Weekly Challenge #468 – Pan

Welcome to the 100 Word Stories podcast at oneadayuntilthedayidie.com.

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.

We’ve got stories by:

• Hotspur
• Jeffrey
• Richard
• Munsi
• Anima
• Serendipity
• Lizzie
• Tom
• Norval Joe
• Danny
• Tura Brezoianu
• Kimi
• Planet Z

What’s the next Weekly Challenge? Come to the website and subscribe to the feed to find out!

HOTSPUR

(no text)

JEFFREY

Days Gone By
by Jeffrey Fischer

My wife laments that people eat out too much these days. They have far too much food, often food that’s not healthy, and don’t learn to cook for themselves. For without the desire to cook, there’s no need for fancy cooking equipment: no roasters, or whisks, no mixers, no frying pans. And it’s the last of that bunch that really upsets her, because there’s nothing like a good frying pan with which to whack an errant husband over the head. Smacking him with a stack of takeout menus just isn’t the same.

Hop-son’s Choice
by Jeffrey Fischer

The angler reached into his bucket of ice and pulled out a trout he had caught only minutes before. He threw the trout into the frying pan suspended over the open fire and turned his attention to preparing the rest of the meal.

The trout was initially happy to be in the warm pan after lying on the cold ice and enjoyed the sauna. After some time, however, he was far too warm and considered his options. He leapt out of the pan.

The fire was no better! The trout felt his skin begin to singe. Mustering all his strength, he leapt back into the frying pan, which was now sizzling hot. Even his little trout brain understood that he was screwed either way.

Everyone’s a Critic
by Jeffrey Fischer

The job of a theater critic is not an easy one. Staying awake is often a problem, as is not reacting to the boorish behavior of others in the audience. But the big headache is handling those who react poorly to criticism. If I pan a play, I can expect no end of crap from the director to the actors to the actors’ mothers. Look, folks, I just call ’em as I see ’em.

So darling, I don’t care if you’re in middle school – that production of “Our Town” was a stinker. And tell your mom she has to start talking to me some time.

RICHARD

Hi Laurence,

Only one story this week – the sunshine is far too lovely to be sat in front of a keyboard, and around these parts it doesn’t last long enough to be wasted! (Which is a clever way to hide the fact I was totally uninspired… ah well, the best laid pans, eh?)

So here it is, and here’s my topic suggestion – ‘The ultimate thrill’

Catch up with you and the gang on Sunday.

Regards,
Richard.

Frying Pan

I’ve a terrible knack for getting into trouble – it seems no sooner do I get out of one scrape, I’m straight into another one, until eventually, I’m in a whole pile of grief.

Then it struck me that if I’m going to get into trouble, I may as well accept things as they are – pretty pointless to try and dig myself out if I know that I’ll inevitably end up in the same position again, almost immediately.

So these days, rather than out of the frying pan into the fire, I sit tight in the pan, and hope no-one notices.

MUNSI

A Life Lived with Style

By Christopher Munroe

I go through life with grace and aplomb.

Grace and aplomb, in case you didn’t know, is like swagger for people who AREN’T reprehensible douche-bags.

There’s a poise to it, a style too absent from this vulgar modern age, and I’ve made it my personal mission to restore that indefinable quality, that dignity, that It Factor, to all my dealings with the world.

Panache, I suppose you could call it. Or quiet, elegant dignity.

And dignity has always been my watchword.

No, wait, I misspoke, that doesn’t describe me at all. I’d meant the opposite of every part of that…

ANIMA

THE FIRST OF MAY

Sarah rolled over, looking into his eyes. Twigs and leaves clung to her dishevelled hair. The grassy knoll where they lay was bathed lightly in morning sun.

“I’m happy you convinced me the first of May is a real holiday. When we met at the bonfire last night, I wasn’t interested in short, hairy guys, but … WOW! You have changed my attitude.

You’ve played music long? I am glad you can use those skills for more than playing the pipes…”

Pan leaned in, kissing Sarah on the mouth, nickering happily at his latest conquest. Indeed, the first of May!

SERENDIPITY

They told me that if you were to place a frog in a pan of cold water and gradually increase the temperature, it would boil to death without ever realising.

I didn’t believe it of course; even so, I decided to give it a try, but my results were inconclusive… with no way to communicate with the frog, how could I possibly tell whether it knew it was being boiled?

Which is why you’re presently lying in a bath of water, currently at a very pleasant, body temperature.

You’ll be sure to let me know when you’re done, won’t you?

