her expands with time. In essence, they fuel the spark with constant kindness.

MUNSI

Helping

By Christopher Munroe

The place is a powder keg.

No, seriously, I’ve filled your home with gunpowder.

I’ve also saturated the floors, walls and furniature in kerosene, because why not? If you’re going to do something, go all the way.

Speaking of…

…there we go. Now you’re covered in kerosene too. The slightest spark would turn this whole place into an inferno.

Because the time has come for you to quit smoking. I promised I’d help, and by god I’ve taken my duty seriously.

Gotta run, tho’, I’m meeting people later. You hang out here, not smoking.

Let me know how it goes…

TURA

“Igor, the Spark!” I shouted to my hunchbacked assistant. He grasped the great switch with both hands and wrenched it closed. Blue lightning crackled between the generators and the machine at the centre of the laboratory. Water flashed into superheated steam and hissed through intricate pipework into the extraction chamber, from which slowly oozed a thick, black, almost living fluid.

One by one, the generators shut down, their task completed.

I approached the machine, unscrewed the collection vessel and drained its contents in a single gulp. “Ahaha!” I exclaimed. “The true, the perfect coffee! Now I shall conquer the world!”

PLANET Z

Dad said that Sparky ran away to join the Doggy Circus.

But I know that’s a load of crap.

Sparky’s been sick for a while. The Doggy Circus doesn’t audition sick, old dogs.

I know what really happened when Dad took Sparky to the vet.

Sparky’s in the Dog Army. He’s going to sniff out land mines and bombs so that he can save a soldier’s life by giving up his own.

I’m so proud of Sparky, and I will always remember him.

That is… assuming that he joined our country’s Dog Army and not the enemy.

Bad dog, Sparky!

Weekly Challenge #379 – Pork

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

This is Weekly Challenge, where I post a topic and then challenge you to come up with a 100 word story based on that topic.

The topic this week was PORK.

We’ve got stories by:

The next 100 word stories weekly challenge is on the topic of SPARK.

Use the Share buttons at the end of the post to spam your social networks. This obligatory cat photo should help make the Internet go faster:

Finally, if there are any errors or corrections, please let me know, and I’ll fix them as soon as possible.

TOM

A Well Defined Relationship Part Eight

Mother sat silently, hands in lap. A tall raven haired woman glided towards her. She nodded and took the seat at the opposite end of the table. In short time all but one chair was taken. All present stood when Magdalena Bowsmen made her way to the table.

The dark haired woman went about introducing each of the quests to Mrs. Bowsmen. Each was greeted with a smile of solemnity. When Mother heard her name she felt a hand reach out. “Major Parsons was indeed an excellent man. His council will be missed. Senator Smith please see to Widow Parsons.”

Mother would have rolled her eyes if she could, but years of enduring the gauntlet of social events had taught her no matter the contention at hand always project a zen mask. All the same the mere mention of Senator “Pork Barrel” Smith in close proximity to her late husband has distasteful

“Thank you Mrs. Bowsmen,” said Mother catching a peripheral glance at the honorable gentleman. The Parsons family’s wealth came from cattle and her father made sure his daughter could size up a competing bidder. The look in Senator Smith’s eyes was of a man sizing up a heifer.

JEFFREY

How the Sausage is Made
by Jeffrey Fischer

The process started out innocently enough. Senator Graft wanted a post office named for his political mentor, a six-term Congressman currently serving a 15-year sentence for bribery. “Sure, roll it into the Defense bill,” said the Majority Leader.

Next came Senator Sleaze, who wanted some federal dollars for repairing an old drive-in movie theater back in his home state. A couple of million dollars was nothing to the Farm bill, and if that’s what it took to buy Sleaze’s vote, so be it.

From there the pork kept oinking. A billion here, ten billion there, and soon they were talking about borrowing real money. Yet no one understood why Congress was so unpopular.

The Civilized Way to Resolve Disputes
by Jeffrey Fischer

“Beef brisket!” Tex said, cocking his hat and touching the top of his holster.

“Wrong! Pulled pork,” replied Sam, smoothing his mustache and giving a reassuring pat to his own revolver.

“Spice rub.”

“Sauce.”

“Wood-burning grill.” Tex was turning red with rage.

“Smoker.” Sam looked Tex in the eye, trying to maintain his breathing.

The rest of the customers in the diner looked nervous. Some had even sidled near the exits, having a fair idea of what would come next. The two combatants nodded at one another. “Draw,” said Tex.

