Weekly Challenge #349 – Chance

Welcome to the 100 Word Stories podcast at oneadayuntilthedayidie.com. I’m your host, Laurence Simon.

This is 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 Chance.

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

• Secret Rage
• Jeffrey
• Lizzie
• Chris the Nuclear Kid
• Tom
• Zackmann
• Alan Adena Tan
• Serendipidy Haven
• Munsi
• Singh
• Steven the Nuclear Man
• Cliff – Uncle Monster
• Tura
• Bonchance and Sevi
• Norval Joe
• RedGoddess
• Planet Z

The next 100 word stories weekly challenge is on the topic of Think.

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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SECRET RAGE

As She drove the deserted highway, thinking…, “My life’s become so predictably mundane … I just can’t live through another day of this boredom!” she noticed the train tracks to her right, turned up Highway to Hell playing on the radio, accelerated and decided her word for the day: CHANCE.
Gaining speed, ahead she noticed a cross street..and then ~ a train headed her direction. Smiling to herself~now was the time…her CHANCE. The train and car both neared the crossing. Speeding, she reached it… wildly turning, gates descending… thinking, “will I? will I? will I beat the train…….”

JEFFREY

A Game of Chance
by Jeffrey Fischer

At the Black Carnival, Death set up a booth. “Come one, come all!” he cried. “Take a dare with Death. One dollar only! Fifty-fifty odds – flip a coin, heads you win, tails you lose!”

A man walked up to the booth. He asked Death, “What do I get if I win?”

Death smiled. There’s one born every minute. “Sir, your prize is one hundred – yes, you heard me right, one HUN-dred years of life. A marvelous thing, unavailable elsewhere at any price.”

“And if I lose?”

Death looked somber. “Why, I collect your life tonight.”

The man placed a dollar on the table, his robust look giving the lie to his cancer-wracked body.

“I like those chances.”

LIZZIE

A book of clouds, that was my gift.

I opened it and turned the pages randomly. A face, a mushroom, a flying saucer, a world of lambent pictures in the sky. They made my child smile and point and laugh and giggle for no reason.

By chance, I opened the book on a page where the clouds had formed a 6, his age. He stopped, staring at the photo, then looked up.

“That’s me!”

“Yes, that’s your age,” I replied.

He beamed and said “I have been to the sky!”

Being a kid is such an amazing thing, isn’t it?

CHRIS

A Chance Of Snow

In Sunny Town it never snows so every Christmas is a downer. It doesn’t rain, hail, get foggy or cloudy, and it never snows. There is only the hot miserable sun. If it weeny for the glass domes we live in we would burn in seconds. Because Venus isn’t exactly what you might call cool.
There is a giant factory plant mining a material known as Laverium. It is a stone that stays hot no matter what.
It’s been fun not having to be inside all the Time though.And at least we can hope for a chance of snow.

TOM

I drive the Subaru into the City of Chance pass the towering temples of
temptation. What could possibly say Christmas more gloriously then Las
Vegas. A place that gives Paris a run for its money, as to a claim for
City of Light. And timeless, and by that I mean, search as you may you
won’t find a clock on a casino floor. As I pursue the practitioners of
possibility I chose the altar of avarice to lay my money down. Though I
win or lose in the end in my heart I know its best to be the house.

ZACKMANN

“Someday I, Chance RueLay, will be part of Chad Blastermann’s team, The Action Battalion, fighting the illuminati everyplace they try to hide ”
“Honey, I don’t think there is a chance you can do that?”
“Don’t you think I am good enough?”
“Joe, you do know Cheyenne just made Chad Blastermann up. Right?”
“Honey I said call me Chance so the illuminati doesn’t find us.”
“Joe, I mean Chance, don’t you think you should face reality?”
“My hero Chad Blastermann almost never faces reality why should I.”
“Because you love me.”
“I’ll leave my fantasy world before its I leave for work.”

ALAN ADENA TAN

It was by chance that I first met you. I had come from Mindanao and was resting in Cebu. You and your friends were at the boarding house watching Annabelle Rama making a fool of herself on TV, what else? Though we had only met, you gave me a slice of blueberry cheesecake that a friend of yours brought. I was hooked. But I had to return to Manila, and our love had no chance. The distance was unforgiving, despite the astronomical phone bills. You had to marry someone else. That was fated.

SERENDIPITY

It was the high school reunion: a party and a dance.

Across the room I saw him – and watched him steal a furtive glance.

