Welcome to the 100 Word Stories podcast at podcasting.isfullofcrap.com. I’m your host, Laurence Simon.
This is Weekly Challenge Number Three Hundred, 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 museum.
And we’ve got stories by a lot of people:
Thomas
Zackmann
Jullianna
Leehere
Bonchance
Guy
mainegirlwrites
Chris Munroe
Tura
TREED
dadatic
Tom
Botgirl
Chris the Nuclear Kid
Steven The Nuclear Man
Ross
Cate Storymoon
June Faramore
Danny
Norval Joe
Guard13007
TJ
Noe
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.
Thomas
The little museum in Parump housed the most bizarre and esoteric objects known to man. Off the main street, the wood building is painted a bright, DayGlo orange. Not the usual mixture of shrunken heads and pickled body parts you might see in other venues; The Parump Museum of Questionable Objects and Noxious Devices contained the newest acquisition – Graham Barker’s Navel Fluff Collection – neatly labeled and housed in large, French, square jars. Many of the other objects in the collection are too bizarre and sordid to relate here, as I respect the sensibilities and proper upbringing of my readers.
Zackmann
Had to go to Zeum and see if I could find my Muse. My kids are too old now to go to the hands on place of learning but creativity dot org said they would have an exhibit about Handwavium which you make have heard about on Notes form Coode Street. Hanwavium makes things that we currently think scientifically impossible like faster than light speed travel possible.
So taking BART there now.
This week I am unlikely to write about zombie bunnies as I had planned. Well unless they are Dead Mech bunnies using Handwavium to instantaneously conquer distant planets.
Jullianna
These cats,
my small mammals have always
comforted me–
When the rest of the world makes me want to say “pfft”
There has always been one nearby:
Pink-nosed, wide-eyed, trusting
and somewhat loving,
depending upon the treat du jour in hand–
They are, after all, cats.
It is no secret I am a closet crazy cat lady.
The cats make me sane. Among others, they help me
Forgive all the nonsense
The drama queens, misguided parents,
ill-guided lovers, nutty friends, past pedophiles—
I absolve you all—
I curl into bed, in my pink pajamas
Alongside the cats, my small mammals.
Leehere
The age requirement for entry into the Pop-Up Museum was a tad low. The archive was notorious for both subtle sexual innuendo and blatant obscenity. Info nuggets created by Woody were a virtual aphrodisiac. A night at the museum, including a visit to the Bubbly Bar and the various zeitgeisty exhibits, produced more pheromones than an unchaperoned game of spin the bottle in Mom and Dad’s basement. More than once security had to be called to discreetly deal with inappropriate behavior behind the music installations. Janitors were later called to clean up the “shared historical authority” left by enthusiastic “contributors.”
Bonchance
Tommie was a bundle of energy with many questions. He took things apart then put them back together. It would be
improved when put back together. Not only that, but Tommie was also fast! He would be beside you one moment and
gone the next! The year was 3012, all war and famine was abolished. The world finally put an end to war after the
invention of the planet buster bomb. The bomb was on display in the museum, deactivated of course. The teacher
turned just in time to see little Tommie pressing the button on the reassembled exhibit.
Guy David
They say I’m a compulsive mustache painter. I was banned from most of the art establishments when I was much younger. I have a court junction, preventing me from getting within a three hundred mile radius of any art shop. When the long playing records started appearing, many of those famous musician faces got decorated before they caught me. that’s when I started doing actual faces. They say Salvador Dali never recovered from what I did to him, went completely and utterly insane, but it was after Stalin that I was finally put away. My inmates all have whiskers now.
MaineGirlWrites
Sometimes I wonder if there would ever be a museum of ‘me’. It would be a small, musty closet of a museum, down some alley of my hometown. A rusty sign would point the way for the curious few, who would pay a meager admission and shyly gaze at my former belongings.
A hand-knit scarf.
Some notebooks, a computer.
Pictures of a blonde with freckles. With two kids the same.
Running shoes.
A shotgun.
A camping chair, with a mannequin dressed with favorite sunglasses and well-worn jeans.
They would thank the elderly attendant, and outside, breathe deep sunlight with relief.
