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 Fourteen, 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 hotel.
And we’ve got stories by a lot of people:
Tom
Dann Russo Archive of live performances
Thomas
Tura
Serendipity Haven
Chris Munroe
Guy David
Logan Berry
Zackmann
Lizzie Gudkov
Steven Saus
Buttermilk!
Cliff
Danny
Norval Joe
TJ
RedGoddess
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 cat photo:
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.
Tom
The flat black hat rimmed the edge of the horizon obscuring a piercing glaze. Slowly a rough-hewn match makes contact with a pencil thin cigar. The high plane drifter sends a vale of tobacco smoke upward, setting the rains to the left, the pallid horse beneath him descends into the valley below. He has come to smoke out a soul hiding under the mantel of propriety a pillar of the community. He knew better. Puffs on the cigar sets glow to the end sparking the wick of twin sticks of dynamite. Looping end over end dropping death through the window.
Dann
New Hampshire December froze our sweat to our skin. The windows HAD to be down. Had to be down. We took quick shallow breaths in a feeble attempt to stay warm. Only twenty more minutes. Fifteen. Ten.
Bolt out of the car.
Sprint up the stairs.
Who has the keys? Where did you put the keys?
Tear off every piece of clothing we had on.
There was nothing sensual, nothing fun.
Our heads were already starting to revert to long-lost craving mode.
Coat. Shirt. Pants. Turn the shower on. Throw them in the wash. Rid ourselves of the smoke.
Thomas
Jenny knew where there is smoke there is fire, so she spent the day looking for smoke, since she had five pounds of ribs and needed to barbeque them before they went bad. She walked around the neighborhood, peering over fences looking for smoke, until she found an elderly couple throwing some burgers on a kettle barbeque. She inquired, telling the couple her plight, and they agreed to let her cook her ribs when they were finished. She cooked and shared them with the couple. In this way, Jenny was able to dispose of the grisly remains of her crime.
##
Her singing voice was a smoky, throaty, and whiskey, mellow alto. She took the stage, sitting at the piano, ready to play one of her own tunes. The trio that backed her up were magnificent, and the audience moved to the edge of their seats with their cell phones and digital cameras high in the air. Ms. Darlene Apple was the hit of the Seattle jazz scene. Her beauty was shadowed by her lyrics, original compositions, and nudity. A chilling breeze came through a door off stage, and Ms. Apple picked up the tempo, to the delight of the audience.
Tura
“New car smell. New home smell. Gen-fem — generic feminine — used a lot in low-end clothing stores. Commercial stuff.” She shrugged.
“High-class ambients, they’re something else. But…times change. Here’s a classic. They don’t even make the ingredients any more.”
She showed me a small bottle, a quarter full of a deep amber liquid, labelled “OLD SMOKE”.
“You’ve never experienced anything like this before.” She took the stopper out for just a few seconds. Suddenly the room was redolent of old cigars, well-worn leather upholstery, brandy glasses, and — oh! — the subtlest grace notes of a beautiful woman glimpsed unattainably far off.
Serendipity
The fragrance drifting through the doorway as I passed by unlocked a forgotten wealth of fond memories.
Malacca, 1963… bartering for supper in the night market – the babble and hubbub, the sweaty, prickly heat of summer and the press of the excited crowd as they jostled at the market stalls, all came flooding back.
Then, an unexpected respite.
The temple, quiet and serene – a welcome escape from the tumult outside. The somnolent monotone of a Buddhist chant, drawing me in. And everywhere, the smouldering tapers of rising incense.
Wonderful memories, rekindled by the simple fragrance of that blesséd, holy smoke.
Munsi
Yes, I do still smoke.
I know I shouldn’t. I know that it’s expensive, and I know what it’ll do to my teeth and the lines around my eyes.
I also know that cigarettes are the only product that, used as directed, kills 100% of it’s customers. Cancer, heart disease, I know what smoking does.
But I also know that twice a day, at work, regardless of how long my scheduled shift is, I will hear a manager say, in essence: Smokers, take a five minute break. Non-smokers, shut up and get back to work.
So yeah, I still smoke.
Guy David
A man, or a mere impression of a men. He rises from the chimney of some factory or another, taking shape from the smoke. He hovers above the city, an illusion perhaps, more likely a secret project. Eyes are cameras, ears are microphones, recording silently. No door can hold him. He just blows underneath like the smoke he’s made of. His brain has the computing power built into the latest in nanotechnology. The results are being sent for processing at a secret facility. He is just the prototype. More are being created. Watch out for the fog, it’s coming alive.
Logan Berry
Until that moment, panic had turned me to ice. But the touch of his
hand on my skin was the lick of a blowtorch and I felt its heat,
suddenly, shockingly. Something stirred in a place I thought had died.
I felt, as if for the first time, my own breathing, sharp and hot.
Smoke curled out of his nose and drifted towards the ceiling fan like
the ghosts of small birds.
The fan spun slowly, each rotation clicking softly, the only sound in
a deathly silence.