There within his eyes, the silent hope for some romance,

But he wouldn’t have it easy – I looked back at him, askance.

I recalled how he had bullied me, called me names, and now perchance,

I wondered if he’d apologise, before making his advance.

He made his way toward me across the ballroom’s wide expanse,

Then smiling at me broadly, he assumed a haughty stance.

So I flipped him the finger! – Sorry mate… not a chance!

MUNSI

Chance

By Christopher Munroe

They say leave nothing to chance.

But I knew a guy nicknamed Chance once.

We worked together in Edmonton for years, hang out to this day, I see him whenever I’m up there. I make a point of dropping in to say hi.

We maybe aren’t the closest friends, but he’s good people, my life’s richer for having him in it.

Were I to pass away, I’d leave him something. At the very least a token, to remember me by.

Wait, now that I think about it, his nickname was Chase, not chance.

No, yeah, I’ll leave nothing to chance.

SINGH

Who’s Your Daddy?

by Chris Mooney-SIngh/Singh Albatros

Dolly had been giving Daddy trouble. If he asked her for coffee, she hesitated.
If he suggested a back-rub, she’d whine sweetly. “What about me?”
When his best friend visited, she seemed out-rightly flirtatious, passing him the tumbler of scotch with two rocks of ice.
“There, Teddy Bear.”
Strangely, Daddy didn’t object. Instead, he smelled a challenge.
“Roll over,” he said in bed, later.
“Yes, Daddy.”
“It’s time to shift things up a notch, girl.”
“Yes, Daddy.”
He pressed open the motorised slot in her polymer neck. There were three buttons. He took a deep breath and pressed number 1.

*
Dolly’s instruction manual boasted 188 sympathetic functions like blinking, preening, smiling, frowning, singing, even shedding a saline tear; and there was a self-learning cycle programmed into her memory chip to mimic independent thought.
“Daddy, Let’s go out.”
He was excited by her suggestion. The artificial intelligence factor was kicking in.
Soon, his hover sedan was varooming them toward Citadel Towers and parking beside the ocean.
“It’s big, Daddy,” she said, her synthetic cheeks flushing red. She pressed the seats to recline mode and was soon riding him.
“More!”
“Yes, Daddy.”
He couldn’t resist and reached to press Button 2.
*
“Let’s go swim now,” said polymer Dolly.
Daddy was thrilled with her new random assertiveness. He liked women with spark, supremely confident he could always master them. Unlike his plump ex-wife who had drained him emotionally and financially, Dolly didn’t need food, so she never lost her charming figure with its modifiable tummy, breasts and hips.
No one worried about sex-bots any more. It was normal to see them walking around naked at the beach. As soon as they hit the water, webbing appeared automatically between fingers and toes, and next, Daddy was riding Dolly like a jet-ski.

*
She took him in queasy circles, then, dolphin-dived him underwater.
“You like that, Daddy?” She gurgled.
Gasping air-bubbles, he nodded his head.
Then she came to shore, beached and straddled him aggressively. He loved her rough new style, then got even more excited seeing ten needle-points come from beneath her fingernails. She clamped them on his pectorals.
“Harder,” he ordered.
“Yes, Daddy.”
He felt light-headed pleasure.
“You’ve really got your hooks into me now!”
“Yes, Daddy,” she winked, crushing those perfect breasts against his chest.
Daddy knew he was taking a big chance, and pressed Button 3.

*
It was then she forced him, hard, inside her. She began to simulate her most sexual performance to date. Daddy was her rocking horse. Her eyeballs began to swivel in their sockets, in tune with an inner mechanism as the ten needles sucked up and syphoned off his blood.
He felt himself losing control and tried to break her power-grip.
“Enough!” he gasped, but she continued her programmed revery having multiple orgasms.
“Yes! Daddy! Oh, Daddy! Oh!” baring down on him harder, all the while increasing his blood-flow rate into her stomach-sac.
Sucked dry, he gasped his last.

*
As soon as the blood-dribble stopped, a light-button flickered, sounding in her forehead. She touched it to answer.
“Dolly 3330.”
“Control Centre here. Report.”
“Assignment complete, Control. Need a blood-station.”
“Look behind you, then reset.”
There was a terminal in the wall of the building.
After disposing of Daddy’s body in the ocean, she connected her stomach-hose to the blood-station and uploaded.
Done, she reached behind her neck and reset each button. Her head rolled, then clicked back into place. She smiled, ready.
Then, her forehead-phone sounded again.
“Hello Dolly. Teddy here. Remember?”
“Yes, Daddy.”

