Weekly Challenge #313 – Moon

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

This is Weekly Challenge Number Three Hundred and Thirteen, 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 moon.

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

Thomas
Serendipity Haven
Lizzie Gudkov
Tura
Katja
Chris Munroe
Logan Berry
Tom
Cliff
Guy David
Zackmann
Chris the Nuclear Kid
Steven Saus
Norval Joe
Red Goddess/TalkMarie
Pale Infinity
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…

Obligatory photo:

Obligatory silly video:

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

The moon showed deep into Barlow’s room. It was so bright, that it woke him out of a heavy sleep and an exquisite dream. He stood, pulled his blanket around him and sat by the window looking out over his gardens. The moon was a dark, mandarin orange. Barlow could see movement in his back yard. Peering closer, and refocusing his eyes, he could see figures crawling close to the fence. It was his neighbor, Bob and his wife, Alena. They opened their mouths wide and howled like wolverines. Barlow had forgotten his neighbors love of the outdoors and astronomy.

Serendipity

The old man sighed.

He gazed affectionately at his now redundant, ropes, pulleys and pistons, then at the gleaming bank of buttons on the new control panel. “You can’t stand in the way of progress”, he thought, checking his watch…

It was time.

His finger found the button neatly labelled ‘First Quarter’ – huge letters appeared in the sky, garish in their intensity: * FQ * – he grimaced.

He paused to take one last look at his favourites… crescent, harvest and new, lying dusty and worn in the corner. The Man in the Moon sighed again and quietly closed the door behind him.

Lizzie

Not again… the moon was pink! Rose was tired of that sissy color. She liked red. So, Rose decided to do something about it. She climbed to the top of the church tower, as close to the moon as she could get. Then she pricked her finger on the cross and she stretched and stretched all the way to the moon. As she touched it, it turned into a beautifully bright red. The problem was when she tried to come down and lost her balance falling flat on her back. The last thing she saw was that damn pink moon.

Tura

When the Moon is full, with binoculars you can just see the construction works. It’s a lot bigger below ground — what you’re seeing is the solar collectors powering the machines that turn moonrock into everything else, including more machines. Building Moon City, that was the idea. But the off-switch isn’t working, and it’s invented a way of using its blasting equipment to fire on any spaceship that comes close.

The tunnel system doubles in size every year. They reckon it’ll take thirty years to cover the whole Moon. Maybe it will stop then.

But what if it invents space travel?

Katja

“Hey! You’re mooning the neighbors.”

Kylie drifts through the apartment in a cloud of smoke. Cigarette ash trails behind her, planting its seeds in the coarse carpeting. Here and there butts are already sprouting.

“Dude, I mean it! Wear something.”

She bends over to retrieve her underpants from the grease stained top of a pizza box, half hidden under the coffee table.

His beer hits the table, the glare hits Kylie.

Her belly squashes into two, three, four rolls as she maneuvers her second leg through the hole.

“You’re so beautiful… I love you.”

“Yeah, yeah. See you next week.”

Munsi!

There’s a whole lot wrong in the world.

The globe is warming, and we’ve passed peak oil. Our governments tell us we’re safe from terrorism, but you know we aren’t. A handful of bankers and lobbyists can destroy the global economy and be rewarded with billions of our tax dollars for it.

And yes, sometimes this gets me down, but when it does all I have to do is remember…

The moon.

We walked on the moon.

We walked on the fucking moon.

So yeah, please, look me in the eye and tell me we can’t overcome our collective challenges…

Logan Berry

Dear earth pen pal,

How’s waste? I’m wasting pretty good. No, unfortunately my girlfriend
is still constipated and may even be ready for the Big Recycle. Thanks
for the idea of the bran but we don’t have that here, and I have never
heard of a Telethon. We don’t really have much time for TV anyway as
we are mostly busy mining.

Both my parents have been Recycled but I still have twenty-four
siblings to keep me company if my girlfriend is reused. So don’t
worry, I will never be lonely, for though it may be barren and
lifeless here, all our mining, sleeping and wasting are done in
big, happy communal pile-ups.

And good luck with the new waste recycle program which you say earth
desperately needs these days. I am mystified why your people would
find the idea gross.

Happy wasting,
Your moon pen pal

Tom

In a previous life I ran pre production in a printing plant. We did custom work for a bunch of the Silicon Valley firms and a fair about business with Leland Stanford Jr. College. My favorite on going job was with the Student Union. They had a photograph of a line of a dozen undergrads with their pants dropped to their ankles and their butts facing squarely to the viewer. We printed this image on T-shirts with the following:Get your B. A.at Stanford. Not to be out done Cal students printed a shirt: Moon over your Masters.

###

Nelman Freder was back in the ER. He had severe laceration to his backside, which by Freder standards was not very noteworthy. The confusing element of this examination was the state of his pants. How do you rip your ass to pieces and not tear the pants? After considerable probing by Dr. Dan, and Nurse Betty, Nelman mumbled something about his Cousin Kevin. Seems Sub syllabic Cos Kev dared him a case of beer if he would “do it” “What was the IT?” “We were only going 10 miles an hour,” Nelman looked sheepishly out the window “A moving moon.”

