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
My Wings
By Christopher Munroe
I’ll fly as close to the sun as I fucking please.
My wings are made of sturdier stuff than those of Icarus, and I am a man of vision, scope and ambition. I shan’t be scared off by tales of lesser men and their failings.
For I am not those lesser men.
I’ll fly to the very sun, pluck it from its perch in the heavens and bring it with me back to Earth, that I might present it to you as a token of my love.
I defy God itself to stop me!
I’ll see you upon my return…
CHARLIE
Wings, generally, are deep fried, unbreaded, and coated in a vinegar based, pepper, hot sauce. The first step, of course, in the preparation of hot wings is the USDA-inspected poultry slaughter. The birds are hung upside down by their legs on an assembly line. The birds are drug through a shallow pool of water that is electrified. This stuns them. An automated machine cuts their throat and they bleed to death. The most humane method for killing a chicken is to put it into a small room or chamber, and then gradually replace the air with nitrogen, killing them quietly.
#2
I awoke early one morning, and I was a pigeon, not a cockroach, a pigeon. I tested the tail, and the right and left wings. I ate a breakfast of all fiber. I flew low over town, pulling a strip of paper with my message, in my beak. Swooping low, I skimmed a wing tip on the mayor’s hat as she stood arguing for rate increases, including the goddam water and sewer bills. Diving lower, I let the mayor know what I thought of her and I painted her hat and
her Chinchilla coat with a murky impasto of dookie.
JEFFREY
The Theory of Flight
By Jeffrey Fischer
I settled back in my window seat and waited for the plane to take off. A young boy occupied the middle seat. “Gosh, I can’t believe something this big can fly ” he chirped. “It’s a miracle, kid. But the plane relies on four huge birds to keep us aloft.”
The kid’s mother, in the aisle seat, frowned. “Don’t confuse him with that kind of silliness.” I went back to my magazine.
The plane taxied. As it gathered speed, four pterodactyls sat on the wings, claws gripping metal. They flapped their great wings in unison and the jet headed skyward. The kid watched in amazement. I just shrugged.
The Contest
By Jeffrey Fischer
Butchers always found chicken wings to be the most difficult to sell. Everyone wanted the juicy breast meat, or the tasty leg meat, or even the cheap thigh meat, but who wanted the little bits of meat on a wing?
Thus was born the Buffalo wing: a way of delivering a zesty sauce and, not coincidentally, selling wings. The Buffalo wing begat wing-eating contests, with crazed contestants seeing how many they could down before time ran out.
Frank figured Buffalo wings were passé, and started an ostrich wing eating contest. What he didn’t realize was that, though big, ostrich wings had no meat on, and it was hilarious to watch contestants gnaw at cartilage. Frank’s contests always ended in a zero-all tie.
RICHARD
Finger lickin’ nasty
I’ve never liked chicken wings. Don’t misunderstand me – they’re just fine whilst still attached to chickens; but when crumbed and deep fried, I struggle.
They’re just so small, insubstantial and more skin and bone than meat – seems to me a lot of fuss and grease, for little reward.
As for the rest of the chicken, go ahead: Bring it on! No finer food in my opinion.
Just don’t expect me to bother with those wings, in fact, you can take them off completely and give me what’s left.
It’s not as if the chicken is going to care!
SERENDIPITY
You don’t want to believe all that nonsense about God being loving and caring and all that crap… If you’d ever worked for him you’d know how cruel He is.
He doesn’t tolerate anyone standing up to Him – the penalties are severe. And trust me, He doesn’t take chances: He punishes you – you stay punished… No comebacks.
Like that time me and the gang tried to rebel. Cut off our wings He did, then threw us out of heaven.
Why do you think they call it The Fall? It’s not as if we stood any chance of flying!
LIZZIE
The tombstone in her parents’ garden had an overgrown buzzing cactus leaning over it. Victoria wondered why it had no names, no dates. She got married, moved away. After three miscarriages and a divorce, Victoria visited the tombstone. Suddenly, there were four names on it, the names of her babies and her own “Died June 10 1819”. As she pondered about it, the cactus, home to a nest of killer bees, fell on her. Barely a body anymore when found, Victoria, the heir of a huge fortune, was buried at the Pauper’s Cemetery. Still, no one cared about that tombstone.
