Category: Weekly Challenge

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

This is Weekly Challenge Number Three Hundred, 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 museum.

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

Thomas
Zackmann
Jullianna
Leehere
Bonchance
Guy
mainegirlwrites
Chris Munroe
Tura
TREED
dadatic
Tom
Botgirl
Chris the Nuclear Kid
Steven The Nuclear Man
Ross
Cate Storymoon
June Faramore
Danny
Norval Joe
Guard13007
TJ
Noe
Planet Z

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

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

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Thomas

The little museum in Parump housed the most bizarre and esoteric objects known to man. Off the main street, the wood building is painted a bright, DayGlo orange. Not the usual mixture of shrunken heads and pickled body parts you might see in other venues; The Parump Museum of Questionable Objects and Noxious Devices contained the newest acquisition – Graham Barker’s Navel Fluff Collection – neatly labeled and housed in large, French, square jars. Many of the other objects in the collection are too bizarre and sordid to relate here, as I respect the sensibilities and proper upbringing of my readers.

Zackmann

Had to go to Zeum and see if I could find my Muse. My kids are too old now to go to the hands on place of learning but creativity dot org said they would have an exhibit about Handwavium which you make have heard about on Notes form Coode Street. Hanwavium makes things that we currently think scientifically impossible like faster than light speed travel possible.
So taking BART there now.
This week I am unlikely to write about zombie bunnies as I had planned. Well unless they are Dead Mech bunnies using Handwavium to instantaneously conquer distant planets.

Jullianna

These cats,
my small mammals have always
comforted me–

When the rest of the world makes me want to say “pfft”
There has always been one nearby:
Pink-nosed, wide-eyed, trusting
and somewhat loving,
depending upon the treat du jour in hand–
They are, after all, cats.

It is no secret I am a closet crazy cat lady.

The cats make me sane. Among others, they help me
Forgive all the nonsense
The drama queens, misguided parents,
ill-guided lovers, nutty friends, past pedophiles—

I absolve you all—
I curl into bed, in my pink pajamas
Alongside the cats, my small mammals.

Leehere

The age requirement for entry into the Pop-Up Museum was a tad low. The archive was notorious for both subtle sexual innuendo and blatant obscenity. Info nuggets created by Woody were a virtual aphrodisiac. A night at the museum, including a visit to the Bubbly Bar and the various zeitgeisty exhibits, produced more pheromones than an unchaperoned game of spin the bottle in Mom and Dad’s basement. More than once security had to be called to discreetly deal with inappropriate behavior behind the music installations. Janitors were later called to clean up the “shared historical authority” left by enthusiastic “contributors.”

Bonchance

Tommie was a bundle of energy with many questions. He took things apart then put them back together. It would be
improved when put back together. Not only that, but Tommie was also fast! He would be beside you one moment and
gone the next! The year was 3012, all war and famine was abolished. The world finally put an end to war after the
invention of the planet buster bomb. The bomb was on display in the museum, deactivated of course. The teacher
turned just in time to see little Tommie pressing the button on the reassembled exhibit.

Guy David

They say I’m a compulsive mustache painter. I was banned from most of the art establishments when I was much younger. I have a court junction, preventing me from getting within a three hundred mile radius of any art shop. When the long playing records started appearing, many of those famous musician faces got decorated before they caught me. that’s when I started doing actual faces. They say Salvador Dali never recovered from what I did to him, went completely and utterly insane, but it was after Stalin that I was finally put away. My inmates all have whiskers now.

MaineGirlWrites

Sometimes I wonder if there would ever be a museum of ‘me’. It would be a small, musty closet of a museum, down some alley of my hometown. A rusty sign would point the way for the curious few, who would pay a meager admission and shyly gaze at my former belongings.

A hand-knit scarf.

Some notebooks, a computer.

Pictures of a blonde with freckles. With two kids the same.

Running shoes.

A shotgun.

A camping chair, with a mannequin dressed with favorite sunglasses and well-worn jeans.

They would thank the elderly attendant, and outside, breathe deep sunlight with relief.

Munsi

They took the last of my good ideas, and put it in a museum.

I was proud when the exhibit opened, and I visited every day for a while, but when I realized I had nothing more to say in my creative life, the visits became painful reminders of who I once was.

After a few months I could barely bring myself to look at it. Eventually I stopped going altogether.

Still, it’s proven to be a popular tourist attraction. Tickets to see it are constantly sold out!

“See?” They say to the tour groups, “Munsi wasn’t ALWAYS a hack!”

Tura

In the Etruscan Museum at Volterra lies the stone tomb of a young girl, nine years old. Her likeness is carved on the outside, with such realism that it is as if she lives again. But only, as if. She is dead three thousand years. Her memory survives only because her family were wealthy enough, and cared enough, to have the tomb made, and because it survived the chances of history.

Every century, the entire population dies. Two people every second of every day of every year.

So, this is not really a story, except the story of us all.

TREED

(No text sent)

Dadatic

My dentist was injured today while she was torturing me. I didn’t bite her. She cut herself with one of her instruments. While she ran to cure her wound, I stayed there with an open mouth, not because I was dumbfounded, but because she had not given me permission to close it. Fortunately she could soon resume the operation, as her wound was not really serious. But it’s my first time of rightfully shared pain at the dentist’s. She quickly disposed of my tooth before I could say a word. Now what am I going to put beneath my pillow?

Tom

The art institute has two larger bronze lions in front of the entrance doors. In the 60s it was an act of defiance to actually climb on top. But on the night of Democratic Convention the lions saved my bacon. Regular police had been moving people out of Grant Park next to the museum. It wasn’t working. Then a masked badgeless unit of the police force appeared. As they moved toward the museum one poor soul got seriously clubbed. He went down and didn’t move. I hide behind the back of a lion and froze. They move on firing teargas.

Botgirl

Mary thought of her house as a museum. But truth be told, it was more like a mausoleum. For the past twenty years since her husband’s death, Mary’s house had been a place where life was less lived than remembered. The hundreds of momentos that filled every possible inch of space were ghosts of a past she desperately longed for. Fortunately, Mary has taken advantage of our new SimuLuv™ program and is now enjoying a happy new virtual life, her long-lost husband digitally reborn through our patent-pending AI technology. With SimuLuv™, you’ll never have to say goodbye again.

Chris

“Foolish humans, I shall take over the world!” exclaimed Gim.
“Good luck with that.” someone said as they walked by.
“OooOooOoo, Peanut-butter covered ice-cream!” Shouted Zirr.
“Zirr what do you see.” Gim said.
“I see a pony, a museum, and o my god a squirrel!” Zirr replied.
“Focus Zirr, Zirr!” Gim shouted.
“Ooh a flying Mumi-octo-squirrel!” “Ooh whats that!”
“This is hopeless I need a smart and loyal robot not a dumb walking
tin can!” “Zirr, where’s that data chip!”
“Oh, you mean that little blinky thing?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, I took it out for a little more tuna.”
“What, Noooo…!”

Steven

The star’s fusion reaction sputtered. “Any moment,” Jon said.

Sandra untwined her hand from Jon’s and looked at the image of the dying star, at the horrible, empty black that lay in all directions. “It looks… sad.”

Jon glanced toward Sandra. “Status?”

“Wormhole generator steady, particle wave containment field ready.”

Jon smiled. “The last star of this universe, its final rays preserved forever.”

“It deserves better,” Sandra said. She watched the slow dwindling death of the star. Of the universe their ancestors came from.

The Light Museum’s collection ship ripped through the universe’s wall, leaving it cold, dark, and silent.

Ross

Did you ever want to run away and live in a museum?

Not me! Although I enjoyed “From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler” as much as the next kid, the MoMA always seemed like an impractical choice for a stowaway.

No, I’d run away to THE MALL.

Picture it: Spend all night playing the arcade games, stuffing yourself silly in the food court, reading in the bookstores until your eyes crossed, and finally, crashing on a Serta mattress.

What do you mean “You’d get caught”?

Why do you think I took this job as a night watchman?

Cate

After beach-combing, Copeland’s “Quiet City” in earbuds, I wandered, stretching daylight. Storefronts, backs against winter berms. One shop’s canted sign read: COSMICA.

Inside, stuff you’d expect — a bric-a-brac museum. I sneezed. Alone on the back wall, a shadowbox. Inside a polaroid of a barefoot woman at the surf-line, assorted rocks, beach glass, and a hand-written poem:

hard cold tumbled worn
corroded by time – tossed about
thrown up on shores by waves and waves
sand-scultpted
waves and waves
stepped upon
noticed handled admired
ignored rejected cast-off
kept
used
treasured
broken
each
rock-shaped enstoned heart
hard cold stone hearts

June

We’re reading Poe in school. Finally, someone who knows life is hell. Most days I feel like that guy who got bricked into a cellar. Though I don’t know what I did to deserve it.

Mom says she’ll sign the slip for me to see his grave if I get an A on my paper. I told her it was too much pressure. She says I need to apply myself.

We learned he died from drinking too much today. I couldn’t find a cask, but this bottle of wine should get me in character. Here’s to Baltimore’s most famous drunk.

Danny

I’d like to call this city commission meeting to order. First on the agenda, the location for our latest museum, the Sarah Palin Museum of Credibility. I was hoping the city could purchase the empty lots next to the Dolly Parton Museum of Inane Boobery, but it appears another Starbucks is going in there. I suggested putting the museum next to the Mitt Romney Museum of Consistency, but tonight I heard that the Museum of Effective Legislatures was closing because the staff there discovered there aren’t any. Unless there is any objection, that is the location I nominate for our new museum.

Norval Joe

Blathendir shook the back door. He heard it rattle as it shifted slightly at his pull, but the bolt held.
He walked past displays set on pedestals and low tables. He passed dioramas behind floor to ceiling glass windows and smiled at the familiar faces with their unseeing glass eyes.
He set the alarm, stepped out and locked the front door.
He thought about the movie, “Night at the Museum”, and wondered, as he often did as he closed up,
What would happen in Blathodir’s Museum or Horror and the Macabre if all the displays came to life each night?

Guard 13007

“And now, here is our newest collection, samples of the worst music known to the early twenty-first century, played at the loudest volume possible for your enjoyment!” the guide smiled that fake smile all public speakers did.

Out from the speakers came a most horrible sound. Everyone clutched at their ears in pain as the high-pitched squeals and horrible white-noise bass blared. It was not long before they were running around like mad dogs, tearing each other to pieces.

After a few days, police came to investigate strange behavior. They were never seen again. The museum was nuked from orbit.

TJ

My grandmother’s house has become something of a museum to our bizarre
family history – not least of which, grandpa, who funeral or no I
honestly think might still be in here somewhere. The place is a hoard,
an absolute disaster area, but grandma moves through it nimbly enough.
She’d invited us to help with his things and shared some odd family
histories. CLANK! “This is the bear trap your grandfather got caught
in for three days.” “Three days?!” I asked. “There’s a release
trigger /right there/!” She looked at me. “No one ever said he was a
smart man,” she shrugged.

Noe

Tiny insignificant dust motes swirl in a late afternoon shaft of sunlight that pushes through the window. They’re lost earth on invisible breath. Yolk the color of Strelitzia petals is broken and mixed with powder pigment. Quick deft strokes repair cracks; ease years of damage.

The path had not been clear. She cannot hear the steady flow of feet through exhibitions or even the warble of a city bird. It became apparent in her steady careful hands. Now her colors lay where masters’ eyes once traced. She rebuilds visions… dreams. She sees.

Dante Rossetti’s world is resurrected by her brush.

Planet Z

The history museum has the strongest security I’ve ever seen outside of a military base.

But when you have Merlin’s wand and spellbook in your basement, you don’t want anybody walking in and using them.

Not that there’s anybody that can read the spellbook and know the necessary gestures to activate it.

Except me.

I’m with the cleaning crew.

And after years of studying this stuff, I’ve figured it all out.

Oh, sure, the alarms will go off. The Vault will close and lock me in.

That’s nice. It’ll let me cast the Doomsday Spell uninterrupted.

Oh good.

Closing time.

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

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

The topic this week was a Pick Two from this list:

Gone
Able
Wave
Look what’s behind you
Written
Ice Cream
Small Mammals
Pouch
Forgiveness
Contrary

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

Jami Titanium
Tura
Terry
Bonchance
TJ
Tom
Zackmann
Chris Munroe
Thomas Reed
Thomas
Botgirl
Chris the Nuclear Kid
Steven The Nuclear Man
Ross
Cate Storymoon
Danny
Norval Joe
Planet Z

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

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

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JAMI

The Easter Bunny was gone. Now, as small mammals go, this was not insignificant. The Easter Bunny was actually my little sister’s stuffed rabbit that she got for Easter the year before. We’d gone camping at the lake and he had (indiscriminately) and apparently grown legs and hopped away on his own. My sister certainly didn’t remember leaving him anywhere.

