The 100 Word Stories Podcast

• Richard
• Lizzie
• Serendipidy
• Tom
• Duane
• Norval Joe
• Planet Z

RICHARD

Goal!

I can see that you’re intrigued by it… Go ahead, take a look.

That’s grandpa’s tin helmet, the one he wore in the trenches in World War One. He was there during the Christmas truce and played football with the Hun. I still have the letter he wrote home saying how wonderful it was.

Then of course, when it was all over, they retreated back to the trenches, and the war began again.

He called it his ‘Lucky helmet’, reckoned it would protect him from anything.

It didn’t.

Check out the bullet hole… Brains blown out by the German referee!

LIZZIE

When will it stop raining?
When will they be able to stop wearing those silly helmets that didn’t let them breathe properly?
The people at the monastery couldn’t care less, and he admired them for that.
They disregarded the compulsory quarantine, saying they had to help the ones in need.
They made offerings to some obscure entity and they didn’t care about the rain.
That’s why they walked around wrapped in this odd material they had come up with themselves, and only at night.
When will it stop raining, he thought. He wanted to go and become one of them.

SERENDIPIDY

It’s enough to drive you mad, isn’t it?

“When will it stop raining?” your thoughts scream, tormented by the patter on the tin sheet beneath which you crouch.

I’m afraid it’s going to be some time yet, for this is only the start. Let’s work it out, shall we?

One drop per second, works out at around a pint, every thirty minutes; that’s ten pints in five hours, multiplied by four…

And when I’ve bled the rest of your family dry, I’ll be dragging you from beneath your protective cover, and stringing you up to join them.

Drip, drip, drip!

TOM

In the last century

My grandmother never threw away a single cooking tool, thus my mother
inherited all these. They were store in a cabinet under the sink where I
would play as a small child. I became particularly attached to a tin
Colander and tin funnel. It was the mid 50s and Tom Terrific was my go-to
cartoon, along with Warner Bros’ Looney Tunes. I would walk around the
apartment wearing my “Thinking Cap” funnel rakishly tilted. The colander
became my Marvin the Martian helmet. I’d hiss This makes me very angry,
very angry indeed. Then clobbering my brother with a Tonka Dozer

DUANE

The rain runs off my helmet like a waterfall. Through the downpour I sit and watch the medics, running down the trench.

“Splash splash” from their boots.

Slogging back with the dead and wounded.

“Splash splash.”

Another thump from a mortar round. Between blasts, the screaming of the unlucky bastards hit with the last salvo. Medics run by.

“Splash splash.”

Rations are here. Beans again. Some dry matches. Still out of coffee.

“Splash splash.”

Someone says he heard it’s going to end soon. Everyone laughs. New guy. He’ll change his tune.

“Splash splash.”

God dammit, when will it stop raining?

NORVAL JOE

Billbert’s mind ran about the thought of hanky-panky with Linoliamanda. She was pretty in a confused and myopic kind of way. And there was that odd thrilling sensation that ran from his heart to his stomach when she had kissed him.
He was roused from his thoughts when his father took him by the arm, and said, “Come on, Son. We need to go back inside.”
Linoliamanda and her cat had rejoined her father who was fuming and raising his fist in the air, shouting, “And the next thing you know we’ll all be wearing tin hats or protective helmets.”

PLANET Z

The war was over, and it was time to sign the peace treaty.
When The Prince and his Tin Helmets arrived for the ceremony, the Presidential Guard asked if the group had been vaccinated.
“No,” said The Prince’s assistant.
“Well, then you need to go into quarantine,” said the Chief Guard.
“Put The Prince in quarantine? Never!”
The Tin Helmets and the guards had a brief scuffle, and the fuming Prince was escorted back to his plane.
As the jet headed back over the border, bombers and fighters crossed over and killed more people than any disease in recent memory.

• Richard
• Lizzie
• Serendipidy
• Tom
• Tura
• Duane
• Norval Joe
• Jared
• Planet Z

RICHARD

Reliquary

So, we had this box, which we kept in the crypt and wheeled out for holy days and special occasions. It was fashioned from cedar wood, with polished brass fittings.

It was only a small box, but it held the sacred relic that so many flocked to the church to behold.

The saint’s little finger.

Some say just kissing the box would heal the sick, and simply beholding it guaranteed good fortune.

As for me, I didn’t believe a word of it.

