Weekly Challenge #399 – Spy

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 SPY.

We’ve got stories by:

• Mick Bordet
• Lizzie
• Maggy
• Jeffrey
• John
• Munsi
• Julie
• Richard
• Tom
• Singh
• Serendipity
• Tura Brezoianu
• Zackmann
• Spate
• Norval Joe
• Justin
• Cliff – Uncle Monster
• Danny
• Planet Z

The next 100 word stories weekly challenge is on the topic of ANYTHING BUT CHRISTMAS.

Use the Share buttons at the end of the post to spam your social networks. This obligatory cat photo should help make the Internet go faster:

Finally, if there are any errors or corrections, please let me know, and I’ll fix them as soon as possible.

MICK

Quick Change by Mick Bordet (http://mickbordet.com)

“His face has changed, sir. I swear he was the double of the Maj Tupan Prackatt. Surely he must be the spy.”

“Good work, Kail,” said the sergeant. “Go prepare a cell, while I begin the interrogation.”

The deputy left without a word, eager to please. The door had no sooner closed behind him than the prisoner leapt up, slamming into the sergeant and wrestling him to the ground. He relaxed a muscle and the tiny dagger dropped from his armpit into his hand.

Within thirty seconds, the man wearing the sergeant’s face walked out of the prison to freedom.

LIZZIE

“Sometimes things happen that we hope never did. Sometimes we bury our heads in the sand and pretend they didn’t happen. Sometimes others pass judgment on us without knowing the whole story, without even making an effort to. They think they are better than us, purer. However, in the bitter end, they are just as pathetic as anyone else, although in their self-righteousness they are incapable of seeing that,” said the private detective, who spent his life being a spy of other people’s pitiful lives. “There’s nothing worse than a lie. It digs a gap that will never stop bleeding.”

MAGGY

Mary was very cautious as she measured out the medication for Szy. “I hope this is okay,”
she whispered to herself, “wouldn’t put anything past her.” At that moment Mary heard
footsteps. Matron Grimes stood at the door. Mary hid at the cupboard side. Mary watched
as the matron measured out the dosage. Szy waved his hand and shook his head. The matron
put the spoon to his lips. The medicine spilled over the bed. Mary laughed. “Serves you right!”
she said. “You told me to give him that! you didn’t trust me, so you had to spy on me!”

JEFFREY

The Spying Game
by Jeffrey Fischer

As the 21st century rolled on, governments became increasingly adept at monitoring other governments, along with their own citizens. Electronic communications were only the start: eventually, monitoring of thoughts became not only possible but cheap. International summits were pointless, as everyone knew the positions the other countries would take. Most crimes were stopped ahead of time, when equipment detected thoughts of criminal behavior. Those criminals who did manage to commit a crime didn’t bother to hire lawyers any longer, as their own thoughts betrayed them.

Throughout the world, everyone considered this a golden age. Or so they thought, if they knew what was good for them.

I Spy
by Jeffrey Fischer

As children, twins Mack and Mark would pass the time on long car trips playing I Spy. “I spy with my little eye… something blue,” Mack would say, gazing upward. “It’s the sky!” Mark would reply, followed by, “I spy with my little eye… something tan.” Mack would respond with, “The car’s seats!” No one accused the twins of being geniuses.

As adults, both were captured on an espionage mission to North Korea and placed in a sensory deprivation cell. No windows, no furnishings, just walls, a barred door, and a hole in the floor as a toilet.

“I spy with my little eye… something gray,” said Mack.

“Shut it,” said Mark. “It’s the wall, just like the last hundred times.”

Harriet the Spy
by Jeffrey Fischer

Many people know of Harriet the Spy from the charming children’s book by Louise Fitzhugh, or the movie starring Michelle Trachtenberg. Harriet loses her notebook full of snarky observations about her friends, and her friends retaliate by making her life miserable. She apologizes and all is forgiven.

Cute story, right? Few people know that Harriet was based on a real child, and that the true story was much darker. When her friends found the diary, they ganged up, smothered her, and left her in a shallow grave. Sadly, Fitzhugh’s publisher insisted on a cheerier ending.

JOHN MUSICO

Haven from the Heathens
by John Musico

The toddler’s parents kept him in a wooden box. They didn’t want him to see the un-Christian world he had been born into.
Secretly, the toddler picked a hole into the floor of the box. When it was quiet outside, he’d rock back and forth till it tumbled on its side.
His only view of the world outside was through the hole he could spy through examining the world outside.
Consequently, the toddler’s images in his mind were always encircled in a round ratty wooden frame …until that final day when he saw a policeman in a large square frame.

