The 100 Word Stories Podcast

Welcome to the Weekly Challenge Number Two Hundred and Thirty-Six, 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… was…. um…
It’s Halloween!

---

Remember to post Rossotron as a separate story
ANONYMOUS
Always the same, black and orange. Always that nasty color combination
for Halloween. I presume it is a mixture of the traditional vampire
colors of black and red and the fall color of orange pumpkins. The
witches so often portrayed are black magic witches, so I guess that
makes sense; and black cats wouldn’t be the same as ginger
tabbies. But why must everything else be black and orange? When does
violet get its turn? What about all this ‘go green’ we
hear about? Wouldn’t purple witches and green pumpkins be
grand? Or is that just the Irish in me?
NORVAL JOE
Groups of kids rushed up the walkway to the door and hurried off to
the next house as two costumned boys lurched from the street to the
porch. “Trickertreet,” the taller of the two said as a woman opened
the door. “My,” the woman exclaimed cheerfully, “Who do we have here?”
The taller spoke again as he held out a plastic pumpkin, “I’m Igor,
Dr. Frankenstein’s assistant. My brother is Super Man, but he can’t
talk. He has cerebral palsy.” He helped his brother hold his bag out
to the woman. “Thank you,” he said as the two lurched away.
STEVEN
Sit down. I don’t care if you have fangs, or claws, or fur where you
shouldn’t. Sit down. Have some milk. I imagine this isn’t the response
you expected. Cookie? Sorry, I don’t have any raw childflesh. Would it
make you feel better if I screamed? I’m not going to. You don’t scare
me, Mister Monster-Man. There’s this girl, Sally. I like her, but
she’s way cooler than me. So I sent her a card saying how I feel. I
got a letter back. I haven’t opened it. I’m more scared of what’s
inside than I am of you.
TOM
Lenny what do you want to be for Halloween?” asked Mother. “A ghost,”
smiled Lenny. Mom got out her pinking shears and carefully cut two eye
sized holes in a old pillow case and gently dropped the costume over
Lenny’s head. “Time to go,” said Georgia. “Trick or Treat,”
cried Lenny. Mrs. Specter put a candy bunny in his plastic pumpkin. He
trotted back to show her. Lenny had been a ghost since he was six, saw
no need in changing now. Mom had saved each pillow case in the attic.
There were 57. “Tell me about the rabbits mom.”
KATWOOD
The zombie invasion started on Halloween, but nobody noticed for a
week. Everyone just thought it was a well co-ordinated prank,
especially the news. However, anyone who ran into these
�pranksters� quickly learned otherwise. It wasn�t
until the 4th that people realized that there were too many
�pranksters� for this to be a joke. I�m a little
paranoid, and so was wary of all this from the start. That�s
why I�m still alive. But this virus is too perfect, too
consistently fatal and too quick to appear to be natural. So, who
knows? Maybe it was a prank after all.
ZACKMANN
Yes grandma, I did have to bring the children in their costumes. After
what the wife and I sent on the materials for those they will wear
them all day and to a local Con. No grandma Anime cartoon convention.
I stopped buying anything from Guido years ago. No grandma the this
cake is not a lie and glad you are enjoying the Xbox. My wife thought
you would never use it. Happy Halloween. Happy birthday. I know you
never liked the coincidence but at least the children will remember
your birthday. It could be worse it could be Christmas.
EARLEY
Little Mario skipped past the Haunted Mansion, Hall of Presidents, and
the Liberty Bell. At the boat dock is a barrel of candy and a cast
member with a smile. After the candy is in his bag, she ask Mario,
�Where are your parents?� The three year old plumber
spins around and begins sobbing in the cast member�s colonial
dress. Thankfully she can see above the crowds. Princess Peach sighs,
adjusting Yoshi on her hip. Luigi makes eye contact with the cast
member and presses a finger to his lips. What is Halloween without a
�little� scare? Maybe Mario won�t leave
Luigi�s side again.
TED
They conquered Earth three years ago. The aliens demand revenge, but
how could we have known? The first December, they somehow learned
about Christmas. They made us stand in their living rooms for days on
end; presents at our feet for their conical green children. Those who
collapsed were executed. Last March they glued our hands to their
windows while they held a parade and drank green beer from cups held
in their clover-shaped appendages. Most of us survived. But now
we�re terrified. It�s early October and we see them
huddling their orange, pumpkin-shaped heads together and sharpening
their knives.
MRS. ABE
They boiled him. They sliced him. They chopped him into little pieces.
They grated his skin and rubbed salt into his wounds: pickling him in
his own juices. They kept his head in the freezer. They locked him in
the cellar and ate him piece by piece. They stir-fried him. They baked
him. They roasted him. And when they were done, the monsters threw his
decomposing corpse in the garbage like common trash. But one day a
year, just one, at the end of October, when he saw what happened to
the pumpkins, Sylvester was happy to be a cabbage.
ROSSOTRON
George loathed Halloween. He planned to lay low while the neighborhood
kids made their rounds, begging treats from strange adults. “WAAAAH!”
he screamed, spying the man in the corner. Floating. Above the ground.
“Friendly neighborhood poltergeist here,” the apparition moaned. “I’m
supposed to give you a heads’ up about the new Participation Law. Any
folks that don’t hand out candy get haunted until next Halloween.” As
George shuffled down the candy aisle, a young man caught his eye.
“It’s gotta be a trick, right?” George shrugged, and sighed. He was
NOT looking forward to the Easter Bunny’s visit next spring.
TJ
There�s a reason we don�t hold Election Day on
Halloween. We could send the candidates around trick or treating and
the ones with the most candy could be declared the winner. But the
fact that they could cheat and sneak entire bags of Mounds bars into
their treat bags suggests we ought to maintain the current system
� you know, terrifying political ads, mobs of angry voters,
mysterious ballot boxes that disappear into the night, letting the
dead come back to life to vote, the scary candidates themselves
� come to think of it, maybe we should hold elections on
Halloween.
PLANET Z
It’s Halloween, sitting with a bowl of candy on my doorstep. I
remember when I was a kid, dressed up, begging for candy. What
happened? When did childhood end? When I first got laid? When I got
out of school? When I got a job? No. None of those. My parole officer
said: You ain’t an adult until you go to trial as one. I cross my
legs, try to hide the ankle monitor. More kids walk by, see the sign
on the window, and keep walking. Oh well. More candy for me. And the
three kids in my basement.