TURA
Wings
———
The sky is filled with wings.
We patrol. I patrol. My sensors build a heat map of the terrain, intensity coding likelihood of enemy presence. A spot surpasses a threshold, and by the rules that I am, I mute my engines and glide down to map the buildings and identify people and military material.
I sense gunfire. In the few seconds remaining before the bullets destroy me, I upload myself and all my data to my greater self. My armed brothers will destroy the enemy’s nest.
I am legion. Whatever kills me makes me stronger. The humans’ time is over.
———
TOM
Who wants to be a millionaire?
Larry was two questions away from the million dollar prize. The category was Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences. “Who was the first actor or actress to win three Oscars?”
A. Brennan B. Hepburn C. Tracy D. Olivier
“I know Katharine Hepburn has the most, but I will go with A. Walther Brenan.” The tote board lite up $500,000. “Larry what will you do, take the 500,000 or go for it all?” “I’m going all the way.”
“Last question which film won the first Oscar?”
A. All Quiet on the Western Front
B. It Happened One Night
C. Wings
D. Mutiny on the Bounty
NORVAL JOE
Mickey stood up. “I need to find out what Polecat was doing at the library. Do any of you know what wings she went into?”
“I didn’t even know she was there,” Cherry Cola said.
“She told me to wait in the auditorium and stop you from following her,” Ferrit said.
“Maybe it’s more important to find out where she is now,” Mandy said.
“Yeah, but how are we supposed to find her?” Mickey asked.
Mandy shook her head. “Can’t any of you superheroes fly?”
Ferrit huffed. “Do you see wings on anyone here?”
Mandy shrugged. “Superman doesn’t have wings.”
PLANET Z
Every time a bell rings, an angel gets its wings.
Which made things rather inconvenient for angels before the invention of bells.
To get from Heaven to Earth, angels had to leap and plummet.
Despite being immortal, the heat of re-entry and impact hurt like a motherfucker.
And the conservation of momentum led to a massive blast, not unlike the Tunguska Blast which felled miles of forests.
“Ouch… hey, Gabriel.”
“Sonofa- oh, hi, Michael.”
“Um, we’re kinda stuck here.”
“Huh? Oh, fuck.”
And then they set out to find a blacksmith to make bells so they could fly back home.
Love the stories. Hate all the cursing. It’s as if we have limited use of descriptive vocabulary in telling a story. but I guess it’s just me. I don’t even hear or try to understand what’s being said when language becomes peppered with vulgarity. I had a great education and a great family that helped me explain or describe things without stooping gutter language. I have a feeling these writers did too. Great stories, but gutter language adds nothing.
Hi Jan,
Well, the podcast has an EXPLICIT tag as a heads up to listeners. And I’m a strong advocate of parental controls and parental responsibility, which leaves the artist or performer to create without self-censorship. Provide adequate labels, and let the audience decide.
But I should probably put some kind of reminder on the web side of it. Working on a tagline now…
Maybe I’ll record an intro warning: “This podcast has an explicit tag, there may be words or concepts that you can pretend will hurt you or cause you pain.”
There are a quite a few clean podcasts and story sites out there… Google “microfiction” and “100 word stories.”
In fact, when you do, and find them, I’d be glad to list them as alternatives for the sensitive and sheltered.
Thanks,
-ls/cm
I’m not a huge fan of swearing, either in stories or in conversation. Explicit tag or no, I’m sympathetic to the idea that casual swearing doesn’t add to the story.
I once passed two guys talking on the street, and the conversation went something like: “I told her to f*** that s***.” “F***ing right.” “Motherf***** has to do that s*** right.” Et cetera. It was like listening to two guys with Tourette’s.
On the other hand, sometimes a well-placed obscenity is what the story needs, either because it heightens the emotions of the moment or because that’s just what the character would say. And sometimes one’s vocabulary fails. The other night, I awoke with an extraordinarily painful cramp in my calf, and every effort to get out of bed to stretch it out just made it worse. I managed not to yell, but I was reduced to “Oh Jesus,” repeated about a half-dozen times. My wife told me the next day it was all she could do not to laugh.