Welcome to the thirty-first Weekly Challenge, 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 selected by Elisson from blog d’Elisson and he chose Cheese.
A whopping seventeen stories were submitted this week. Double digits!
An amazing six rookies this week! WOW! (Thank you, Pickle Tales!)
And, as always, the usual madness by Planet Z.
Go ahead and listen to them by clicking on the grammophone thingy there in the left column and then vote for your favorites (multiple selections are allowed):
WE GOTS PRIZES:
Houston Keys
I will be sending the winner the cost of a cup of coffee through PayPal. And who’s on the five dollar bill? Heh heh heh…
So listen, vote, and tune in next week to find out who won!
The full text to each story…
HOUSTON KEYS
Elf 1: Hey Dude! What’s going on?
Elf2: Hey Man… Oh my GOSH! What is that smell?
Elf 1: What Smell?
Elf 2: Gang help!
Everyone: UUUUGH!!!!!
Elf 1: What’s up with you losers?
Elf 2: You CUT THE CHEESE MAN!
Elf 3: Here man, try these, they’ll make you cool.
Elf 1: Do you mean… DRUGS????
Elf 2: Yeah man, be cool.
Elf 3: You can be cool like us.
Elf 1: Cool Man.
Elf 1: This is so cool.
Elf 2: Are you tripping man?
Elf 1: Yeah, I’m tripping hard. Wow man, the colors!
Elf 2: You are so lame.
Elf 3: Yeah. What a dweeb.
Elf 1:What are you talking about? Don’t ruin my buzz.
Elf 2: You Dork. That was Beano!
Elf 3: At least you won’t be cutting the Cheese anymore!
LEE
It was 3pm before a delegation of workmates arrived at Oliver’s desk.
“Oliver…”
“Yes? Hello everyone.”
“Um…it’s about your head.”
Oliver sat back, frowning. “I’m sorry?”
Samantha held up a mirror. Oliver blinked. During the conference they’d watched Oliver’s head transform into cheese. Until now, they’d said nothing.
“My god!” Oliver exclaimed. “Is that…brie?”
“Camembert,” Bradley whispered.
Oliver ran hands over his creamy cheeks, relaxing ears and a scalp of cool, rubbery rind. He panicked. What would Jessica say? And Timmy! Would he recognise his goopy father?
Oliver ran wailing from the office, trailing a clutch of eager, twitching rats.
ERIC
The Cheese sat quietly in a hidden corner of the fridge. Broodingly, it shuddered slightly, feeling the vibrations of legions of tiny bacteria working their silent magic.
A damp funk sheathed the blue veins as they pulsed. The magnified movement of a myriad of millions made The Cheese smile inwardly and puff its chest.
The label bulged where a sweaty, white liquid had pooled behind the slick plastic.
The Cheese flexed and relaxed, flexed and relaxed, testing the confines of the wrappings. “My time is close,” it growled in the chilled darkness, “soon they will pay for having forgotten me.”
ALPHA K NINE
Detective Murray stared in disbelief at the murder weapon in his hands. This was, no doubt, the most bizarre homicide he had ever investigated.
The table was laden with cold cuts and appetizers for the 40th wedding anniversary of the deceased and of the killer. Even with witnesses aplenty, motive and the implement of destruction in his hands he knew this would be a tough one to prosecute.
Domestic violence was always a bad scene.
As the detective once again looked down at the huge block of Swiss cheese covered with blood, he knew his case was full of holes.
TOBY
No kind of job for a grown man.
Watching the machines that stole our future. Tanks of steel and vats, self churning, control the temperature, the consistency and the flavor.
Computers dictate the brining, the cheddaring, add the annatto with unwavering precision, no human could match.
I control only myself, for my sins, no more a part of this process than the fly stuck in this place with me.
But a man has to live, and so must I. Denied my birthright, a custodian of the curds, and whey.
I think I can sneak in a nap. Who’ll ever know?
STEVE
Writer’s block.
It hit Stanley like a ton of bricks. It was so easy when he was in his car, coming up with brilliant topics and soliloquies that would make Shakespeare say “Forsooth, you rock!”
But now, in front of his computer, he had nothing.
Nothing, that is, except that his protagonist was a magnanimous chunk of Swiss cheese named Carl.
Would Carl have magical powers? If so, what would they be?
That’s it! He can fly!
A half page in, Stanley re-read his work. His smile quickly faded.
Select all. Delete.
Swiss cheese in a story?
Too many holes.
MARK
The mold that will eventually give this cheese its name starts out a little green when you first open the package. Then, in the air, under the influence of some sort of oxygenation reaction that occurs while it warms up on a cool marble slab, the cracks and pocks go blue. The room begins to reek of feet and sour milk, but nevertheless, something in the air stimulates the parotids and forces a rush of saliva. You reach for a glass of red wine, and begin to decide between jazz and classical. Maybe there is an apple in the fridge.
LAIEANNA
I was really starting to stress over this week’s challenge. So I took a break and went down to the local carnival.
Lo and Behold, they were displaying a new game. Sitting on the dead grass was a big vat of melted Velveeta cheese with a man perched on top.
I paid my dues and started to hurl chunks of Swiss cheese at the little target on the side. Finally my pitches paid off with a bullseye and the man went down.
What was my prize for dunking Elisson in his own topic? Yep, a necklace of Limburger cheese. Great!
ANDREW IAN DODGE
“Cheese eating surrender Monkeys?” Gasped Clive. “What the hell does that mean?”
“Well it was coined several years ago for the French who seem to surrender to whomever they can…” I replied.
