Welcome to the 100 Word Stories podcast at oneadayuntilthedayidie.com.
This is the 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:
MUNSI
The Show
By Christopher Munroe
A single ferret, in the big city, trying to have it all.
Living, working, occasionally disemboweling other small rodents, life was hard, but she knew that as long as she remained virtuous she WOULD, in the end, learn how to balance work and her tempestuous love life.
As produced by David E. Kelly.
Long story short, the show was NOT good, and only made eight episodes before being cancelled. Frankly, it’s failure’s no surprise. What surprises is that it was greenlit in the first place. Who on this planet thought it MIGHT work?
Somebody at NBC is filled with regret….
MUNSI
Searching Searching Searching
Single, Ferret, seeking Planet Base Diet partner, Failed third grade, Hard Liqueur acceptable, Regret not, Disembowel my third grade nun, Virtue is its own punishment. “This has to be a message to some sleeper cell.” “Nope” “Look at it, who would write such dribble?” “Robot” “What?” “Robot Emailers, escaped from Langley,” said the NSA analysis. “Nice work kid, hand me that bug spray.” Leo sprayed the kid’s screen, the email melted off the monitor. “How’d you do that,” “Fifth level secret, if I told you, I’d have to kill ya, remember Rudy.” The kid got real quiet. Read the next email.
JEFFREY
Two Minute Hate
by Jeffrey Fischer
The couple sat across the dinner table from one another. Neither had taken a bite of the meal. “I hate you,” she said.
“I hate you, too.”
“Well, I loathe you.”
“I despise every single thing about you.”
“You are a vile chauvinist.”
“You’re a bubble-headed wannabe feminist.”
“I can’t stand your lax hygiene.”
“I resent your relatives.” He checked his watch. “Okay, done. Say, tomorrow is our 25th anniversary. Should we take the day off?”
She shook her head. “No, we’ll regret it. The therapist says communication really improves a marriage.”
“I think she’s right. Things between us have never been better.”
Failing Up
by Jeffrey Fischer
He ran his bank into the ground. When he was made CEO of his second bank, the lesson he took from the first experience was that he needed the bank to be too big to fail. After multiple, poorly-conceived acquisitions, the bank didn’t fail – but was purchased for pennies on the dollar. He was fired again.
The President called and said his experience was needed as Treasury Secretary. Failure was now a virtue.
When the Chinese foreclosed on the United States, they didn’t fire him. They gave him a knife with which he could disembowel himself. The knife had a very dull blade.
CHARLIE
When I was a young man, I owned an albino Ferret. I adopted the polecat from a respected Ferret shelter in Northwest Portland. I failed to inquire about and check the sex of the little critter, as it was moving around and squirming so much, it was hard. I regret not finding out it was a vicious male, so when I took it home, it tried to maim and eat the hands of our newborn. The virtue of having a warm, furry pet was soon lost, so we had to return little Chickaboomboom to the ferret shelter for a refund.
#2
He failed hard. Very hard. Attempting to come off as being a super duper wordsmith, intellectual, and supremely clever chap, his words came off as pale, callow, twerpfluffery. His words were copied directly from his Black Studies lecture notes as he commented on a Tweet post I made recently. I saw him use the same five or six words as a sharp retort to another post he disagreed with. Fail, fail. I typed his comment into Google and found the complete sentence he opened his Tweet comment with – in lecture notes from an undergrad course in Black Studies at MIT.
RICHARD
Position Vacant
Strangest criteria for a job I’ve ever seen: ‘Position vacant – Are you highly- motivated and adventurous? Call now for a career that’s out of this world. Only single, unattached candidates need apply.’
At the interview, all became clear.
“We’re looking for settlers on Planet Z”… We’ve got scientists, medics and technicians, what we don’t have are colonists – everyday people to get stuck in and populate the planet”
“Ah”, I said, “Now I understand why you’re only looking for singles”.