Sam placed a plate on the table, a grilled bun heaping with pulled pork and a side of slaw. Tex whipped out a second plate with brisket on toast, with a side of beans. Each sat, tasted the other’s, and decided that the world was big enough for different types of barbecue.

RICHARD

#1 – Twilight

With the threat of night drawing ever closer, George’s positive mood began to fade as quickly as the daylight. He became acutely aware how conspicuous the noisy bulldozer was in the empty streets and he realised the slow-moving and cumbersome vehicle had its drawbacks.

He had visions of zombies overpowering him and feasting on his brain… vaguely he wondered what human flesh tasted like – was it chicken, or pork? He couldn’t remember.

He rounded another corner, where his headlights picked out a yard full of rusting shipping containers – at last, he had a perfect retreat for the night ahead.

#2 – Pork

I looked dubiously at the plate of meat, potatoes and corn and gave the waiter a questioning look – I’d learned to be wary about food during my South American journey, and although this appeared to be rather an upmarket restaurant, this was still Ecuador.

“Are you sure this is pork?”

“¡Si, señor! Eet ees peeg.” – the waiter smiled.

“Pig?”

“Si… peeg.”

I shrugged and reluctantly tucked into my meal. It didn’t taste like pork to me.

Later, leaving the restaurant, I stole a glance through the kitchen doorway: there, neatly skewered over the barbecue, were rows of roasting guinea pig.

#3 – Muppets

It always amazed me that The Muppet Show made it past the censors – if ever there was an abusive relationship and a bad example to set for kids, it was the pairing of Kermit and Miss Piggy. What chance did poor, puny Kermit stand against his domineering, violent, other half?

I shudder to think of the damage that infamous pork chop might inflict if she ever cornered him.

However, it seems Kermit had an ally…

I have it on excellent authority that the Swedish Chef was know to turn a blind eye to Kermit’s occasional misuse of the bacon slicer!

MUNSI

The Nostalgia Files: Television

By Christopher Munroe

It was a monster hit, and no mystery why.

A woman in Boulder, Colorado takes a pig, fresh from the farm, as a roommate, and hilarity ensues as it does it’s best to fit into human society. The clash of cultures was a goldmine of comedic possibility, a well that would never run dry.

Yeah…

By the third season the show had run its course, midway through the fourth it was cancelled, and most agree it should have ended two years sooner.

Still, many fans of classic TV still have a soft spot in their heart for Pork and Mindy.

EXPLORER

I Have Issues With Pork By helen r starr
I have issues with pork. Pork is not kosher; we call it treif (Non-Kosher Food). I recently had to take my mother shopping, and of all the places she needed to visit, it was Walmart.
Walmart is company based on pork, not necessarily the kind you eat, but the kind that pads their pockets. Walmart pads the pocket of other porkers, i.e., the Koch Brothers. What really irks me is how Walmart treats their employees like pigs in a trough. Walmart partnered with the International Labor Organization (ILO) to create Better Work Programs; something’s not Kosher, and I smell pork.

SINGH

(Text not available)

LIZZIE

The swineherd was tired of having to deal with the increasingly frustrating low profits. Intermediaries drove him crazy with inconceivable demands. Before, he sold everything, that’s what was good about pork, no waste. Now, only certain parts were favored. So, he decided to give away “the waste”, roasted and with a “twist”, as a personal gift to the intermediaries, who eagerly took it all. They asked what the “twist” was, but he never gave away the secret to the other tasty bits of meat in the inviting roast, especially when the headlines said “Business man of pork industry vanishes mysteriously”.

TURA

Pork
——–
Rabbi Dougal visited Rabbi Hamish. After they greeted one another, Rabbi Dougal said, “I see ye’re havin’ yer tea, Hamish? But surely that’s not bacon ye’re fryin’?

R. Hamish replied that it was kosher beef, genetically modified to taste like bacon.

R. Dougal asked, “But what if they used pig genes?”

R. Hamish argued, “They’re pig genes alright, but they didnae come from a pig. Completely artificial, same genetic sequence, but made in the laboratory!”

R. Dougal then asked, “Could ye make a whole kosher pig that way?”

At this G*d declared, “NO!”

R. Hamish responded, “Well, that’s one opinion…”

SERENDIPITY

Any devotee of TV crime dramas will tell you that pork is the nearest thing you can get to human flesh.

If you want to see realistic results from your ballistic tests; or need to know what a frenzied knife attack will do to a body, just hang a pig in the lab, and away you go!

Whilst you’re at it, throw in a few sharpened screwdrivers, power drills and blunt instruments – it’s all good, clean fun!

