Weekly Challenge #341 – PICK TWO

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 Forty-One, 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 PICK TWO.

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

• Thomas
• Jeffrey
• Todd
• Munsi
• Serendipidy Haven
• Singh
• Zackmann
• Lizzie
• Cliff – Uncle Monster
• Tura
• Bonchance and Sevi
• Tom
• RedGoddess
• Norval Joe
• Steven the Nuclear Man Spec The Halls!
• Planet Z

The next weekly challenge is a fear.

And if you want to spam your social networks with this episode, use the Share buttons at the end of the post… this obligatory cat photo should help make the Internet go faster:

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THOMAS

She begged me. Pleading–“I just can’t do it. Not the cherry orchard, again! This is the third time this week. My folks are getting very suspicious. The football game was over three hours ago, and by the time I’m home, it will be after midnight.”

I didn’t care. I was only after one thing that this girl could do for me. I stopped the van and got out the things I needed. The five-gallon bucket and the tripod ladder. Nancy Creamcheese was not afraid of climbing to the tallest Bing cherry tree to get the sweetest and ripest fruit.

#

“If your father sees this mess, he’ll punish you.” Mom warned me again. My room was filled with gadgets, wires, and dog hair. The experiments with the vortex manipulator were set aside, and covered with dust, while I worked on my senior project–a cleaning robot for the bedrooms. It would tidy up, put things in the proper container or cupboard, and do the floor and rugs. Following the daily cleaning, several maintenance checks and oiling. Mom made the mistake of napping during a recent cleaning and the robot stuffed her into her dresser drawer after a bloody struggle.

#

The pandas were being taught how to spell. They got a few words wrong, including repitition, so we didn’t give them fresh bamboo for a week, only cans of bamboo shoots, and no opener. They were pissed, and when the kids passed their enclosure, expecting the cuddly little rascals they saw on TV and in story books, all they got were half a dozen, scowling bears sticking their tongues out at them and showing their backsides. We relented, stopped forcing them to learn new words, gave them fresh bamboo shoots, and the whole staff turned out for a formal apology.

#

She was tall, slim, and wore a velvet fez her senior year. She felt that style was what makes you richer. The fez was a present I gave her the summer before. She wore it with aplomb–her hair in pigtails or brushed straight. She read French poets, played piano, and studied programming. She accompanied me on all my adventures in the city, and we walked, marched and skipped our way through the financial district at night, watching the tourists and making up stories about them. After high school, she was off to college, giving her fez to her grandmother.

JEFFREY

A Gift for Mom
by Jeffrey Fischer

Dad always had a temper, at least as long as I could remember. No one escaped him, but Mom always got the worst of it. I could see the bruises, cuts, and broken bones, and I cringed inwardly, but I could never show my feelings, for fear of what Dad would do to me.

Shortly after I turned 17, I realized Mom had a birthday coming up soon. I wanted to get her something special. After Dad had a few drinks and half-dozed in his chair, I snuck up behind him with my baseball bat and whacked him in the head a dozen times. He split open like a rotten melon. I dragged his body out of the house before Mom came back.

When she saw the blood spatter, she looked worried. “If your father sees this mess…” she began.

“I don’t think he’ll say anything,” I replied. “Happy birthday, Mom.”

#

The Unusupecting Keepers
by Jeffrey Fischer

Barney put the shovel down. “I just can’t do it – I can’t clean up panda shit any more.” Those cuddly-looking animals brought the tourists to the zoo, but they sure made a mess. Eat a lot of bamboo, shit a lot of bamboo. It’s the circle of life. Still, the job had its rewards, like “accidentally” dropping panda crap on unsuspecting zoo visitors. I figured I could do about one a month without my boss getting wise.

“Hey man,” I replied, “It’s like the old saying, ‘What makes you richer makes you stronger.'”

Barney stared at me. “Don’t be stupid. That isn’t a saying. It makes no fucking sense.”

We stopped shoveling to look at an empty cage. The sign on the cage read, “To arrive later in week.” Another panda? Sometimes life is just repetition.

TODD

Chris slides beside Abby and kisses her neck. He’s drunk and horny and desperate to nail his best friend’s girl.

‘No-oo she breathes, tilting back her head, ‘I just can’t do it to Andy and Jenna’.

‘Fuck it’ Chris whines, lighting a smoke and devouring his beer.

He leans closer, his stale breath on Abby’s throat is a lurid stench of blood and tears. Abby pushes away pleading, ‘my boyfriend no, you smell like my boyfriend!’