“That’s not the reason”, came the reply: “It’s because this is a one way trip… You’re never coming back!”
SERENDIPITY
You knew I’d pick ‘disembowel’, didn’t you?
It is, after all, one of my favourite words, describing one of my favourite activities.
Not everybody’s cup of tea, I know, but it takes all sorts to make a world, and even those of us on the fringes of polite society have our place.
Just because I like sharp knives, blood and gore doesn’t mean I’m a bad person, although I have to admit I’m hard pressed to suggest something positive to say about my habits.
At least I’m honest about it.
And there you have it… Honesty!
It’s my one virtue!
TURA
Ferret; disembowel
———
Abba Jerome’s only companion in the desert was a ferret that would come and lie in the shade of his cave.
One night, he walked meditating among the hills. Hearing a sudden noise underfoot, he saw how the ferret had caught a desert rat, ripping its belly open. In compassion, Abba Jerome laid his hand on the rat, which was miraculously healed, and scampered away.
But God spoke out of the night, saying, “Knowest thou the ways of God? The rat’s death was the ferret’s life.”
Abba Jerome admitted his sin, but thereafter, the ferret would never enter his cave.
LIZZIE
Disemboweled Regret
The tomb was empty. Everyone panicked.
The searches lasted weeks.
Some believed the body was stolen. Others, that the lost soul would haunt a neighboring town, considering no haunting-related problems occurred.
The searches stopped.
A fortnight later, a ghostly voice roared “Do you regret it now?”
Everyone recognized it. It was homeless John who littered the streets for weeks. They asked him to leave. He refused. The town decided to solve the problem swiftly.
He was back now. Every morning, someone showed up dead, disemboweled and displayed in front of the town hall, just like it had happened to him.
NORVAL JOE
“Oh. Ketchup,” the girl said, blushed, and sat.
The door slammed open. Cherry Cola stumbled forward, collapsed hard into a seat, and stared at the other girl. “Ferret. You’re the last person on the planet I expected to see.”
“I don’t claim my honesty to be a virtue and I may regret my words. I was the one who hit you in the library.”
“Give me a single reason why we shouldn’t call the police,” Mickey said.
Ferret looked down. “I didn’t want to hurt anyone. Polecat said she would disembowel me if I failed to stop you, Monkey Boy.”
DANNY
I am SINGLE, with no REGRET. May of 1995. I was a young law school graduate who just passed the Florida Bar. I had a hot girlfriend, and life on this PLANET was full of hope, until I realized my 1st Florida girlfriend was totally psychotic. We broke up, violently. Fast forward to 2011, Christmas at home with my parents and my new dog Freddie on Christmas Eve, when suddenly on the 11’O-clock news, my ex-girlfriend shot her soon to be ex-husband twice in the back of the head with a 44 Magnum. Needless to say, that closed casket funeral was not mine.
ZACKMANN
A Space Sea Story
Although her marriage made peace with the bug planet Munroe, Princess Fawcett of planet Mustelidae, who looked like a sexy human ferret hybrid on an old SciFi cover, despite trying several times a day failed to have an heir. She regretted that the virtue of emotional compatibility with the king of Munroe didn’t translate into physical compatibility for reproduction. She asked for my help since her doctor was pretty sure humans were compatible. I protested neither of us was single. The princess assured me a night with her is more fun than being disemboweled. Hope my wife never finds out.
PLANET Z
Ever cried over a video game?
No, not when you accidentally erase the disk, or when you lose the registration key.
I’m talking about crying over the video game’s content.
Planetfall was a text adventure with a darling childlike robot sidekick named Floyd.
To help solve one of the final puzzles of the game, Floyd sacrificed himself.
And that made me cry.
I wanted to visit Floyd again, so I dug up my old Planetfall disks and tried to load it, but they’re too old.
Did I cry again at Floyd’s second death.
Nah. I found Planetfall online.
Hi, Floyd!