Welcome to the Weekly Challenge Number One Hundred And Sixty-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… was…. um…
It’s That’s not thunder, it’s….
The excellent theme music is by Guy David
VOTING
Go ahead and listen to them and then vote for your favorites (multiple selections are allowed):
Jeffrey
“I can’t there is just too much noise here, and if it does not stop, ill”
“You’ll what? Come on Jack, get me out,” said the harp “it is just thunder, which is a by product of the electrical discharge between the ground and the clouds you see. The electrical potential of one gets high while the other stays the same, then there is a discharge to even things out. The discharge is so hot it burns up the air and thunder is the sound of air rushing in to fill up the vacuum.”
“But that is not thunder it’s.”
Toni
The city commissioners of Valparaiso met with attorneys today in an executive session closed to the public that for once did not violate Florida’s Sunshine Law. Val-P resident Fred sat next to FWB resident Bob at a bar discussing Valparaiso’s Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the Air Force regarding the BRAC decision to base F-35’s out of Eglin AFB, and the countersuit against Valparaiso by the city of Fort Walton Beach.
“That wasn’t thunder, was it?” Bob asked.
“No, that was just the Explosive Ordnance Disposal unit detonating a bomb. If it had been the F-35 Lightening II Joint Strike Fighter, Val-P wouldn’t have commissioners or lawyers anymore.” Fred replied.
Dale
That wasn’t thunder.
That was a barrel rumbling rough down a concrete ramp.
That was the surf, two blocks over.
It was march music playing on an old stereo,
the window half-open to the evening air.
It was an explosion, big and slow, off in the anonymous distance.
But it wasn’t thunder.
Thunder would mean rain,
and rain would drive them separately inside, out of the
big dim world, out of the lot beside the basketball court.
And that would mean another day gone, another week nearly gone,
the whole summer, impossibly, nearly gone.
And he still hasn’t kissed her.
Anima
“Bidoc Jackley, you’ve outdone yourself with this roast tapuc. This whole campsite really…. I was dreading trekking with you, you’re normally quite hopeless at roughing it.”
“Thankye, thankye, Dregrin; I’ve decided to improve myself. I’ve been reading this book – It’s called a Boy Scout Manual… I wonder what a boy scout is… I bought it from that crazy wizard Saruman of Isengard. I also picked up cheap this multicolored robe, for Midsummer’s Feast.”
“Aren’t you the Kali hobbit– you’d wear that frilly thing?”
“Did you hear that? I think it’s going to rain…”
“That’s not thunder~ THAT’S A DRAGON!”
Norval Joe
Keith sat behind his mother as she drove the family to the next town.
The rest of the family slept.
Keith said, “Mom. I want to leave the group. I know were a family, but I need to explore what I can do on my own.”
Shirley sighed, “I know Lori has become schizophrenic and Danny is using Meth, but these are all things we can work out.
The was a rumble from the back of the Partridge families patchwork bus.
“Was that thunder?” Shirley asked.
“No, I’m sure it was just Chris again,” Keith said and opened a window.
Lewis
A large rumbling sounded in the corner of the room
Jenny poked her head up and looked around
“What was that?” she asked
Her father turned to her. “It was thunder!”
“That wasn’t thunder;” her mom said from the other room.
She came into the room and gave Jenny’s dad a bad look.
“It was your father farting!”
Jenny went back to drawing with crayons under the end table
Later that night, Jenny’s parents found the paper and put it on the fridge.
Drawn on the paper was Jenny, her mother, and a scribbled brown cloud
of gas named Dad.
Guy David
That wasn’t thunder, that was Thor’s hummer coming down on the bus. The bus, being a patchwork bus just fell apart. “Oh well, last station” said Elvis. The passengers got off what was left of the bus and looked around them, bewildered. Hacker picked his computer and got ready to go. The tin man, being at last free after being embedded in the bus swung his ax and neatly separated each passenger into two parts. “Guess I can finish my coffee now” Said Goergy Ghost. As he drank, the coffee poured through his missing half and stained the concrete floor.
TJ
A thunderstorm had been in the forecast all week. The dusty town of Rugby, North Dakota, had almost stopped daring to hope. Two months into a drought, Jim’s garden was suffering, his grass was yellowed and crunched underfoot. Sure enough, Friday’s sky changed, lowering clouds scudding ahead of the stormfront.
In bed that night, Jim reveled in rain against his window, lightning flash and a satisfying crash. At daybreak, however, he saw twisted wreckage of a nearby grain elevator explosion, a pile of grain outside his house. The storm had moved to the south. They’d only caught destructive, galeforce winds.
Justin
The moon barely lit the misty landscape as Marcus drove. *
These country roads wind too much!*
He cranked the wheel to avoid, what, a giant dog? He hit his head when he
ran into the ditch. Groggy, he climbed from the car to see a miniature pony
near a broken fence. Dogs barked, a farmhouse loomed silently. Moans drifted
from the fields. Marcus saw Hungry Dead rising up. He scrambled into the car
and spun wheels uselessly. A zombie bit the pony. It kicked, shattering the
drivers window. The dead cut themselves on shards of glass as they climbed
in.
—
Marcus fumbled with the passenger handle and fell out despite zombies
grabbing at his legs. He ran into the fields. A flash of light lit the sky
and a second later the night boomed. He thought it thunder, but a glance
behind proved him wrong. Plumes of smoke rose from his smoldering car. Half
of a bumper landed beside him as his speed slowed. A few zombies shambled to
their feet near the wreckage. Traces of light punched through them and they
fell into several bleeding chunks. Metal glinted in moonlight as a towering
destroyer bot emerged from the mist.
Lynda
My father loved to tell me bullshit stories during thunderstorms.
His favorite involved dinosaurs stampeding out of a crack in the earth. I guess it was one he’d been told. He was struck by lightning three times.
Years later my uncle explained that the rumble I was freaking out over was from static electricity in the clouds. I calmed down, enjoyed the rest of the barbecue, and fell in love with science.
I told this story to the Dr. Wu when the power went out, and he laughed.
He said, “That wasn’t thunder, that was the dinosaur we cloned, escaping.”
Danny Machal
Little Jacob took cover under his Blankey to hide from the scary noise.
“Dad?” he squeaked out.
Nothing.
A massive boom and crackle forced him to put his hands over his little ears.
‘Just a bad dream. Mom says they can hurt me,’ he thought.
His eyes began to burn and water. Was something on fire?
He left Blankey’s protection and crawled on his knees to see if the
door was hot.
He dropped to the floor at the sound again and wept.
Jacob heard Mommy’s muffled voice, “Go sleep downstairs, that is
disgusting. No more chili night.”
Planet Z
That’s not thunder, it’s just the ambassador smashing his tentacles against the ship’s hull.
I wish he’d use the intercom, but his species isn’t known for tact or sleeping soundly.
I hope the reinforcement patches hold. The hull breach alarm is really loud.
It’ll be the third ambassador we’ve lost this year.
He really should be transported in a water tanker, but he insisted on our cruiser as befitting his rank.
Just like the last two.
We can’t sleep-freeze the squid, so the best we can do is seal things up and…
Red light. Alarm.
This time, you call Earth.