The 100 Word Stories Podcast

Welcome to the Weekly Challenge Number One Hundred And Fifty, 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 Just let me touch it….
The excellent theme music is by Guy David
VOTING

Which were the best stories from Weekly Challenge #150?
	Tom from http://midi.libsyn.com/
	Anima from http://zabbadabba.com
	Guy David from http://guydavid.com
	Ashley
	Jeffrey from http://greathites.blogspot.com
	Almo
	Michael
	Lynda from http://sisterpepperspray.blogspot.com
	Norval from http://www.norvalsoutlook.blogspot.com
	Justin from http://www.thespaceturtle.com/
	Sougent from http://sladventures.sougent.com/
	Planet Z
Free polls from Pollhost.com

Go ahead and listen to them and then vote for your favorites (multiple selections are allowed):

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Tom
Swahili -English Dictionary

The light chocolate horizon was broken by a rather tall Acacia. The sun rose brightly over the savanna, over the Acacias. It was here Ymoja Nzambi stood gazing at the bloody work of her brother Ogun. He dropped the impala with a single blow. A hunter at last he thought. “Tu utakodi mimi shika swala!” implored Ymoja. Ogun ignore her until he heard her draw her knife. “Shaka” whispered Ymoja. “Nya” cursed Ogun” Tomba …. Vikuto.” enda mbio enda bullet ama pigano?” inquired Ymoja. “Panda mti.” And up the Acacia they scrabbled. They watched sadly as Vikuto consumed the Swala.

Anima

You know how they say you should trust your inner voice? What do you do when it mutters foreign gibberish?
¡Ai caramba! Dejame tocarlo…
I ransack my brain for the dregs of my college Spanish to figure out what I am saying.
Just let me touch it…
Worse, we start to argue…
No, that’s not a good idea…
¡Por qué no?! ¡Eres tan miedoso! Scardeypants!
That did it. I reach out my hand… touching the bushy caterpillar of Frida Kahlo’s eyebrow. Immediately it transforms into a vivid blue butterfly and flutters away.
Damn, that’s good Mescal. Self, pour another round!

Guy David

“But… can you do it?” I asked, eyeing his suspiciously. I never liked those federal types. I always suspected them of being oblivious of the consequences. “Nothing to it” said the man in the black overcoat. I checked my watch. It was nearly time now. “Just let me touch it one last time” I asked. “Sure” he said, “Just don’t break it.” The Pterospondylus egg lay before me. I touched it gently, then they took it and rolled it into the incubator. As I watched the egg in the incubator, I envisioned a future where flying dinosaurs grace our skies.

Ashley

The car swerved violently to miss the animal. No such luck. Both mother and daughter went to have a look.
“Mommy is it dead? Can I touch it pleeeaaasssseee,” begged the little girl?
“No. Just look at that thing, all grey and scaly. We don’t know where it’s been.”
Suddenly a bright beam knocked them both unconscious. A large and small alien exited a spaceship hissing back and forth.
Translation:
“May I examine with tactile function? Or procure one,” queried the small alien?
“Negative. Return to the vessel. They will recover shortly. I must decontaminate your sibling prior to retrieval.”

Jeff

“Alright I need a full report, what happened here.”
“Well sir, I am not quite sure, but the basics.”
“Just tell me what happened private, the world is in ruins and it started in this room.”
“Well sir, there was this little kid.”
“A little kid?”
“Yeah she was running around and asking about everything.”
“A little kid? Here?”
“Bring your child to work day. Well she just kept saying she just wanted to touch the button. We didn’t think it would do anything since you have to push both.”
“Didn’t you read the memo about the safeties being removed?”

Almo

God gave Adam and Eve the guided tour of the Garden of Eden. “Look,” God said, “the ground rules are simple. Eat anything you want, all you want without guilt, except for the stuff on this tree.”
God pointed at the Tree of Knowledge. Adam and Eve’s eyes got big.
“Hey, listen up,” God said, raising his voice. “Even the chimps can follow this rule.”
“Just let me touch it,” Adam said, and he began to move his finger closer and closer to the forbidden fruit.
“Adam, don’t be a putz,” God said, and smacked Adam’s hand away. He saw this would not be good.

Michael

“If you just let me touch it and hold it I know I can make it smaller and it won’t be hard any more.”
She acts like she knows everything.
She pulls this little prank every time there’s a crowd.
To hell with her – I’ll go along one more time.
I reach down into my cup and grab the biggest one I can find.
But I ask you, what’s so damned magical about holding an ice cube until it melts?