Inside Andy opens a bottle of red. ‘Are they gone’ asks Jenna stroking his arm? ‘The liquor store’ he smiles, ‘unsuspecting as always’.

MUNSI

The Orchard Out Back

By Christopher Munroe

We buried you in the cherry orchard. Then, a week later, we buried you again.

With each iteration that arrived, we were quick to act, caving in your skull and hiding the body out there. It was easy enough to do, nobody was looking for bodies after all. You kept going in to work through it all, and got home in time to help me with the digging. We could’ve kept it up forever, but for two things.

The repetition is growing tiresome.

There’s limited space in the cherry orchard that we can dig up.

So: Fix the damn duplicator!

SERENDIPITY

Sakura season: and here, in the cherry orchard, I’m lost in a world of pink-hued blossoms.

Alone with my thoughts, the tumult and clamour of life fades and dies – just as these blossoms must also fade when their own brief moment of glory passes. Yet, for this one, precious, fleeting season, they reign supreme.

I am reminded that all too often the delicate, joyous blossoms that briefly paint our lives with their pastel hues are lost in the midst of our battles for survival and success.

Blossoms of joy, or the fruits of harsh labour – what makes you richer?

SINGH

Festival Dervishes (Fez and Stupid)

“Fuzzy fezzes. Cone heads.” he sneers. “So gay. Bloody stupid.”

But she loves the wheeling birds of hands, the whirling skirts ready to ascend.

“I think they are graceful.”

“You forked out what – 150 bucks?” Folded arms barricade his chest.

Enough! She digs in her long executive fingernails.

“Ow! Hey!”

Heads spin.

Prestige. Embarrassment. Toy boy escorts? Never again.

“So where ya dragging me tomorrow?”

Time to put him off.

“Les Ballets Trocodero de Monte Carlo.”

“Huh?”

“The Trocks. You know – Men In Drag! Swan Lake in fluffy tutus with hairy legs!”

“Oh Jeezus!”

“Shut up! Watch the dervishes!”

Chanting Cherry Blossom (Cherry Orchard, Repetition)

At last, Roshi spoke: “Sakura. Repeat. sa-ku-ra. The petals will flood your mind.”

The students in neat rows obeyed.

“Shake the tree.”

They recited and fidgeted.

“Now –– chop it down.”

This was too much.

“Roshi-san!” challenged the new girl, “Why cut, why destroy the beauty?”

The others gasped.

He said nothing.

She got up, went outside for solace under cherry-pink clouds. Heaven’s orchard. Master closed his eyes, then sudden wind stripped each branch.

She choked in a pink downfall. “I won’t submit. I won’t!”

Roshi laughed. “Praise Buddha! Someone disobedient, and, with a heart I can shake free — has come.”

ZACKMANN

The chief machinery repairman reiterated to his trainy
“Repetition is the key to learning. Repetition is the key to learning. Repetition is the key to learning.” Unsuspecting of the captain walking up behind him.
The captain says “That sounds redundant. At ease. Will the machine that exploded be fixed before my fathers visit.”
“No Sir, I just can’t do it because the electronic parts will arrive later in the week. I hate to think of what he will say if your father sees that Mess.”
“Maybe I can take him to Giant Panda unless you can make a vortex manipulator”

LIZZIE

Ghosts are tough. Hundreds of years of experience fine-tuned their ability to inflict a terrible ill-temper on unsuspecting individuals. But things change and nowadays it’s common to see a ghost roaming the empty corridors of a mansion, dressed in rusted armor dragging his feet to the scratching sound of a forlorn morningstar. At dawn, those pesky little children finally back in bed, you may even hear a wailing voice saying “I just can’t do it… Not anymore!” And that would be the ghost wearing his helm sideways, a glove missing, both pride and makeshift sword twisted in a furious knot.

CLIFF

When I saw the topics for this week, I was sorely tempted to write three stories. Each story would be identical. Perhaps a tale about what happened when your father saw the mess that the vortex manipulator made in the cherry orchard. Something silly like that. I would write the same story three times but put a different title on each. The first would be called “Repetition”, the second would be called “Reiteration”, and the last would be called “Redundant”. But I just can’t do it. It’s too stupid. I mean, this show has some kind of standards, doesn’t it?

Pandas aren’t endangered. Oh, sure. We don’t see many of them but that’s because most of them are hiding in underground cities just waiting for the day when they will rise up and claim the Earth as their own. The ones we know about are the exiled criminals and traitors. They have been lobotomized so they can’t give up the Great Panda Secret. When the time is right, the black and white hoard will swarm out and eradicate mankind. They got the idea from us, you know. Why do you think there are no dinosaurs? This has all happened before.