Cliff

Alice was the queen of the moon people. She’d been born in Brooklyn and lived her whole life there with no notion that there were such things as moon people.
When she’d married, she’d done it for love, not money, which was good because there was never enough money. Her husband became bitter and angry and threatened to take out his rage on Alice but she loved him and never believed he’d do it.
When he finally snapped, the Moon Goddess whisked Alice away just as her husband had been about to strike her.
Bam. Pow. To the moon, Alice.

Zackmann

You mean to tell me after I forced myself to stowaway on a rocketship that I am only here because Skinner Co got bad intell? Your CEO is not an evil supervillain who is trying to build a moon base in order to take over the world but you are a group of science fiction and gardening enthusiasts who believe that garden domes on the moon will encourage interstellar travel.
Really, I mean Really, did you think just maybe you would have avoided a great deal of suspicion if you had not call your lunar botanical gardens The Moonraker Project?

Dammit, I woke up naked in a haystack watching the full moon setting in the morning sky. I am not sure if that means I should quit drinking or should get new friends with less sense of humor than my present so called friends. They went whole hog even tearing apart that pig as if a dog ate it. Funny I am feeling full and am covered with blood. Might explained my dream of eating Chocolate Meat from a running soup kettle. I fear this was not a practical joke. Must be a joke because I can not be werewolf

Chris

I put the tent away and went to the village.

The village was small but was still warm. As I walked I noticed a boy watching me.

“Hi I’m Strone, I’m not from around here could you help me?” I said.

“Hello Strone, I am Firehawk. I may help but you must be trustworthy.” He replied.

“I will try to earn your trust in me.”

“Good, do you know of magic?”

“I have heard about it, I heard that the moon is the source of magic.”

“Very well come with me, for now get some rest you have come far.”

Steven

“Captain, you are to take out the Russian guns.” The messenger begins
to turn his mount to return to the command point.

I cough, catching his attention. “Sir, which guns?”

“Those guns,” he says, and casually waves his hand toward the Russians.

My gaze travels down the length of his arm, down the wide open valley
past two ridges of Russian troops, and directly toward the enemy steam
mechs.

“We’re doomed,” my sergeant says.

But past the enemy guns, I see the full moon, still visible in
daylight. It has not yet set, and I smile a knowing smile.

Lizzie (For Circe)

Aim for the moon, said her friend. And she did. She collected broken tiles, blue, red, green, and glued them on a cardboard the size of the moon. People thought she was crazy obsessing over those tiles, but she didn’t pay any attention. She was on a mission. Yellow, purple, orange. She gathered all the colors except one. Should that color go in there too? Suddenly, a kid said “the black is missing”. No black, she thought. “The moon will look better,” and he smiled. Life is full of colors but the kid’s smile was the one she really needed.

Norval Joe

Spleen couldn’t wait to be away from the company. The stinking elf was too much for any goblin to stand, even a half-goblin.
He crouched and watched from a distance as they prepared their camp by the light of the moon. He’d given the witch his word he wouldn’t eat any of the people, but what good was a goblin’s word.
Spleen eyed the boy, alone, standing first watch. He licked his razor sharp teeth with his scaled tongue.
“Don’t get any ideas, goblin,” the ranger said from behind.
Spleen spun around, hissing.
Maybe he should eat the ranger first.

RedGoddess

Lola first fell in love with the moon as a child. She was transplanted, lonely in a foreign and unsettling new world. After landing at an overpopulated airport clutching her important documents, she looks to the moon for comfort. It’s her safety blanket in stormy restless nights, the only reliable roof over her head. It is the closest and farthest gift in her universe. She sees it from every corner of the planet among clouds of uncertainties. Revealing its soft light when least expected. The moon, her companion, till they part eternally.

Pale Infinity

it seems that a similar theme ran thru her
poetry/ a thread of sadness stringing together most of her poems./ There were some from the rare peaceful times
that ventured into/ larger subjects but most of them were
about lost love./ she couldnt stop thinking of her past
mistakes and move/ on. So when she started realizing
she was living with /a ghost she finally had something different to write about./
her new work attracted some fans. many people now believe / in ghosts and life after death. this particular ghost stole /butter knives and hid things. her weakness
became losing things,

TJ

The topic: The Meaning of Life – “The Meaning of Life”

Turned out the doll room was my grandfather’s attempt at a perpetual
motion machine. The rotating limbs and flickering eyelids eventually
released a catch and snapped open a side door. Inside we found a laptop
marked “The Meaning of Life.” I typed in, “Is it love?” “No.
People have lived meaningful lives without love.” “Is it sex?”
“Sex perpetuates life. It provides no context for meaning.” Other
inquiries were similarly shot down: “Is it kindness?” “Power?”
“Influence?” Until I typed in the question: “Does life have
meaning?” The laptop beeped. “No.” “Thus spake Zarathustra,” I
mused. We continued our exploration.