MUNSI

Why I Need Billions of Dollars Worth of Military Funding

By Christopher Munroe

Here’s the plan…

Step One: Develop microscopic robots small enough to exist undetectably within the human body.

Step Two: Equip and program said robots with the capability to record and broadcast directly from their host’s memory, that said recordings can be later retrieved for use.

Step Three: Inject the robots into the bone marrow of our agents. Ideally, right where the skeletal structure connects to the brainstem. This way, the nanobots will be near enough the brain to see the world as our agent does, in real time.

This, in short, is the principal behind my new “Spy-nal fluid” project…

JULIE

I spied on my parents,

And they spied on me—

Listened to my calls,

Read my pink floral diary.

I spy on the rich,

find out their dirty secrets–

Spy on the famous,

Find out their trash

Oh prurient, self-serving stalker me.

Putting food on the table for my family.

I spy with my little eye,

Some rumbles in my life–

That may come out

In the wash.

My house is dark and cold,

Clean, but needs repair

things leak, things fall apart—

I tiptoe round my wrecked heart.

I am the Shoemaker’s daughter:

Everyone’s souls fixed, but my own.

RICHARD

#1 – Watched? (38)

Since returning to dry land, George and Emily had made a determined effort to leave the confines of the city – not an easy task, since they had no idea in which direction to head and their journey was broken by the frequent need to hide from supposed threats.

It was on one of these occasions that George confided in Emily: “I can’t help feeling that we’re being watched’.

“We’re always being watched,” she replied, “security cameras, CCTV – they’re everywhere, spying on us…”

“It’s not that”, said George, “I’m convinced there’s been somebody following us, ever since we left the river…”

#2 – Twitching Curtains

The old woman across the street is always watching the neighbours – there’s nothing that goes on she doesn’t know about.

We gave her the benefit of the doubt: ‘She’s lonely’, we’d say, or ‘it’s good that someone’s keeping an eye on what’s going on’.

When the mail and newspapers started piling up outside her door, we feared the worst – sure enough, when we broke in, we found her slumped, dead in her chair.

We also found the camera feeds, activity logs and satellite uplink… turns out she was a government spy.

Doesn’t that make you wonder who’s watching your neighbourhood?

TOM

I SPY

It was a time of spies. Even Bill Cosby into the act. From the big screen
to the little screen the secrets agent screamed modernity. Tales of the
old west had given way to globetrotting assassins for crown and country. A
generation before was bound by ethics and law led directly to a generation
of a new type of hero far removed from even the anti-heroes of that same
decade. Spy movies of the sixties were less about intelligence gathering
and more about body count. Coupled with wave upon wave of sexual conquest
you get the prefect post modern hero.

SPY VS SPY

“I want to be a spy.” yelled Bennie. “NO I want to be a spy.” screamed
Terry. Mother wise in all matter of Halloween jurisprudence said, “Ben you
get to be the White Spy and Terence you get to be the Black Spy.” When
Mother was finish with their respective costumes they looked just like
the Mad Magazine comic strip. Through the night they came up with
increasingly convoluted schemes for robbing each other of their candy.
Always executed in complete silence, till Bennie detonated Terry’s Atomic
Pumpkin. The neighborhood outside the blast radius was designated a No
Trick-or-Treat zone.

SPY GUY

My first year in college I met my first CIA operative. The most unassuming
person you’d ever met. Double major math and science. He was all of 21
years old. Hired in the wake of the Weather Men, his sole job was to
watch the student body, noting any comments that did not ring out Mom ,
Apple Pie, and the Girl Next Door. I pointed out it wasn’t very spy like
to be telling me about it all. He laughed. “Unless I’m recruiting.” Too
bad I flunked out of freshman year, I would have been fun being a spy.

A Well Defined Relationship Part 27

When your traveling on an air ship you got a lot of time to reflect.
Without much effort Doc Proctor drifted back to his days with the
guerrillas on Seti Alpha 4. He had not set out to become a spy, but
medical personal often are over looked by the lookers. His actions hadn’t
helped the guerrillas, they were pretty much doomed from the start. But
the villagers in the high desert, he’d done right by them. The glow below
belonged to many of the people he had saved. He would continue keeping
them safe, but it had a cost.

SINGH

22.1

Slowly, the sun pulled down its orange blind

as his slapping sandals hit the road of dust.