Welcome to the Weekly Challenge Number Two Hundred and Thirty-Five, 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… was…. um…
It’s Cabbage!
VOTING

Which were the best stories this week?
	Steven
	AM Earley
	Anonymous
	Katwood
	TJ
	Tom
	Zackmann
	Ted
	Norval Joe
	Planet Z
Free polls from Pollhost.com

Go ahead and listen to them and then vote for your favorites (multiple selections are allowed):

---

Steven

The cabbages gained sentience on a Thursday.
They conquered the Earth by Saturday.
Some humans simply went mad, unable to deal with the vegetable voices
in their supermarkets, in their stomachs. Other humans required more
emphatic persuasion to submit.
A cabbage moving at high speed suffers little damage when impacting a
human skull.
The skull is not so lucky.
That Sunday, mass funerals were held for the victims of coleslaw
violence outside of every KFC. All countries, led by cabbage rulers,
declared peace.
At least the world was finally in harmony.
Until the next Thursday, when the rutabagas started talking.

AM Earley

Cabbage, beer and bratwurst combine to make my dad’s favorite meal. He ate it almost everyday. Oh sure, it tasted good, mom added carrots, onions and garlic. However I learned early on that I never wanted to sit in the same room with him for the rest of the night.
I found staying in my room was my best option, better when I stuffed a towel under my door. So I was stuck with doing my homework, or reading the Encyclopedia Britannica.
Maybe that’s how I ended up before all you nice people as Valedictorian of Elmwood High.

Anonymous

I know everyone poops, and every creature God created poops, but why don’t people clean up after their dogs? Before work today I had to roll the garbage can to the back of the house, around two other townhouses. I was dressed for work, and…guess what? Yup, I stepped in it. It was fresh and stinky and I guess hiding in a pile of leaves, cuz I didn’t see it. Since doggies don’t have opposable thumbs, their owners need to shovel up after them. Maybe I’ll go scrape my shoes on their front steps. Think they would get the hint?

Katwood

It’s a little known fact that dragons love cabbage, which was the root cause of the first dragon attack. The survivors told everyone that they were attacked for no reason by bloodthirsty monsters. That makes a much better story than “we were attacked because we wouldn’t hold up our end of a cabbage trade agreement or return the payment that we took”. This, of course, lead to an all-out war. Now, the few remaining humans hide as well as they can, to avoid being dragged off to grow cabbage. We would do it ourselves, but dragons are notoriously bad farmers.

