Welcome to the forty-ninth Weekly Challenge, where I post a topic and then challenge you to come up with a 100 word story based on that topic.
The topic this week was selected by Chris from Platypus Society, and it’s Spring.
Sixteen stories were submitted this week.
Two rookies are in the mix… yay!
The excellent theme music is by Guy David
And, once again, some disturbing madness from Planet Z.
Go ahead and listen to them by clicking on the grammophone thingy there in the left column and then vote for your favorites (multiple selections are allowed):
WE GOTS PRIZES:
I will be sending the winner a prize… it’s a packet containing at least 1 refrigerator magnet and a CD with the archive of the entire 100 word stories podcast. (Well, minus promos and junk)
It is your voting that determines who wins. So listen, vote, and tune in next week to find out who won!
The full text of each story:
CALEB
In the middle of spring
In the middle of spring
You’re liable to see the most wonderous things
As we celebrate life
Much like husband and wife
With only one thought cutting through like a knife
For in spring you will see
And quite gloriously
How life replicates itself sexually
From the flowers on plants
To the spring high school dance
It’s like the whole world has to take off its pants
And say, “I can’t wait
Any longer to mate!”
And then once it’s done, “I’ve got to go, geez! It’s so late. I mean you were great but…”
CHRIS
On the first day of spring, Patrick loaded his video equipment into his station wagon and headed south towards the everglades. As he did every year, the trip was scheduled to begin at the peak of the mating season, but he hadn’t counted on a warm February.
For weeks, he watched the thermometer outside his office window and read reports from the university scientists about the possibility of an early season. Not exactly what he wanted to hear.
Nevertheless, he still had to try.
After all, the market for alligator porn may be small, but it pays very, very well.
GUY DAVID
Rodney got the package on Wednesday night. He popped it open immediately. The contents of his package looked brand new. It glowed slightly. He just had to use it. He couldn’t wait any longer. He opened the wrapping, slid the batteries into place and used it until smoke came out of his ass.
From that moment on he used it at least once a day, sometimes even twice. He used it again and again until one day, a spring inside it got loose. From that moment, it was as if the android was using him, instead of him, using the android.
JAMES Q
Spring was final through with Winter. His passion spent, he knew that he had a very unpleasant chore to complete.
Panting, he gazed at her still, lifeless form and pondered how to get rid of the half frozen body. Again.
“Every year I go though this!” he cried, “But no more.”
Spring pulled out his cell phone and called Summer.
“Dude…” Spring hated the way Summer always answered the phone. “I know why you’re calling.”
“Ya gotta help me!” Spring was begging and he hated that too.
Summer hung up the phone and looked over at Fall.
“Oh Baby.”
TOM
It was always the first flower.
The tiny yellow ones.
No larger than a fly’s wing.
Even those he welcomed.
The buzzing offset the
too quietness of winter.
The growth was slow, noticeable,
tiny patches of color.
This was unlike the cancer
which grew colorless before his eyes.
Unlike the spring that slowly built upon life,
IT slowly ate upon his life.
Rudy’s yearly struggle to make it to
the arrival of the first yellow flowers of spring
amazed his doctors.
He mused how infinite days
had become finite.
In Gray’s Anatomy coloring book
he filled the prostrate
with yellow.
MANATA
It’s Spring again…you know what that means.
That’s right; it’s time to move all of your clocks forward by one hour.
I think it actually happens at two in the morning, but most folks do it before they go to bed the night before.
You see, I live in Indiana and this is our first year on Daylight Savings Time.
I’m convinced it’s why everyone thinks we are all stupid farmers and bumbling idiots.
Most of us can’t even get the television to stop flashing twelve.
“Hey Ma! You seen that there instruction book for the talking picture box?”
CAROLINE
“Spring is sprung the grass is riss
I wonder where the birdies is
The bird is on the wing
But that’s absurd
The wing is on the bird”
Over and over Mary repeated as she walked home from school. At the recital the next day she couldn’t get this wrong, not with everything else, it would be just too awful.
With heart fluttering and nerves shattered she began. It did not go well. Of course the whole class laughed at her again. She was mortified.
“Recitations- and Confidence” was the name of her first book. Who had the last laugh!
K NINE
I love the spring.
The golden sun, the green buds, the new grass. It
always reminds me of my first time.
I remember it clearly… We slipped off into the woods
alone together, the smell of fresh flowers in her
hair.
I was entranced by the way her skirt rippled around
her knees like lapping waves. Her hazel eyes so big
and round. Her lovely pink lips quivering and parting
as she started to scream. The crimson flow of warm
blood from her newly slit throat. There have been
many since, but she was the best.
I love the spring.
