Weekly Challenge #294 – Trees

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 Ninety-Four, 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 Trees

And we’ve got stories by:

Moonlight Summerwind
Thomas Pitre
Charlie White
SC
Steven the Nuclear Man
Tom
Chris Munroe
Zackmann
Chris the Nuclear Kid
Tura Brezoianu
Abernathy
Norval Joe
Danny
Daniel W.Jeffrey Hite
Planet Z

And if you want to spam your social networks with this episode, use the Share buttons at the end of the post.

The more people see this on Google Plus, Facebook, and Twitter – the more explaining you’ll have to do with your loved ones, coworkers, and parole officers.

---

Moonlight Summerwind

This was their first anniversary of being together. He was busy flirting with the pretty blonde student next to him at the bar – he was flamboyant and women responded. As she huddled over the drink, she remembered the first heady joy, the growing hurts from well-timed barbs, and finally, the slow burial of her spirit. The pity in the bartender’s eyes held a mirror to what she had become. Her eyes filled with angry tears and determination to break free. She dialled a cab and gave the address of her apartment that had been unused for a year now.

“The tree has to go.” said my son apologetically,” It is right in the middle of where we have planned to build the sit-out.” My heart quietly broke. It was a mango tree that had been a tender shoot when I entered this house as a bride. It had grown with the family and held many precious memories. I would miss it – just as I miss my husband now. A small hand coated with wet mud pulled mine, “Grandma, don’t feel sad, I got you a new one.” and my granddaughter proudly showed me the newly planted mango sapling.

Thomas

He was treed by the enormous boar he had teased in the woods behind his uncle’s barn. He threw hard candies at it, while he followed. Irritated, the boar turned and charged, forcing little Bobby into the branches of a dry, spindly elm . Bobby was a city boy, not too bright, and he had no idea what a boar could do to him. The boar got a few of its relatives to hammer at the tree with their thick heads until it was uprooted. All they found the next morning was Bobby’s stupid, wool cap with the ear flaps.

The genealogical tree my great uncle Tom prepared for me showed that most of my relatives that lived on the East coast had Chinese surnames. I had no idea that some of my aunts and uncles and cousins were Chinese. I was teased a lot in school because my mother sometimes packed my lunch in white, cardboard boxes with flimsy, wire handles, and that she often spoke a strange language when talking to her sisters in Waterbury. I wasn’t too bright, as I spent a lot of time with Bobby until he disappeared in the woods behind his uncle’s barn.

Charles White

I’m a sap for tree jokes. I bought some fruit trees just the other
day. The nursery owner told me I made a poplar choice. An old guy
helping him there said it wasn’t but he seems to be an old aspen. The
tree is an evergreen and related to the pine but has no cones –
perhaps yew can tell me what conifer tree it is. My old grove was dead
and to termites, a group of dead trees is an arbor eat’um. When I left
they gave me some insects to help with pollination. They were free
bees.

I woke up. I looked about. Not sure, again, of where I am. It could
not have been bad. I was still in the kitchen. The teapot, the cup;
all still there. I did see a broken window. It was not like me to not
know where I was or what I had been doing. There wasn’t the hair & no
blood this time. Good thing. I had to figure this out. New brand of
tea? What is that stuff? I found the teabag. I found the label. Is
that the name? Time to change brands! It’s called Insana Tea.

SC

She’s up so high, branches blur into one. I want to yell get down, but I am voice meant for whispers. She screams kawkaw. My bird-girl, earth work has no appeal. Seasons only mean different shoes or none at all, like today, sunlight scorching the grass, fading the driveway, tempting me to ask about a pool.

Kawkaw. She swings to a lower branch, bouncing her weight like a tight rope. A sparrow flies by sideways; swoops back, closer to her hands, ten fingers grabbing the air then a branch nearby. Legs dangling, searching for a place to land.

Kawkaw. Kawkaw.

Stephen the Nuclear Man

They came on the quiet night, the still night, the silent night.

After the fat man in red clothes had flown away, they marched down the
streets, the alleys, across the yards, to the houses.

Flashing colored lights lit their bodies, their twisted gnarled limbs
as they creaked and moved. Their footfalls shook milk in glasses left
beside earnest notes. Their fingers screeked across windowpane glass.

Children rose from their beds at the noise, hoping to catch the giver of gifts.

And so they, the little ones, bore first witness to the day the
forests came to avenge their kin.

Tom

I walked passed the local Ray’s. Isn’t it odd how we personalize the places we shop? Well anyway, I’m fumbling with the electronic door lock and this hyper intense aroma hits my nostrils.

“Pine”

What makes this somewhat odd is I live in a pine forest. But its not just pine its Christmas tree pine. Behind eight feet of temporary chain link are over 200 Christmas trees. Collectively they are pumping out the heroin of the holidays. The sense of smell in a seductive mistress where sight gets tangled in logic loops, smell, glides right under the radar.