Lynda

“Just let me touch it,” you said.
“It’s so cute,” you said.
“I’ll be really careful,” you said.
Back in my day, bombs had fierce shit painted on them. Tigers, sharks, naked broads, things with teeth! We could insult the bastards we were gonna kill, none of this cutesy pastel non-threatening shit like big-eyed bunnies and daisies. “Have a nice afterlife!”
Can’t have menacing looking instruments of doom these days.
A bomb’s a bomb, Jenkins. Triggers and wires and death. Totally non-huggable.
I hope you’re happy.
Oh that’s right, you’re fried to a crisp.
Where the hell is my leg?

Norval

Approaching the shop, he knew that the object was inside. Its power drew him, and he knew, once inside, his time was limited. He greeted the shopkeeper behind the workbench.
“You have a device; small, green, with runic script across it?”
Surprised, he answered “Yes” and produced it from a cabinet.
“May I hold it?” he asked.
“It’s been in my family for centuries,” the shopkeeper replied, hesitating.
“Just let me touch it,” He nearly screamed in desperation.
Stepping back, the shopkeeper cowered.
He knew that he had lost his one chance as he felt his body becoming less substantial

Justin

“Please, can I touch it, just once?”
Timmy’s father shook his head gravely.
“It must’nt ever be opened. To avoid temptation, you mustn’t touch it.”
Timmy kept staring.
“Pay it no mind. We must guard it, but we needn’t stare at it.”
His father slept. Timmy stared at it, then touched it.
Open me!
The voice was so beautiful he couldn’t resist it. He flipped the lid off of the Pandoraingles cylinder. A hollow echo sounded as potato crisps of burdensome labor, ill, and disease escaped.
His father awoke.
“What have you done! Once you pop, the evil don’t stop!”

Sougent

Can I touch it? Huh? Can I, can I? Huh? Can I?
Please let me touch it, I wanna touch it. Can I, can I? Please?
You never let me touch it, I wanna touch it. Can I touch it?
Pleeeese let me touch it.
I just wanna touch it once, please, please, please, can I touch it?
I don’t like you, you’re mean, you never let me touch it. All I
wanna do is touch it.
I won’t hurt it, please let me touch it.
But Willie, you ain’t got no hands.
Just let me touch it…….pleeeeeese.

Planet Z

Slip the surly bonds of Earth, President Reagan said, and touch the face of God.
That was my father up there, the whole world watching him die.
It has taken me years, but I am ready to go to space, to ascend to the heavens and touch that face.
Can I touch it? Will I reach where my father before me failed?
Or will my own son watch my demise among the clouds, luring him into the sky as my father did to me?
Just let me touch it, and wipe away that final tear forever.
From my own face.

Welcome to the Weekly Challenge Number One Hundred And Forty-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 Mothballs.
The excellent theme music is by Guy David
VOTING

Which were the best stories of Weekly Challenge #149?
	Danny from http://dannymachal.com
	Lynda from http://sisterpepperspray.blogspot.com
	Guy David from http://guydavid.com/
	Norval Joe
	Ashley
	Justin from http://www.thespaceturtle.com
	Anima from http://zabbadabba.com/
	Tom from http://midi.libsyn.com
	Caleb from http://blacktiemartiniclub.com
	Planet Z
Free polls from Pollhost.com

Go ahead and listen to them and then vote for your favorites (multiple selections are allowed):

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Danny

Ricky the mouse had light brown fur and oversized pink ears, he hated
them, but his wife found them adorable.
He would scurry about during the night, gathering scraps of food, and
bits of cloth for his wife and two baby daughters. They lived behind
the clothes dryer, it wasn’t much, but it was home.
Ricky also had an adventurous side to him, and while exploring the
attic, he came across a dead moth next to a delicious trinket of
cake.
He took the cake back home, where the mouse family feasted on the
funny smelling and tasting morsel.
“Hey Jim, how is your mouse problem?” Steve asked.
“They’re gone man, it is like they up and died.”

Lynda

The apple falls from my hand as the familiar smell brings it all back to me,
Stewie Norton fumbling with my blouse in the dark, the pawing of his grandmother’s cat at the door.
Nearly given away by the meows of a tabby.
I pick my fruit up off the floor of aisle seven with one last glance at the box of mothballs next to the Yahrtzeit candles under the mop display and turn away from my dark, dirty past.
Things were so much simpler then, no courtship, just a quickie in the closet.
Young love behind old men’s suits.