Personally, I find that pork is far too expensive to waste. So, I’ll be sticking to the real thing, for the time being.

CLIFF

Jimmy Ray knew barbeque. He had already spread his brand of pulled pork barbeque sandwich shops over the southern United States when he came up with the idea of a world tour. With a portable kitchen and a hundred year old recipe, he set out. In England, it flopped. In France, it fizzled. In Germany, things picked up. After all, barbeque goes very well with beer. He was an unexpectedly big hit in Bulgaria but then the whole thing came crashing down in Afghanistan. Jimmy Ray may have known barbeque but he didn’t know squat about religion or international politics.

RED

Lola revels in the chaos before work. There is a level of traffic that’s cosmopolitan, and the usual early birds are all in the streets. The toothless man who empties out the burned cigarettes from the public astray, every few seconds, he lets out a disturbing laugh and mumbles “who’s fault is it, anyway?”
An older Black woman, head wrapped in a colorful scarf, sweeping the front of the university theater. She always stares towards the marquee as if thinking, “What if?”
Lola walks by the pan handler sitting on a rusty bus bench, tapping both hands on her starved thighs, humming to herself. Lola smiles and hands her a crumpled dollar bill.
In the distance, Lola can smell the tiny shops, she sometimes stops by the meat market to buy pork for her grandmother to make a spicy stew. She can taste the stew in her mind.
As she approaches the hotel, she notices Tom, a proud grandfather of twins doing his morning stretches before his daughter drops off the kids. There are runners, cyclists, dog walkers, parents waiting for school buses and restless children chasing pigeons. She peers inside her favorite wine cellar with a fat golden cat in the display window. Lola inhales the sweet smell of fresh bread and coffee brewing from the hotel kitchen. On a day like this, she’s exactly where she belongs.

ZACK

“Looky there, I sure would like to pork that.”

‘’Sir, as your advisor I must remind you that you can never know when there might be a mic on.”

“When are you going to start dating me to save me from myself?”
“When pig fly sir, is when I will date a client. Don’t go hog wild during tonight’s event. Avoid any references to getting rid of pork. You don’t want to lose the farm vote. Do not make any allusions of putting Lipstick on a Pig because that type of relationship is still very much frowned upon in Iowa ”

NORVAL JOE

Dergle smiled across the table at Widow Finklestien and wiggled his eye brows, his mouth too full to speak.
“I’m glad you like the meatloaf,” she said, smiling shyly. “Too bad Long John doesn’t feel the same.”
It was true, while the widow’s shelty ate with abandon, Dergle’s corpulent wiener dog didn’t share her enthusiasm.
“He usually loves meatloaf. What did you put in it?”
Widow Finklestien scowled. “It’s my mother’s recipe with ground beef, veal and pork sausage.”
“Oh. That makes sense,” Dergle said. “He has a friend who’s a pig. He wont eat anything with pork in it.”

JUSTIN

What? Where am I? An, island? Nothing to be found here, I’m all alone. Maybe I should build a house. There’s a tree, I’ll punch it for some wood.

OK, got some wood, I’ll make a workbench. Now a wooden axe since that’s faster than punching to chop down more trees.

OK, got a little shed build over workbench. I’m getting hungry. I heard something. A pig! Let me, whoops, broke my last axe. I’ll punch the pig!

Better cook this meat. Punch some trees, make a pickaxe, and get some stone for a furnace.

Time for some pork chops!

JUNE

Sam liked lolling in mud.

Sam did not like waking up.

He also did not like being forced out of his pen for what the man called “exercise” and “fattening up.” They seemed exclusive. If he was to be fattened up, why did he also need to exercise?

This afternoon was different though. There had not been any slop in his trough, and the man had yet to come. Sam was confused, but the mud was helping to calm him.

He didn’t like changes in routine. He’d seen what happened to his mother when she wasn’t let into the field.

DANNY

You bet your ass war is fun, especially when your foe is suddenly vanquished by choking on a piece of pork when said foe was not even eating any food to begin with! The story comes from a contrived notion invented in the bible of all places, Wait, the spice of Lifeless? What the hell happened to the NESS! Dammit! Brilliant! You only have less than forty words until the end of this story.” “Oh go choke on a piece of pork, which he promptly did, except, his death was ruled as an accidental parsley choking. Blah, Blah, Blah, sleep.

