Welcome to the Weekly Challenge Number Two Hundred and Fifteen, 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… was…. um…
It’s The Message!
VOTING
Go ahead and listen to them and then vote for your favorites (multiple selections are allowed):
Zackmann
Son, there is something important I have to tell you. Why do you have to guess? You have been told this before. No you are not adopted and your mother is not having a baby. No, your brother only dates girls. Yes, Jesus and your parents love you But what I am trying to say is tomorrow is trash day and you should bring the trash, recyclables, and yard waste cans to the end of the driveway before you go to bed. Oh, Did I mention receiving a letter telling me you might have a 20 year old sister.
I sat watching the news on The Feed wondering, why did my chain smoking grandfather go crazy and kill all those people? Was it the tobacco or whatever else was in his pipe? Is whatever mental condition that made him do that hereditary? I was still confused when I hit the play button on the telephone and heard my mother’s voice saying “You Know your grandfather quit smoking 30 years ago. You need to know your grandfather did not do that terrible thing. That was a very well made but evil steam powered robot” “RUN, it’s headed towards your house”
Wilma
My birthday. 40. Humph. Over the hill or the new 30? Only if you’re in Hollywood with a team of air brushers and body mechanics. Looking down at my favorite dessert, a baked Alaskan, I zone out letting my eyes slip out of focus. Words wave at me. The high meringue peaks form curvy script that reads “come home.” Images of stars whirring and a green ocean flash before my mind’s eye. Blinking, I shake my head and think a bullfighter at 40 is the new 50. Time for a desk job.
Guy David
The bottle washed upon the shore. As I picked it out with trembling hands, I could hear whispers from within. I hesitated for a moment, knowing what was bound to happen, then curiosity got the better of me and I unscrewed the cork. A happy genie burst from within and said: “I have a message for you from the Happy Genie Society. Your HGS membership has expired. Your terms are the regular ones. Once you serve your sentence, you would be free again for another term respectively.” As I screamed, my body contracted and I was squeezed into the bottle.
Steven
Roberto watched the man – the uniform’s nametag read “Jones” – on the
screen. Despite the vast bulk of the generation ship in the shuttle
windows, he could not look away from the flickering pixels from what
remained of Earth.
“China’s shortwave disappeared just after you launched,” Jones said.
“Nothing from the EU, nothing from undersea.” Jones laughed a little,
wiped his forehead. “And nothing from the rest of Canaveral, either.”
The corners of Jones’ face drooped. “I think I’m it.”
Jones took a deep breath. “Well, good luck.” As Jones reached for the
controls, a grey-blue hand grasped his shoulder.
Orion
Wayne sighed to himself as he placed item after item into the empty printer paper box. Anyone watching wouldn’t have been able to tell if it was of relief or disappointment. Not that anyone was watching. All heads were turned away.
Was it out of some perverse respect? Was this a private moment for Wayne and the other hundred or so doing the same?
Wayne looked at the box and wondered whether or not there was a lot for 20 years. All that he left behind was a single slip of paper.
It was, ironically enough, pink.
TJ
From under his beach umbrella, Marcus caught a glint of sunlight on
glass.
“Littering!” he grumbled, and rose to investigate.
It was an old bottle, stopped with seaweed, and there was a message
inside.
He unfolded it and read “Help! The ship’s engines blew up! I’m
trapped on an island! I don’t know where I am. If you find this, call
my son, Marcus.”
And then … his number.
Mom? She’d … gone missing years ago. He’d waited, then had her
declared legally dead.
He’d used part of the insurance settlement for a vacation to the
beach.
Mom … ?
Justin
Deepin Pwan laid in bed an pondered his parent’s latest concerns; The chancellor’s recent actions surely meant trouble for the Republic. Despite always having traveled the galaxy, he nervously awaited tomorrow’s embarking upon an adventure of his own into the galaxy, with his new ship, the Jester’s Flare, and a childhood friend Arlo Tirkalou as a pilot. The adventure will be one of profit and intrigue; buying goods and gathering information, selling them both. He’d miss Mon Calamari, but he suspected he’d not be home anytime soon. He had a bad feeling about what was going on in the galaxy.
Norval Joe
I was sittin on the back porch in a plastic patio chair eatin chili cheeze pork rinds and listening to the game on my transistor radio and the pork rind packet was making all those crinkley, crackly sounds and next thing you know, out from my radio, came those same sounds, and I said, “Ethyl, listen to that. I’m communicating with space aliens.” And she said, “Bobby, don’t be stupid. That’s just cosmic microwave background noise. If it is Aliens, what’s their message?” I told her, “They want pork rinds, and Dr. Pepper.” Ethyl said, “Bobby. You’re full of crap.”
Jeffrey
“Hey, Roger?”
“Yes, Bob.”
“Would you take a look at this for me?”
“Sure Rog, what have you got?
“Well this message just appeared on the screen, but I can’t believe its right but…”
“Woah I’v never seen that one.”
“Me either that is what is so strange, so what do you think I should do?”
“Well do what it says I guess, it has never steered us wrong before.”
As the lights went out all over the ship, and the environmental systems when off line, he wondered if he really should have hit to control alt delete to reboot.
Planet Z
Sometimes, the message is lost in the medium.
Take, for example, Jiggs Casey, just an ordinary petty thief facing his third strike for burglary.
His lawyer said that he was facing serious jail time now, and his bail was set high enough to convince his gang to try to break him out.
When they smuggled in the cupcake for him, Jiggs tore into it looking for a file to hack his way through the bars.
Never mind that the holding facility was using some fancy newfangled keypad locks, and the master code had been written in frosting on the cupcake.