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-Nine, 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 a Pick Two from this list:
Gone
Able
Wave
Look what’s behind you
Written
Ice Cream
Small Mammals
Pouch
Forgiveness
Contrary
And we’ve got stories by a lot of people:
Jami Titanium
Tura
Terry
Bonchance
TJ
Tom
Zackmann
Chris Munroe
Thomas Reed
Thomas
Botgirl
Chris the Nuclear Kid
Steven The Nuclear Man
Ross
Cate Storymoon
Danny
Norval Joe
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.
JAMI
The Easter Bunny was gone. Now, as small mammals go, this was not insignificant. The Easter Bunny was actually my little sister’s stuffed rabbit that she got for Easter the year before. We’d gone camping at the lake and he had (indiscriminately) and apparently grown legs and hopped away on his own. My sister certainly didn’t remember leaving him anywhere.
My mother searched the tend, the outhouses nearby, and the boat dock with no success. My four year-old sister whimpered nearby. She slept with Easter Bunny every night.
I envisioned sleepless nights ahead for all of us…
TURA
“Look out! Behind you!” screamed Eotyrra.
Dicraeos withdrew his head from the triceratops carcase he was occupied with, looked around, and stamped on the small creature trying to nibble his tail. It still twitched, so he stamped on it again. He yawned, belched, and roared in one. “Why the panic, Eoti?”
“I swear those things are getting bigger, that one was almost as big as your foot! They weren’t that size a million years ago!”
Dicraeos contemplated his ancient dinosaur memories. “We stomp them. Keeps them small. We stay big. Always be that way.”
The next day, the asteroid hit.
TERENCE
Send my ghosts chasing after me, for all the things I did? or didn’t do?
Things I said? or didn’t say? I just kept on with my life.
Now I’m old and slowing down, my ghost are catching up with me
and when I’m alone they visit me to remind me of what I did with my life.
I’m sitting a face appears in my mind, the young girl again in the chemist.
She serves me and is pleasant.
I looked at her and said “You should get something for your spotty face”.
It’s that hurt expression on her face that visits me. Terry
BONCHANCE
Old Meyers would prove to his retirees, that he could bring
joy to a child with only his able hands. Years ago, he carved many
toys for children. Meyers, looking like Saint Nick, visited
the orphanage every year. Using his keen eye he searched for a child
who would not ask for a smart-phone. He picked and then
asked what he wanted for Christmas. A smug Saint Nick returned with a wave
from the cafeteria with a beautiful package that felt cold to the touch
as the little boy unwrapped it excitedly. The young teacher snickered,
as the child wailed. “Not this kind of Ice Cream Sandwich!”
TJ
The zookeeper was incensed. “Can’t you read what’s written behind
you? ‘Don’t feed the animals’! And contrary to what you might
think, small mammals don’t like ice cream stuffed into their pouches!
Just because you’re able to do something doesn’t mean you should!”
Lips trembled. Just then, a baby koala popped out of his momma’s
pouch, gripping the ice cream cone and eating it. He looked up and
seemed to wave. “Awwww, how cute!” Everyone cheered. Even the
zookeeper seemed moved to forgiveness. In a few bites, the ice cream was
gone, and the joey ducked back out of sight.
TOM
I started sharing my ice cream with small mammals. It’s seemed like the neighborly thing to do. Too my surprise the range of preferences varied as widely as varieties of species. Take deer for instance big fans of Neapolitan. You’d think squirrels would like pecan ice cream. Nope, strictly chocolaters. The raccoons I have dined with like a good French Vanilla, not that cheap stuff. Often it’s not so much the flavor as the brand. Badgers as rule go for Dryer’s. Chinchillas are fond of Häagen-Dazs. Otters can’t get enough of Ben and Jerry’s. I wonder what mountain lion like?
ZACKMANN
We were eating Its Its ice cream sandwiches when there was a thunk on the glass patio door.
“Look behind you” said Joe “ What is your cat doing to that small mammal?’
“Small” I exclaimed “On the contrary, It is bigger than my tomcat. He caught an opossum. Like with huge teeth and a pouch”
“I think it is a goner.” Joe said “No, I beg your forgiveness, it was just playin Possum”
I wave to my cat hoping if I distract him the Opossum will be able to leave
I never saw this written in a nature book.
MUNSI
It’s written that forgiveness is divine.
So I started forgiving people. At first for actual things they’d done to wrong me, then for increasingly subtler flaws in their personal character.
By doing so, I expected to become divine. Not Divine the pop singer from the eighties, but rather all-powerful, a terrifying figure towering over the landscape like a colossus.
I planned use this power to crush my enemies. But I never approached that point, no matter how much I forgave.
So no, forgiveness is not divine.
It’s written that it is, but it’s not true. Still, I can forgive that…
THOMAS R.
“Bob.”
“Yeah, I know. Don’t say it.”
“But … Bob…”
“Look, Dave, I KNOW. Now just do not mention it again.”
“Ok, Bob, but you…”
“DAVE! Don’t say it.”
“Well, Bob, then just let me say that it has been nice knowing you.”
“Gee, Dave. It’s been nice knowing you too. Now, why are you saying that?”
“Now Bob, you haven’t wanted to me to …”
“Dave.”
“See? If I don’t tell you…”
“Not a word.”
“Bob, do you forgive me?”
“For what, Dave? You haven’t said or done anything… yet.”
“Bob, you HAVE to look behind you…”
“DAVE!! I… “
CRUNCH!!
THOMAS P.
