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 Twenty-Two, 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 a beautiful thing
And we’ve got stories by a lot of people:
Tom
Thomas
William R. Davis-Kenmore Swipe
Chris Munroe
Logan Berry
Serendipity Haven
Colonel Terrance
Lizzie Gudkov
Severina Halostar and Bonchance Longfall
Guy David
Zackmann
Pam
Steven the Nuclear Man
Dionysus Clowes
RedGoddess
Danny Dwyer
Cliff
Norval Joe
Tura
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
I’ve a hyper-romantic view of Chicago. Though I only live there from 57 to
59 it’s the place of my earliest memories. We lived in a neighborhood
called Logan Square. From my room I could see the words DAD’S written
along the side of a smokestack. I couldn’t read them but knew will the
letters meant root beer. I must have been very young the day my mom had me
and my brother in a Tram. Through a slit in the cover in gap in the Lane
Tech doors I saw the rides at Riverview. Memory is a beautiful thing
THOMAS
He had a big, day-glo sticker on the bumper of his pickup. “A Man and His Truck is A Beautiful Thing.” Gilmore was a fat, hairy thing. Not very beautiful at all. Most of his breakfast of chicken-fried steak and biscuits and gravy still clung to his red beard. The ladies at The Sunshine Café knew that Gilmore had a good job on the oil rigs, and they flirted with him at the café. Last week, Nancy Creemcheze sat down and chatted with him, saying he reminded her of John Goodman. “Is he in septic work?” “No. He’s an actor.”
##
It was such a beautiful thing. It could win prizes. Showing it meant it had to be washed and rubbed shiny. He spent hours tending and admiring it. His girlfriend, Josie-Jean thought it was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen. It was purple, with some red undertones, and the first time he showed it to her, she flushed with excitement and her eyes widened. She knew that she would find pleasure in every encounter with it – able to brag to her girlfriends about what she had seen, touched and fondled. Larry’s custom, Chevy BelAire was a hit.
WRDKS
A Hebrew phrase reads: A beautiful thing is not always perfect. That goes for the girlfriend I had when I worked in New Jersey. She was dark haired and had a voluptuous figure. Her flaw was her family. Her father showed me his anti-gravity truck when I visited their home. He opened the rear door and pointed to the heavy, iron apparatus in the mid-section of the truck. He matter-of-factly described the problems he was having getting it off the ground, but I dismissed it all at the time in hopes of getting an early start with his lovely daughter.
MUNSI
I know you think your baby’s beautiful.
It’s your child. You brought it into this world and have a profound connection to it. it’s natural that you should find it beautiful.
To you, it’s the most beautiful thing that’s ever been. It’s your progeny, your precious darling, and moreover your shot at immortality.
You find it beautiful because you need it to be beautiful, it’s what will represent you to future generations.
I understand all of this.
All I’m saying is, it’s not MY baby, I have no responsibility toward it, and it’s a freaky, Winston Churchill looking motherfucker.
Sorry.
LOGAN
Why did I agree to this? I hate kids, and I hate poo. I want to take the kids to the bridge and toss them over, or jump into certain death myself. It’s not my fault. Who would hire me? I have a tattoo of a rat on my neck, where everyone can see it, and a rusted heavy gothic rod pierced through the left side of my nose. I think it’s a beautiful thing, but my mother now pretends she is childless. I overheard her tell my father she would like to have children someday. I will never have kids. I hate them. Especially when they poo into paper. This is NOT worth twenty dollars. Who would hire me?
SARAH
It was nail-biting standoff – the professor, arms outstretched between the armed police and the monstrous creature that he had brought into the world.
“It’s not a monster”, he protested, “It’s a living, conscious being… a thing of beauty, that deserves to live”
“Step aside, sir, or we will shoot!”, came the stern response.
The professor turned towards the beast, tenderly cupping it’s loathsome face between his hands; “I’m so sorry”, he whispered.
