Welcome to the Ninety-Fifth 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 Laieanna and Tom.
It’s Worst Job and Storage
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):
ELISSON
The worst job I ever had was manager of the U-Store-It unit out on the
Wharton Freeway.
It wasn”t the pay (which sucked), or Corporate (which really sucked).
It wasn”t even the clientele, although most of our customers weren”t
what you”d call Model Citizens.
No, it was the astonishing number of dead bodies that would appear in
the unrented units. Every couple days, we”d find another, chewed up
pretty bad. The cops were mystified, and it got to where I wasn”t
sleeping too well.
Then one night I saw them, and I understood. “Tekeli-li,” they moaned.
I never came back.
JOSH
Bologna again. Rick stared at the sandwich and its round edge of meat between the crusts before he took a grudging bite. A hero sub would be nice once in awhile. This tastes horrible and it’s so small, he thought as he stuffed the remainder of it into his mouth.
Rick grabbed the shovel leaning against the Cadillac’s bumper and dug a few more loads from the long shallow pit. His stomach growled. What he wouldn’t give for roast beef. He pulled the stained lumpy burlap sack from the trunk and dragged it into the hole.
Pastrami would be best.
TERRY
I have just returned from exploring parts of the wreckage after crash landing on Mars.
I have discovered that I am the lone survivor and have found several usable items in the closest part of the wreckage, along with solving a couple of problems.
My first problem being that the oxygen level in the atmosphere is about half the amount of Earth’s. The fix for this is an extraction pump that that was in the cargo bay, now all I need is a large tank for storage of the oxygen.
The second problem I found is that the living area of the craft is a total loss, burning up on impact; all that is left is a metal caucus along with the charred remains of my fellow crew members, may they rest in peace.
Without the living area section, the only toilet facilities are now in my command module. After the 2 month journey here, these have become completely filled and must be emptied, which maybe the worst job I have ever had to do.
This is Captain Josh Jones, Earth Space Command, signing off.
GUY DAVID
I must have the worst job in the world. I store broken dreams. I do this because that is my job. Not because I want to. I receive the dreams, confine then so they wouldn’t hurt anyone, so that people would be able to get on with their lives.
Last night, I run out of storage space, and all the broken dreams spilled out. Dreams of disappointments, of forgotten real life dreams, half forgotten memory dreams, all spilled over me. I had to inspect them one by one, put them back in place. Now I’m never going to dream again.
STORM THUNDERS
There’s always that awkward moment when you’re aware but before the shell’s done uploading. Then the shock as data starts pouring through the senses. The reassuring feel of filtering algorithms learning and adjusting – I’ve had those fail before, and lemmie tell you that’s a nightmare! Then the quick mental inventory of available tools and sensory inputs, and ransacking what’s stored in memory to determine the job that you’re here to do. It isn’t always obvious; part of why we’re sent is our ability to come up with creative solutions.
Even the worst job is better than being in storage
TOM
Worst Shmrst who”s to said one act is any less fitting in the services of the lord then another, but working shipping and receiving is that technically working in the field of the lord. I remember the August the antifreeze trucks arrived. The stuff was so dense it had to be perfectly loaded within the vehicle. We twowheelerd stacks of 6 cases down the aluminum ramp directly into back storage. Here by hand we stacked walls of antifreeze 8 cases high, deadlifting the last above our heads. Sweat dirt raw hands and backs all work is the work of the lord.
CALEB
They said it would be the job of a lifetime; go to sleep on earth and wake up some time later as the first ambassador to an as yet undiscovered alien world. But no alien world ever found me and cryogenic suspension doesn”t really stop the brain so much as slow it. A normal dream reflects upon the previous day”s activity but my last day was billions of years ago, long since forgotten in time. So now I float through space unable to move unable to wake, dreaming of nothing for eternity. I should”ve stayed in school” This job sucks.
JD WHITE
George’s job filled him with angst and anxiety.
Not really the job, you know, but the consequences of the job.
Each day of his existence George was tasked to move souls from the cold storage vault into the bodies of people that had lost, or just misplaced their soul.
This, if you have the right temperament, could be most fulfilling.
George did not have that temperament.
George was always stressed.
George always developed ulcers.
George always committed suicide.
And then Krishna or Vishnu or whoever would reincarnate him.
It was the best of jobs, it was the worst of jobs.
PLANET Z
The boys down in the warehouse always did the worst job of keeping things organized and secured.
You didn’t know what you’d find when you’d pry open a battered crate hauled out of storage. The manifests were hastily scribbled notes that had nothing to do with what was tossed willy-nilly into the box.
“Something Expensive Damaged Beyond Repair” was a good guess, I’d say.
The CEO got fed up with the damage and stormed into the warehouse office.
The boys down there didn’t take too kindly to getting fired, and they chopped him up.
We’re still finding bits and pieces of him.
Something expensive, indeed.
I want to vote for Guy David’s twice, it’s twice as good as all the rest of ours.
Naw, Caleb’s was better. Hell, I voted for it.