LIZZIE

Frying pan in hand, Linda looked outside. Tony was late; her darling husband who swore to wed her for better or for worse and all that crap, until… She waited for hours and hours.

When Margaret, the owner of the house, arrived, Linda gave her the pan treatment first.

The problem was that Tony had years of experience. He entered the house through the back and… Let’s say Linda’s life suffered a slight rearrangement and there it was… till death do us part.

Frying pan in hand, Tony thought “amazing how easy it was to solve two problems at once”.

TOM

And One more for the Road

The Great Pan sidled up to the bar. The bar keep passed him a Bushmills neat with an ouzo shooter. After the fourth round the bartender positioned himself in front of the old goat, and casually drew a towel around the inside of an Old Fashion glass. “Hoof and Horn,” mumbled Pan. “Gladys?” Pan limply flailed a hand that banged into his left horn, bounced, hit the bar. “That satyr is no good for you.” “Cupid’s arrows” “Fuck Cupid.” Pan wiped out his pipes and started playing some Mississippi blues. Joe pour Pan a double “It on the house, man.”

The DownUlater

They paned it. Damn near everyone to Omaha paned it. Those that didn’t had less then faint praise for the production. He knew if he stayed in the pack he’d have deep cover. Careers had been lost over this sort of quixotic dedication. A lone voice countering the choirs. His editor and publisher lent a deaf silent to the piece. Even his wife Ann said burn it. “Print it” he said.

The first review of the newly hired New York Theater Reviewer thanked the previous reviewer for his glowing piece on Jim Carey’s Musical version of Waiting for Godot.

NORVAL JOE

Dergle sent his first tweet:
Dergle Vander Hoont ‏@WienerDogMan
By not believing in myself, I’ve ceased to exist. Trying to #connect with people who might #believe in me.
He waited. If this didn’t pan out like he hoped, he didn’t know what to do next.
He tried again:
Dergle Vander Hoont ‏@WienerDogMan
#ImReal #BelieveMe My pet #weinerdog is named Long John Silver. My #GirlFriend is Bambi. She works at Mac Discount’s #GroceryStore.
An hour later he got a follower @_Brit_knee_Speers who he followed back.
She sent a direct message, “10,000 real twitter followers for $9.99”.
Dergle sighed, losing all hope.

DANNY

Weekly Challenge 468: Pan

Susan Pan was a poor, disillusioned, petty excuse of a human being. She wasn’t even of Asian descent, yet her last name was still Pan. This was because her father, Harry Potter, never wanted to acknowledge he had impregnated a woman, but still wanted the last name of his bastard child to reflect a kitchen appliance. Susan suffered from a rare affliction that caused her feet to ooze thick oil that smelled like Italian dressing. This is where the story gets weird, because I’m running low on 100 words. Susan’s boyfriend JimBob, who was turned on by the smell of her….

TURA

Pan
——–
“What are the sun and the moon?” asked the boy, ten thousand years ago.

“A man on a horse, dragging a firepot,” replied the old man. “And Woman, who chases Man, then flees from him.”

“What is fire?” a boy asked a century ago.

“Atoms!” replied his father.

“What is love?” he asks today.

“Neurons firing!” comes the reply.

Stories all, of which we rarely ask, “is this true?” but only, “is it a good story?”

Terry Pratchett told a very true story, when he said that we are not Homo sapiens, knowing man, but Pan narrans, the story-telling ape.

KIMI

Granny Jackson could cook. Before she became frail, the woman was brilliant in the kitchen. Now, she sat in her wheelchair next to me at the kitchen table going over recipes. We have sat together like this since I was a little girl. Looking around the kitchen stirs memories of my failed attempts cooking my favorite meal of fried chicken and buttered Johnny cakes drizzled with sorghum.
“Granny, I followed your recipes but it doesn’t quite taste the same. Do you have a secret spice that isn’t in the recipe?”
“A spice? No. A pan? Yes! A Number 10 Griswold.”

PLANET Z

Back in the days of Ancient Greece, Pan was some goat-legged sex fiend god.

I’m not sure what he was the god of, though.

Goats?
Sex fiends?
Fiends who had sex with goats?

The Greeks had a god for everything. I guess they had a lot of goats, sex fiends, or fiends who had sex with goats, because they had to come up with a god for it.

Pan had a pipe flute. These days, it’s called the Pan flute.

Zamfir is the master of the Pan flute.

Whether he’s a sex fiend, well, the informercials never manage to say.