In a moment of poignance, the creatures actions mimicked the professor; the huge talons gently cradling the man’s face, before violently twisting the professor’s head clean off!
COLONEL
His encounter with the big red dog was a beautiful thing. No one would believe his story, of course, but he had to tell someone when he met the usual gang at coffee. He met the dog in the park as it walked quietly along the grass, bordering the bike path. He greeted her, saying “hello, pup”, and the dog answered “Hello, sir. Are you having a good day?” He was not surprised, as he suspected that all dogs could speak, but they kept it to themselves, only speaking to those that believed that dogs could talk. They chatted a while about nature, god, and each others fears and loves. Turns out, the red dog lived nearby, and she invited him to come by, any time, for a chat.
LIZZIE
The letter had two words “Beautiful thing.” She didn’t believe it. After the war, the devastation was everywhere making it hard to imagine something truly beautiful. Tired of annihilation, she packed water and food, and took the road. Three days and three nights lasted the journey until she found the bend on the road. A gate opened up to a pathway of wonders. She sat inside to enjoy the quietude and rest. The next day, the garden of wonders had grown a few meters. The day after that, the same happened. She thought that there was still hope after all.
SEVI AND BONCHANCE
Pablo was sniffing around the big top. As he snooped, Clumsy quickly snatched him up.
Clumsy the Clown started training Pablo. The new gag involved Clumsy pretending to bend over to pick up his cigar. Pablo was cued to jump on his back. As his paws made contact, Clumsy vigorously floundered around dramatically. The stunt ended with the clown landing on someone’s lap in the audience. The crowd erupts with laughter and roaring applause!
Pablo recalled Clumsy’s discourse, as they celebrated with a bottle of scotch. “It’s a beautiful thing when searching for a new star, the star finds you!
GUY
They say beauty is in the eye of the beholder, so scientists started dissecting eyes, searching for the exact spot where beauty resides. First they dissected eyes of mice, but it got them nowhere, so they dissected the eyes of convicted criminals, dead ones at first, but then someone reasoned that having real time input from subjects would result in important data. Didn’t work. Another suggested that criminals didn’t really have a sense of beauty, so they moved on to the eyes of artists, poets and musicians. When they finished, they looked around them to find a world without beauty.
ZACK
The mortgage broker told me how an ARM was a beautiful thing and how it could really free up my assets when I purchased a property.
I asked “ Wouldn’t there be trouble at the end of the adjustable rate?”
He told me “No, just refinance when the rate ends because California house prices always go up.”
It turns out the Adjustable Rate Mortgage was a beautiful thing, beautiful as in a devious supervillain they will never see this coming way. I loved the low monthly payments until I found out the payments don’t stay low and Neither do the rates.
PAM
All week the young engineering student scurried to keep up with the rushing tide of homework.
On Saturdays she hunted for illusory property lines only seen by engineers and surveyors. Her guide in these weekend explorations was a seasoned engineer. Old man, young girl both searching for ancient clues.
At lunch they break to eat. The old man looks up from his sandwich with a strange gaze,“ The water tower on campus – it’s a beautiful thing; very sexual.” He lowered his eyes back to his hamburger.
The young girl never looked at a water tower the same way again.
STEVEN
Conversation dropped to pure meaning when shit hit the fan.
Marc’s voice, terse, fast. “Four, suppression right, third advance
overwatch.” Squad leaders were moving as he spoke, diagrams and
instructions morphed into movement.
Susan loved it; loved ripping the bullshit social niceties away to raw
information and meaning. She hefted her rifle and sprinted. A
sprinkle of bullets at first, then a shower, then a zinging ricochet
storm. Marc hit the dirt next to her, panting. Cooper fell past him,
unbreathing.
Lead mosquitoes zipped between them.
Susan looked at Marc. “Love you,” she said.
It meant more than any poem.
DIONYSUS
#1: Da-sein
My father has just given me another lecture on Dasein’s inescapable anxiety. Other babies trade stocks or interact with small mammals, but these are not universal conditions of existence.