PLANET Z

I can tell by the scent
on this wine bottle cork
That the wine you have served me
Contains feces and pork.
I don’t know why you’d offer
such a disgusting selection.
Have i done something to earn
this cruel disaffection?
Who would concoct
such a foul potion as this
That I’d sooner drink
than seek out Death’s kiss.
Did you make it yourself?
Or did you buy it online?
What kind of mad fool
Makes this kind of wine?
But if you insist
I will sip and then pass
Hold on… let me think
Pour me one more glass?

Weekly Challenge #378 – Original

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

This is Weekly Challenge, where I post a topic and then challenge you to come up with a 100 word story based on that topic.

The topic this week was ORIGINAL, which is also the topic of this week’s Single Frame Stories challenge. There’s a lot of good images to view and ponder there, and I strongly encourage you to participate in those challenges.

Over here, we’ve got stories by a lot of people:

The next 100 word stories weekly challenge is on the topic of PORK..

Use the Share buttons at the end of the post to spam your social networks. This obligatory cat photo should help make the Internet go faster:

Finally, if there are any errors or corrections, please let me know, and I’ll fix them as soon as possible.

BOTGIRL

I died again and it’s starting to bother me. I know it shouldn’t. We are taught that the Self is nothing more than identity and the continuity of our memory. So every time they restore an archived brain scan into one of my clones, it is the real I who awakens.

But what about the lost memory of each death? All gone. A sniper’s laser. A drone’s warhead. An enemy’s blade. Abandoned in the black hole between my last scan and the last breath of each incarnation. They who died are dead and gone. Irrecoverable. May we rest in peace.

ASIAH

The sun was setting and orange light filtered through the half drawn blinds. Sheets upon sheets of newspaper were scattered across the floor, the smell of fresh paint was thick in the air, almost suffocatingly. Daniel stared at the canvas which rested upon the paint stained easel, his brush, hung loosely in his hand dirty from his work. “Damn… I really fucked it up. Heh, call it exotic, original, one of a kind, and some pretentious prick will spend thousands just to buy a paint covered mistake.” he chuckled to himself. Yes, he supposed it would do.

JEFFREY

Everyone’s a Critic
by Jeffrey Fischer

The curator was practically beaming as he told the guests about the museum’s find. “A lost Botticelli – can you imagine that! He was one of the great painters of the Renaissance, and created slightly more than 100 paintings. A new Botticelli – half a millennium since his death – is just astounding! And what a find for the city of Baltimore!”

One of the guests, a middle-aged man with a young daughter, raised a hand. “Has the painting been authenticated?”

The curator waved a hand. “A mere detail. Just look at the brush work, the delicate features…”

The little girl peered closely at the portrait. “Look, Daddy! That man is wearing Ray Lewis’s Super Bowl ring!”

The curator took out a magnifying glass and read the inscription in oil: “Baltimore Ravens, February 3, 2013.”

“Well, perhaps another test or two might be in order before any final conclusions.”

Bureaucrat Season
by Jeffrey Fischer

At long last, it was Max’s turn. He presented the form to the woman behind the counter. “I just need to renew my hunting license.”

The woman popped a bubble and glanced at the form. “This looks like a copy. We need the original.”

Max looked exasperated. “Where does it say that? Look, I’ve been in line for an hour. Can’t I bring the original by later?”

“Next, please.”

The next time through the line, Max presented the original form. “Needs to be notarized.” The third time, the woman said, “Has to be two witnesses.” Trip four found his signature to not match that on file.

The last time through the line, Max shot her twice. Among the charges levied against him: hunting without a license.

MASHA

She’d been safe in the shelter of his arms, the cocoon of his protection. She’d wanted to stay that way forever, sunlight pouring through their windows, warmth moving throughout the day.

Until he could no longer be warmed, and arms grew too frail, too weak to remain about her waist. Until all that remained were his unwashed sheets, abandoned wrappings with a fading scent.

She wrapped herself within them, burrowed deep, lain still to let the sunlight bake her into something else. No warm safety for her transformation. No witness to her rebirth.

Painted in sunlight, she conjures the storm.

RICHARD

#1 – Dozer

With a cloud of exhaust smoke, the bulldozer roared into life. George finally felt he was gaining some control, although he realised that there were still some things he had no say in.

The light was fading and his original plan was now far less attractive – he had no wish to be driving around unfamiliar roads after dark and not knowing what to expect… wasn’t night-time the natural preserve of zombies, after all?

Once again, he found himself rethinking his strategy – his priority now was to find safe shelter for the night – but the big question remained…

Where exactly?