The power had gone off at Ben and Jerry’s production facility. The weather was a record breaker for Vermont. Tons of ice cream were produced each day in the facility. Employees were not happy with Unilever’s acquisition of Ben and Jerry’s, so a rogue, underground formed, with plans to sabotage the plant. They threw ten pounds of metal shavings into the diesel, back-up generator, and smashed the large transformer. After four hours, the first wave of ice cream came flowing out of the coolers on to the main floor, carrying several workers through the overhead doors to the parking lot.
##
Heidi carried a pouch of small mammals with her everywhere she went. She carried miniature hamsters, mice and gerbils with her as she plied her trade in Portland. She was a vaudevillian, and her act was the purest street theater that visitors to the river park would ever see. Each of her pets was dressed and made up as a Hollywood Star. They stood on a simple, homemade stage, and mimed recordings that Heidi wrote and produced. Of course, the content of each of the recitations was vulgar and distasteful, as Heidi was not taking her meds, and hated actors.
BOTGIRL
Once upon a time, a volcano destroyed the kingdom of Krypton, burying its inhabitants under leagues of lava. All died but one.
Princess Kara Zor-El escaped in a small boat launched into the ocean minutes before the eruption. She had been placed into a deep magical sleep that would keep her alive and unchanged until her craft found safe harbor.
After countless years she washed up on the shores of the Froglands. Prince Croaker found her on the beach. Compelled by the magical spell, he kissed her sweet lips and they lived happily ever after.
####
Looking back, Majic found that she had lost herself somewhere along the way. Everything about her had changed repeatedly over time. Sometimes in small gradual transitions. Often in swift radical transformation. Scanning herself from head to toe she could not discern a single identifiable aspect that had endured over time.
“I feel like I’m me,” she thought, “but there’s no me to be found.”
Majic fell into a state of silent awareness, releasing the story that had held together the shapes, colors, sounds, thoughts, emotions, memories and experiences that formed her sense of self. She was gone. All was good.
CHRIS
I walked down the road. The sun beamed bright and warm. I saw my destination – my mission was almost complete. I walked into the ice cream shop and waited in line. I knew what I wanted. It seemed like years – even decades – before my turn in line. I walked up to the cashier and placed my order.
“Hello, how might I help you today?” said the cashier.
“Hi! I would like the brains-flavored ice cream, please,” I say.
“Very well, that will be one-nineteen, and is that all?”
“Yes, thank you. Have a good day!”
“Yourself as well.”
STEVEN
Up. Down.
Heavier each time.
The sheep scattered. They could have said something, could have told him to turn around (all things spoke in those days). But they had seen their fate on the stone, and searched for the serpent instead.
Up. Down.
Hot splatters bounce once on too-dry soil, then sinks.
Up. Down. Until his brother’s chest no longer moves those directions. The murderer digs his brother underground. The flesh will give a good harvest.
He will lie tonight with Mother to help fill the Earth.
And when the harvest comes that fall, Father will finally love him best.
ROSS
When she was seven, she made a sandcastle on the beach.
The boy next door helped her shape turrets. A courtyard. A moat.
After they finished, he fashioned a tiny paper flag and planted it, the flimsy pennant fluttering in the salt-laden breeze.
When she awoke, the castle was gone, erased by the whispering tide.
The boy and his family had left before dawn.
Now she helps her son place his flag atop a crumbling sandcastle, notes the rush of the incoming sea, and pulls the boy into her arms for an embrace she does not ever want to end.
CATE
“Look what’s behind you.” Not. The mantra at home: “See out. Look up!” Otherwise, I’d have missed the portal into the I-10 West borealis just out of Tucson.
Again San Antonio-to-LA, just me and the dogs pushing it through miles of scrub and rock. Ahead the sky was pinking when I hit the wormhole doing eighty.
Time slipped sideways. Fuschia and gold fingers beckoned. To the rear indigo hands strained to meet them. Minutes were hours.
“Hold the wheel”, said a voice.
“Shhhh…”
I prayed for three-sixty peripheral vision and for absolution, an infinite forgiveness for forgetting who I am.
DANNY
I was running through the woods, trying to get away from a rabid pack of small mammals. I finally reached the nearest road, so I stopped to look at what‘s behind me. The pack of small mammals were gone, I couldn‘t believe I was able to outrun them. What luck, there is a small diner up the road, so I approach and enter the empty diner. I hear rustling behind the counter, so I look. To my horror, the horde of rabbits, raccoons, and squirrels were eating the remains of the cook. They stopped and looked at me, their red eyes glowing.
NORVAL JOE
Owen knew the dwarf was surly and contrary; they hadn’t travelled the last three weeks without that becoming apparent. But what could possibly make him so reluctant to enter his ancestral home.
“Findert?” The boy asked as he waited for the ranger to light his torch. “You’ve complained every day about being above the ground. And now you fear going below.”
The dwarf slipped a talon as long as Owen’s hand, from his belt pouch.
“Me family’s been gone from the mines for two centuries,” Findert growled. “Hopefully the creature what left this in my father’s corpse is gone, too.”
PLANET Z
Jack is in the kitchen, looking through the freezer.
“The ice cream is gone,” he says.
I didn’t look up from my book. “Did it leave a note?”
Jack rummaged some more. “Whoah. You’re right! It did.”
He came out of the kitchen and showed me the note.
We tried to read the note, but it was a scribble.
“Ice cream doesn’t know how to write, I guess,” I said.
Or phone home.
We didn’t call the police. Kidnappers don’t like it when you involve the police.
Was it a ransom note? Then why the scribble?
We ate cookies instead.