Guy David

The old man smelled of naphthalin. I could smell him all the way to where I was standing. I lighted a cigarette and moved towards him. He wrinkled his nose at me and pointed at the sign. “No smoking here” he said. I shrugged, puffed a cloud of smoke at him. At this he started couching and sneezing. Snot came out his nose. I lighted him with my cigarette lighter. As his overcoat dissolved by the fire I could see many naphthalin mothballs dissolving in his pockets. “So, that’s where the smell was coming from” I said through his screams.

Norval Joe

In South Africa in 1927 a political cartoon appeared in the news papers showing the ghost of a serviceman walking across the the waves of a beach, and on the beach a soldiers tin helmet with a bullet hole in it with the word forgetfulness underneath. The picture was titled, ‘The Tin Hat’. The country was moved to create an organization to remember and support veterans and their families and formed, ‘The Memorable Order of Tin Hats.’ The buildings where they held their monthly meetings became known as M.O.T.H. Halls. Their annual gala events with music and dance, MOTH Balls.

Ashley

President elect Ronald Reagan awoke abruptly arose from bed and quickly dressed in robe and slippers. Upon entering his personal office, he sat and picked up the telephone.
“Please connect me with Navy Secretary John Lehmann. Thank you,” said the president waiting patiently.
“John,” began President Reagan, “I apologize for calling so early. I may have an idea for the cold war problem. I agree that the navy must be built up. Let’s start by recommissioning and retrofitting the Iowa class destroyers. Yes, they’re currently mothballed. Listen carefully John, start gathering support. We’re about to spend some serious taxpayer money.”

Justin

I found an interesting Asian book in my grandparents attic. My grandmother is full-blooded Japanese, my grandfather married her after World War II. She brought many things when she moved to America. When I was young she taught me Japanese.
I’m walking in a circle under a bare lightbulb, reading. I can’t seem to move away, even though the light is too harsh.
As I examine the pages, realization comes.
It claims that if you eat an animal’s testicles, you will gain its powers.
I chew on an old sweater and wish I had read that before eating those mothballs.

Anima

Thor sweetie….
Here’s your list of honey-do’s: The screens need to be taken down at
Bilskirner, and doesn’t your hammer Mjollnir have autoreturn on it? It
is still by the front door where you tossed it when you came in. And ,
please, please put out some mothballs around the garden. I read in the
Godesses Home Journal that the naphthalene has some effect against
snakes. Maybe then we will be rid of Jormungand. The humans are
complaining he is putting a squeeze on Midgard…
Ja, you betcha, Sif. I’ll get right on that…
Doesn’t she know it’s Ragnarok this weekend?

Tom

My Aunts in-laws owned the apartment building she lived. Her family lived on the second floor. His parents lived on the first floor. Everything in my aunt’s apartment was ultramodern, Scandinavian design, color TV, the works. The Dulles’s apartment was like stepping into a time machine. Bathtub with feet, lace doilies on Reichsdeputationshauptschluss upholstering, tintypes and the most confusing antiquity “mothballs” “Yahh” said Augie ” Dayst coom from the real big moths.” Lizzie slapped Augie and muttered something is Swabian. She also had to slap my brother Lenny in the head to dislodge one he popped in his mouth.

Caleb

Frank got into the funeral business because he loved cock. Murder or grave robbing was too weird even for him but nobody requests a bottomless open casket, so he could eat as much cock as he could harvest.
As he cut the pants off a young suicide he was shocked to see the boy was a eunuch. There was plenty of mouth-watering man meat but no scrotum. As frank wiped his mouth he realized. The boy hadn’t jumped off the roof to kill himself, he was drawn inexorably to fly toward the full moon by his little teensy moth-balls.
Freak.

Planet Z

Cast aside for videogames and action figures, Raggedy Ann and Andy gave up on society.
They sealed themselves in Ziploc bags filled with mothballs, determined to sleep through this modern technological obsession.
After a thousand years, the seal on the bag broke, and Andy was yanked out of his plastic cocoon.
He opened his button eyes to see:
A dirty hand.
A ragged child.
A face, covered with scars and scabs.
Giggling. Laughter.
Would he be treasured? Loved?
Andy’s cotton heart sank as the child threw him to his dog.
His shredded body would lie in pieces among Ann’s tatters.