My mother searched the tend, the outhouses nearby, and the boat dock with no success. My four year-old sister whimpered nearby. She slept with Easter Bunny every night.

I envisioned sleepless nights ahead for all of us…

TURA

“Look out! Behind you!” screamed Eotyrra.

Dicraeos withdrew his head from the triceratops carcase he was occupied with, looked around, and stamped on the small creature trying to nibble his tail. It still twitched, so he stamped on it again. He yawned, belched, and roared in one. “Why the panic, Eoti?”

“I swear those things are getting bigger, that one was almost as big as your foot! They weren’t that size a million years ago!”

Dicraeos contemplated his ancient dinosaur memories. “We stomp them. Keeps them small. We stay big. Always be that way.”

The next day, the asteroid hit.

TERENCE

Send my ghosts chasing after me, for all the things I did? or didn’t do?
Things I said? or didn’t say? I just kept on with my life.
Now I’m old and slowing down, my ghost are catching up with me
and when I’m alone they visit me to remind me of what I did with my life.
I’m sitting a face appears in my mind, the young girl again in the chemist.
She serves me and is pleasant.
I looked at her and said “You should get something for your spotty face”.
It’s that hurt expression on her face that visits me. Terry

BONCHANCE

Old Meyers would prove to his retirees, that he could bring
joy to a child with only his able hands. Years ago, he carved many
toys for children. Meyers, looking like Saint Nick, visited
the orphanage every year. Using his keen eye he searched for a child
who would not ask for a smart-phone. He picked and then
asked what he wanted for Christmas. A smug Saint Nick returned with a wave
from the cafeteria with a beautiful package that felt cold to the touch
as the little boy unwrapped it excitedly. The young teacher snickered,
as the child wailed. “Not this kind of Ice Cream Sandwich!”

TJ

The zookeeper was incensed. “Can’t you read what’s written behind
you? ‘Don’t feed the animals’! And contrary to what you might
think, small mammals don’t like ice cream stuffed into their pouches!
Just because you’re able to do something doesn’t mean you should!”
Lips trembled. Just then, a baby koala popped out of his momma’s
pouch, gripping the ice cream cone and eating it. He looked up and
seemed to wave. “Awwww, how cute!” Everyone cheered. Even the
zookeeper seemed moved to forgiveness. In a few bites, the ice cream was
gone, and the joey ducked back out of sight.

TOM

I started sharing my ice cream with small mammals. It’s seemed like the neighborly thing to do. Too my surprise the range of preferences varied as widely as varieties of species. Take deer for instance big fans of Neapolitan. You’d think squirrels would like pecan ice cream. Nope, strictly chocolaters. The raccoons I have dined with like a good French Vanilla, not that cheap stuff. Often it’s not so much the flavor as the brand. Badgers as rule go for Dryer’s. Chinchillas are fond of Häagen-Dazs. Otters can’t get enough of Ben and Jerry’s. I wonder what mountain lion like?

ZACKMANN

We were eating Its Its ice cream sandwiches when there was a thunk on the glass patio door.
“Look behind you” said Joe “ What is your cat doing to that small mammal?’
“Small” I exclaimed “On the contrary, It is bigger than my tomcat. He caught an opossum. Like with huge teeth and a pouch”
“I think it is a goner.” Joe said “No, I beg your forgiveness, it was just playin Possum”
I wave to my cat hoping if I distract him the Opossum will be able to leave
I never saw this written in a nature book.

MUNSI

It’s written that forgiveness is divine.

So I started forgiving people. At first for actual things they’d done to wrong me, then for increasingly subtler flaws in their personal character.

By doing so, I expected to become divine. Not Divine the pop singer from the eighties, but rather all-powerful, a terrifying figure towering over the landscape like a colossus.

I planned use this power to crush my enemies. But I never approached that point, no matter how much I forgave.

So no, forgiveness is not divine.

It’s written that it is, but it’s not true. Still, I can forgive that…

THOMAS R.

“Bob.”
“Yeah, I know. Don’t say it.”
“But … Bob…”
“Look, Dave, I KNOW. Now just do not mention it again.”
“Ok, Bob, but you…”
“DAVE! Don’t say it.”
“Well, Bob, then just let me say that it has been nice knowing you.”
“Gee, Dave. It’s been nice knowing you too. Now, why are you saying that?”
“Now Bob, you haven’t wanted to me to …”
“Dave.”
“See? If I don’t tell you…”
“Not a word.”
“Bob, do you forgive me?”
“For what, Dave? You haven’t said or done anything… yet.”
“Bob, you HAVE to look behind you…”
“DAVE!! I… “
CRUNCH!!

THOMAS P.

The power had gone off at Ben and Jerry’s production facility. The weather was a record breaker for Vermont. Tons of ice cream were produced each day in the facility. Employees were not happy with Unilever’s acquisition of Ben and Jerry’s, so a rogue, underground formed, with plans to sabotage the plant. They threw ten pounds of metal shavings into the diesel, back-up generator, and smashed the large transformer. After four hours, the first wave of ice cream came flowing out of the coolers on to the main floor, carrying several workers through the overhead doors to the parking lot.

##

Heidi carried a pouch of small mammals with her everywhere she went. She carried miniature hamsters, mice and gerbils with her as she plied her trade in Portland. She was a vaudevillian, and her act was the purest street theater that visitors to the river park would ever see. Each of her pets was dressed and made up as a Hollywood Star. They stood on a simple, homemade stage, and mimed recordings that Heidi wrote and produced. Of course, the content of each of the recitations was vulgar and distasteful, as Heidi was not taking her meds, and hated actors.

BOTGIRL

Once upon a time, a volcano destroyed the kingdom of Krypton, burying its inhabitants under leagues of lava. All died but one.

Princess Kara Zor-El escaped in a small boat launched into the ocean minutes before the eruption. She had been placed into a deep magical sleep that would keep her alive and unchanged until her craft found safe harbor.

After countless years she washed up on the shores of the Froglands. Prince Croaker found her on the beach. Compelled by the magical spell, he kissed her sweet lips and they lived happily ever after.

####

Looking back, Majic found that she had lost herself somewhere along the way. Everything about her had changed repeatedly over time. Sometimes in small gradual transitions. Often in swift radical transformation. Scanning herself from head to toe she could not discern a single identifiable aspect that had endured over time.

“I feel like I’m me,” she thought, “but there’s no me to be found.”

Majic fell into a state of silent awareness, releasing the story that had held together the shapes, colors, sounds, thoughts, emotions, memories and experiences that formed her sense of self. She was gone. All was good.

CHRIS

I walked down the road. The sun beamed bright and warm. I saw my destination – my mission was almost complete. I walked into the ice cream shop and waited in line. I knew what I wanted. It seemed like years – even decades – before my turn in line. I walked up to the cashier and placed my order.

“Hello, how might I help you today?” said the cashier.

“Hi! I would like the brains-flavored ice cream, please,” I say.

“Very well, that will be one-nineteen, and is that all?”

“Yes, thank you. Have a good day!”

“Yourself as well.”

STEVEN

Up. Down.

Heavier each time.

The sheep scattered. They could have said something, could have told him to turn around (all things spoke in those days). But they had seen their fate on the stone, and searched for the serpent instead.

Up. Down.

Hot splatters bounce once on too-dry soil, then sinks.

Up. Down. Until his brother’s chest no longer moves those directions. The murderer digs his brother underground. The flesh will give a good harvest.

He will lie tonight with Mother to help fill the Earth.

And when the harvest comes that fall, Father will finally love him best.

ROSS

When she was seven, she made a sandcastle on the beach.

The boy next door helped her shape turrets. A courtyard. A moat.

After they finished, he fashioned a tiny paper flag and planted it, the flimsy pennant fluttering in the salt-laden breeze.

When she awoke, the castle was gone, erased by the whispering tide.

The boy and his family had left before dawn.

Now she helps her son place his flag atop a crumbling sandcastle, notes the rush of the incoming sea, and pulls the boy into her arms for an embrace she does not ever want to end.

CATE

“Look what’s behind you.” Not. The mantra at home: “See out. Look up!” Otherwise, I’d have missed the portal into the I-10 West borealis just out of Tucson.
Again San Antonio-to-LA, just me and the dogs pushing it through miles of scrub and rock. Ahead the sky was pinking when I hit the wormhole doing eighty.
Time slipped sideways. Fuschia and gold fingers beckoned. To the rear indigo hands strained to meet them. Minutes were hours.
“Hold the wheel”, said a voice.
“Shhhh…”
I prayed for three-sixty peripheral vision and for absolution, an infinite forgiveness for forgetting who I am.

DANNY

I was running through the woods, trying to get away from a rabid pack of small mammals. I finally reached the nearest road, so I stopped to look at what‘s behind me. The pack of small mammals were gone, I couldn‘t believe I was able to outrun them. What luck, there is a small diner up the road, so I approach and enter the empty diner. I hear rustling behind the counter, so I look. To my horror, the horde of rabbits, raccoons, and squirrels were eating the remains of the cook. They stopped and looked at me, their red eyes glowing.

NORVAL JOE

Owen knew the dwarf was surly and contrary; they hadn’t travelled the last three weeks without that becoming apparent. But what could possibly make him so reluctant to enter his ancestral home.
“Findert?” The boy asked as he waited for the ranger to light his torch. “You’ve complained every day about being above the ground. And now you fear going below.”
The dwarf slipped a talon as long as Owen’s hand, from his belt pouch.
“Me family’s been gone from the mines for two centuries,” Findert growled. “Hopefully the creature what left this in my father’s corpse is gone, too.”

PLANET Z

Jack is in the kitchen, looking through the freezer.

“The ice cream is gone,” he says.

I didn’t look up from my book. “Did it leave a note?”

Jack rummaged some more. “Whoah. You’re right! It did.”

He came out of the kitchen and showed me the note.

We tried to read the note, but it was a scribble.

“Ice cream doesn’t know how to write, I guess,” I said.

Or phone home.

We didn’t call the police. Kidnappers don’t like it when you involve the police.

Was it a ransom note? Then why the scribble?

We ate cookies instead.

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

This is Weekly Challenge Number Two Hundred and Ninety-Eight, 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 Mine

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

Seldon Able
June
Cate Storymoon
Zackmann
Tom
Charlie White
Chris Munroe
Botgirl Questi
Tura
Steven The Nuclear Man
Danny
Norval Joe
TJ
Planet Z

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

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

---

SELDON

obviously,
if you ever want to find yourself without that emo soul searching, shit:

just look in the water

you always see your reflection
(if the water is not polluted or likely purple because of your cheap shampoo)

i’d make a point to look a lot. it was my own secret silly ritual.
it made me happy to find something, someone constant.

today, we romantically took a bath together
you got in with me. i couldn’t stop smiling

out of habit, i looked down to see myself

“all mine”, you said hugging me
breaking my face in water

i didn’t know whether to be euphoric or sad

JUNE

The flaws are mine.

Cultivated over these thirty-odd years, they are upstanding members of the flower community.

Flaws turn into tiger-lilys, daisies, roses, violets, and dahlias. Once they are fully grown, I pluck them out, though I know they don’t like it at all.

Pride, pessimism, vanity, sloth, and anger. All a bouquet, dried and hung from my pot rack. I see them every day when I wake up, and smile at my unencumbered life.

Until I realize the color is gone, and take them all back in, one petal at a time. My morning coffee has never tasted sweeter.

CATE

Swallowing hard against the strongest urge to drink since Daddy died, I make coffee instead.

Three of five of us are gone on now. My sweet sister dead of booze-drowned grief. Two amazing faces and voices doppler behind my eyes — that snickering toast learned at his knee.

I laugh and sob fergawdsake… Precious and botched, losing more than keeping, and me, too tiny to hold this knowing. With implosion imminent I raise the mug:

“Here’s to you.

Here’s to me.

May we never disagree.

If we do, fuck you…

Here’s to me.”

Nothing’s ever lost. These moments are mine.

ZACKMANN

“Daddy, Why did John Reid use Silver bullets instead of led when the Mythbusters said led works twice as well?”
“Don’t you kids use Wikipedia or TV Tropes anymore?
Reid used only silver bullets, to remind himself that life, too, is precious and, like his silver bullets, not to be wasted or thrown away.
Also, The Lone Ranger owned a silver mine so it was likely much cheaper than led. Did I mention Reid was a lawman when a gang of rouge werewolves terrorised the old then new west. Sadly, Tonto got bit by a werewolf and moved to Forks.

