Welcome to the Weekly Challenge Number One Hundred And Twenty-Five, 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 Planet Z, and we went with Hurricane.
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):
FRICKER FRACKER
Sand everywhere! What the… How’d I get on the beach?
What the hell is that! A TATTOO! Where’d that come from!
And who the heck is Juanita. I don’t even know a Juanita.
Last thing I remember I was sitting at the bar with my friends.
We ordered a round of shots. Well, a few rounds really.
And I washed them down with this local Island drink called “Los Huracán
Tormenta”.
Maybe that wasn’t such a good Idea…
Well at least I’m not naked and there is no Juanita around.
Time to catch my plane.
Excuse me sir, donde está el aeropuerto?
Fricker it’s me, Juanita!
WILMA
They pulled the white sheet taut across the window blocking her view. “Children, what are you doing?”
“Just playing a game.” Grandma chuckled and returned to mashing the potatoes.
Cyrus whispered, “Are you sure you said the words in the right rhythm?”
“Yes, ‘quick, quick, slow’ just like it said,” Ophelia assured him. Earlier that morning the children found a book titled Powerfully Protective Spells. One spell caught their eye: “Stopping Savage Storms.” As Ophelia nailed the sheet in place Cyrus hissed, “Here he comes.” Stumbling up the path with dragon red eyes was grandpa looking mean as a hurricane.
MORTICIAN
I’ve known I was magic for quite a long time now, I probably first noticed it when I was in grade school. I drew a normal picture of a clear sunny day and my mom posted it to the fridge. She left it up there for two whole months; in those two months our state had the worst drought it has ever seen. When my picture was thrown away the clouds began to gather and rain filled the sky once again.
Now my girlfriend is on a “business trip” with Steven in the gulf, yea, right. I think it’s time I start drawing again.
STEVEN
My roommate said he moved to Florida from Hurricane, West Virginia, though he
pronounced it Hurr-eh-cun and threatened to fight me over it.
“It’s where the hurricane names come from,” he told me. “One at a time, we
get sick. It’s alphabetical, but skips around. One year boys, the next
girls. As we get sicker, the storm gets worse.”
“But you live here now,” I said.
He shook his head. “The sickness follows us. It’s where you’re born that
counts.”
He went to bed early that night. The next day he had a fever, and clouds
massed on the horizon.
JEFFREY HITE
Today on NPR:
We have all heard of those new vacuum cleaners that claim to have the power of a tornado inside them. We all know that it is a simply and illusion, of spinning dust.
However, today in western Louisiana we found a man who has been trying for the last few years to build a better vacuum. Mr. Johnson has been trying to coax hurricanes into his shop so that he could capture their powerful forces and put it a vacuum cleaner. There has been some local outcry, so we got him on the phone.
“Mr. Johnson… Hello?”
My apologies to Steve Inskeep!
BRAD Z
Well see if you put you right hand here and your left hand there and push that there button then the grinding starts. You gotta get it all ground up for it to work. Ok now hit that other button. That gets the mixer going. Sure is a big one isn’t, and fast even. Fred says it gets up to around 70, thats about as fast as some of those hurricane winds that are popping up everywhere recently. The ingredients and everything comes next, then it’s pressed together. It cooks for a bit and after that, viola , Olive Loaf.
GUY
Bob and Harriet started out like a hurricane, but that was so long ago. Now they hardly spoke to each other. Bob silently hated her. He especially hated the fact she was making more then him, selling antiques at eBay, and her obsession with those darn podcasts. Her “Remnant of the Past” podcast about antiques was taking too much of her time. He hated those podcasts, but when she told him she was going to DragonCon, and she talked enthusiastically about Sigler, Hutchings and that Chirapa guy, he knew he would have to go and keep an eye on her.
JUSTIN
I spin and spin and spin. My arms crash through ocean and sea. Sometime they rage over the lands. I can never see where I am going, only where I have been. I would love to see cities and towns, full of people and their homes they have built. But I never see that. I can only see where I have been, the places where I have wrought pain. I only see landscapes ravaged by rain and wind, homes destroyed. It makes me sad to see the damage I’ve done. I don’t mind the trailer parks though, those are fun!
MIKE
You could tell he’d overstayed his welcome and that he’d been most inconsiderate of his Cuban hosts. Water dripped from every wall and streamed unhindered through doorways to nowhere; billboard invitations to drink Havana Club littered the landscape like giant postcards.
The hurricane’s signature moment, though, was created when a large tent broke loose in the wind and was draped over a nearby wall. The top hung well over the wall, flanked on each side by three smaller folds. A tourist’s snapshot of the rising sun directly behind the center flap formed an eerily familiar image. Yep – Gustav was here.
TOM
The rep for C&H crossed the field towards the deepest rows of sugar plants. They were amazing. Higher yield then anything on the Alexander & Baldwin lands. The man inquired who the land belonged to. This led to a cacophony of differing options in a number of Hawaiian dialects. In the end the best he got were fingers pointing to a distant house. Arriving at the lanai the C&H man met an elderly couple. “Are those your sugar plants?” he asked the husband. The old Hawaiian shook his head at the haole and said “No dem r her a cane.”
ANIMA
Get out, you piece of shit.
Out the door flew the flannel shirts and Levis, the greasy ball caps and cowboy boots
The Skynard cd’s, the Marlboro jean jacket.
I never want to see your skinny white ass here again
And I’m calling a lawyer.
Hope you’re happy with that bowling alley bimbo and her double D’s. You two deserve each other.
Guess I better find a new place to live…
And after I put so much work into our double wide.
How’s a hurricane and a redneck divorce similar?
Any way you look at it, someone’s losing a trailer.
PLANET Z
For the person who has everything, why not get them the fury of nature’s wicked wrath?
That’s right. Buy ’em a hurricane
You think they pull those names out a hat? Hell no.
Them radars and satellites and forecaster geeks cost money. Money I’ve got to burn.
Listen… listen to that crap… this Kanye West say that Bush hates black people.
I dunno about Bush, but my daughter Katrina hates em somethin fierce.
Watch the television, darlin. Look at ’em run around.
Happy birthday.
Money can’t buy you love? What a crock of shit.
This is priceless.