Munsi
They took the last of my good ideas, and put it in a museum.
I was proud when the exhibit opened, and I visited every day for a while, but when I realized I had nothing more to say in my creative life, the visits became painful reminders of who I once was.
After a few months I could barely bring myself to look at it. Eventually I stopped going altogether.
Still, it’s proven to be a popular tourist attraction. Tickets to see it are constantly sold out!
“See?” They say to the tour groups, “Munsi wasn’t ALWAYS a hack!”
Tura
In the Etruscan Museum at Volterra lies the stone tomb of a young girl, nine years old. Her likeness is carved on the outside, with such realism that it is as if she lives again. But only, as if. She is dead three thousand years. Her memory survives only because her family were wealthy enough, and cared enough, to have the tomb made, and because it survived the chances of history.
Every century, the entire population dies. Two people every second of every day of every year.
So, this is not really a story, except the story of us all.
TREED
(No text sent)
Dadatic
My dentist was injured today while she was torturing me. I didn’t bite her. She cut herself with one of her instruments. While she ran to cure her wound, I stayed there with an open mouth, not because I was dumbfounded, but because she had not given me permission to close it. Fortunately she could soon resume the operation, as her wound was not really serious. But it’s my first time of rightfully shared pain at the dentist’s. She quickly disposed of my tooth before I could say a word. Now what am I going to put beneath my pillow?
Tom
The art institute has two larger bronze lions in front of the entrance doors. In the 60s it was an act of defiance to actually climb on top. But on the night of Democratic Convention the lions saved my bacon. Regular police had been moving people out of Grant Park next to the museum. It wasn’t working. Then a masked badgeless unit of the police force appeared. As they moved toward the museum one poor soul got seriously clubbed. He went down and didn’t move. I hide behind the back of a lion and froze. They move on firing teargas.
Botgirl
Mary thought of her house as a museum. But truth be told, it was more like a mausoleum. For the past twenty years since her husband’s death, Mary’s house had been a place where life was less lived than remembered. The hundreds of momentos that filled every possible inch of space were ghosts of a past she desperately longed for. Fortunately, Mary has taken advantage of our new SimuLuv™ program and is now enjoying a happy new virtual life, her long-lost husband digitally reborn through our patent-pending AI technology. With SimuLuv™, you’ll never have to say goodbye again.
Chris
“Foolish humans, I shall take over the world!” exclaimed Gim.
“Good luck with that.” someone said as they walked by.
“OooOooOoo, Peanut-butter covered ice-cream!” Shouted Zirr.
“Zirr what do you see.” Gim said.
“I see a pony, a museum, and o my god a squirrel!” Zirr replied.
“Focus Zirr, Zirr!” Gim shouted.
“Ooh a flying Mumi-octo-squirrel!” “Ooh whats that!”
“This is hopeless I need a smart and loyal robot not a dumb walking
tin can!” “Zirr, where’s that data chip!”
“Oh, you mean that little blinky thing?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, I took it out for a little more tuna.”
“What, Noooo…!”
Steven
The star’s fusion reaction sputtered. “Any moment,” Jon said.
Sandra untwined her hand from Jon’s and looked at the image of the dying star, at the horrible, empty black that lay in all directions. “It looks… sad.”
Jon glanced toward Sandra. “Status?”
“Wormhole generator steady, particle wave containment field ready.”
Jon smiled. “The last star of this universe, its final rays preserved forever.”
“It deserves better,” Sandra said. She watched the slow dwindling death of the star. Of the universe their ancestors came from.
The Light Museum’s collection ship ripped through the universe’s wall, leaving it cold, dark, and silent.
Ross
Did you ever want to run away and live in a museum?
Not me! Although I enjoyed “From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler” as much as the next kid, the MoMA always seemed like an impractical choice for a stowaway.
No, I’d run away to THE MALL.
Picture it: Spend all night playing the arcade games, stuffing yourself silly in the food court, reading in the bookstores until your eyes crossed, and finally, crashing on a Serta mattress.
What do you mean “You’d get caught”?
Why do you think I took this job as a night watchman?
Cate
After beach-combing, Copeland’s “Quiet City” in earbuds, I wandered, stretching daylight. Storefronts, backs against winter berms. One shop’s canted sign read: COSMICA.