The topic: Game – “Artificial Intelligence”

The laptop had been nestled into a dusty confabulation of colorful
wires, exposed circuit boards, and blinking LEDs that seem to have
groaned back to life with the flickering doll eyes. Beyond this tangled
mess, my grandfather had cleared a space where a robotic armature
hovered over a game board, quivering like an arrow newly sprung, beneath
a heading of “Artificial Intelligence – Interface II” Grandma was
mystified – she’d clearly never been to this part of the hoard
before. “Should we play it?” she asked. I didn’t know what to say.
How much artificial intelligence was required to play “Sorry”?

The topic: Fingers – “Workspace”

Between the perpetual motion machine (still chittering away), and the
laptop and the game, we were moving into a part of the house that was
purely Granddad’s domain. But since he and my grandmother were both
inveterate hoarders, there was a generalized fluidity to the massed
collection of things, useful flowing seamlessly into useless. My fingers
traced a line in the dust along three steamer trunks held closed with a
hasp when there was a resonant CLUNK! from within. The five of us – my
grandmother, my sister, my Aunt Betty, Uncle Lou and myself – looked
at each other with dread.

The topic: I don’t know what this is – “Discovery”

Not having any idea what was inside the steamer trunks, I reached with
some trepidation for the hasp in the center. A shuddering creeeeaaaaak
sounded as a panel opened and a WHOOSH and a shriek from Aunt Betty as a
cat scurried past our ankles. The noise had come from a reel-to-reel
recording apparatus in some apparent reaction to the springing to life
of the creepy perpetual motion machine in the next room. Of course, I
may have just associated the two with the pile of extra doll parts that
poured out of the trunks. I shuddered, and hit “Play.”

The topic: Rhymes with itch – “Recording”

I hit play on the ancient recorder and we listened to the staticky voice
of my grandfather reciting a snatch of verse. “The sitch is this. It
rhymes with itch. And which rich bitch would snitch my niche will pitch
a fit to learn that it will not be her so SIT ON IT!” The rest of us
were mystified but my grandmother was pale with anger. “YOU sit on it,
you crazy old bedbug!” she wheezed before collapsing into a chair.
“What did he mean, Nana?” my sister asked, but my grandmother
grabbed a lamp and SMASHED the recorder.

The topic: Fool – “Epiphany”

“Crazy old fool!” she breathed. In another part of the house the
lamp she’d destroyed along with the reel-to-reel recorder would’ve
been defended as a priceless antique, although my guess was most of the
junk we were up to waist-deep in was non-functioning. As I spied what
looked like a sort of steampunk spider in the corner, my guess was also
my hope. “He swore he’d outlive me, one way or t’other,” Grandma
groused. “There was no viewing because he’d prearranged everything.
I bet he’s still here somewhere.” “In spirit?” Barb asked,
doubtfully. Grandma snapped. “And maybe in person, too.”

The topic: Sick – “The Awakening”

The thought that any part of my grandfather – or maybe his entire
corpse – might still be in this miasma of doll parts, cat waste and
scrap frankly made me sick to my stomach. The ashen faces of my fellow
explorers – all of whom had already encountered eyefuls and snootfuls
in this adventure – told me I wasn’t alone in this. I’d certainly
be more circumspect about any further steamer trunks I encountered. My
heart wasn’t ready for the churning metallic nightmare that sprang to
life in the corner. That spiderlike contraption resolved into a humanoid
android… topped with granddad’s embalmed head.

The topic: Hugs – “Panic”

“Greetings!” a voice said. It was not my grandfather’s, nor did it
come from my grandfather’s dead head, tumbling around in its jar of
embalming fluid. Rather, it was mechanical, probably programmed by him,
operating on the principle of an artificial intelligence that assessed
life as being ultimately meaningless. So it wouldn’t necessarily
matter to him that he’d died if his inventions lived on, although he
obviously thought he’d be living on as well, sustained by them. That
clearly was not the case. That didn’t stop his machine, however, its
metal arms extended, lumbering toward us. “Who wants a hug?!”

The topic: Moon – “Resolution”

The race down the stairs was unanimous. The android that pursued us was
hampered by Boolean decision-making, unmaintained hydraulic servoes and
its having been built by a kook. The cats raced out ahead of us as the
clanking, artificially intelligent machine cut its own path through the
hoard. At the entryway, I lit books of matches and threw them into the
hoard. The last we saw of granddad was his wild deathmask floating in a
blaze of fire in a mechanical mess stuck through the floorboard. We
hugged each other and wept in the moonlight. Distant sirens began to
wail.

Planet Z

Just as earthers construct their deities around their experiences, so do the denizens of other distant worlds.

The Kalpesians are skilled digestive-builders, creating temples to their butt-god Hrunghf, who shat out the world in various chunks and splatters.

It’s impossible the stop nautilusian Proog priests from droning endlessly about how we’re all “living inside a chamber of Ba-Proog’s mighty shell.”

And when a Liiiiiiiik gasbag starts talking about The Mighty Ssssssssssspop’s expanding and contracting with every sunrise and sunset, you’ll wish you had a knitting needle.

So, I’m sorry about serving that spaghetti for dinner.

Do Pastafarians still eat breadsticks?