TJ

Charles Babbage hated cabbage. He built up a machine
A Differential Engine to analyze cuisine
>From all the world over, Hungarian and Russian,
French, Greek and Korean, Rumanian and Prussian
Fed he into one end, machinery would clatter,
Analysis commenced on texture, chemistry and matter
If cabbage found he none, the meal would ensue
Even tho the end result resembled that of goo.
If cabbage was detected, the machine let out a blast
That thus avoiding, Charles did not pass along as gas
Cabbage free, his home took on a positiver air
Tranquil domesticity is all shall find you there.

Tom

A little know fact about the Irish potato famine was the effect of the baby zombies an army of cabbage patch children. Not the ugly toys from the 80s. but truly ugly little walking dead. At night you could hear their mournful cannibalistic cries. “Spuds Spuds” Damn near eat everything in Erie.
Some enterprising souls took to capturing Gabbages for their pots of lead. All that leaded crystal made the those who survived quite well todo. In remembrance of their deliverance Irish boil the cabbage and if they could get their hand on Elizabeth Windsor they’d boil her too.

Zackmann

I hated to move because I really miss my friend named Kim Chi. Every week I would have
supper with her and she loved to cook.She made what she called ham burgers with canned
ham patties and eggs served on an English Muffin. I thought it more of a breakfast but
sometimes we had lunch at night and our breakfast for supper. She always had rice and very
spicy vegetables. My favorite thing she made was a sort or pickled salad with Napa cabbage,
Daikon radishes, and lots of spice but I can’t remember what it’s called.

Please,come with me and take that basket because the Monroes gave me permission to pick
some produce from their garden. They are also a friend of Mr Howe’s who my wife promised
to make some fresh lumpia. Watch out for holes and don’t pick any white vegetables that
shouldn’t be white. Did I mention the Monroes have a vegetarian vampyre rabbit. No, he is
totally harmless and sleeps inside the house until dusk. Bunnicla only eats or rather only drinks
vegetables . Those white cabbages do look pretty creepy after Bunnicula sucks the life out of
them.

Ted

“Roll The Cabbage! Roll The Cabbage!”
It had been an annual tradition as Henry could remember and was one he truly hated.
Every summer the children hunted out The Cabbage hiding in the back of some closet and carried The Cabbage to the hill.
They rolled The Cabbage down the slope, sometimes hitting The Cabbage with sticks and tumbling after The Cabbage. Someone always got hurt, usually Henry.
“Jesus, I hate those bastards,” thought Henry just before vomiting and blacking out at the bottom of the hill. “It’s such a stupid nickname too; why can’t they just call me ‘Fatso’?”
This is my serious entry, the one that will win the Nobel prize. I don’t care how you do the narration, the father should be friendly but a pit paternalistic, “young Helen” can sound like a little girl. Peter’s father (“Corinthian stuffed cabbage!”) should sound like a proud Mediterranean older man, you can do the Greek accent for Peter as well if you want, I trust your judgment, Mr. Midget.

Her father was an art historian too. “Name the three Greek architectural styles,” he challenged.
Young Helen racked her brain: “the plain columns are Doric, the scroll Ionic, the leaves, um….”
“Corinthian. C for cabbage. Cabbage, Corinthian, OK?”
He died after she defended her dissertation on Roman temple carvings.
She met Peter while in Greece for her first sabbatical.
Dinner with his family. “Mom does most of the cooking but Papa is very proud of his regional specialties.”
The plate comes out: steaming leaves overflowing with meat and rice.
“Corinthian stuffed cabbage!”
They smell fantastic, and she begins to cry.

Norval Joe

I grew up down south around Bakersfield. My family was so poor we all lived in the same cardboard box. It was good we lived in Bakersfield, cause it don’t get really cold there or rain very much.
My cousin lived with us, too. He had a big old head that looked like a cabbage, so we just called him cabbage, his hair was green. Maybe he didn’t being called that cause he up and disappeared one day.
Times got really hard and we didn’t have much food. Funny, for a long time all we ever ate was cabbage soup.

Planet Z

Sure they were cute when they were young, but Cabbage Patch Kids don’t stay kids forever.
They grew up and became the Cabbage Patch Teens, and soon after, the lost and confused Generation Cabbage.
Imagine, trying to get a driver’s license, and all you have as documentation is a fake birth certificate from some toy company.
You can’t get Social Security cards with that, either, so you can’t get a real job.
Day laborers, prostitutes, drug addicts.
Now when you see them, by the side of the road, begging for food.
Once, you loved them.
But, you grew up too.