The 100 Word Stories Podcast

• Scribbling Wren
• Lizzie
• Richard
• Serendipidy
• Tom
• Norval Joe
• Planet Z

The next weekly challenge topic is: Superhero

LIZZIE

The man looked at him sideways.
“What’s up?”
The man didn’t reply and looked away while scratching the rust out of the bench with a pocket-knife.
“You new here?”
The man shrugged.
“Better be careful.”
The man had one eye. The other was white, empty of life.
“Do you have a carrot?”
“A carrot?”
The man nodded and waited.
“That’s how I lost my eye.”
“Are you looking to lose the other too?”
The man grinned a toothless grin and walked away.
“A carrot… Creep. They’ve opened the doors at the funny farm again. Hope no one dies this time.”

LISA

An Open Packet Of Wafer Thin Ham Two Months Past It’s Use By Date.

Layers of sticky grime had built up over years on the door. Lizzie added fridge to the endless list of items for the dump. As she opened the door, the smell hit her like holiday heat when you leave the airport. The whole house had an odour, unpleasant and pervasive but this was something else amid the lumpy milk, liquid carrots and inexplicably her Mum’s purse. She knelt with a bin bag, sliding the contents into it with her nose covered, remembered coming home from uni, and her joy at seeing that fridge, very much cleaner, crammed full of treats.

RICHARD

Japan: The Reality.

Wafer-thin walls and overwhelming summer heat.

That’s what I say, when people ask me about my time in Japan.

I could say more… The crazy traffic, crowded streets, awful cheese, long working hours and the barely-concealed unconscious racism towards anyone who isn’t Japanese, but none of those really bothered me. Somehow, I accepted that as part of what it meant to live in Japan.

But, some things were just too much to bear.

Oh, and haiku.

I could never master that damn thing. I’ll stick to hundred word stories!

The wafer-thin walls;

Overwhelming summer heat.

Japanese torture!

TOM

Not Providing Appropriate Adjustment

Jack was odd. Markly off centered. You could say he was missing one important thing or he was burdened with one maladaptive trait. One could say he was a wafer-thin creepy. How he entered a room, how he joined a conversation of his peers, even if was just walking pass you in a hall, you feel a sense of peril. And wasn’t just adults. Dogs and cats would go ballistic, small children would weep. I tried my best to at the least be surface friendly. That was until the day of the hard black rain. The day Timmy mysteriously disappeared.

SERENDIPIDY

I’ve never been much good at slicing vegetables; I’m always in too much of a hurry. No matter how hard I try, they always come out uneven and messy. Certainly not fit for dinner parties and entertaining.

So I bought myself a mandoline: One of those razor-sharp slicers that proper chefs use, and it revolutionised my kitchen. Now my carrots are wafer-thin, every time.

But, for my latest dinner party, I was running late, and rushing again.

I’d sliced my fingers off, down to the knuckles before I realised.

Nobody noticed the added ingredient.

And it tasted great.

NORVAL JOE

Billbert bit his lip and thought about what the girl had said. “Oh. You mean you have my friend, Linoliamanda.
The girl sneered, looking truly horrifying with hair the color of rust and teeth the color of carrots. “Call her what you want. If you don’t come with us, she’ll be called a memory.”
Sabrina tugged at his sleeve and whispered, “We should run. I think we can outrun them.”
The boy said, “You’d have to get through us first.” He grabbed Sabrina by the shoulders.
She sighed. “I guess he has a point. We probably better go with them.”

PLANET Z

The first time the Creep in the big grey hoodie walked into the grocery store and stuffed bags of baby carrots into this pockets before walking out, nobody saw it.
But after a few days of this, a guy stocking the produce section noticed him, and he got on the phone to the manager.
Too late to stop him from leaving.
Soon, hundreds of stores were reporting similar thefts.
Corporate told managers to have parking patrols watch the doors, and eventually they caught the carrot thieves.
Meanwhile, over in countless dairy sections, the real thieves had stolen all the eggs.