The waves had comforted a churning mind

to a small degree. He was resolved to trust

the Krishna in the cards. The god of blue

had come down from the cobalt sky

to instruct the Arjun in him what to do.

Back in their hut he stood a moment — a spy

in the darkness, seeing Margot there inside,

quiet as Buddha, eyes closed, upon the bed.

How could he think so badly of his bride

who had sacrificed her daughters in his stead?

22.2

School brooms

squat-swirling

the dust devils

of swept scraps

and fallen hearts

of pipal leaves

crept across

the compound

a phalanx

imposed by

Mr Kumara’s

stick whacking

little Atul

self-appointed

sentry spy

aching Sufi

waiting for

his Beloved

pointing shouting

into the distance

Decko! Look!

As children trailed

pied piper Madam,

sweet snakehead

of a column

winding through

sunburnt earth

along the ridges

where now

capsicum kingdoms

eggplant outlands

yellow mustard seas

were ploughed clods

in sandy summer

waiting for rain.

Yogi with guitar

in a vinyl case

worn on his back

a doppelgänger

made up the rear.

22.3

He did not think a no-talk night

would walk into a no-talk day

all the way from yesterday’s fight.

Given no time or place to play

the unzipped shadow, his guitar

stood to attention through the day

in Madam’s office. Like a rock star

off the charts, at a loose end,

she made him feel unpopular.

He stalked about trying to blend,

hanging about at the back of the class,

an egret unable to pull and bend

a worm from tree roots or kicked grass.

He longed to find afternoon’s end,

knowing that they had reached an impasse.

22.4

“Madam, Yogi here. Now singing time?”

Today was sweaty from the beating sun,

lunch tiffins had been scrubbed with sand.

Restless children fidgeted in rows,

eyes and smiles hoping to close textbooks.

Yogi looked expectantly for a Yes.

“Yogi cannot,” She met his eyes. “Too busy.”

“But Madam ji. Today guitar he brought.”

“Big people in the town want him later.

That’s right? Anytime you’ll play, huh?”

“I never said I’ll leave the school,” he countered,

Smarting at her slap. “I like all this.

I can play right now. School is over.”

“No need now. The children will be leaving.”

22.5

His outcast senses became acute to noises

like the flitter flop of bulbuls up above,

the flash of crest, red vents, white cheeks and eye,

wingbeats shifting branch to wavering branch,

then clamp of claw, the authority of grasp

breaking through camouflage of leaves

on this avian plane above the human one.

They sucked up nectar, insects, flower petals

to feed their hatchlings crying in the nest,

while looking down on heads of chanting kids

with number mania. Wasn’t he like them,

a whistler with a high perch on the tree?

Why should he cease to be a singing bird?

22.6

He held his anger all the way home to the hut.

“What was all that, making me look so stupid?”

“And yesterday at Barhai’s?” She volleyed back another.

“She made me feel like a child abandoner.

Yogi was shocked. “How can you say such a thing?

“And I don’t like Barhai. He is sly and a cheater.”

You hardly know him.” She paused before her answer.

“Go on then, you’ll see,” and turned away to the wall.

“Look, you can’t just push me out like a lodger.”

But she favoured the wall to his face. Right now it was over.

22.7

he dreamed a bow aiming the arrow
he is arjuna all night in the jungle
target practice in the blindfold dark

then guru drona walks into his head

to wake him brothers cousins

still dreaming it is morning

“so glad you could get up

from your fat feast last night

the river says splash your face

time for archery practise

“can you focus?

pull back take aim

not here up there

what do you see duryodhana

yudhisthira the wise

bhima the strong

nakula the loving

sahadeva the pure?

what do you see my own aswattama

yawning brat of a son?”

22.8

they see the tree

they see the bird

they see the bow

they see the arrow

they see their hands

and their guru

“wrong wrong wrong wrong

aswattama you too so wrong

“tell me arjuna

what do you see

best of the five pandavas

“i

spy

a

bird”

“describe”

“i

spy

a

bird”

“exactly”

“can’t”

“why?”

“i

spy

just

the

eye

the

eye”

“put down your bow arjuna

come here i bless you

but pledge

if we meet in war

arjuna pledge

you’ll fight with me to win”

“i will”

the dream instant-replays

until the lotus-pink of dawn

SERENDIPITY

Long car journeys were always the worst, not so much because of the journeys themselves, but mainly because my stepmother insisted on playing stupid games to keep us ‘amused’.