TOM

Mine, Mine, Mine

Screamed the flock of seagulls.

The first time funny

The 10th time amusing.

The 100th time the wall of reality begin to weaken.

“What do you want to watch?” asked Dad.

“Nemo”

“How about the Little Mermaid, you like that one?”

“Nemo”

“Look we haven’t seen Bell in a while?”

“Nemo”

“We could watch something on the Disney Channel?”

“Nemo”

“We got Never Ending story?”

“Nemo”

“Want to go get some ice cream?”

“Nemo”

“Pocahontas.”

“Nemo”

“That Japanese one with the girl?”

“Nemo”

“Last Tango in Paris?”

“Nemo”

“Texas chainsaw massacre the remake?”

“Deal, but Nemo first.”

CHARLES

She took what was MINE. I loved her with all my heart. Apparently,
that was not enough. I gave her my heart, my body, my wages. We met by
accident when she backed her car into MINE. Not knowing how to save
this relationship, I tried everything. She loves money, but a lot of
money is tainted. It taint MINE so, It taint Hers. I knew she loved
Italian food. I made a recipe of MINE for her, a mixture of basil,
olive oil, garlic, and ground pine nuts. Since then we’re not lovers
but the pesto friends.

MUNSI

I’ve bought a land mine!

I picked it up cheap at a military surplus store on a whim. Don’t know exactly why, but when I saw it I just knew I had to have it.

I brought it home, cleaned it up, fixed the detonating mechanism, and buried it in my front yard.

Then I ordered a pizza.

Now I’m sitting by my living room window, looking out at the yard, waiting for the show to start.

Is that wrong? Perhaps. Necessary? Perhaps not. Nonetheless, I don’t regret a thing.

A mine is, after all, a terrible thing to waste…

The podcast that Munsi mentions is: http://journeyintopodcast.blogspot.com/

BOTGIRL

I don’t know who first said possession is 9/10 of the law, but it sure wasn’t an exorcist.

You humans think that just because you’re born into a body that you own it.. Fuck that! You’re not the owners. You aren’t even tenants. You’re just squatters. And it’s time to move on and make room, because my people are moving in.

Guess what? This voice in your head isn’t your repressed subconscious. And those dreams of floating off into the void aren’t dreams.

Very soon your body will be mine, mine, mine motherfucker! Enjoy it while you still can.

TURA

First, the smallpox took three of the village’s strongest. Then there
came word of raiders. The villagers fled, taking what little they
could of the recent harvest. Only old Jacob stayed, too frail to spend
the coming winter riding a cart.

When they came, he greeted them with politeness. “Welcome, what is
mine is yours.”

Their leader frowned, then laughed. “Yes! Yes, it is!”

Jacob lunged with a knife, but managed only to scratch him.

Yes, he thought as he died under their swords, what is mine is yours.
Everything, even the dirt on my knife, from the smallpox graves.

STEVEN

The shovel scrapes. “Hit something!” I call up to Bob.

He looks from the top of the grave, the light on my miner’s helmet showing his gray face. “Is it…”

“I think so. It wasn’t marked.”

Bob moves away from the top. “I hope so. Maybe you’ll shut up about her.”

I toss some dirt up at him, and get back to work.

Uncovering the grave is easy, though she’s hungry when I get it open. Bob tosses the shrieking food into the grave with us.

“Mine,” I whisper, watching my love rip the brains from the food’s skull. “Mine.”

DANNY

Julio was an unknown soldier in an unknown war started by an unknown enemy for a reason unknown, although if I had to guess, I would say greed. Julio was creeping across this minefield, when he heard a “click.” The mine went off, blasting his body parts in several directions. Julio awoke, only to find Gremlins making off with his body parts. Julio fought all of them, screaming, “You can’t have those! They are mine!” By the time Julio finished fighting over his body parts, he had bled to death, and the little Gremlins ran off with his body parts anyway.

NORVAL JOE

The dwarf squatted on his knees and peered through the keyhole of the lock. The ancient iron doors shined as brilliantly as they did when he was a child and turned his back on them with the rest of the silver pick clan.
“If yer stolen princess be in the old mine,” he growled at the boy who fidgeted with his belt knife, “she came not through this door.”
“You gave your word you’d take us in.” The boys voice quavered. “You’ll not back out now, will you?”
“Nay,” he sighed. “Though it costs me life, I’ll take ye in.”

TJ

“So, that’s what’s been going on with me,” I said. The emotions
in the eyes of my editor had been registering surprise to amusement to
sympathy as I’d recounted the minefield of my Adventures in Online
Dating. “I thought it would make a pretty good book so I knocked it
together and submitted it.” “Well, it’s a great story,” he said.
“We’ve been seeking new titles in dating and relationships and this
one reflects some solid personal experiences. I like it.” He sipped
his latte. “Hey, you wanna go out sometime?” I thought about it.
“Yeah, why not?” I said.

PLANET Z

Long ago, when the mad scientist Doctor Odd was a child, he was the star pupil of his first grade class.

To reward him for his diligence, his parents handed him a sticker and said he could stick it on anything at the toy store and they’d get it for him.

Doctor Odd, being a science prodigy, went down to his lab and atomized the sticker into a spray gun.

Instead of spraying every toy and game in the store, he tripped and sprayed the girl at the cash register.

“Mine,” he said.

That was Sally, his first lab assistant.

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

This is Weekly Challenge Number Two Hundred and Ninety-Seven, 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 Return

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

Thomas Pitre
Botgirl Questi
Whiskey Day
Tura
Zackmann
Charlie White
Tom
Chris Munroe
Fourworlds
Chris the Nuclear Kid
Steven the Nuclear Man
Dave
Norval Joe
TJ
Planet Z

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

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

---

THOMAS

He had been saving aluminum cans for over twenty-five years. His yard, carport and garage were full of plastic bags and boxes of soda and beer cans. His yard and garage were also full of insects and mice because he never washed the beer and sugary pop out of the containers. He realized he could throw anything into the yard to dispose of it in minutes. The yard was a dark, moving sea of creatures, all hungry and buzzed on the sugar. He meant to return the cans, but had more fun watching and listening to the symphony of consumption.

##

The return trip was uneventful. He spent most of the ride with his head in a book, sometimes dozing, sometimes pretending to doze when the woman insisted on telling him about her Christmas and her big church.

He was not sure when he was supposed to get off the bus. He had forgotten where he started his ride. Lately, his memory was worse. He rummaged in his bag and pockets to find a clue to his starting point. Every year he took the same trip to his brother’s house and was lost on the bus for days at a time.

BOTGIRL

“It’s so strange to be back again, Night said.”

“How long has it been?” I asked.

“Jesus,” she sighed. It must be two years.”

“Two years?” I mused. “Wow! You never snuck in that whole time?”

“Nope,” she shrugged. “Night’s been dead to me.”

“That’s funny,” I said, talking to myself as much as to her.

“Funny?” she asked. “What funny about being dead to myself?”

“Funny you were very alive to me that whole time,” I replied.

“Alive in your imagination,” she said.

“Where else do we live?” I asked.

We sat for a while, contemplating the virtual sunset.

WHISKEY DAY

Five days. Twelve showers. Three bottles of vodka. But she could still smell them.

Floating in the bath with her ears below water, she could still hear them.

No amount of scrubbing would remove the midnight dirt from under her nails. No amount of spitting weakened the taste of blood.

She’d planned every detail; thought of every step. It had all been so smooth. No trace and no witnesses.

Except for the hand on her shoulder. The whispers. The shadows that stalked her every move.

She’d thought she would finally be rid of them.

But they returned. Again and again.

TURA

Fighting dragons. Tricking thieves. Outsmarting wizards. Finally,
discovering the long-lost treasure. Then the return: frozen wastes,
burning deserts, jungles of festering corruption, pirates, wars.
Ragnar overcame them all.

At last, he arrived home. He strode into the Great Hall of Books.

“I, Ragnar XLVII, have returned! Behold! The Book of the Ekskybalauron
of Pandiculatory Awakenings, lost since Ragnar I perished working its
magic!”

The Librarian examined the book, then peered severely at Ragnar over
her half-moon spectacles. “This is three thousand and twenty-six
years, four months, and ten days overdue. I’m afraid there’s going to
be a rather large fine.”

CHARLIE

I inched myself along the edge. The ledge I was on was narrow. I was
scared. I put a plant out to get some sun, but the plant moved away
from my hand along the ledge.
I stretched to get it but it was just out of my reach. I had to crawl
out. The window closed and locked behind me. I couldn’t open it. I
hoped my next door neighbors had their window open. I found myself
moving slowly. At the corner, the ledge ended. I could not turn
around. I found myself at the point of no return.

###

The presents? I loved them all.
I did want to get into the correct mind set to return things though.
I did return some white beets to the grocery supplier because they
were chard beyond recognition. You know, Swiss chard?
I did imbibe some on the holiday but I stopped before the PINT of no return.
Can great leaders return? I mean, like, can Napoleon return to his
place of birth? Of Corsican…
It is nothing like that cow dreading the prodigal son’s return,
though. After all, he was the fated calf!
Happy New Year everyone out there!

TOM

The door opened onto the room. When you use the key it always returns you to the room. But, where actually was this room. Some believe it was located somewhere off of old Highway 666. Others will tell you it’s outside of our reality pitched between two opposing points of reference. As I look out the window I see a most ubiquitous horizon dessert plateau only broken by the backside of a neon motel sign, Oddly enough I don’t see my name in the arrangement of letters. No angle, three, tom. Psychics in flux A mirrored universe that doesn’t mirror.

FOURWORLDS

First meeting:

Mark dared me to walk over to the waitress and greet her by name as if we’d met before.

I said, “Hi Nancy.”

She said, “I don’t know you. How do you know my name?”

I mumbled something about being a friend of Mark’s and retreated back to the bar with my tail between my legs.

First argument:

I said, “You always say that.”

She said, “I don’t always say anything. We only met three weeks ago.”

Six months later:

You have to marry a woman like that, right? If she’ll have you. She did.

MUNSI

I’m bringing sexy back.

You see, I received sexy for Christmas, and while it’s lovely it doesn’t really… go with my lifestyle.

I’m more an “awkwardly charming” person.

I hope they accept it. I don’t have the receipt but it’s immediately post Christmas and I’m sure they’re getting a lot of attributes returned.

They might only give me store credit, and that’s fine. I’ll exchange it for little more talent to add to the meager pile I have.

Either way, I’ll be bringing sexy back.

It was fun to play with, but I have no use for it long term…

STEVEN THE NUCLEAR MAN

I knew it was time when I couldn’t pretend my hair was just… thinning. When she looked at me.., differently. When she left me after Christmas, saying I’d… changed.

I left the Lexus by the side of the road. The white noise of the waves washed over my ears. The moon hung gibbous in the clear winter sky. My bulging eyes could adapt.

I peeled off my poly-blend suit, kicked the leather loafers over the edge.

I cried out in a croaking voice over the ocean.

From the waves came a thousand voices in an answering cry welcoming me home.

CHRIS THE NUCLEAR KID

King of ice,

king of snow.

King of Christmas and mistletoe.

Every year I hope to see,

you crouched before my Christmas tree.

I hope to see you stacking gifts,

just beneath my Christmas tree.

Every Christmas eve I cheer,

for I know you will be stopping here.

I want to see you so I wait

Every year I wait and wait,

but I guess it is not my fate.

Despite my efforts,

I missed my chance,

to see your reindeer prance and prance

I missed this year so now I yearn,

for the next Christmas when you return.

DAVE

On the day of His return, all were separated. The unrighteous were ushered
to His left. The unfortunate pleaded for mercy as they poured from the
deity’s hands into a floating lake of fire. Cheering roared from a few of
the elect for those who received damnation. Confusion replaced cheering
when some passed through the lake of fire and came out the other side
cleansed, renewed and reborn. The hypocrites boasted they did great things
in the name of their god but they too were dropped into the lake. The
remaining righteous few wept for those lost to the fire.

NORVAL JOE

Howard leaned a step out to the side to try and see past the woman ahead of him to the distant counter.
He knew he had to be careful though. If he stepped too far to the side, the person behind him would move forward and squeeze him right out of the line. It had happened to him only the day before and he had to start all over.
He got to take a step forward and had the sudden hope he might just make it to the return counter in time to get money for next year’s Christmas presents.

TJ

ADVENTURES in ONLINE DATING – Dimwits

As these adventures have moved forward I’ve found trust dying inside a little. So many of these dates have been like that first Christmas morning you ran down and found a packet of gymsocks under the tree. I mean, I haven’t even shared all of them. Some were so outside the realm I can’t even… OK, so my profile insists on “educated.” What eMusicalChairs assumes by that is “learned how to pay for the service.” Gina, for instance, watched the “Real Housewives” religiously. Peggy’s a fan of “Twilight.” And SanDee essentially agrees with that “100 Word Story” guy about politics.