I just looked after the thing and polished the brass.

Oh, and used it for storing my smokes.

DUANE

Saint Gasceous, the patron saint of grandfathers.

Coming from humble beginnings he rose to fame, mostly with his grandchildren, by being able to play “pull my finger” on cue. It was one of several documented miracles that led to his canonization. Another was talking with his dentures sticking halfway out of his mouth. His most notable miracle was the nearly three minute “drive by” he could do while walking around the garden. None of these could be be successfully explained by science alone.

To his grandchildren he is remembered for how they always reacted. That is the miracle of laughter.

TURA

Saint
—-
“The Impossible Missions Group needs my help,” Simon Templar informed his girlfriend Patricia, kissing her lightly on the nose. “See you in a few days.”

He drove across Europe, penetrated the Iron Curtain, and infiltrated the target of the Soviet death ray demonstration. It was being faked, with a bomb to be secretly triggered. The Saint disabled the arming mechanism.

A general with a chestful of medals pressed the firing button before the international press. Beams of lightning coruscated toward the horizon, and then… nothing.

Their subsequent investigation found only a calling card showing a stick figure with a halo.

SERENDIPIDY
cc
Saint Custard’s is an old-fashioned sort of establishment.

Here, we take young girls, educate them and shape their lives, and prepare them to face the world outside.

We cherish the values of old, and encourage our charges to shun technology and modern wisdom in favour of respecting the natural order of things and Mother Nature.

It may be considered quaint by some, but I think our girls are a credit to tradition.

Then, in their senior years, they learn to harness the forces of darkness, breed chaos and undermine male dominance.

Like I said: The natural order of things.

LIZZIE

Ah, the photo of his old bedroom. He couldn’t help but smile. It was there he had taken the first steps towards his amazing career in computers, full of hope and dreams, overshadowing his big sister’s remarkable career as a Professor.
Behind the bookshelf, that’s where he hid it.
Years later, he went back to fetch it. Gone.
When the cops knocked at his door, he knew the governments of those countries weren’t happy with him.
The little code-book… They had it. But how??
Sitting in his cold cell, he tried to figure it out, his sister’s sneer haunting him.

TOM

Saint to the right of me Saint to the left, stuck in the middle with Hue.

There’s a tradition in my family that goes back nearly a millennium and a
half. In each generation one child is named Denis. Seem my family were
original converts from pagan roman Paris to Christianity. In the crypts
of Basilica Saint-Denis buried alongside the Kings of France are my kin.
Oddly when I flew into Paris many years ago, after clearing customs I was
direct to an office of the Paris Bishopric. A priest there gave me a
brass container will the seal of Saint Denis. I ask what I should do with
it. Wait for the moment. He said.

JARED

Patron saints are an interesting study. They cover technologies and concepts that didn’t exist in their lifetimes, and there’s some seriously specific division of labor.

Let’s look at flying. Air travelers and astronauts are all covered by Joseph of Cupertino. However, if you’re the pilot, that’s Christopher’s domain. (If you’re flying the space shuttle, maybe both? Or flip a coin?) Now, if the aircraft doesn’t have any engines, Clare of Assisi has your gliding butt. For the flight attendants serving the air travelers, they pray to Bona of Pisa. Paratroopers jumping out of the planes, Archangel Michael’s got their backs.

NORVAL JOE

Mr. Withybottom turned on Billbert. “So. You just want to be friends with my daughter, do you?”
“Well, yeah,” Billbert said, surprised at the heat in the man’s voice. “We are in some classes together at school.”
Mr. Withybottom shook his finger at Billbert. “Look. I know I was no saint when I was your age. I know what goes through the minds of boys when they talk about being friends with girls. I don’t want any hanky-panky between you two.”
Billbert thought back on his few kisses with Linoliamanda. If someone had hanky-panky on their mind, it wasn’t him.

PLANET Z

It’s interesting to track down the relics of ancient saints.
The fingerbone of this saint, the tooth of that saint.
All believed to be the source of all kinds of miracles.
So many people flock to see these bits and pieces.
It’s good for the local businesses.
Thing is, if you do the math, you’ll find this saint has five thighbones, that saint had forty-nine teeth, and so on.
Unless you’re talking about Saint Mergatroyd of Essex.
He actually had five thighbones, forty-nine feeth, and countless other duplicate body parts.
He was martyred in a nuclear waste facility, after all.