Welcome to the 100 Word Stories podcast at podcasting.isfullofcrap.com. I’m your host, Laurence Simon.
This is Weekly Challenge Number Two Hundred and Seventy-Seven, 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 Radio
How about voting for your favorites?
Tom
Gideon
Thomas
Daniel
Danny
Steve
TerrazaByte
Norval Joe
TJ
Justin
Justin
Planet Z
And if you want to spam your social networks with this episode, use the Share buttons at the end of the post.
Tom
It was 1963 the president was dead, but it was the ramp-up to the
Christmas frenzy and all my thoughts were locked onto a 13 transistor six
diode Japanese work of wonder. It was jet black and ivory white with a
large transparent disk in the center engraved with frequency numbers.
Like Jean Shepherd’s Ralphy I had to wage a serious Christmas campaign to
get my transistor radio. There was the argument over hearing loss. The
argument over the corruption effect of rock and roll. Finally I cut a
deal to tune in to Bishop Fullton Sheen’s Sunday radio program
Gideon
I was listening to the radio this morning and heard an intriguing song.
The lyrics told the story of a man whose wife had turned her focus inward.
He started exploring and fell in love with someone else.
He left his wife.
His wife refocused on him and started stalking him.
This presented a conundrum for him – return to the renewed focus of his wife or stay with the focus of his new lover.
I never heard the outcome.
It was a country song and, in my mind, I kept hearing a tune about roadkill, so I turned it off.
Thomas P.
The radio plays all night. I wake often to a loud commercial, so I throw a towel or a pillow over the speaker to muffle it. Last night, I dropped my pillow on the radio and I heard a gasp. I couldn’t make out the words,
so I moved the pillow and heard a voice say: “You’ve got some gall! That’s not polite, and it’s quite unnerving. Don’t do that again. Just turn the radio down. No more tricks.” The rest of the night I lay awake
for hours wondering if I really heard what I thought I had.
———
The radio stood up straight next to the typewriter and proclaimed it had something to say, and that I had better put down what I was doing and pay attention.
“You have ignored me a long time, and I want you to know that you have missed a lot of good radio. You’ve missed Art Bell late at night, The Ron and Don Show,
George Noory on Coast to Coast, and the John Curley shows. If you want your mind to expand and keep it from turning into silly putty, turn off that damn TV, and turn me on.
Daniel
When the aliens finally made contact, it was because of a chance scan of our planet that revealed sentient life, which surprised them. They berated us for not trying to make contact ourselves. “Didn’t you have an interest in what’s beyond your own solar system?”
This outraged the scientific community. “We’ve been sending radio signals into space for decades! How could you not know we were here?”
The leader of the aliens’ diplomatic envoy was bewildered by this. “That’s weird. Let me check something… Huh. It seems your transmissions were being blocked by our spam filter. Go figure.”
Danny
Everything I ever had to know, I heard it on the Radio. We watch the shows, we watch the stars, on videos, for hours and hours. We hardly need to use our ears, how music changes throughout the years. Then pictures came, they broke my heart. Don’t care if Video Killed the Radio Star. Just turn it up, the Radio! I need the music, gimme some more! Cause all we hear is Radio Goo Goo, Radio Ga Ga! Let’s hope you never leave, my old friend. You had your time, you had the power, you’ve yet to have, your finest hour. Radio.
Steve
OUT radiating OUT reaching OUT grabbing mind and heart,
FORCING you to think and smile and wonder and laugh
You bob your head, body bouncing, MY MUSIC controls your motions
Your Emotions, too, are glued to me as I unveil you to yourself
You listen, riveted as you pray, you play, you do as I say
I inveigle multidimensionally – mind, will, and emotions stirred, shaken, broken and mended
At the SPEED OF LIGHT, delight runs ‘round the world
I am, AM, FM, longwave, shortwave, WiFi, satellite, STREAMING
Beaming into your world, forever entwined, your life and mine
I am Radio
Vince/TerrazaByte
Dr. Herman Hineschnickel has the world most exciting job. He’s in charge of the land based radio telescope for the SETI Institute, the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence. His work day begins like most other jobs in America, with a cup of coffee and a quick review of the TPS reports.
But that all changes once he begins listing for evidence of life in the universe. With headphones on and keen eye on the frequency meter, he initiates this most exciting work. Hour 1 passes, nothing happens. Hours 2 & 3 go by, nothing happens. Hour 10, still nothing. Hours 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18…
NorvalJoe
Fly Paper Boy’s eyes shot open. The clock radio beside the bed blared a tire store commercial. He slapped the off button and the sound decreased a hundred decibels to a reasonable level.
“Five o’clock,” he moaned, “I just got to sleep. Jenny.”
He thought sleepily how his conniving sister messed with his alarm before.
The broadcast broke through his hazy thoughts and he was wide awake again.
” The home of Beaulla Larmpitt, Vinyl Man’s last murder victim, burned to the ground this morning. Police are looking for a white Toyota Corolla seen in the area only hours before…”
TJ
Martin’s father, Henry, was reading the business/metro section as
Martin sidled up behind him.
“So… I found the radio.”
Earlier, Martin had discovered an ancient shortwave radio in his
father’s workbench.
After several rounds of bluster, arguments and recriminations, Martin
could piece together what was behind his father’s nightly beeline for
the basement. Something about ongoing projects, corporate espionage,
dispatches to Japan– shortwave transmissions not leaving a data trail
the company could or would be tracking. The ethics bothered Martin, but
on some level he was relieved.
Later, chatting with his mistress, Henry appreciated his son’s
tendency to overthink everything.
Justin
While I love the experience of trying out a new phone; learning the menus and finding the latest apps, the reason for the new phone is annoying. I really liked the one I had before. It had adapted to me very well, and I’d gotten used to the nuances of the controls, it had my most used contacts memorized. Normally most of that is transferable, but not this time. I got a bad ear infection and the medicine killed the phone cells. My replacement plan allows for me to culture the latest generation in my ear canal, so I’m set.
Steven the Nuclear Man
Just the crackle-hiss-pop of solar radiation imitating breakfast cereal. Listening is dangerous – they might detect my radio, but I’ll risk one set.
A brief whistlescream from the speaker: the electromagnetic death whine of an orbital station. Damn aliens. They gated to the surface instead of coming through low earth orbit, but they’re making up for lost time.
The speaker comes fully alive. Some fool’s broadcasting the national anthem.
I listen, and turn on every radio in the place. I salute, wondering if they’ll vaporize me or the broadcaster first.
And I no longer care.
Planet Z
Funding for SETI projects was been drastically cut across the board.
So, we needed to take a new approach to survive.
It was on my drive through New York, listening to Howard Stern, that I got my idea…
That’s right. I am the world’s first shock-jock radio telescope disk jockey.
Me and my crew, The Morning Xenobiological Collection, fill the spectrum with interviews with topless interns, prank very long distance calls to quasars… all kinds of filth.
Our strategy is keeping us funded and searching, sure, but it comes at the cost of any intelligent life down here on Earth.
In California many of the car washes use recycled water and isn’t washing your car what causes rain?
Excellent point, Zachmann, and good to see your voice. Laurence, I hope your guyses’ drought breaks soon — I’d send you our floodwater but it’s mostly moved downstream by now (although the memories, like the wreckage, they do linger on).
I just wanted to say I enjoyed everyone’s entries this week and voted accordingly (hope Justin can do something about that constant ringing in his ear), but I especially enjoyed Danny’s, which I thought was a beautiful, well-crafted entry. Steve’s was awesome as well. Nice ones, and well done! :)