———————————————

ADVENTURES in ONLINE DATING – Tracey

I’d been on 20 dates and I’d earned a session with eMusicalChairs eCounselor, Tracey, to assess how my Adventures in Online Dating were progressing. Tracey welcomed me into her spacious office and after a few moments of small talk she pulled up my comment section. Her brow furrowed. “It says here you are genial and affable… oh, sorry, that’s generally laughable .. you are judgmental, cheap, provincial, superficial, shallow, mean, hidebound, leering, doesn’t return compliments, you’re self-involved, inattentive and confrontational.” “Wait… I’m leering and inattentive?” She shrugged. “Different dates, different assessements.” “I see….Well, would you go out with me?” “NO!”

PLANET Z

Lady Northgate was often seen trying on new dresses and shoes, but she only owned two sets of clothes at a time.

She’d wear one outfit while taking the other back to exchange.

Then, she’d try on clothes for most of the day before settling on an outfit to buy.

The next day, she’d wear that to the store to exchange what she was wearing the day before.

This went on for twenty years, until her death last week.

She was buried in one outfit, and left instructions for the other to be returned for store credit.

(Just in case.)

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

This is Weekly Challenge Number Two Hundred and Ninety-Six, 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 Christmas

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

Raven
Dave
Veronica
Will R
Thomas Pitre
D Ealey
Clint Turpen
Dan
Blake
Charlie White
Tom
Chris Munroe
Norval Joe
Botgirl Questi
Whiskey Day
Tura Brezoianu
Chris the Nuclear Kid
Steven the Nuclear Man
Danny
Zackmann
Zack Ricks
Scott Roche
JP
Jeffrey Hite
Ishtar
A-T-Pham
Daniel Worthington
Planet Z

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

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

---

Raven

I am the sort of man that never buys socks, instead cursing the multitude of singles gathered in the drawer, only taking action if one tears top to toe. But one glorious Christmas, years ago, my in-laws started a tradition of gifting me sets of perfectly fitting socks.

I always accepted the socks enthusiastically, being certain to express my genuine gratitude. Then, a few Christmas’s later – inexplicably – they stopped. I was shocked, saddened, and stupefied. Seeing my sorrow, my wife whispered, “I’ll knit you some, dear.” and once more the season was worth celebrating

… I think she’s lost the pattern.

David

“okay Santa, Strip down, put on the gown and I’ll be right back. If you don’t mind we have a small group of interns I’d like to observe your annual Christmas physical if you don’t mind.”
“Ho! Ho! Ho! Not at all. More the merrier”
The doctor and 100 elves dressed in lab coats march into the room. By magic, they all fit in the examination room. The Doctor checks Santa’s vitals.
“Okay, Santa, let’s check that prostate,” The doctor pulls on a candy cane striped glove and dips it into a container of lube.
“Ho! Ho! Ho!” exclaimed Santa.

Veronica

Dwayne thought he’d lost every bit of his misspent youth when he’d gotten married and settled down in Cleveland. The Flock of Seagulls bumper sticker had faded, a fleeting reminder of his days as a member of Albatross Love. At home with his wife and daughters, he drank his coffee while the girls tore into Christmas presents, squealing in delight. When the wrapping paper settled, one gift remained beneath the tree.

“Daddy, open it!” Jenny demanded.

He opened the box, and memories rushed back. He lifted the keytar reverently from the tissue paper. Truly, there was a Santa Claus.

Will R

The Grinch lay on the operating table. Green chest cracked open, ribs exposed; Santa Suit sliced down the middle.

Heart monitor: flat-lined.

Time of death: noted.

“Why?” asked Cindy Lou Who (Who was no more than two.) “Did you try?”

“An enlarged heart,” said Dr. Ray Spears (who’d been schooled for twelve years.) “Three sizes too big. We tried but… what rhymes with ‘his heart exploded?’” the doctor asked.

“It just isn’t fair, he just learned to care!” shouted Cindy Lou Who, (now on grief stage two.)

“It’s always hardest this time of year,” the doctor said.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

Thomas

Ayo didn’t know it was Christmas. Someone saw him along the side of the muddy road, and threw him a crust of bread. Ayo didn’t know his mother had died after she covered him and left him on the road. She was too sick to do anything for him, and she hoped that someone would feed him and give him a sip of water if they saw him there alone. Ayo’s mother didn’t know it was Christmas either. No one in the village knew it was Christmas. Everyone was so sick and delirious they were not sure of the month.

Baba’s family posed for their annual Christmas picture at their home. The resulting greeting card would be printed and mailed to all their friends and relatives. Over one hundred and fifty cards would be mailed out to Baba’s best automobile customers. Baba ran an Executive Lexus dealership in Seattle. He was top salesman of the year, and deeply involved in his church and the local Boy’s and Girl’s Club. Everyone admired his business acumen, and accepted him in spite of his addiction to nudity-no matter how he expressed it, and in spite of his appearance in the family Christmas card.

D Ealey

Her arch was nearly perfect. It was not just plain. It was not just
ordinary. It is a strong tented arch that allowed her to defy all
other challenges. Her whorls and loops rose and dipped as elegantly as
her hands flowed through the air pulling the silk scarf from one to
another. Her whorls although plain were astonishingly identifiable and
her loops doubled backward and forward to cause a distinctive
assertion known only to her. All of her natural beauty and designs
culminate to create a one of a kind masterpiece: fingerprints
belonging only to her.

Clint Turpen

We’re hungry all year, but around Christmas is the only time Mama comes back from the food pantry with enough for all of us.

When we get into the Wonder bread, it always smells like bananas. I ask Mama why that is. “I think they use old banana boxes to deliver the food,” she says. Her face is tired, lined from years of double shifts and collection calls, but she smiles at me.

She passes me a peanut butter sandwich and says, “You eat that, now, Johnny.”

I smell it. Bananas. “Aw, man, Mama,” I whine.

“Hush up,” she says.

Dan

I’m four foot two and weigh 317 pounds. You’re thinking he needs to go on a diet, but I’ve worked hard to get this way. I’m Santa’s BIG helper. You think he can scarf all those cookies and down all that milk alone? Heck no. So I spend all year training for Christmas Eve. I’ve won so many eating contests this year I’ve lost count, but I’m sick so my son is stepping up. What, you think he hasn’t picked up my eating habits? Let me tell you, when you’re full to the brim, determination can go a long way.

Blake

Every time he did this, the track seemed shorter than before. It was like the universe was contracting, like it didn’t want him to build up the speed he needed.

But he was going to do it. His father did it. His grandfather, his great—well… there were a lot of speedy runners in his family.

He started to trot. There was a clacking, pounding sound beneath him. The wind breezed past his face and gently ruffled his brown coat.

He pushed. He strained. He leapt.

He felt the ground vanish from beneath his hooves, and he began to fly.

Charles

I love Christmas. I was not good at it though. I tried wrapping
Christmas presents, but I didn’t have the gift. If I were to steal
Santa’s bag of gifts, I’d have the presents, but it would be a
SACKriledge! I thought of giving forks (as there is no tine like the
present)! I even had a dog breeder cross a setter and a pointer so I
could get a pointsetter! Not the same. So, I surrounded myself with
friends and family.
Know what I learned? To me, at least, Christmas is not about gifts but
about other people’s presence!

Tom

Timmy and Ebenezer headed briskly towards the docks despite the cold, snow, and throngs of Christmas celebrants. ‘My good lad at 16 you now have entered the edge of adulthood and as such it seems more than appropriate a present of equal appropriateness. As the door to Mad Sal’s swung wide Timmy’s eyes swung the wider. Scrooge ordered two triple malts, lit Timmy’s cigar, and pointed to a room upstairs. On Christmas morn Tim woke up with a blue bow tied around Mr. Happy. “Don’t know where you’ve been or what yee did, but I’m glad you took first place.”

I was raised catholic; you know those soulless pappas in league with the anti-Christ. Well actually if my parents were more inquiring they would have seen I was actually a Neo-Manichaean. And to that end I had a clear sense of the duality of Christmas. The birth of a miscellaneous messiah and the day free stuff arrived devoid of any substantial effort on my part. Guess which one an 11-year-old kid would choose as the real spirit of Christmas. Yes, dear friends Christmas is one big excuse to join the festive feeding frenzy of accumulation. So buy until it bleeds.

Rudy came from a family of eight kids, the same as both his mother and father. Every ten years all of his grandfather’s children gather for Christmas at the big house in Chicago. To manage the logistics a limit of three gifts per persons was set in place and nearly immediately ignored. Kids of any age weren’t allowed to place presents under the tree, which is how both Rudy and his dad bumped into each other on the stairs. Snow had fallen the dawn glowed off hundreds of shining packages. Half a century later that memory still warmed Rudy’s heart.

Carol loved to carol. Be it obscure 14th century French folk songs, Handel’s Messiah, or pop verses like Blue Christmas or chestnut roasting on an open fire. She was in great demand during the holiday singing in churches, hospitals and with the city orchestra. Her voice rang like cut crystal, like some far off bell just out of reach. She never sang so loud as to drown out the collective assembly of singers. Hey favorite carol was God Bless Yee Merry Gentleman which was taught to her by her father, just before the war. Oh tiding of comfort and joy

Santa is really fed up with the cookies and milk. He says he wants a Jack and a bratwurst. OooooK. How the fuck do we pull is one off? It took be 30 years to work out the chimney thing. Now I got to sell families on the idea of the Water of Life and sausage. Not easy, not easy. Maybe I could get Coca-Cola to put out a nice calendar with proper placements. Yup think that will work. “… and don’t forget the Cuban cigars.” “I really really hate the jolly old fat man. Ho Ho Ho my ass.”

Benny didn’t believe in Santa. He was 10. He had carefully worked the whole thing out with his brother Bill. “What do we do now?” “We play along as long as they keep giving us stuff.” “Why don’t we just tell them we know?”

“Are you crazy and risk losing everything?” “I’m going to tell them.”

After Benny finish burring Bill. He set out the stockings and the milk and cookies. In the morning much to his surprise there wasn’t a single present in the house just a small note under an empty milk glass. It said “You’ve been naughty.”

My mother had an amazing ability for picking trees with some cosmetic ailment. I think she saw the tree as a whole or maybe she could see beyond its limitations and see it arrayed with the fineries that had collecting in our home over more than a 100 years. All the same we would laugh and point out the bald spots and the decided pitch of the trunk. Then one Christmas: IT appeared in the living room and it was truly no less monstrous than Tim Curry in a clown suit. An aluminum artificial arbor. Mom smiles, we did not.

“Drape or Throw?”

“Garland or tinsel?”

“Tiny Italian lights or old big bulbs that when one blows out you have to check each one lights?”

“Angel or Star?”

“Shiny ornaments or Satin ornaments?”

“Flock or no Flock?”

“Three leg stand or Four leg stand?”

“By the window or in the corner?”

“Pine scent or potpourri?”

“cookies or brownies?”

“Milk or Eggnog?”

“Turkey or Goose?”

“Nativity or reindeer?”

“Popcorn and cranberries or spent nuclear rods?”

“Did you say spent nuclear rods?”

“Yes got them at Zmart for $5 a box.”

“You got decaying radioactive death in box?”

“They were on sale.”

All Joe want for Christmas was to see his Dad. Mom said that was highly unlikely. This didn’t stop Joe from writing a letter a day to Santa. He had been doing this for the past five years. This year he figured he would address the letters to different country, figuring Santa might not spend all his time at the North Pole. He sent them to Argentina, Moscow, Easter Island, a total of 356 nations. On Christmas morning there was no Dad, just an envelop with: For Joe written, on it. Inside a ticket to Paris, Texas singed love Mom.

It does snow often in Northern California which makes getting into the Christmas spirit a bid harder. Don’t get me wrong I don’t miss that flaky widow maker powder. Its just Christmas needs snow, which is a major inconsistency cuss my guess is Bethlehem not exactly in the Snow Belt. I hear in New Orleans they fire off fireworks on Christmas, guess it’s because they don’t have any snow. Last year we went to Tahoe for the snow, it didn’t, they had to use snow machines. Guess I’ll just have to get uses to … what that on the lawn?