#2 – Apple

In my childhood, my dad bought me an Apple One, thinking it would be my meal ticket to a bright future. Of course, I was more interested in sport and girls and it ended up in a box in the loft.

Then I saw the prices that Apple Ones were now fetching – it seemed my bright future was back on the cards.

An exasperating search through the dust and cobwebs of my parent’s loft proved fruitless…

“Oh, that old thing”, exclaimed my mum when I questioned her; “we thought you weren’t interested in computers… we threw it out years ago!”

#3 – Original

It’s said all music shares the same twelve notes, yet even after all this time, people still come up with original tunes.

There are only three primary colours, plus black and white, yet artists manage to create seemingly endless unique works using these.

How is it then, that with hundreds of thousands of words to choose from, and a vocabulary of, maybe twenty thousand, I find it so difficult to put together a measly hundred of the damn things, in any fashion that resembles an original story?

I bet someone else has beaten me to it with this one too!

LIZZIE

The original was sold for millions to a flamboyant millionaire. It was on the news for days as the biggest sale ever of an artwork piece. Photographers snapped hundreds of photos, journalists wrote dozens of articles, made countless interviews. Everyone wanted to be a part of this extraordinary event. So, thousands of copies were made, numbered and sold as a limited edition. After the whole commotion cooled off, he opened his safe and unrolled the painting. It was his, only his. That millionaire had paid a fortune for the perfect fake and he’d never ever know it, the original loser.

SINGH

(Text has been entered into Ubud Writer’s Festival)

TOM

A well defined Relationship Part Seven

While Timmy concentrated on presentable Mother set her sights on pretention. As the clock stuck 4 she joined the swirl of women headed for the Empress hotel for High Tea. In 1092 the original structure was disassembled, packed, and shipped on Angus Bowsmen’s largest ore transport. Angus’s wife Magdalena, an actual descendent of Victoria herself, held without tea there was no civilization. She wasn’t about to set foot on P348 until a proper public dining place was in place. Despite her current station Mother’s family was highly regarded and thus a chair was set for her at the Founder’s table

NORVAL JOE

Dergle donned his wiener dog nose and eared hoodie. He slipped onto the dark street, a wiener dog pup cradled in the bend of his elbow.
Half way to the drop point a police car pulled onto the street, drove to him and shined a spotlight in his face.
“Just what are you supposed to be?” A voice asked from beyond the light.
Trying to sound normal, he held up the puppy and said, “I’m Wiener Dog Man.”
“I’ve heard of Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny,” the cop said, “But Wiener Dog Man is a new one to me.”

TURA

“Happy birthday!” I said to my girlfriend. “I made you this CD.”

The first track was “Yellow Submarine”, sung by Kathy Berberian with a string quartet.

“Cool arrangement!” she exclaimed.

“Next track’s the killer,” I said. A string quartet played the same music. “This was recorded in 1932.”

“You mean, they didn’t write…?”

“Boccherini, 1763.” An ancient, scratchy recording of a mournful Russian folk song began, strangely familiar.

“Ok,” she said, “nobody believes that Paul wrote ‘Yesterday’.”

“Name one they did! I’ve traced half their back catalogue already. When I publish, I’ll be the first celebrity forensic musicologist. The original!”

MUNSI

The Crisis

By Christopher Munroe

The prompt was the word Original, and lo did I quake with fear.

What? How? I’m widely known not to have an original idea in my head! I never have! I’d been skating by on a hodge-podge of dated pop-culture references and non-sequitors too long to come up with an original thought at this late date, would this be the end of me?

But no, I persevered, pushed forward, and soon I had the stroke of genius that would prove to be my salvation.

I’d go Meta, write a story about writing the story.

And that would get me there.

SERENDIPITY

Sheila’s original recipe burgers were hugely successful – the succulent, juicy meals she served up turned fast food into fine dining. The recipe was, of course, a closely guarded secret and despite numerous cash offers from several giants of the food industry, it wasn’t for sale.

Despite her success, Sheila never sought the big time, selling her burgers from a mobile kitchen at the roadside. She’d stay for a while, never more than a few weeks in one place, then move on.

Oddly, the neighbourhood cats and dogs seemed to follow her – because there were never any about after she’d gone.

BARBARA

I started out wanting to write something original.

Then I began again, because I had written it before

Surely a third time would be the charm, as I began once more

Then, to my dismay, I found that I had been writing the same thing, over and over again.

That was hardly original, so I contemplated starting over again.

But I was in a quandary as to whether I could start something original if I did

I compared my three previous efforts, each of them, identical.

So I destroyed the first two, and alas, I had an original at last.