SISTER MARY EDITH
Few people know the agony of sprouting from seed. The stirrings of spring muster great forces: tender green shoots cleave cakes of soil and battle through labyrinths of rock, trying to break the surface before it breaks them.
An elderly elm recounted its experience, still painfully vivid after over 120 years. As it strained through utter darkness, it met and slid past another sprout going exactly the opposite way. If that sprout hadn’t carved a path, the elm may have never made it to the surface. With horror and gratitude, it recalls the sprout burrowing desperately down into the dark.
LAIEANNA
A battle of wills continued between two opponents.
“I’m going to kill you,” Spat the boy.
The Jack in the box responded with a squeak of it’s spring.
“Stop mocking me!” The boy shook an angry fist.
Jack kept weaving like a drunk.
“The outrages I have suffered today will not be soon forgotten.” The
boy scuttled up to the box and pointed a finger. “Mark my words, when
you least expect it, your upends will come.” He suddenly stepped back
with a devilish smile. “Time to bad.” From midair came an axe and he
ferociously attacked. “Victory is mine!”
ELISSON
The crocuses and daffodils send up their tender shoots;
The heavy snows are melting. No more need for rubber boots;
Our diets undergo a shift toward greens, away from roots.
The Sun hangs in the western sky until it’s very late;
The birds and bees go seeking for their Reproductive Mate;
The Jews all eat their Matzoth, guaranteed to constipate.
Our allergies are active as the pollen coats the land;
Expectant tourists venture on the beach to test the sand;
While eating Meaty Off’rings from the local Hot Dog Stand.
All hail the Vernal Equinox! O, Spring has come again!
TABITHA
Spring is the season for vampires.
While most think of vampires in the gloomy days of fall the reality is they really like Spring. To a vampire, that sound of spring is the heart in love.
Angel, of course, couldn’t feed off of humans. Thanks to a gypsy curse his soul wouldn’t let him.
Didn’t mean the temptation was gone.
Today was no exception. Cordelia, his office worker, was crushing on the latest Brad Pitt wannabe. When Doyle returned he found Angel brooding more than usua and Cordelia gone. “What’s up?” Doyle asked.
Angel simply burped.
TERRENCE
Raoul looked around the room. Most of the guests had left long ago.
His options were slim so he decided to see what the old man in the
corner was doing. He would hop forward then set back and hop forward
again.
The old man jumped again as Raoul reached him, almost tripped over his
beard. “What are you trying to do?
“Everything is all mixed up. They moved the date, it’s not spring.”
The old man jumped again.
Raoul shook his head and push the man and he fell.
“Oh hell, this is just going to make things worse.”
TED
We’re live at the local diner, reporting on the first days of Spring. I see over there is a lovely yellow chick, wandering from table to table.
In the booth next to me sits a very cute couple. I believe it might just be Mr and MRS Easter Bunny! Let’s lean in closer and see if we can hear what they’re saying.
“Remember, same as before. You’re crowd control, I handle the employees.”
“I love you Pumpkin..”
“I love you Honey Bunny..”
“Everybody be cool! This is a robbery!”
“Any one of you fuckin’ pricks move and I’ll execute every one of you motherfuckers! Got that?….”
TOM
Robbie was a happy spring in his youth. The other little springs
thought he was a weenie. He never could boing like the others, As he
got older he found false fame in his faceless website. No one could
see what a chump he was across the internet. In his quest to
achieve notoriety he entered contests in what they called blogs. In
fact he was such a loser he had to get people who were his “fans” to
vote for him in order to win. The loser took the fun away from
everyone else and became a awannabe sproinger.
PATTI
On their third anniversary, Joseph gave Audra a grandfather clock that played Westminster chimes.
On their fifth anniversary, Audra gave Joseph a son.
On their ninth anniversary, Joseph gave Audra herpes.
Audra gave Joseph divorce papers.
On what would have been their fourteenth anniversary, Audra finally did what she had wanted to do for five years: she took a hammer to that clock and started swinging.
She noticed the spring half buried in the rubble. She picked it up, blew it off, and began to uncoil the delicate metal spiral until it was nothing more than a thin flat line.
PLANET Z
Yes, the legends are true. If you drink the cool, refreshing waters from the magical spring daily, you will live forever.
But what the legends don’t tell you is that you’ll have the most wretched flatulence.
We’re talking farts that can peel wallpaper.
It’s something in that spring’s life-preserving chemicals. I’ve tried learning Chemistry, but in all my years I haven’t figured it out.
Everybody always says they can handle it, but after a few years, they can’t take it any more and go back where they came from.
Fools.
I know the secret to eternal life: nose-plugs.
Thanks to everyone for sending in their stories, and I look forward to what you’ve got to write (and say) next week.
The theme for next week’s Weekly Challenge will be posted shortly.