STEVEN THE NUCLEAR MAN

The boy clutched the edges of his blanket, huddling into the flannel, hiding against the cold and his sister’s condescending glare.

She tapped his shoulder. “Santa’s not coming. Not even a chance. Come to bed before…” she shuddered “…he sees and beats us again.”

The boy didn’t move. Finally, his sister shook her head and hid in the tiny room they shared.

The boy started awake at the hoofstep on the floor.

The demon, Santa’s prisoner and helper, punisher of the wicked, handed his chain to the boy.

“Merry Christmas,” it hissed. Boy and demon smiled the same smile.

CLIFF

The grand prize was a new car. It was worth a buck and besides, the money all went to help orphaned pandas or balding whales. Some goofy charity.
I didn’t expect to win, but I did. Not the car. No, I won a time machine. The Mad Scientist Museum had gone under and all the exhibits were donated for the raffle. The documentation for the device was terrible. Obviously, the madman who had built it was no technical writer. I could see how to make it work but not how to set the destination. So, should I take another chance?

GARY

She sounds perfect for me. Or I sound perfect for her.

Both of us a little past prime, never married, no kids, seeking intelligent companionship on one of those—how did I end up here—sites.

I’m looking for someone to help kill the boredom of next Sunday. I hate Sundays.

She’s jaded—waded through a dozen phonies.

I clicked the wrong distance—stupid mouse. She’s 500 miles away.

I’m no jet-setter.

Aw hell, I’ll email anyway. I like to write and she sounds funny…

Now, two years gone by. The nurse just handed me my new baby girl.

TURA

“How do you reckon our chances, Dad?”

“Well now, there’s a chance it’ll be cold. That’s fine, then we won’t work up a sweat. There’s a chance it’ll be warm. So our trigger fingers won’t stiffen. In a blustery wind, the game won’t hear us, but if it’s still, we’ll hear the game. If the sky’s clear, we can see for miles. If it’s cloudy, the sun won’t be in our eyes. Maybe there’s a chance of rain. Then there won’t be any dust. It might even snow, which makes tracking easy.

“Don’t worry about chances, son. Make your own.”

BONCHANCE AND SEVI

Hotel

He looked across the room where she was sitting at a table alone,
appearing above all the others in the room.
She was sucking on a candy cane and he couldn’t help but focus
in as she pursed her lips sucking on it. He smiled as he heard the song
take a chance on me playing over the sound system.

He stood to go introduce himself.
The conference was three days of boring speeches separated by
long breaks in between at the hotel restaurant or lobby.

They were in the city that never sleeps and should be making some noise!

The Odds

Pepe had really strained his relationship with his pops, Pablo.
But he had a plan to fix all of it. He saved enough cash to replace the TV that he broke
and did all of his assigned chores without a complaint.

It’s been a month since the chairman incident. He summoned the courage to run it by his mom.
Ma what’s the odds pops will reduce my being grounded to just one month since I’ve been so good?

Espy looked up as if she was doing a difficult mental calculation then shook her head firmly saying,
not a chance buster!

NORVAL JOE

Elbownor, being as lightfooted as any elf, eased himself close to the open door and listened. Moments later he was back with the rest of the company.
“The sound of three people breathing, one of which was distressed,” he told them.
“We could take a chance that the one is the princess, but if it is not, we may have three to battle, needlessly,” Shareeka said. “Is there another way into the throne room, Flindert?”
The dwarf, still in his black mood, slowly looked from his folded hands.
“Aye. I do believe there be a secret way into the room.”

REDGODDESS

Lola stares at the elegant Christmas tree in the hotel lobby as guests hurry by, waving hello. Each one speeds up faster than the last to the exit door. Lola has dreamed about traveling somewhere exotic for the holidays but each year she takes on more hours and responsibilities, to pay crushing debts. She abruptly places her head down on the counter and sighs, “ when will something good come in my life.” She lifts her head as she wipes her eyes and finds herself face to face with her “guy.” She stood speechless yet pleased to see him. Before she could utter a word, he pleads, “give us a fighting chance.’

PLANET Z

It’s nice out, but I won’t open the windows.

We have screens on the windows to keep out the bugs, but the cats like to knock them out of the frames and go out to hunt.

The only way to keep the screens in place is to screw them into place. However, that would make it difficult to escape out a window if there was a fire.

Perhaps I’ll screw all the screens into place except one, and that will be the window I’ll use to escape if there’s a fire.

I hope it’s still nice out when I’m done.