He inhaled again in the darkness, silhouetted against a grey window.
He thought I was still dead as he leaned over me, pressing his lips
against mine and forcing the ghostly birds into my mouth. When I felt
his tongue scorch the back of my throat, I bit down, hard.
As his screams broke the silence, I floated to the window, spread my
wings, and flew away.
Zackmann
“I never saw your shop before. Do you sell anything in addition to tobacco like loose leaf tea or tee shirts?”
“I don’t think you understand that is a smoke shop, the only thing we sell is smoke. Except election years than we also sell mirrors.” answered shopkeeper
“Do you mean like liquid smoke for cooking?”
“Liquid smoke is one product we sell. We currently have a sale on smoke from 1980s rock concerts.”
“Too bad,I was looking for tobacco because I read a gardening article that touted its uses.”
“Come back when they write an article about smoke.”
Lizzie
“Smoke them out, smoke them out!” one soldier barked throwing a smoke grenade in the hole.
“They are coming!” another yelled.
They thought dozens of enemies had been hiding in a trench for more than a week. No food and no water left.
“Come out of there!” the first soldier barked again. “We’ll go in, if you don’t come out, right now!”
They were the winners. The losers would have to obey.
“Yeah!” they all yelled.
The thick heavy smoke was unbearable.
In the end, the hundreds were five teenage soldiers scared to death.
Soldiers and kids, no winners there…
Steven the Nuclear Man
Sullivan lights his and Murphy’s cigarettes, then shakes out the match. Night floods back as the flame dies.
Thompson’s eyebrows arch. “What about me?”
Murphy laughs as Sullivan strikes another match. “Thompson, you weren’t military?”
Thompson draws on the cigarette, lighting it from Sullivan’s match. Treetrunks loom until Sullivan shakes the flame out. “Nope.”
Murphy takes a drag. “You light two ’cause it’s too short for a sniper to aim.”
Thompson’s brow furrows. “We’re hunting demons, not snipers.”
Sullivan tosses his cigarette at the other men’s feet. “Demons that see heat,” he says as his horned master enters the clearing.
Buttermilk
From the very moment when we first met, there was just something about her,
something I couldn’t quite put my finger on. She is intoxicating.
Attractive doesn’t begin to explain it. I’d say it was chemical, maybe even
phermonal, if that was possible. I can’t explain the way she has
captured my attention. There is an ephemeral quality about her that absolutely
captivates me. From that first moment on, she has dominated my thoughts,
my dreams, and my fantasies alike. I have spent countless hours trying to define it, to describe it,
to understand it. It eludes me…. like smoke.
Cliff
The reporters and the faithful stood in the courtyard waiting. The College of Cardinals had been in the Sistine Chapel for several days trying to elect the new pope. The previous leader of the church had been one of the most popular popes in decades. He had helped the church grow and find new members the world over. When intelligent life had been discovered in the tunnels of Mars, missionaries had been dispatched and the Martians had converted in droves. There were even native Martian bishops now.
Still, everyone was surprised when the smoke rising from the Chapel was green.
Norval Joe
His lungs burned as he raced across the meadow to her grandfather’s cottage.
Smoke billowed from the windows and door. Fire danced up the thatched roof.
He grabbed a bucket at the well and dumped it on a sheet of canvas that covered firewood by the door.
Crouched under the canvas he crawled to her bedroom, wrapped her in the wet sheet and dragged her to safety.
Her eyes fluttered open, “You came back for me.”
“I’ll always come for you,” he promised.
Sitting with the company in the smoky common room, the memory came back to Owen with force.
TJ
“Can you help me?” she pleaded. “My daughter is missing.”
Although the suites were nonsmoking, a blue haze hung in the air behind
her. She waved off my glance. “She went missing… six hours ago. The
computer moved all our rooms around and… she’s probably lost.” Her
eyes worried about more sinister possibilities.
“How old is she?” I asked. “Does she have her cell with her?”
“She’s 15. It goes directly to voicemail. I called the police but
I’m out of my mind here!”
Well, I’m just a locksmith, myself, but I figured I could at least try
to help.
RedGoddess
Lola wears many hats as part of her job on the hotel’s guest services team. She’s not a magician but expected to make problems vanish in thin air. She’s not a superhero but have been known to leap out of harm’s way. Most notably, she’s no firefighter but can smell smoke from miles away. Last week, one of her guests decided to bake a special batch of biscuits for her fiancee who’s visiting from London. She has never turned the oven on since moving into the penthouse suite. Within minutes, the fire alarm was set off and triggered the sprinklers.
Planet Z
I like the smell of incense.
I have incense burners in the living room, office, and the bathroom so I don’t have to move them around.
But then, I keep the incense on a single shelf in the hallway. Kinda defeats the purpose of a convenient burner in every room if I have to get up to get more.
There’s also a smoke alarm in each room, but the smoke from the incense doesn’t set it off.
The smoke from burning something on the stove does, though.
Why did I take a bath while soup was on?
I’m a moron.