“So the local vicar is French?”
“Well no but I think he has a similar way of thinking…” I grunted. “I mean the idiot has publically said he wants a dialogue with the local Cthulhu cultists!”
“Oh,”
“Or it might be wanted, he announced to the local paper he was off to a meeting with them last night.”
“And…”
“He has not been heard from today…” I responded.
T A MARQUETTE
Who would have foreseen the bizarre chain of events upon the arrival of Patrick Michael Derry in our small-secluded wooded valley?
The depths of the farmer’s avarice was infectious. He stole a bride who in turn stole a child. The cry of the infant lured a nurse, who absconded with her mother’s cow.
The
braying lured a dog,
barking lured a cat,
mewing lured a rat.
Into the middle of the hamlet
strode the big cheese. He cried
“Good people of the dell
we must end this madness.
High Ho.” No one joined him.
Steely eyed the cheese stands alone.
KOLEK
Ah, this meal reminded him of home.
Garlic bread, lasagna with plenty of mozzarella cheese, and second helpings. Of course, he was not always leader of this company.
He frowned as he thought of the old days.
Menial labor, abusive, filthy conditions. Low pay. But now it was alright.
“What is wrong?”
“Nothing, Luigi. How is the shipment going?”
“All is well, brother.”
Of course, he never got to this position for free.
He had to eliminate some goofy enemies, clean a path to success, and finally, take care of his former masters.
It always made Mario laugh to think he now owned Nintendo.
B
Fran was tired of cheese. 50 to 100 times a day, every day, except Tuesdays and Thursdays for the past 6 years. Cheese didn’t really bother her when she first took the job but now her yearning for variety was all consuming.
The next time she heard the word ‘cheese’, she would be thinking, ‘Eat me!’ Heck, she might even suggest it!
She was well past her 40th cheese of the day when she snapped. An innocent 3-year-old boy. She stuffed the Elmo puppet into his mouth and beat the floor with the camera.
She’d become…lactose intolerant.
ELISSON
The rough hands of a dozen troops dragged the shackled Knight before his grotesque captor.
Jinn pondered his situation ruefully. He had escaped from a horde of Imperial Stormtroopers only to stumble into the clutches of the infamous Jabba, the crime syndicate’s Big Cheese.
He even looked like a cheese, an overripe Brie that had sat outdoors on a hot day. Feh.
But Jabba the Huttvarti was a businessman above all else. And now, Jinn was competition.
As they hauled him toward the Matter Convertor, Queso-Gon Jinn, Swiss Knight, felt an extra-sharp pang of regret at having left the Cheddi.
CALEB
Sivan grew up poor but eventually worked his way up through cunning and ruthless business practices. He emigrated from northern Iraq to America and began working in Rocket Science making sure that NASA always gave contracts to his company… Or else.
You know how there were all those failed Mars expeditions in the 90’s? That’s because they didn’t go with Sivan’s company and extreme measures had to be taken. They’ve since learned their lesson. Sivan made enough on that racket to retire comfortably to Florida.
Yes, he’s gone from being just a humble Kurd to a rich, mellow Mars Capone.
CAROLINE
“Get orf my face with your disgusting socks.
“Ah good old gorgonzola”
“I’m telling Mum on you when she gets back.”
“What for? I didn’t do nuthin. She’ll whack me with the copper stick again.”
“Serve you right. For putting your feet on me head.”
“I’ll make you a cheese sarny.”
“What with brown sauce on?”
“Sure I will.”
“Awright then. Call it quitsies.”
“Oh good Mum your back guess what Derek did?”
“No idea, you tell me.”
“I didn’t do nuthin on purpose.”
“He made me a nice cheese sarny?”
LISA
Margo works harder than everyone else and she’ll be the first one to tell you about it. In fact, she complains a LOT: crappy shifts, lumpy chairs, messy people, I’m feeling sick, nobody listens to me.
Needless to say, Margo didn’t have a lot of “friends”. When she found a gift waiting in her cubicle for her one day, she was elated, though somewhat perplexed to find a package of cheese-slices inside. This continued four days with Brie, Camembert, Gouda, and cheddar.
A note in the last package explained everything:
“We thought you might like some cheese with your whine.”
RAHEL
The nearby deli had a special that morning: extra-sharp cheddar at a fantastic price. My favorite! I grabbed half a pound of it, a whole-wheat roll, some lettuce and mustard and headed in to work.
Half past noon found me in the kitchen, making a sandwich. Just then, my boss raced over.
“We’ve got a situation,” she puffed. “Our deadline’s just been moved up.”
And then she saw what I was doing.
“This is no time to be fooling around with cheese,” she said. “Move it!”
I sighed. Suddenly, inspiration struck.
And that is how I became a best-selling author.
Z
It was an honest mistake. Just one checkbox to the left.
Aaron thought he was signing up for Jews For Jesus on the online form, but the membership packet that showed up in the mail said Jews For Cheeses.
He tried to return the badge and get his money back, but a week later he got a brochure for the Museum of Lactose Tolerance, founded by Simon Wisemmenthaler.
One cheese-related charity after another signed Aaron up.
The strain eventually got to him. Massive coronary.
So, the Magen David Edam showed up, put him on a stretcher, and carried
him off.
Thanks to everyone for sending in their stories, and I look forward to what you’ve got to write (and say) next week.
The theme for next week’s Weekly Challenge will be posted shortly.
(In case you’re interested, I’ve settled on “Clair de Lune” as the opening music and “Moonshine” by Michael Oldfield from the Tubular Bells II album.)