Welcome to the Ninety-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 Elisson of Blog d’Elisson.
It’s Hemorrhage.
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):
BYRAN
It was a hemorrhage. Red ink filled up the balance sheet, there was no
end in sight. He stared and stared at it, somehow hoping that by sheer force of will he could make the numbers rise, but there was no hope.
There was nothing left to be done. He was ruined, his family would be picking up the pieces for years to come, and he was to blame.
There was his insurance, but it wouldn’t pay for suicide. He had to figure out how he could salvage something of his existence, but it HAD to look like an accident.
SOUGENT
So the other day, I’m crossing the street minding my own damned business
when this motorcycle appears out of nowhere and knocks me flat on my ass.
I’m lookin’ around, wonderin’ what the hell just happened, when I notice
that I’m hemorrhaging large quantities of blood from the mangled stump
that used to be my elbow.
As I start to pass out due to the loss of blood, my life starts to flash
before my eyes and boy, is it strange.
What’s a midget butler and a giant robot doing in my flashback?
Jeez, I shoulda just took the bus.
ANIMA
Billy
(look at that scabby blonde girl,
thinks she knows everything,
’cause she spelled “omniscient”
hope i get an easy one like that.)
Contestant #5: ENCEPHALITIS
E-N-C-E”.
(almost my turn” i can’t take this any more”
i call this fun? my brain’s about to explode”
hurry up already”)
Contestant #33: PHLEGMATIC
F-L-E-M”
(ha ha he’s out” oh crap, i’m next”
no freaking way will i do this again”)
” #9?
I’m sorry; may I hear the word again with a definition?
HEMORRHAGE… A PROFUSE”
(thinkthinkthink” why’d I get this bloody word?)
H-E-M”
TOM
Arnesto through the accelerator on the Cronomotive. Ellie blew him a kiss and she was gone. About the steam time machine balls of light rolled over its surface. When he arrived at 2099 a crystal structure encased the Cronomotive. Cervantes felt faint and fell forward. Hurriedly a crew extracted the St Elmo”s time hemoglobins.
When he awoke Maria was holding his hand. “You experienced a bit of time hemorrhage.” “Time Bleed?” Arnesto croaked. “When you arrived last month you set up the hemarrhage collector. Here”s a message from Grandma.” Cercantes read shook his head. “It seem you”re traveling with me.”
CRAIG
Ellen walked straight to the back room of the old bakery joining the
five of us already present. We sat hushed as the baker brought us the
mythical liquid chocolate cake.
As Ellen sliced into the cake chocolate lava hemorrhaged from the center
engulfing all six layers. Off in a corner the baker smiled and a dog
barked.
Each of us was served a piece dripping with liquid chocolate. Savoring
each bite we thought how poets lived for just such a moment and
experiencing feelings boarding on rapture we all in unison smiled at
Ellen, wishing her a happy birthday.
DAPHNE
As I sat to write this story the ideas started to flow. I had a noir story about a body and a knife, but nothing congealed. I had a financial story about shopping sprees and lots of boots, but it wouldn’t fit. I had an amusing tale about wind-up toys leaking oil, but it dried up. I finally figured out I could write about my ideas hemorrhaging out of my brain to fast to write them down but then I ran out of words to tell it. Darn that limit who can write something good with only 100 words?
JD
They taught me the word hemorrhage in medical school.
Such a descriptive word. I like to hear the word.
They taught me to use a scalpel to relieve human suffering.
That’s what I do. Relieve suffering.
I have helped many who suffered great pain. I have helped her.
She lays in a heap on the bricks of the alley. I watch as the blood pools about her, black by the light of the gas lamp.
She had called to me from the alley and I could hear the pain in her voice.
Stepping close I said ?Just call me Jack?
TERRY
Fuel, glorious Fuel!
I started early in the morning searching the cargo wreckage.
I had just about given up finding anything worthwhile.
Then I found it,
Fuel, glorious Fuel.
With it, came Hemorrhage.
Now I can Hemorrhage in the morning,
Hemorrhage at noon,
and Hemorrhage at night
I had forgotten how I enjoyed Fuel and their Hemorrhage
No, not fuel as in gas,
Fuel, the band, and the Best of Fuel CD I brought.
There’s nothing like a little Hemorrhage in the morning to get you going.
This is Josh Jones, survivor,
Signing off
LAIEANNA
The day Heaven rained down on us was a Tuesday. It wasn’t harps and
halos, but there was no doubt in the location. A sunny day turned
suddenly dark with black clouds slithering, lightening temporarily
blinding us, and thunder keeping everyone staring with hands clasped
over ears. Maybe hours passed, but it seemed seconds. The sky opened
up and from nowhere, Heaven began hemorrhaging beautiful angels with
burnt wings. They plopped to the ground like wet towels. Turning to
the man I just knew was the devil, he smiled back, saying, “Not my
doing. I think someone is cleaning house.”
GUY DAVID
They called him The Hemorrhage Man. He would bleed for them at the snap of a finger, the blink of an eye, and he loved it. They would circle him like vultures, thirsty for him, and he would feed them, every last one of them, and still, blood would pour, never ending streams of it, red, fresh, satisfying.
They called her pale fountain. She was a stream of water, the sun dancing between her clear shores, forever smiling, she was beauty in her eternal youthful essence.
They made a strange couple, but when they made love, blood and water united.
PLANET Z
Once upon a time, before all this crap they air now, MTV used to play these things called music videos.
Duran Duran and Weird Al and Pat Benatar and all these performers lipsyncing to crazy-ass minimovies, animations… whatever they thought would convince people to buy more of their music.
Then there was Nena and 99 Luftballons ” a foreign antiwar message set to a pop beat.
Red balloons mistaken for a strange aircraft… war breaks out and cities are destroyed.
No, it never happened that way. Thanks to MTV, our culture hemorrhaged into garbage and incivility.
Shut it off. Now.
Though there were a bunch of favorites for me, I’m glad to see JD may win this round. Good. He deserves it.