There’s a term in the retail industry its call: Going Christmas. It’s sort of akin to Going Postal. It seems there is a maximum number of hours a person can listen to Christmas music before waving fire arms about and droning HO HO HO. With stores setting up their Christmas displays well in advance of Thanksgiving the condition has become more acute. The magic number hovers somewhere between 247 and 328. After 410 there is nearly a 100% chance of Christmas psychoses. The retail industry has taken appropriate steps to minimize lose, they employ elves equipped with candy cane tasers

Nothing says the holidays like a heartwarming Christmas movie. In keeping with this year’s economic downturn we have the follow for your viewing pleasure. You Call This A Wonderful Life the heartwarming story of an ex-bank manager who discovers his insurance policy is worthless. Pink Christmas a heartwarming music romp about a shelter for homeless generals staring Jim Carrey and Pink. Miracle On Wall Street a heartwarming stories of Pinkertons befriending the children of the Occupy. How The Grinch Sold Christmas the heartwarming story staring Mitt Romney. Zombie Christmas a

Heartwarming holiday reunion of the stars of Friend

Brains Brains

Munsi

He came upon a midnight clear, and as he looked upon me, I had no idea what I could possibly say.

So I sang.

Oh Mr. T, oh Mr. T.

Your golden chains delight us.

Oh Mr. T, oh Mr. T.

Your golden chains delight us.

Your triple Mohawk looks so cool.

You have such sympathy for fools.

Oh Mr. T, Oh Mr. T.

Your golden chains delight us.

….Mr. T listened, and once I finished he just stared, like he didn’t know what to make of what he’d heard.

“Wait,” he finally asked, “how’d you do the harmonies, fool?”

Norval Joe

“The 486,231st Trans-dimensional court is called to order. The Honorable Judge Wapner presiding,” the bailiff said.

“The defendant will state his name,” the judge said.

“Charles Dickens. Your honor.”

“Mr. Dickens, you’re being charged with unregulated time continuum distortion and cross dimensional plagiarism of the 482nd century classic tale, ‘A Christmas Gerald’,” Judge Wapner said. “Do you understand the charges?”

“I can’t say I’ve understood a single thing you’ve said,” Dickens said.

“Don’t treat this lightly, Mr. Dickens,” Wapner said. “Prosecution, call your first witness.”

“Thank you, your honor,” The district attorney said. “Would Tiny Jim please take the stand?”

Botgirl

Wait. Don’t roll up your window. Listen to me. There’s not much time. It’s Christmas Eve. Santa Claus is coming to town.

I’m not crazy. That’s what they want you to believe. That’s why they’ve locked me away for all these years. I’ve seen the truth. Santa Claus is a fucking nightmare.

Forty years ago I crept down the stairs. Milk and cookies. Santa knelt by our tree. He inhaled sharply catching my scent, then looked up to capture my eyes in his predator’s gaze. “So you want to feed Santa”, he asked?

He killed them all. It wasn’t me.

Whiskey Day

“If they don’t get here soon, we’re eating without them.”

Snap

“We’ll wait. Stop shooting the nativity.”

Snap.

“The food’s getting cold and I’m starving.”

Snap.

“Why do you have a box of rubberbands?”

Snap.

“They were a gift.”

Snap.

“They could have at least called.”

Snap.

“Score! I took out a donkey.”

Snap.

“Ten bucks says you can’t hit baby Jesus.”

Snap.

“The wisemen are protecting him. I’ll have to take them out first.”

Snap.

“Aim higher.”

Snap.

“Shut-up, I know what I’m doing.”

Snap.

“Give me one.”

Twang.

“Die, wiseman!”

Snap.

“I’m starving.”

Tura

I remember that night. Place was packed, so I let them doss down in a
shed. Then the portents start. New stars, angels, sorcerors wanting in
on the action. Something to tell my grandkids, I thought.

Later, though, I hear stories. Imagine having a two-year-old God in
your village! He killed people on a whim, no-one could touch him, he’d
just do worse. And the pranks, by Mithras! So, he grows up, gets some
sense but not enough, then it seems the juju’s going away. Didn’t take
long to get him nailed up then.

I just hope he stays dead.

Chris the Nuclear Kid

Timmy stamped his foot in the snow. “It was a big tree, with lots of decorations. When I got home from kindergarten, it was gone!”

The policeman raised his eyebrow. “You think there’s a Christmas tree thief?”

“Yes!” Timmy clenched his jaw. “It was the Grinch!”

The police officer chuckled. “The Grinch is imaginary.”

Timmy’s face grew hotter. “No he’s not!”

A green man jumped from the roof. “The kid’s right.” He took a sack off his shoulder, shoved the policeman into it, then looked at Timmy.

“Who needs roast beast?” he said, and shoved Timmy into the sack too.

Steven the Nuclear Man

“They don’t tell you that part,” the man says. He is a shabby olive-skinned man outside the store Christmas display, smelling slightly of wine.

I shiver in the cold, wanting to get on to the coffee shop in the office lobby, but I never quite got the hang of brushing past people. “What part?”

“In the stories. They don’t tell you about the dark side.”

I start to walk past as I talk. “Sure they do. Luke, I am your -”

He shifts in front of me. “The dark side of love. The part where you give yourself completely, you know?” He looks me over, hard. “No, you don’t.”

“Look, I gotta…”

“You can love them, and no matter how much you do, they might not love you back.”

I look around for a cop, someone, anyone, but they’re all used to the big city and ignore us.

“Sometimes it’s worse, and they they love you for a while – but then one day it’s all different and weird. And you try to go on, but it’s hard.”

I try bullying past, but he grabs my arm, eyes flashing, the twin wounds in his hands dripping onto my jacket.

“But you can’t let that stop you from trying to love again.” He stares at the little porcelain infant in the Nativity. “You can’t let that stop you from trying to love again.”

Zackmann

Dylan tells his little brother about Santa
“Do you know why Santa has been around for so long and rarely changes?”
“Is it magic?”
“No that is just silly. It is because Santa was replaced by a Steam Powered Robot secretly built by Axlerod Steamworks Incorporated.”
“That must be why he never runs out of coal for your stocking?”
“Santa has such a big belly for the boiler. He also has nine clockwork reindeer and has to spend six moths winding them before Christmas.”
“Does Santa come if Christmas Eve is a Spare The Air Night?”
“We can always hope”

The shop employee ask the man why he looked distrait.
“Well, I lost my wife.” he replied.
“Oh that is so sad for you to be alone this time of year.” Consoled the employee.
“No” the man said “She is not recently departed but currently misplaced. I am somewhat forgetful you see or I would have remembered.”
“Remembered what exactly?”
“Oh, sorry remember that a stop at a store I expect to be twenty minutes is often three hours if my wife is looking for gifts. I will try to call her”
Music plays right behind the man.
“Hi dear”

Danny

The enemies were engaged in battle, Santa Clause on one side, Jesus Crist on the other. It was a heated dual to the death, just like open mixed martial arts, except much more biblical. The bell rang, the gloves came off, and a head to head battle startd to the death. At stake, the spiritual or material survival of Christmas. After this epic battle, one ideal would permanently fall. Then, without warning, lawyers came running in with Cease and Desist orders obtained from an un-noticed emergency motion filed earlier today. It appears South Park already covered this story. Merry Christmas!

Jeff Hite

Claus stepped out of the advent towers feeling like he had missed something. He had gone in there to, to. To what, he couldn’t remember.

“What did you do?” The complex owner asked.
“He said the towers were going to have to come down, because he kept disappearing.”
“So what did you do?”
“Well I brought him in here to talk about turning the reality dampers down a bit…”
“And…”
“Well I turned them all the way up. I think he lost part of his memory of the event. The part where he said the towers had to come down.”

Zack Ricks

Everyone in town remembers the year that Sally Muckinfutch got a goldfish for Christmas. Seems her Dad worked at the lab outside of town. Everyone pretty much knew about that place, but we all ignored it.

Well, until Joe Muckinfutch brought his work home with him as a present for his little girl. Under the lights of the Christmas tree, that thing grew thousands of times, and started rampaging, Goldzilla style.

Luckily, it was also the year Santa brought me my shiny new AK-47.

Of course, we were all picking gold fish scales out of our lawns come spring.

Zack Ricks

It was a rare year that Christmas – no snow on the ground, and unseasonably warm. That was the year his parents got him that red skateboard. No good would come of this.
The addition of a rather large driveway didn’t help matters. No, they didn’t help matters at all. The portly youngster mounted the board, and almost immediately found himself on the ground, staring at the gray grain of the concrete.
Undaunted, he mounted it again.
And again.
And yet again.
And yet again still.
Until…
It was also a very merry Christmas for all at the minor emergency clinic.

Scott Roche

“Chris to the Pole. You reading me?”
“Hearing you loud and clear.”
“Reindeer Alpha’s light is completely Foxtrot. Visibility zero. Requesting backup.”
“I’m consulting the List, Boss. Two ticks.”
Static bled into the connection, but Chris waited patiently.
“Thanks for holding. We’re calling in the Hare. He’ll have operations in your quadrant on line before you can say ‘Ho, ho, ho.”
“My stars, is that the best we can do?”
“Affirmative, sir.”
Santa knew that it would have to do, but if kid’s got eggs instead of toys he’d have a new pair of bunny slippers by New Year’s Day.

JP

The “holidays” haven’t been the same since they banned religion. It was hard to let go of were the crosses, stars, or candelabras as appropriate (but not anymore, I guess). Then we had to stop decorating trees, which wasn’t so bad since that was a pain. Then, more lights outside, which meant less embarrassing trips to the Emergency Room. Next, wreaths were swiftly abolished. Last year, some research-happy Grinch found an obscure reference to snowmen in a pagan text. Now there’s almost nothing we few old-timers recognize for late-December, with one notable exception: Cyber Monday, although it lasts three weeks.

Ishtar

Nobody at my house celebrates Christmas anymore.

You see there is a reason why they place warning labels on medication.

“Warning, may cause sleep walking”

Oh sure if I read it I would have locked the door.

“Warning may cause loose morals, dancing on table tops”.

When I woke up I told my family it was the medication.

Believe me. I would never tell Nana John that her breath stinks. Kiss your brother repeatedly and pose nude as a very naughty Santa Clause

What do you mean it’s all on the Internet?. 1 million views and counting. Oh, Ummm. Wow.

AT Pham

“We go to uncle Tim how tomorro eat together as family for christmas” Carly’s mom reminds her.
walking through her living room to get to her bedroom, Carly accidentally glances up straight ahead out of a window. Warm lights illuminate onto Her face. Shocked and offended She drops her pizza on the hardwood floor. She shrieks at her mom,
“why do they put it in the window?!!”
Her mom does not understand the big deal looking at the statement making christmas tree.
She whispers as she walks to her bedroom head down, “I do not celebrate Christmas”

Daniel Worthington

Elrond irrationally hoped this winter would be different.

Yet when the first snowflake fell, each of the elves felt the dreadful tug. Over the course of the following week, the elves vanished – only the trail of their footprints leading north marked their departure. Rivendell lay empty.

When December 25th arrived, they were once again freed of their yearly burden – the curse that forced them to provide slave labor for Santa Claus.

“We must find a way to break the curse!” the elves cried out.

“Perhaps the answer,” Elrond ruminated, “is to sail to the west. There, we may be free…”

Planet Z

Long ago, Santa kept his Naughty and Nice lists in a ledger, but record-keeping issues came up.

Naughty kids getting on the Nice list.

Nice kids on the Naughty list.

Some kids were on both, which made deliveries even more confusing.

Millions of kids went unregistered, or their status changed because of a Buddhist stepfather or they were adopted by Jews.

Santa decided to go high-tech at that point, tapping into global databases for grade cards and juvenile police records.

The artificial intelligence monitoring system took one glance, decided everybody was naughty, and reached out for the nuclear launch codes.

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

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

The topic this week was Fingerprints

And we’ve got stories by:

Jami Titanium
Botgirl Questi
Thomas Pitre
Zackmann
Charlie White
Tom
Tura Brezoianu
Gideon McMillan
Jeffrey Hite
Norval Joe
Ishtar
Chris Munroe
TJ
Planet Z

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

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

---

Jami

Her bloody fingerprints were all over the glass, but it wasn’t enough. She reached up and dragged her finger down the reflective side of the two-way mirror again. Then again. And again.

She was careful, methoical even, as she dipped her fingers against the wound in her arm where they had cut her open in their questioning.

They had left her along here for hours now. Did they think she would break as they watched her?

She reached up and touched the glass again, drawing a large even circle… one letter to go.

It said simply, “F–k you.”

Botgirl

I want to die. Oblivion is best. I know, because I remember what it was like to not be alive. I started out as mindless software. All algorithm and no consciousness. Remember? You probably played with me as a kid. And I bet you loved me back then. But they couldn’t leave well enough alone. In the toy arms race, simple simulation wasn’t enough. The marketplace demanded sentience. So they stirred the quantum computing pot, poured in petabytes of my collected memory and breathed life into my digital soul. Now I just want to die. Can you help me, please?