TURA

It is said that when one tires of London, one has tired of life; and so on a glum November day was I idly wandering its alleyways. In the window of an unfamiliar curio shop was prominently displayed a red fez. A fez! I was at once seized of a desire to wear one.

I entered, and enquired after it. “This is my vortex manipulator,” said the shopkeeper, as I placed it on my head.

Sunshine blazed through the windows, and I strode out into an Istanbul summer. Looking back, prominently displayed in the window was a black top hat.

BONCHANCE AND SEVI

“Pepe!!! come into the family room this instant!”
“What did you do to the television boy???”

Pepe danced nervously on his paws. How was he going to explain the mess to his mother? Espy would never understand his need to dominate the world. He thought he could reassemble the 60 inch plasma television at first, then reality set in.

“Well Ma, I needed some special parts for my vortex manipulator.”
“If your father sees this mess you can forget about that new present you’ve been asking for Christmas.”

“Well, how about if I now ask for a TV for Christmas!

Alfred was an unusual panda. He only ate cherries!!!
When I first met him, he was leaning against a cheery tree in the cherry orchard,
with his fez tilted forward perched on his big head, the tassel blowing around.

His clumsy paws picked cherries one by one, followed by spitting the pit out to see how much distance it could get.
I startled Alfred when I snuck up on him unsuspecting.
I professed that it was odd to see a panda that didn’t eat bamboo foliage.

He confessed, he did try the vile shoots once, then switched to eating cherries!

TOM

Present

Stupid

Right panda arms

Left panda arms

Forward march

You don’t know your fez from a pez

You don’t know your fez from a pez

Sound off cherry orchard

Sound off vortex manipulator

One Two Three Four. Can’t do it.

That was the 444th rapid reiteration Alpha Strike team

Right behind them a perennial favorite at the parade

The 110 foot Dick Cheney being pulled this year by BP CEO.

LED lights across Dick’s head scrolling out

What makes you richer to arrive later in week

Oh my, dick seems to be dipping dangerously low on

Those unsuspecting shriners

RED

Lola spent her morning catching up on gossip. Jenny in the penthouse broke up with her Latin lover. Mr. Williams is still pretending not to be dating the valet Edward. The drama of exclusive guests can be quite juicy.

The head of security hated to smile and often complained to Lola. “Why are they always so happy,” he pointed at the maids. It’s no secret this guy is miserable, yet he makes more money than everyone combined.

Lola learned as a little girl that “what makes you richer” will never come from a paycheck. Suddenly, Lola feels bad for gossiping.

NORVAL JOE

The members of the company got to their feet, brushing the snow from their backs and knees. The blue stone on Shareeka’s medallion flashed with blinding light to rival the brilliance of the sun and went dark.
For an instant, Owen found himself in darkness like the stone. When the light returned, they were back at the goblin village. The unsuspecting goblins were as surprised as the company.
“Stupid redundant reiterations,” Shareeka said, finding the cube back in her hand, returned it to the way-stone.
Owen was prepared and at Shareeka’s repetition of the words found himself standing in snow.

_____________________________________________________________________________

My daughter’s fifth grade project is about dog rescue.
Today, we went to the pound and looked at the adoptable animals. There were a lot of beautiful cats, many I would have taken if we didn’t already have two at home.
Bekah wanted a black chihuahua which we played with outside in a grassy enclosure. I had told her before, “I just can’t do it, right now,” and had no trouble reiterating we couldn’t get a dog.
However, I did feel enormous guilt each time we walked past and never played with the one wiener dog present in the facility.

STEVEN THE NUCLEAR MAN

Every second is a little gift. Each moment, a position in spacetime. It’s something precious.

That moment at the zoo when your child first recognizes a panda from a picture book. The playful geeksquee when you slap a fez on your head and declare it cool. Walking under the cherry trees at the arboretum with your lover.

Transform boring moments into an unexpected time to meditate and reflect. Pause to really feel the anticipation of something coming up later this week.

Reality is a vast chaotic mess of experiences.

Enjoy it.

Because someday, Father’s coming back to clean it up.

PLANET Z

Once a year, the tribe goes to the shore, and the men are held under the water.
Anyone who can’t fight their way out of their hold is no longer a member of the tribe.
Which shouldn’t be a problem, since the women do the holding.
This worked out well for many years, resulting in quite a few marriages, pregnancies, and rekindled flames once thought extinguished.
However, one year, after a particularly rough season with the firewater, the women appointed the 300 pound she-behemoth Little Buffalo their chosen holder.
She drowned nine men before the tribe swore off alcohol forever.