After hours spent ‘spotting yellow cars’, we’d be forced into playing ‘I spy’.

I remember that last game with a certain pleasure…

“I spy with my little eye, something beginning with ‘R'”, she intoned.

The answer was obviously, ‘road’, and that’s where her eyes should have been, rather than watching us.

Which is why she didn’t spy the tree branch, heading straight towards the windscreen. We did… and ducked: she didn’t!

TURA

Spy
——–
The Ministry of Intelligence contacted me, while preparing for the trade delegation. “Just keep your eyes and ears open,” said the anonymous-looking man, “and we’ll talk when you get back.”

I was arrested the moment I got off the plane. “We’ll tell you what to tell them,” they said. “Or we can just shoot you as a spy.”

When I got back, my handler greeted me by saying, “Recruited you, did they? Good! Now here’s what we want you to tell them…”

“You don’t need a spy,” I told them, “you need to get on the phone to each other.”

ZACKMANN

“Doctor, I feel like everyone is watching me. Grandma told me to be good; Santa is watching. The DJ on the all request station said “We’re always listening to you.” Now I have been told Tom is Shadowing me. I think the government and corporations are watching my web searches.”

“Don’t vorry, hypnosis might help you. Vatch my lovely pocket vatch sving on its chain. Corporations are not spying on you. The NSA does cares not about your “Thia Cathouse” web search. When you come out of your trance, You will have no memory of doing a market research surveys.”

SPATE

013

I’ve been watching you. Tracking your movements. Listening to your phone calls. Analyzing your forays onto the internet.

No probable cause. No warrant. No judicial oversight. I act alone.

You complain? You have no one to blame but yourself. You stuck your head in the snow then refused to believe. Now you are stuck with your own reality.

There are no secrets. I know everything that you have done.

You’ve been bad and now your night of reckoning has come.

Yes, your foremost fear is here… nothing but a lump of coal for your stocking this year.

Ho. Ho. Ho.

NORVAL JOE

“Here you go, young man.” An ancient volunteer offered a map of the Los Angeles Zoo.
Yergie Sprockdockovich of the Bergerslovegan mafia took it and wandered the walkways between animal exhibits in search of his contact from the Women’s Trade Federation. She would be wearing bright red lipstick, a silk scarf and a baseball hat.
Esmeralda Flinch waited in the primate exhibit.
“Do you speak French?” He asked.
“Only Japanese,” she said.
“It’s not my day,” he added.
Esmeralda gave Yergie a photo of Fly Paper Boy and said, “Please. Kill him.”
Unfortunately for them, the monkey was a spy.

JUSTIN

When I got this job as a security guard, I really never expected to have some guy drop from a rafter and knock me senseless.

I was minding my own business, well, I guess the business of where I worked, doing patrols, and then wham! I’m out cold. Some spy was in the place and in an effort to not get caught, he incapacitated every single guard in the place!

I blame the company I worked for. Turns out that they are doing some shady things and this spy was here to investigate.

Sure am glad I’m still breathing, though.

CLIFF

People always think that being a spy is an exciting and glamorous job. That is not how it works. I go to boring meetings with boring people and file reports that never get read. I eat a sandwich at lunch and drink more bad coffee than I care to remember. The only covert op that I’ve been involved in this year was Marjorie’s surprise birthday party and I really think she suspected. Basically, I think an insurance salesman has a more exciting job. You might ask why I stay? Well, the money’s good and I occasionally get to kill someone.

DANNY

Conversations of intelligence result in nothing but the pile of crap we accept as the Spy game. I was sitting in a movie theater, when an Iranian spy whispered in my ear. Unfortunately, this was an IMAX film we were watching, and I couldn’t hear her over the intermittent loud guns and music, followed by the incoherent mumbling of the dialog by the actors in the film. Sure, this is much like my real life, incoherent mumbling followed by loud blasts of intermittent music and gunfire, without a female Dick Cheney still attempting to whisper in my ear, of course.

PLANET Z

You would think that a talking rasp would have a raspy voice, but the director of The Magical Toolbox hired a well-known sexpot bubble-blond actress to voice the rasp.

The hammer was going to be voiced by an actor who’s a well-known drunk, but the network didn’t think that it was a good idea to have a drunk character on a kid’s cartoon.

“Maybe he has permanent brain damage?” said the director. “He’s always getting his head beaten against things.”

They went with a famous Mexican-American voice actor who did a lot of drug movies.

He screamed “STOOOOOOP!” a lot.