ZACKMANN

“What we need is an original idea.” said the manager “something to make us if not rich at least well known.”

“How about using urine to power a battery that can charge a cellphone?”

“Joe, now that is the type of thinking we need but someone in UK does that already yet still there has to be something no one has thought of yet.

“Solomon said “Vanity vanity all is vanity there is nothing new under the sun.””

His manager says “Something new Joe. Are you going to listen to your friends or are you going to listen to me.”

CLIFF

Working homicide has never been fun but lately, it’s been a real nightmare. Take this guy. When I got to him, he was lying in a parking lot with most of his head missing due to a shotgun blast at close range. The fellow that put him down was Jeff Spence. Sounds pretty simple, right? Wrong. Spence is part of a Hospice Intervention Team. Jeff kills zombies. So we know the final cause of death. Now I have to find out the original cause of death. Heart attack? Murder? Choke on a pretzel? See what I mean? A complete nightmare.
———————–
So, the idea was that we would produce original plays from unknown playwrights like me. It seemed like a good idea at the time, but we soon found out otherwise. Audiences didn’t want originality. They wanted the tried and true. Oklahoma. Annie. The Odd Couple. If they hadn’t seen it a dozen times, they didn’t want to see it at all. So, I found a loophole. Turns out you can copyright a story but not a title. So I changed everyone in my murder mystery to a feline. I was quite happy with the turnout to see Clifford Lowe’s Cats.

DANNY

Wentworth spent weeks slaving at his typewriter hacking away at his next novel. “This is BRILLIANT!” Wentworth screamed, frightening his neighbors, as he hacked away at all hours of the night. Finally, the day arrived, his transcript finally complete. He skipped down the street in leaps and bounds to the publisher’s office merely 200 yards away. “I’ve got it this time!” Wentworth screamed at the publisher’s face, who calmly responded, “Look, I get it, your whole thing about being original, writing about the George Zimmerman trial 2 weeks after the fact. When you actually have something more original, get back to us.”

JUSTIN

The volcano erupted! Lava poured over Omnitron and his minions, but immune Ra projected his protection to Tempest. Omnitron blasted out an electro-pulse, wounding the heroes! Another gout of lava melted more of Omnitron and its devices. Ra pulled out his staff, gaining strength. Tempest collapsed when they brushed some deadly plants! Enraged at how such a small thing nearly killed them, Ra hurled his staff at Omnitron, shorting it out. Omnitron submerged into lava with the smell of melting circuits and metal. Ra carried Tempest away from the volcano as the last of Omnitron’s drones burned in the fire.

RED

People think the most meaningful words in a relationship are “I love you” and “I’m sorry.” Regardless of the nature of your involvement, you will find yourself apologizing and declaring your love. There is no original way to express those emotions. The order of words of choice during an argument is irrelevant.
Lola couldn’t care less about minced words. She wants to see bold gestures yet thoughtful. To her, romance is in the intimate details and subtleties. Her boyfriend has been traveling more than usual for business. Sometimes she hears from him daily. On other trips, he barely emails her. She sometimes wonders, does he even think about her when making his plans?
As if he has psychic powers, the day before he flies back, he ships a box of velvet cupcakes soaked in rum, with a letter on each one. It reads: “FYI T O U. I wish I were here to feed them to you.” With a goofy grin, Lola sticks her index finger in the creamy icing. She closes her eyes, with one sweet finger licking taste, she suddenly develops temporary amnesia.

WHISKEY

“Where do you get your ideas?” they asked.
“How did you get so creative?” they wondered.
If only they knew how easy it is. Original ideas grow on trees. They
can be plucked from the gnarled branches in bushels. Ideas are the
fruit of the stubby trees of despair, euphoria, loneliness, and
strife. These trees feed from the loamy soil of hardship, watered by
the rays of a smile and fertilized by longing. For every idea that is
picked, three more grow in its place.
Just pay no attention to the serpent, out on a limb.

PLANET Z

What you can’t fix with bioengineering, you can replace with cybernetics.

In fact, most people pass on replicated meatware and go straight to the TurboHuman dealership for polymer. You can get better performance from designer flexware.

The danger is that you can’t buy cyberparts, you can only lease them from TurboHuman. And they don’t come cheap.

Miss a payment, and you’ll find your Jarvik heart skipping a beat.

Miss another payment, and you’ll get a visit from the chopwagon.

I stuck to all natural. Because driving this chopwagon only pays commissions.

Or bribes.

Fifty, and I’ll let you go, kid.