Merry Christmass

Mr Laurence

Munsi!

There’s something in the trees.

Technically there are lots of things in the trees.

There are leaves, and birds, and squirrels in the trees, just as an example. And sometimes cats get stuck up there too.

When they do, there are firemen in the trees. They go to rescue the cats.

Children climb trees, and then they’re in the trees. Sometimes pretending they’re firemen, sometimes not.

But none of that matters right now.

What I’m specifically referring to in this particular instance is a sniper. There’s a sniper in the trees.

So for the love of God, get behind something!

Zackmann

The Christmas tree is reminding me of the cedars of Lebanon. Lebanon Oregon where my grandparents moved after they retired. Grandma told me her neighbor wanted her to hire him for Topping her trees so she could pay him to cut the tops thinking she would not know that he would sell the tops as Christmas trees. Now I wish I had not told my son the last advice from my grandfather. The last time I saw him, right after my engagement ended, he told me “Next time get her in the family way and she will spend the winter.”

Chris the Nuclear Kid

I was seven years old and I had been really excited that morning cause
it was Christmas day. I had snuck downstairs to my stocking with
Christmas trees on it. In it were some chocolate coins, two candy canes,
and some other candies. I then went to the Christmas tree and crawled
under it looking for my presents. I had found lots but, I was in the
corner behind the tree. I started to crawl out from under the tree then
my sweater that I as wearing got caught on a branch of the tree so I
shouted for help.

Tura

People talk about giant redwoods big enough to drive a tunnel through,
and bristlecones thousands of years old, but that’s nothing. I found
this tree, never you mind where, but it’s fifty miles round if it’s an
inch. I climbed way, way up and it didn’t stop, it must be hundreds
of miles high, and as old as the hills. The branches stretched past
the horizon — you could imagine it’s holding up the sky!

Now, I reckon that’ll be worth millions, if I can get the lumber
machinery out there before the treehuggers get wind of it.

Egg-drizzle? What’s that?

Abernathy

In the beginning there was a tree. A trunk and two branches. One big and one small. Then another limb appeared. Where birds would come to make their nest. One day there was four, balancing the tree right down to its core. Ever so often a branch would appear. The trunk stayed strong… all of those years. It was sad when a limb would break. The trunk and the other limbs would feel what felt like heartache. We all have roots one way or another be it your mother, your sister, or even your brother.

Norval Joe

The ancient oaks stretched and intertwined their gnarled branches over the narrow, winding street. They watched as the boy walked beneath and they spoke to him.
“We see you,” the trees said though the boy passed beneath their straining arms, unhearing and unaware. Unaware of the trees and their voices and unaware of the evil which lurked and waited across the narrow, winding, and lonely street.
He froze at the sight of the massive but shabbily furred dog crossing the old wooden bridge just yards away. He barely breathed as it passed and padded silently up a small gravel lane.

Danny

Recently I was invited to my friend Anthony’s house for a what I and other guests thought was a Christmas party. When I walked into his living room, I was shocked to see that on a sign that took up most of his Christmas Tree, blazed in bright gold letters, was a sign that said, “I will stop saying the word “Fuck” ad nauseum when the word fuck stops evoking such a hillarious emotional response.” I quickly turned to Anthony, and curtly stated, “Hey, you do understand how inappropriate such a message is for Christmas?” Anthony responded, “Wait, what? It’s Christmas?”

Daniel

Jones moved his flamethrower from left to right and back again. The vegetation around him died in gouts of fire. “You’re telling me that trees used to be nearly extinct?”

Smith chuckled. “Just last century, humanity worried there wouldn’t be any trees left. We genetically modified the vegetation to be tougher, more survivable. Then some idiot got the bright idea to do the same to kudzu.”

“Man, I wish they’d just let the trees die! It‘d be better than this!” As the two retreated back into the bunker, the vines were already growing past where the flames had killed them moments before…

Jeffrey Hite

I want to cut down the tree in the corner of my property, the guy next door says because the roots run into his yard he owns part of it and I can’t.

Of course I want to cut it down is because he is one of those tree hugging fools. Last year I hung a hammock from the tree and he flipped out. Kept cutting it down saying I was killing the tree. He even cut it down once while I was in it. Tonight I’ll cut it down and have it land on his house. Stupid tree hugger!

Planet Z

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas, but the machines have made a few mistakes here and there to make it obvious that it’s all just a ruse to keep our minds occupied while they use our bodies as power sources in gigantic energy farms.

Santa’s wearing white with red trim, the Christmas trees are covered with honey glazed ham, and all these fucking red-nosed reindeer everywhere.

As for the men in black suits with earpieces and sunglasses at every streetcorner, well, that’s actually what America was like before the machines got smart and conquered us.

Stupid Patriot Act!