My mother seems to recognize a more basic set of necessities. She occasionally offers me a full breast, for example, and I am encouraged to suck. It is a beautiful thing.
My father insists we are born and die alone. As I recall, my mother was there, with a doctor and one or two nurses. I didn’t think to count.
He watches me sucking. I anticipate this will be a problem for us.
#2: Miracles
“Aesthetically,” said Wittgenstein, “the miracle is that the world exists.”
Paul Wittgenstein, the philosopher’s brother, was a concert pianist who lost his right arm in World War I. He commissioned a number of well-known piano works for the left hand. Their father made his fortune in steel.
My brother was killed in a hunting accident when I was 13. He was 16. There are times when I think nothing I’ve accomplished matters.
My daughter is practicing the piano, and my son, who’s more serious and alert than most, just walked by.
Existentially, the miracle is that the world’s a beautiful thing.
REDGODDESS
The rain finally stops. Lola is restless anticipating her date with her secret admirer, who drops a trail of cryptic notes at the hotel’s front desk. She works feverishly to finish all her duties to leave on time. The last handwritten note requested her presence at the coffee bar on the roof of the restaurant next door. She wonders how she will recognize this familiar stranger who has resuscitated her curiosity. She walks confidently through the restaurant doors and heads toward the bar. There he is. Whatever happens, it’s a beautiful thing to be the one catered to, for once.
DANNY
I wake up, finding myself hooked up to life support: an intibator tube down my throat, five heart monitors taped to my chest, a tube drilled into my skull draining excess fluid from my brain, and over 5 IV’s hooked up to my arms. Then in an instant, I’m up and walking down a long, endless hallway. I feel a breeze over my immaciated ass, which hangs naked out of the back of a polyester hospital gown. I didn’t think that was physically possible, to feel my ass hanging out of a hospital gown when I’m dead. What a beatiful thing.
CLIFF
“By the power of my magic, I bind you to my bidding,” the witch intoned. Humans. So dramatic.
“What is thy bidding?” I asked reluctantly.
“My husband does not love me.”
Oh goodie. Love. Why is it always about love?
“He says he only wants to be surrounded by beautiful things and that I’m not beautiful.”
She was hideous, but then, she was human.
“You will make me the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen.”
“Really?”
“That is my command.”
The warlock would be pleased when he found the ever full beer mug the following morning.
I love my job.
NORVAL JOE
Shareeka chanted again, her voice growing weaker with each iteration. She waived her hands and dropped to her knees.
“Why is it getting so hard to breath?” Owen asked. The the earth itself seemed to press in on him.
“I move the air with us with each jump. It doesn’t refresh much,” she gasped. “Our next jump will be up.”
Shareeka spoke the words and the night sky burst into specked splendor above.
Owen fell onto his back in the wet grass, took a deep breath of the fresh and and said, “the sky is a beautiful thing, isn’t it?”
TURA
People say we lived like kings. Ha! These days, king just means a bigger mud hut and a gang of men with clubs.
We could fly round the world faster than it turned, talk to anyone, anywhere, instantly. We had men on the Moon, nearly got to Mars. We knew the age of the universe, the speed of light. You’ve never even seen electricity.
You don’t believe any of this. You’re stupid. Everyone’s getting stupider, generation by generation.
Sure, we had wars, all that shit. But Goddammit, we had civilisation, and it was a beautiful thing, a beautiful thing indeed.
PLANET Z
At first, I thought I heard Bobby say he was a “sado masochist” but he turned out to be a “soda masochist.”
So, instead of beating the crap out of him, I got a Coke out of the machine, and handed it to him.
He frowned. “Shake it first.”
I took back the can, shook it, and put it in front of him.
He picked it up, held it under his face, and opened it.
The spray got in his eyes and dripped on his shirt.
“That’s a beautiful thing, man,” he said. “Thanks.”
Dammit. Now I have to mop.