• Scribbling Wren
• Lizzie
• Richard
• Serendipidy
• Tom
• Norval Joe
• Planet Z

The next weekly challenge topic is: Point, Heat, Carrots, Rust, Wafer-thin, Creep

SCRIBBLING WREN

Mr Tibbles Special Diet

Paula had him from a kitten. His once luxurious coat was matted and shed hair as he limped by. He’d lost the leg while he was sat in the road washing.

Because of a kidney problem he could only eat expensive food from the vets. It was measured out twice daily. After his second 25g meal he sat meowing by the window until Paula opened it to let him out.

Outside he ate the remains of a KFC Bargain Bucket from the bin, drank from a brackish puddle while Paula watched, thinking it was probably time for a new cat.

LIZZIE

Diet is such a wonderful word, he thought. The thought of restraining yourself from eating what you want is delightful. Saying “no, thank you, I am full” when you’ve been eyeing that food for the past half hour is enchanting. And the taunting sneers… They think those “no, thank yous” are as fake as their boobs and their mustaches tinted black. And when, in a moment of sheer restraint, you stab just one of them in the eye, then all is well. You don’t have to worry anymore. You’ll eat what’s given to you. Diet is such a wonderful word.

RICHARD

Weighty matters

It was one of those loaded questions. You know the sort, the ones that come out of the blue from nowhere, leaving you no choice but to answer, and whatever answer you give, you’re damned!

“Should I go on a diet?”

I busied myself with my breakfast, hoping she’d let it pass, but knowing my fate was sealed.

“Well?” She gave me a steely look. “Am I overweight? Should I go on a diet?”

I sighed, and smiled at her.

“You don’t need to diet… You just need to buy bigger clothes!”

Well, it seems that was the wrong answer.

TOM

It’s All In The Deliver

The great theologian Rasmus of Tent had a flamboyant presentation style. When speaking of the great parting of the empire, he placed a larger glass bottle on the podium filled with an abundance of night-crawlers. He waited. The students look on in dark silence. Smiling he offered an eclectic hint. “Heylshof Garden.“ Silence. Then another: Charles V And yet another Frederick III. Walking to the front ring of chairs he whispered into the ear of his prized pupil. Beaming he announced: Diet of Worms. Ryely Rasmus stated “happily while Luther branded a hectic he wasn’t asked to dine on same.

SERENDIPIDY

I’m a very ordinary, average type of person: Not too short, nor too tall, fairly slim, not tending towards fat, and unremarkable when it comes to looks – I’m no supermodel, but then again, I’m not butt-ugly either.

If you happened to pass me in the street, you might spare me a second glance, but then again, you might simply pass me by, without even noticing.

They do say that a balanced diet is a good thing, and I can’t disagree.

Cannibalism needn’t be unhealthy, you just need to be choosy.

And, I’m living proof, you are what you eat!

NORVAL JOE

As if to prove her assertion that Billbert’s touch increased her magical powers, Sabrina reached out and put her hand on his. As she did her eyes went wide. “Oh no!” She gasped and looked at the door to the ice cream parlor.
Two hulking teenagers blocked the exit. With hair so greasy and their faces covered with pimples they must be living on a diet of potato chips and French fries, the girl of the two growled, “We are of the Dark Knights. We have your friend, Lanolin. If you want her to live, you must come with us.”

PLANET Z

It’s been a while since I last wrote a new story here.
I’ve been diagnosed with a lot of conditions, and they all overlap in their symptoms as well as their impact on each other.
An allergy to this, a sensitivity to that.
Medications for one aggravate the other.
Do this, change that, can’t eat anything on this list… or that list… but this list is… oh, wait… can’t eat that either.
Until it all becomes so much, my anxiety goes through the roof and into the stratosphere.
Here’s some pills for it.
Which cancel out all the other pills.