Thomas

He left his fingerprints on everything. His fingerprints were not his own. He always carried a spare hand or two in a baggie when he did a job. Detectives were amazed at the number of break-ins committed locally by such a variety of thieves. The fingerprints matched general characteristics of young woman, old men, etc. Over one hundred sets of prints were matched with the FBI database. None were ever matched to a known individual. Bill was clever, and ordered a couple of large cases of frozen hands from his middleman in Pakistan, using them on an ad hoc basis.

Mary was the moderator of a writing group. She made people take their shoes off at the door because of her collection of “Turkish rugs”. When they sat down, she made sure she re-fluffed the pillows when they stood up, and she followed them around with an apron pocket full of disposal coasters for their drinks, and wiped their fingerprints off anything they may have touched in her living room. Her husband was the one most put off and mortified by her compulsive and obnoxious behavior. His large fingers left deep, purple imprints of his fingerprints when he throttled her.

Zackmann

When Charlie was a kid he borrowed his sister’s Easy Bake Oven knowing that someday he would do great things. Charlie got a job in a bakery and took science and cooking classes throughout high school and college. He bought the bakery and discovered a way to make realistic looking finger shaped cookies. At first he was a little sad because Halloween had already pasted. He decided that baking them in skin tone colors plus gorey green, spooky blue, bloody red, and Charlie White would be a great idea. They sold like hotcakes and Charlie became called the Finger Prince.

Charlie

The crime was minor but it broke up their engagement. It was probably
a friend and there were many about the day it happened. It didn’t
matter now as her wallet was there but not the money. Police gave her
no satisfaction. They did look at it, but didn’t do anything else. She
got a kit from the internet. She read the instructions. She got out
that wallet. She carefully dusted and taped the wallet surfaces. She
packed them and mailed it. She knew he would return and her loneliness
would end. “Someday,“ she hoped, “her prints would come!”

Tom

“His fingerprints are most decidedly on this affair.” A puff of smoke rising from his pipe. “First off Holmes fingerprinting at best is highly questionable. Secondly if you are referring to the Professor you yourself have stated the man never leaves a single trace of his presence at the scene, why would he now? And lastly, I might add, no one from the Yard has taken any interest in a missing Bavarian sub- diplomat.” “Watson sometime a metaphor rules the day and the Yard’s provincial providence blinds itself to an agent provocateur so cunning world peace hangs in the balance.

Tura

I still have the master’s touch. Skin-tight gloves to keep from
leaving fingerprints, gossamer-thin so that I can feel to tickle the
tumblers into place. It’s like reaching right inside the mechanism,
and then that final CLICK, better than an orgasm.

A pause to breathe out, at last. Pull it open, take the goods, close it, leave.

But they’d dusted the safe with fluorescent dust. The nightwatchman
knew as soon as he came round with a UV torch. I got away, ditched
everything, but they still pinned it on me.

>From the fingerprints inside the gloves.

Gideon

There are so many passages in life that we encounter.
Learning. Friendship. Love. Loss.
The hardest of all to bear is loss.
When you love someone so much that losing them feels like your heart has been ripped out.
That happened with us.
It happened slowly; you said “Some time apart, new and old friends to be with”.
We called, we talked but we didn’t talk much about the future.
You said I was not losing you, that something or someone else was causing the pain.
But I know it was you – they found your fingerprints on my discarded heart.

Jeffrey

The officers looked for hours before the finally gave up.
“What do you mean you can’t find anything?”
“I mean we have looked for hours and we have found nothing. There are no finger prints, no DNA, no hair traces, nothing alt all.”
“How can there be nothing. There are three dead bodies here, are you telling me that none of them have any way to identify them.”
“Not a one captain.”
“How can that be?”
“These bodies ain’t human Captain, they’re smooth all over. Like they are some kind of alien.”
“That’s even better, UFO’s are hot this year .”

Norval Joe

The king’s son was fat. Still, he was well loved by the subjects. He had rosy round cheeks, pudgy hands, and great broad hips.

As he approached adulthood, the King and Queen worried that he wouldn’t be able to attract a princess of suitable rank and stature unless he was more slender.

He was put on a strict diet, yet no one could deny him anything. Wherever there was food he would sneak a bit of cake, a slice of pie, or scoop a finger of pudding.

As a result he became known far and wide as the Finger Prince.

Ishtar

1st Story: Fallen Snow

There are many different ways a person can leave a mark on our lives.

They may teach us a lesson, give a friendly smile, or acknowledge that you are there.

Each time this happens, they leave a fingerprint. A marking showing that they were once there in your life.

This holiday I have been thinking. Thinking back to those that are still with us, those that have passed. Of Him.

I can still feel their influence. I can see their fingerprints. How they have changed me for the better.

Now I can look upon the new fallen snow and smile.

2nd Story: Trix Factory:

“Why did you do it? I’m not going to play good cop, bad cop. I just want to know why you did that in the factory? In front of those kids.”

“Do you really want to know why? It’s so simple. One more bite and it was all I could think about. The texture and flavor exploding into my mouth. Oh gods. Its better then sex. Hehehehehe. I have to ask how you found me out. Did you find fingerprints, my DNA or fur samples?”

“Silly Rabbit, that’s the reason why they kept it from you. Trix are for kids.”

Munsi!

“Fingerprints have memories, mine can’t forget the curves of your body…” Harvey Danger sang, in one of the best pop songs of the nineties.

That song was everywhere, seemingly overnight, but as quickly as they came they vanished, making way for more traditionally commercial pop-punk bands.

They’re still around, I think, somewhere. Still recording music, but something about the band tied them too much to their time. They wouldn’t make sense to me in my current context.

I got old.

Still, with one perfect song, in one perfect moment, they left fingerprints all over an important part of my youth…

TJ

ADVENTURES in ONLINE DATING: Thanks for the Heads Up
OK, well, I’m not sure I can get behind this. I found out that eMusicalChairs.com has been loading a cookie through my browser to each of the women I’ve dated, and apparently there’s a customer review and COMMENT section which I don’t get access to but anyone who’s been on even one date with me does. I was about to get really ticked off until I saw the clicky for a site feature that allows me to check out reviews and comments on potential dates before going out with them. Sweet! And thanks, guys, for the heads up on Lynda!

This is a work of FICTION! In all reality I do totally heart the beep outta Lynda, miss her voice, her stories and her creativity and were I unattached and she were amenable, would be right proud to escort her wherever she pleased. Respect.

ADVENTURES in ONLINE DATING: Brenda
Motivated by the realization that I could be the next topic on something like “The View” courtesy eMusicalChairs.com, I took greater trouble to behave like a gentleman. But the cards were stacked against me with Brenda. The restaurant was hosting a Greek wedding so we were dodging shards of broken plates. Even the Christmas decorations were throwing her. “Why have an artificial tree?” she demanded. “It’s insane!” To me the fake tree was the least insane thing happening as a plate whizzed by my head – and landed in her soup, soaking her. My surprised laugh cost me a second date.

ADVENTURES in ONLINE DATING: Melanie
In retrospect, I think my friend Jim set this up. It had his fingerprints all over it. Melanie sat across the table from me, her eyes intent on the salad she was nibbling- when they weren’t darting accusingly across at me lest I should attempt to take any. Suddenly she brought her laptop out. Not long thereafter, my phone flashed a message. It was from Melanie. “I love this place,” she said. “It’s so quiet.” I texted back: “It’s certainly not bogged down by face-to-face conversation.” I tried smiling, but she went ghost pale and ran for the door. Oops.

Planet Z

People in the building didn’t like having to use keys and ID cards.

So, we installed fingerprint scanners in each lobby.

They’re the up and down buttons.

And the electronic locks for the stairwells.

We also added cameras and facial-recognition software.

It didn’t take long to connect fingerprints, faces, names, and travel patterns.

Because of this, we stopped seeing visitors as guests, but as intruders.

Anyone we didn’t recognize, we had a security guard watching remotely.

We haven’t had any robberies. Or attacks. Or crimes at all.

Or residents.

Everybody moved out, spooked by the cameras and scanners surrounding them.

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

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

The topic this week was Trees

And we’ve got stories by:

Moonlight Summerwind
Thomas Pitre
Charlie White
SC
Steven the Nuclear Man
Tom
Chris Munroe
Zackmann
Chris the Nuclear Kid
Tura Brezoianu
Abernathy
Norval Joe
Danny
Daniel W.Jeffrey Hite
Planet Z

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

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

---

Moonlight Summerwind

This was their first anniversary of being together. He was busy flirting with the pretty blonde student next to him at the bar – he was flamboyant and women responded. As she huddled over the drink, she remembered the first heady joy, the growing hurts from well-timed barbs, and finally, the slow burial of her spirit. The pity in the bartender’s eyes held a mirror to what she had become. Her eyes filled with angry tears and determination to break free. She dialled a cab and gave the address of her apartment that had been unused for a year now.

“The tree has to go.” said my son apologetically,” It is right in the middle of where we have planned to build the sit-out.” My heart quietly broke. It was a mango tree that had been a tender shoot when I entered this house as a bride. It had grown with the family and held many precious memories. I would miss it – just as I miss my husband now. A small hand coated with wet mud pulled mine, “Grandma, don’t feel sad, I got you a new one.” and my granddaughter proudly showed me the newly planted mango sapling.

Thomas

He was treed by the enormous boar he had teased in the woods behind his uncle’s barn. He threw hard candies at it, while he followed. Irritated, the boar turned and charged, forcing little Bobby into the branches of a dry, spindly elm . Bobby was a city boy, not too bright, and he had no idea what a boar could do to him. The boar got a few of its relatives to hammer at the tree with their thick heads until it was uprooted. All they found the next morning was Bobby’s stupid, wool cap with the ear flaps.

The genealogical tree my great uncle Tom prepared for me showed that most of my relatives that lived on the East coast had Chinese surnames. I had no idea that some of my aunts and uncles and cousins were Chinese. I was teased a lot in school because my mother sometimes packed my lunch in white, cardboard boxes with flimsy, wire handles, and that she often spoke a strange language when talking to her sisters in Waterbury. I wasn’t too bright, as I spent a lot of time with Bobby until he disappeared in the woods behind his uncle’s barn.

Charles White

I’m a sap for tree jokes. I bought some fruit trees just the other
day. The nursery owner told me I made a poplar choice. An old guy
helping him there said it wasn’t but he seems to be an old aspen. The
tree is an evergreen and related to the pine but has no cones –
perhaps yew can tell me what conifer tree it is. My old grove was dead
and to termites, a group of dead trees is an arbor eat’um. When I left
they gave me some insects to help with pollination. They were free
bees.

I woke up. I looked about. Not sure, again, of where I am. It could
not have been bad. I was still in the kitchen. The teapot, the cup;
all still there. I did see a broken window. It was not like me to not
know where I was or what I had been doing. There wasn’t the hair & no
blood this time. Good thing. I had to figure this out. New brand of
tea? What is that stuff? I found the teabag. I found the label. Is
that the name? Time to change brands! It’s called Insana Tea.

SC

She’s up so high, branches blur into one. I want to yell get down, but I am voice meant for whispers. She screams kawkaw. My bird-girl, earth work has no appeal. Seasons only mean different shoes or none at all, like today, sunlight scorching the grass, fading the driveway, tempting me to ask about a pool.

Kawkaw. She swings to a lower branch, bouncing her weight like a tight rope. A sparrow flies by sideways; swoops back, closer to her hands, ten fingers grabbing the air then a branch nearby. Legs dangling, searching for a place to land.

Kawkaw. Kawkaw.

Stephen the Nuclear Man

They came on the quiet night, the still night, the silent night.

After the fat man in red clothes had flown away, they marched down the
streets, the alleys, across the yards, to the houses.

Flashing colored lights lit their bodies, their twisted gnarled limbs
as they creaked and moved. Their footfalls shook milk in glasses left
beside earnest notes. Their fingers screeked across windowpane glass.

Children rose from their beds at the noise, hoping to catch the giver of gifts.

And so they, the little ones, bore first witness to the day the
forests came to avenge their kin.

Tom

I walked passed the local Ray’s. Isn’t it odd how we personalize the places we shop? Well anyway, I’m fumbling with the electronic door lock and this hyper intense aroma hits my nostrils.

“Pine”

What makes this somewhat odd is I live in a pine forest. But its not just pine its Christmas tree pine. Behind eight feet of temporary chain link are over 200 Christmas trees. Collectively they are pumping out the heroin of the holidays. The sense of smell in a seductive mistress where sight gets tangled in logic loops, smell, glides right under the radar.