Inside, stuff you’d expect — a bric-a-brac museum. I sneezed. Alone on the back wall, a shadowbox. Inside a polaroid of a barefoot woman at the surf-line, assorted rocks, beach glass, and a hand-written poem:
hard cold tumbled worn
corroded by time – tossed about
thrown up on shores by waves and waves
sand-scultpted
waves and waves
stepped upon
noticed handled admired
ignored rejected cast-off
kept
used
treasured
broken
each
rock-shaped enstoned heart
hard cold stone hearts
June
We’re reading Poe in school. Finally, someone who knows life is hell. Most days I feel like that guy who got bricked into a cellar. Though I don’t know what I did to deserve it.
Mom says she’ll sign the slip for me to see his grave if I get an A on my paper. I told her it was too much pressure. She says I need to apply myself.
We learned he died from drinking too much today. I couldn’t find a cask, but this bottle of wine should get me in character. Here’s to Baltimore’s most famous drunk.
Danny
I’d like to call this city commission meeting to order. First on the agenda, the location for our latest museum, the Sarah Palin Museum of Credibility. I was hoping the city could purchase the empty lots next to the Dolly Parton Museum of Inane Boobery, but it appears another Starbucks is going in there. I suggested putting the museum next to the Mitt Romney Museum of Consistency, but tonight I heard that the Museum of Effective Legislatures was closing because the staff there discovered there aren’t any. Unless there is any objection, that is the location I nominate for our new museum.
Norval Joe
Blathendir shook the back door. He heard it rattle as it shifted slightly at his pull, but the bolt held.
He walked past displays set on pedestals and low tables. He passed dioramas behind floor to ceiling glass windows and smiled at the familiar faces with their unseeing glass eyes.
He set the alarm, stepped out and locked the front door.
He thought about the movie, “Night at the Museum”, and wondered, as he often did as he closed up,
What would happen in Blathodir’s Museum or Horror and the Macabre if all the displays came to life each night?
Guard 13007
“And now, here is our newest collection, samples of the worst music known to the early twenty-first century, played at the loudest volume possible for your enjoyment!” the guide smiled that fake smile all public speakers did.
Out from the speakers came a most horrible sound. Everyone clutched at their ears in pain as the high-pitched squeals and horrible white-noise bass blared. It was not long before they were running around like mad dogs, tearing each other to pieces.
After a few days, police came to investigate strange behavior. They were never seen again. The museum was nuked from orbit.
TJ
My grandmother’s house has become something of a museum to our bizarre
family history – not least of which, grandpa, who funeral or no I
honestly think might still be in here somewhere. The place is a hoard,
an absolute disaster area, but grandma moves through it nimbly enough.
She’d invited us to help with his things and shared some odd family
histories. CLANK! “This is the bear trap your grandfather got caught
in for three days.” “Three days?!” I asked. “There’s a release
trigger /right there/!” She looked at me. “No one ever said he was a
smart man,” she shrugged.
Noe
Tiny insignificant dust motes swirl in a late afternoon shaft of sunlight that pushes through the window. They’re lost earth on invisible breath. Yolk the color of Strelitzia petals is broken and mixed with powder pigment. Quick deft strokes repair cracks; ease years of damage.
The path had not been clear. She cannot hear the steady flow of feet through exhibitions or even the warble of a city bird. It became apparent in her steady careful hands. Now her colors lay where masters’ eyes once traced. She rebuilds visions… dreams. She sees.
Dante Rossetti’s world is resurrected by her brush.
Planet Z
The history museum has the strongest security I’ve ever seen outside of a military base.
But when you have Merlin’s wand and spellbook in your basement, you don’t want anybody walking in and using them.
Not that there’s anybody that can read the spellbook and know the necessary gestures to activate it.
Except me.
I’m with the cleaning crew.
And after years of studying this stuff, I’ve figured it all out.
Oh, sure, the alarms will go off. The Vault will close and lock me in.
That’s nice. It’ll let me cast the Doomsday Spell uninterrupted.
Oh good.
Closing time.
Ha! That was fun! Thank you.