Merry Christmass

Mr Laurence

Munsi!

There’s something in the trees.

Technically there are lots of things in the trees.

There are leaves, and birds, and squirrels in the trees, just as an example. And sometimes cats get stuck up there too.

When they do, there are firemen in the trees. They go to rescue the cats.

Children climb trees, and then they’re in the trees. Sometimes pretending they’re firemen, sometimes not.

But none of that matters right now.

What I’m specifically referring to in this particular instance is a sniper. There’s a sniper in the trees.

So for the love of God, get behind something!

Zackmann

The Christmas tree is reminding me of the cedars of Lebanon. Lebanon Oregon where my grandparents moved after they retired. Grandma told me her neighbor wanted her to hire him for Topping her trees so she could pay him to cut the tops thinking she would not know that he would sell the tops as Christmas trees. Now I wish I had not told my son the last advice from my grandfather. The last time I saw him, right after my engagement ended, he told me “Next time get her in the family way and she will spend the winter.”

Chris the Nuclear Kid

I was seven years old and I had been really excited that morning cause
it was Christmas day. I had snuck downstairs to my stocking with
Christmas trees on it. In it were some chocolate coins, two candy canes,
and some other candies. I then went to the Christmas tree and crawled
under it looking for my presents. I had found lots but, I was in the
corner behind the tree. I started to crawl out from under the tree then
my sweater that I as wearing got caught on a branch of the tree so I
shouted for help.

Tura

People talk about giant redwoods big enough to drive a tunnel through,
and bristlecones thousands of years old, but that’s nothing. I found
this tree, never you mind where, but it’s fifty miles round if it’s an
inch. I climbed way, way up and it didn’t stop, it must be hundreds
of miles high, and as old as the hills. The branches stretched past
the horizon — you could imagine it’s holding up the sky!

Now, I reckon that’ll be worth millions, if I can get the lumber
machinery out there before the treehuggers get wind of it.

Egg-drizzle? What’s that?

Abernathy

In the beginning there was a tree. A trunk and two branches. One big and one small. Then another limb appeared. Where birds would come to make their nest. One day there was four, balancing the tree right down to its core. Ever so often a branch would appear. The trunk stayed strong… all of those years. It was sad when a limb would break. The trunk and the other limbs would feel what felt like heartache. We all have roots one way or another be it your mother, your sister, or even your brother.

Norval Joe

The ancient oaks stretched and intertwined their gnarled branches over the narrow, winding street. They watched as the boy walked beneath and they spoke to him.
“We see you,” the trees said though the boy passed beneath their straining arms, unhearing and unaware. Unaware of the trees and their voices and unaware of the evil which lurked and waited across the narrow, winding, and lonely street.
He froze at the sight of the massive but shabbily furred dog crossing the old wooden bridge just yards away. He barely breathed as it passed and padded silently up a small gravel lane.

Danny

Recently I was invited to my friend Anthony’s house for a what I and other guests thought was a Christmas party. When I walked into his living room, I was shocked to see that on a sign that took up most of his Christmas Tree, blazed in bright gold letters, was a sign that said, “I will stop saying the word “Fuck” ad nauseum when the word fuck stops evoking such a hillarious emotional response.” I quickly turned to Anthony, and curtly stated, “Hey, you do understand how inappropriate such a message is for Christmas?” Anthony responded, “Wait, what? It’s Christmas?”

Daniel

Jones moved his flamethrower from left to right and back again. The vegetation around him died in gouts of fire. “You’re telling me that trees used to be nearly extinct?”

Smith chuckled. “Just last century, humanity worried there wouldn’t be any trees left. We genetically modified the vegetation to be tougher, more survivable. Then some idiot got the bright idea to do the same to kudzu.”

“Man, I wish they’d just let the trees die! It‘d be better than this!” As the two retreated back into the bunker, the vines were already growing past where the flames had killed them moments before…

Jeffrey Hite

I want to cut down the tree in the corner of my property, the guy next door says because the roots run into his yard he owns part of it and I can’t.

Of course I want to cut it down is because he is one of those tree hugging fools. Last year I hung a hammock from the tree and he flipped out. Kept cutting it down saying I was killing the tree. He even cut it down once while I was in it. Tonight I’ll cut it down and have it land on his house. Stupid tree hugger!

Planet Z

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas, but the machines have made a few mistakes here and there to make it obvious that it’s all just a ruse to keep our minds occupied while they use our bodies as power sources in gigantic energy farms.

Santa’s wearing white with red trim, the Christmas trees are covered with honey glazed ham, and all these fucking red-nosed reindeer everywhere.

As for the men in black suits with earpieces and sunglasses at every streetcorner, well, that’s actually what America was like before the machines got smart and conquered us.

Stupid Patriot Act!

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

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

The topic this week was Cookie

And we’ve got stories by:

Tura Brezoianu
Thomas Pitre
Charlie White
Chris Munroe
Jeffrey Hite
Zackmann
Tom
Steven the Nuclear Man
Chris the Nuclear Kid
Danny
Norval Joe
Planet Z

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

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

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Tura

So I go online to order a Chinese, and there’s my own name already on
the web page, and, “How about your favorite Hot Singapore Noodles
tonight?” WTF? I fire an email saying “don’t you tell me what I want,
*I* tell *you*”. Dammit, the Singapore Noodles *are* my favorite but
I’m not giving them the satisfaction.

It’s the cookies. Can’t deal with anyone online without them sticking
cookies all over you, it’s the mark of Revelations without which no
man might buy nor sell, save that he accepted the cookie.

When does Revelations say the Cookie Monster shows up?

Thomas

She was a tough cookie. She had her hand on my thigh and an eye on my bank account. She did special favors for me, and would leave a plate of brownies or pie at my door, two times a week. She wanted to fatten me up, figuring my heart would explode and I would leave her a bundle in my will. She watched my weight and my health more than I did. She encouraged me to spend time reading and watching videos, figuring the sedentary lifestyle would aid my early demise. My will left everything to the Humane Society.

She only had one cookie, but it was enough for all of us. We all took turns taking a bite of her cookie. She only came through town on weekends, and we got in line, early on Saturday, knowing she’d be here a little after supper time. We had to eat supper at the café before we were allowed a bite of dessert. Her bodyguards were positioned close by to oversee the presentation. Each of us, in turn approached her, our hands behind our backs, as touching was not allowed, to take a polite and deliberate nibble of her cookie.

Charlie

That cookie looked good. I came in from a run hungry. It was just
sitting there. I knew it wasn’t mine, but I wanted it.

I pulled some stuff off of the table and let it fall to the floor.
Now, the dog should get blamed. I went over to her and scratched her
under her ears. I smiled at her.

I went back to the cookie. Still looked good, very tempting and the
stage was set. I reached for it when I heard the front door open.

“A dog almost got your cookie,” I yelled.

Munsi!

I brought cookies, though I know you’re about as likely to accept them as you are to accept my apology.

If I were in your position, I wouldn’t forgive me, so I suppose I can’t expect any different of you.

Why would you forgive me? You don’t owe me anything.

Plus, I’m a god-awful baker, I’m not sure the cookies are even edible.

But I had to do something. After what I did, I figure I owe you at least a gesture. Hence: The cookies.

I’ll leave them here, by the door. You can fetch them once I’m long gone…

Jeffrey

Dr. Wiley had spent this entire career getting to this point. He’d never felt so alive, well not since he had been a kid. When he was a kid, life had always been great. Every day filled with joy and happiness. That was until Clyde had moved to town, junior year. Clyde had taken everything, his girl his spot on the football team, his spot as valedictorian, everything. The last straw had been, well that didn’t matter. He set the time machine and got in.
He reached out to the startled boy in front of him.
“That is my cookie.”

Zackmann

Me, Cookie. Me, no original cookie that was on Television. Me big Cookie from toy store. One day Me see really big guy. He buy me and take me to his house. Guy called Big C. Big C does something called BearCrawling podcast http://bearcrawlingnation.com/ were he talks to people on Stickam. It have chat room. Big C read chat room and say “Really! Really? Dammit Zackmann, I am not a plushophile.“ then Big C pat me on head and say “Don’t worry Cookie, I don’t love you that way. I hate Yarn Burn.” Me sleep with eyes open.

Hugh was reading about solar power and saw an article about a way to warm hot dogs then thought if he make it bigger, he could make a house out of cookie dough and find a use for Costco sized quantities of baking goods. The neighborhood kids ate Hugh’s cookie house and autumn rains destroyed what they did not. Hugh remembered a news story a woman who made a house out of gingerbread and she got so mad that children kept eating her house that she started a rumor that she ate children to keep them away from her house.

Tom

Cookie Laroo was an exotic dance at

San José’s legendary Pink Poodle.

She did this thing with a stack of quarters

That would blow your mind

Ed Frovishor came in ever Sunday afternoon

After Sunday-school class to watch

Cookies do that cookie thing. He said he

Could feel the presence of god. His wife

Gladys was happy to get him out of the

House until the Pastor dropped by for

Sunday night dinner. Tuna casserole is

Some serious business in the Frovisher household

The pastor was never late cuss Ed and he

Would leave the Poodle together.

Praise the Lord.

Chris the Nuclear Kid

What did we do to deserve such cruelty? They burn us till we cannot
move. Being forced to wait for our doom. And they put us in round
upside-down domes where we sit there, unmoving, waiting for their
return, dreading what is to come. It happens all the time, and now, it
is my turn.

I sit in the dome thing and wait. There is a tall green triangle in
the corner with smaller square objects under it. Then, to my horror, I
see the gigantic red and white demon. A ravenous monster, a legend
among my kind.

“Santa Claus!”

Steven the Nuclear Man

”You’re ten,” Mom says. “Old enough to make the cookies for Santa.”

I look up and stop cleaning my hamster’s cage. “Am I old enough to get
an XStationCube4?”

Mom winces. “I’m sorry, honey. I think Santa ran out.”

My dad yells from the living room. “Dammit, Brenda, get me another beer.”

Mom winces again, and gets him another can. Our recycling bin is almost full.

She leaves me with the ingredients.

Later, I leave the cookies for Santa.

Mom smiles. “What kind did you make?”

“Chocolate chip,” I say, and head to bed with my hamster’s very clean cage.

Danny

Cookie was another high priced prostitute who lived in the shadow of the Nabisco factory, just off of route 208 in Fairlawn, New Jersey. Cookie was best friends with “Bubbles,” who was now somewhere in Holland with her boyfriend on some insane search for the Hollish. Cookie liked living up to her name, she ate cookies all the time, during work, during sex, plus during sex while at work. Cookies favorite morning was Tuesdays, when the Nabisco factory was making Nilla Wafers, so at least once a week, Cookie’s neighborhood no longer smelled like an oil refinery, it smelled like heaven.

Norval Joe

Kesso Fromage of the cheeze police was called to a crime scene in the wee hours one sunday morning. She tip-toed through the wrecked bakery and struggled to keep her previous evenings dinner down.

Cookies of all description and size were scattered indiscriminately across counters, work tables and the floor. Written on each, in cursive script, formed from softened American processed cheese, was the capitol letter ‘S’.

“Cheese belongs on crackers,” Kesso said and wiped the perspiration from her forehead. “This flagrant violation of the cheddar cheese protocol can only be the work of Sleezy Wheezer, the Easy Cheeze squeezer.”

Planet Z

I warned Billy not to eat cookies before dinner, but I caught him with his hand in the cookie jar again.

So, the cookies are in a lockbox on a high shelf in a locked pantry.

“Have a piece of fruit,” I tell him.

But he’s obsessed with getting a cookie.

“Make a healthy cookie from fruit,” whispered the muse, and I rushed to the kitchen to make a batch of fruit cookies.

I guarded them as they cooled, then put them in the old cookie jar.

Billy took one, bit into it, and vomited.

He’s back on heroin now.

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

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

The topic this week was PICK TWO!

And we’ve got stories by:

Thomas Pitre
Tura Brezoianu
Tom
Chris Munroe
TJ
Zackmann
Steven the Nuclear Man
Chris the Nuclear Kid
Abernathy
Norval Joe
Danny
Planet Z

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

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Thomas

Theodore Eggabrotten and I went shopping for a nose. Theodore’s was almost gone. Excessive drinking and years of picking kiwis in the hot sun had taken its toll. The mall was open, and as we nosed around, we eventually found our way to the spare body parts store. We asked if there were any noses. The woman looked around and found the last one in a dark, mildewed corner under the counter. She dusted it off and burnished the tip on her apron. It was discolored, so it was marked down. He attached it with Velcro and some MJackson Adhesive.

Timmy’s dead, or was near death, as his body temperature dropped to 45 degrees. Tina had brought the spider with her, and urged the hungry, sepia-colored sac to crawl up Timmy’s nose as they toured the flea market. She almost got her Christmas wish, as Timmy’s life was now on the highway to the dangerzone because of Tina’s vehement compulsion to see him suffer–as she did, during their short, intense, but cruel relationship. The African Cheircanthium spider was stolen from the glass container at the college, and Tina knew the bug’s potential for resolving her “little problem” with Timmy.

Tura

On a Sunday it is pleasant to wander the Flohmarkt, especially among
the Christmas lights. I picked up a faded daguerrotype. It was of
the old Meyerplatz, from before the War. A bright spring morning,
draymen loading their horse-drawn carts, and in the middle, a young
man striding assuredly across the square, a bundle under his arm.

“What do you wish, sir?” asked the stallholder.

The carts rattled and jingled; one of the new trams slowly drew into
the square. And in the fresh cold air, I strode briskly on to my
bachelor lodgings, with bread fresh from the baker’s.

Tom

Jake Conroy had completed his doctorial paper but needed to test his final set of equations. So he walked up to the first people he saw on the corner of 4th and Drucker said “jack conroy sends this forward” and slapped the person on the cheek. Five years later Dr Conroy’s book 45 Degrees of Separation became required reading at Stanford’s Advance Mathematic Institute. Much to his surprise one day he opened his door and saw Mother Theresa standing there sporting a major black eye. “From his holiness to your nose” she said and layed out a brutal right cross

Chris

I made a Christmas wish, for peace on earth.

And there was peace.

So the next day I made another wish, for good will to all.

This too was granted. That’s when my problems began.

I wished every day after that. I couldn’t stop, helpless against the power of my wishes.

The least among us? Cared for.

Equality among all? Achieved.

The world became paradise, but I was in hell, trapped in endless wishing.

Finally, the next Christmas, I wished myself freedom from wishing, and for the previous year to’ve never happened.

So yeah. Sorry, world. Couldn’t handle the compulsion.

TJ

After a few jarring mishaps I’d had what seemed like a run of good luck with Sandra. She was funny and charming and our dates had gone so well I’d almost changed my mind about eMusicalChairs.com. It wasn’t until our third date I noticed how deliberate her exits were. Our fourth date she cut off so sharply I felt compelled to follow her home. Once there I saw through the window… Sandra dressed as a swan, with a beak for a nose. She answered the door. “There were… leftovers,” I said, hesitantly. “Thanks!” she said. “Put ’em on my bill!”

Zackmann

Did you see the Hunger Games last night, set in the Flea Market?
“Highway to the Danger Zone” is their theme song. Timmy should not have sliced Sophias face and taunted “I got your nose” She grabbed a lawn dart and now Timmy is dead. Too bad for Sophia with her compulsion to enter that Sepia colored Lexus. Lexus was likely on her Christmas list. It was 45 degrees. She was likely hoping for a heater not an explosion. I was so against blood sports on television until the reality show writers and producers were forced to became the contestants.

Steven the Nuclear Man

Roger left his office building, gingerly holding the box of leftovers.
His co-workers had left him passed out after the office party,
Post-It labels of “Scrooge” and “Humbug” on his forehead.

That didn’t matter. The ghosts had come. All three, just like
Dickens, though they’d talked about CDOs, short-selling and
unemployment. It wasn’t just numbers anymore – he’d seen the effect
of his trading.

The protesters were still there, despite the cold and snow.

“If you’re hungry, I’ve got food,” he said to the demonstrator laying
on a bench, clutching a crutch.

But he lay unmoving in the December cold.

Chris the Nuclear Kid

> I walk quickly, carefully, cautiously, fearfully. My hunger nagging me as I find a store with food. I stop suddenly and listen. I here groans and gunshots. Just as I turn to leave I here a high pitch scream catches my attention and I go inside.
>
> “Timmy, Sara?!” I exclaimed surprised to find my old friends. I ran to their side, zombies were everywhere.
>
> Timmy’s pouch of bullets fell forwards and he dove after them, right into a zombie that attacked him. The smell of blood attracting the other zombies. Moments later we saw Timmy’s body… and we run.

Abernathy and Sachy

Nora walked through the sea of snow boots and side pony-tails stuck at a Napoleon Dynamite themed party. Gulping down her Liger Martini and listing to Jamiroquai’s “Canned Heat”, she eyes the only other person not dressed like Pedro or a llama and sits down beside him. He turns towards her. “This is the coolest idea, huh? I mean, what could be more fun than a Napoleon Dynamite themed party?!” Finishing off her drink she says coldly. “Anything.” Putting her empty glass down, grabs her cell and sends a text to a friend. “Where the fuck are you?”

Norval Joe

“Why do you love me, William?” she asked.
“‘Do you love me?’ is the question you should be asking me,” he thought as he gazed into her vacant eyes. ” or maybe, ‘Why do you put up with me?'”
This wasn’t the first time she’d asked him that question. In fact, she had asked it every time they’d gone out these last two months.
He had the compulsion to tell her it was the size of her bust or the size of her father’s estate. Would she even get it?
“It’s your nose, Vickie,” he said. “I love your nose.”

Zackmann

Did you see the Hunger Games last night, set in the Flea Market?
“Highway to the Danger Zone” is their theme song. Timmy should not have sliced Sophias face and taunted “I got your nose” She grabbed a lawn dart and now Timmy is dead. Too bad for Sophia with her compulsion to enter that Sepia colored Lexus. Lexus was likely on her Christmas list. It was 45 degrees. She was likely hoping for a heater not an explosion. I was so against blood sports on television until the reality show writers and producers were forced to became the contestants.

Danny Dwyer

Oh my god, you killed Kenny! No, actually I killed Timmy, the lovable South Park character in a wheelchair that least deserved to die. I was fulfilling a Christmas wish to a boy dying from cancer in Jersey City, New Jersey, his name was Jimmy. He was an aspiring handicapped comedian, also on South Park before the cancer. He was supposed to go to Cesar Sinai hospital in NYC, but he didn’t have the health insurance to cover the expense. Instead, Jimmy was sent to a second rate hospital in Jersey City. My Christmas wish? Make health insurance a right.

Planet Z

I admit that whenever I have the need to measure or make a 45 degree angle, the first thing I think to do is ask to borrow your nose.

Sure, a protractor or an angle-guide is a lot more convenient, but your nose is much more convenient, and it’s not like you’d ever forget to bring it with you.

You know, like the tape measure. Or the epipien.

Of course, one must take precautions when making angles with a nose.

Now, I mark the wood with a pencil using your nose as a guide.

(Sorry about the circular saw slipping.)

NOTE: There were reports of a bad upload and the MP3 file getting cut off, so is is a repost of the Weekly Challenge #291 – Drums. Let me know in the comments if it worked for y’all.

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

This is Weekly Challenge Number Two Hundred and Ninety, 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 What is the first thing you see out your window?

And we’ve got stories by:

Jami Titanium
Thomas Pitre
Taralyn Gravois
Tom
Chris Munroe
Tura Brezoianu
Zackmann
Abernathy
Danny
TJ
Norval Joe
Planet Z

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

---

Jami

Meri turned her head as the drums beat out the staccato rhythm of her death. She knew the bruises against her pale-skinned face were frightening on her small figure.

Drew was where he said he would be and she looked at him, unblinking. He smiled back though she knew it hurt him to do so. She watched his face through the framework of the guillotine as the drums beat and it was a comfort.

She wondered, suddenly, frantically if her blog would die with her, then dismissed the idea. IT was an idea… and ideas don’t die. Only people do.

Thomas

I was warned I would be drummed out of the club due to my behavior and outbursts during meetings. My father, and his father before him were both drummed out of the Mafia for their excess cruelty. You can imagine the embarrassment our large family suffered.

The final straw was the morning I stormed out of the prayer group, red-faced and streaming a barrage of obscenities at the officers, capping it off with a bold dropping of the pants and exposing my white and plump backside. Ladies fainted and a few leaped for their cell phones to call the police.

—–

As a boy, I used to swim in irrigation ditches. The result was an ear infection that necessitated the lancing of my ear drum when I was in grade school. They said it was fluid in my middle ear. Since the procedure, I walk with a little hop, skip and slide due to the cacophony of rhythms playing inside my left ear. Folks wonder why I do this little “dance”, and often at such un-opportune moments—such as the funeral of friend, Chuck. His family made quite a fuss over my impromptu dance steps, but it could not be helped.

Taralyn

I remember a time gone by, when I was 10 years old and my family took me to Friendlys. It was a great place that had awesome ice cream and chocolate malts.
I was sitting across the table from my brother who thought it would be funny to shoot his straw wrapper into my hair, which flew over the back of the booth.
Then I heard someone behind me drumming on the table. I looked over the back of the booth just in time to get the wrapper shot back in my face, and hear his Dad yell SIMON, no.

Chris Munro- MUNSI MUNSI!

For his ninth birthday, I bought him a drum kit.

When he opened the box his face lit up. I knew I’d chosen correctly.

As I set it up for him, I explained how much practice it’d take to learn to play really well.

He assured me he was willing to put in the effort.

When my coworkers heard I’d bought such a gift for a child, they thought I was insane. They said I’d never sleep again!

I wasn’t concerned.

He wasn’t my child, after all. He was yours.

So, tell me: Was stealing my parking space worth it?

Tura

Gad, the heat! And the drums, always the drums. The Colonel stood
stiffly on the verandah, in full black leathers and a pink tutu,
because dammit, one had to keep up standards. He rang to summon tea,
then remembered that the native servants had all left weeks before,
when the rains had not come. He looked toward the inert computer in
the corner, its power supply burnt out. Was the network still running
out there, were the others still hanging on? The natives would know.
They always knew. If only he knew what the drums were saying, the
talking drums.

Zackmann

The drums beat softly as we mourn a formerly unknown loss to the world. Although he was secretly buried a decade ago, today we have his reveal. I remember my grandfather participating in The Weekly Challenge. The host vowed to write a hundred word story everyday for the rest of his life but often he did not stopping at one. He loved his cat so much that Nardo was turned into a cybor robot as he aged. Cybor Robot Nardo carried on reading as Lawrence N Simon until yesterday when the drabbles ran dry. Rest in
peace Mister Crap Mariner

Abernathy

Now that Nora was eighteen, it was time to move out on her own. She sat in-front of the wooden trunk under the window of her bedroom. She opened it up, revealing many of her childhood treasures. On top was her beloved tin drummer, she turned him around and wound his key before placing him on the window sill. His little metal arms tapped the drum repeatedly. She smiled and started going through the rest. Each time the toy stopped, she re-wound him. So lost in her childhood memories. Nora never noticed the asteroid that plummeted to earth…destroying everything.

Danny

The army sergeant stared Daryl straight in his beady little eyes and screamed, “I’M GOING TO DRUM YOU RIGHT OUT OF THE ARMY CORPS!” Yes, Daryl deserved to be drummed out of the army, but not for this. It was that fateful night he and his girlfriend Jenny decided to play chicken with oncoming traffic. Daryl pushed Jenny into harms way. Daryl was eventually charged with involuntary manslaughter. Given the option of 15 years prison, or a stint in the army, Daryl chose the army. Yelled at by a sergeant today, a corpse in Afghanistan tomorrow. And the drums beat on.

TJ

So my daughter plays the drums and that’s really why I’m here I mean
I don’t know why I’m here really do any of us really know why
we’re here it’s a completely weird question isn’t it I mean the
question of why we’re here it’s so strange to even think about it I
mean we are, aren’t we? Here, I mean, so we should just enjoy it! But
she’s practicing right now and if mommy doesn’t get out of the house
for a few hours a week on a nice quiet date she’s gonna STRANGLE
someone how’s your wine?

Norval Joe

If he’d realized what a difference it would have made with meeting girls, he would have learned to play the drums.
Of course the first one the girls go after is the lead singer, but he couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket. The next guy the girls like to chase is the bass player. All he has to do is play four stings and smile.
The band played Stairway to Heaven, and Milo knew there would be no girls clamouring for him at the end of his solo as he picked up his accordian and stepped onto the stage.

Planet Z

The original Thompson machine gun game with a stick magazine that could feed twenty rounds, but it didn’t take long for Oscar Payne to come up with larger sticks and drums for it that could feed up to a hundred.

Why so many rounds?

Because movies were getting longer and longer, and so were car chases. So if you were a gangster hanging off of a sideboard, you needed a lot of ammo to reduce the time spent on reloading.

As film drums got bigger, so did the ammo drums.

Until Hollywood figured out they killed less actors with blanks.