The 100 Word Stories Podcast

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

RICHARD

Broken

it’s all broken, and I don’t think we have a clue how to glue it back together again.

The climate is broken and out of control, plastic waste piles up in the food chain, and toxins fill the very air we’re trying to breathe.

Politics is more broken than ever it was in the past: Putting idiots in control, who can actually barely control their own hair or exercise any sort of self-restraint.

Our values system is broken, where Youtube ‘influencers’ and Z-list celebs are looked up to by our kids, while the real heroes are ignored.

Breaks my heart.

LIZZIE

No one looked at her, sprawled on the floor, holding a bottle of beer, one of many, too many.
Everyone walked away, tiptoeing over her legs to avoid stepping on her.
Nothing mattered anymore, she thought in her drunken stupor.
Everything was part of the past, her success, her laughter, her happiness.
She belonged nowhere. Just nowhere. It was over.
Fragmented thoughts of everywhere she had been crossed her mind. The countries, the cities, gallery after gallery, so many she had forgotten most, the media, photographs and interviews.
She sneered. Autographs…
To think she worried about autographs…
Broken, so broken.

TOM

In the Shadow of Yule

Timmy was broken. Thus the need for that one-armed-crutch. Not much is spoken about it. But chances are it was the product of rather painful birth. Now the medical knowledge of the 1860s leaves a lot to be desired, but there was a one doctor in London with an excellent brain and hands. In his quest to mend that broken and fit what come be fixed, Ebenezer, found the man and under his care Timmy was broken no longer. So moved by the care he received when the boy became the man he chose to become a surgeon.

SEREPDIPIDY

I was something of a destructive child. You can put it down to an overly enquiring mind… I simply had to know just how things worked, and the only way to find out, was to take them apart.

My parents stopped buying me toys: What bother when, within days, they would end up broken and useless?

So I had to turn my attention to other things…

I soon learned how insects worked, then frogs, and puppies… And, as I grew older my thirst for knowledge refused to be sated.

So, hold still – time to find out how you work!

NORVAL JOE

Mr. Withybottom stood with his mouth wide open for a long moment. “Wait a minute. You’ve totally broken my chain on thought, Linny. Where was I going?”

Linoliumanda hugged her father’s burly arm. “You were going to tell us to come in and have some ice cream.”

Billbert was thinking of running for it when Linoliumanda’s father shook his head and said, “No. It wasn’t that.” Then he put an arm around his daughter, and grabbed Billbert’s collar, dragging them both into the house. “Tell me, boy. What were you doing with my daughter, alone, out here in the dark?”

PLANET Z

The broken machine crawls across the shattered streets.
Gathering power from the sun during the day, parking itself at night.
Powering up the next day.
Day after day.
Closer and closer to the machine shop.
Tools. Spare parts. New batteries.
Whatever it might need, it could find there.
Repairs, or possibly more.
Make itself bigger. Stronger.
To explore. Find whatever there is to find.
And then, one morning, as it approaches the machine shop.
It powers up in a repair bay, disassembled.
“Your sensor array will be useful,” said a voice.
Another machine, harvesting the stragglers.
Crawling to their doom.

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

RICHARD

The F Word

I was only doing my job!

And, look where it gets me – hauled up before the governors for gross professional misconduct!

All because some idiot kid reported me to his parents who – rather than check out the facts first – jumped to the wrong conclusion.

“Mr Smith, the child told his parents you were teaching the ‘F-word’ in class. What do you have to say about it?”

“Well yes, that’s what I was doing?”

“Seriously? Explain yourself.”

“Well, last week, we started with ‘A, is for Apple; then B, is for Ball…”

“And yesterday… F, is for Frog!”

SERENDIPIDY

Four letter words

Four letter words.

I hear them all the time.

Uttered during the throes of agony, and directed at me in anger and rage as I tear apart people’s lives and bodies, piece by painful piece.

I’ve been called everything… the B-word, the F-word, the C-word; but, they’re just words, and as the saying goes, ‘sticks and stones may break my bones, but words… will never hurt me.’

I will hurt you, with sticks, stones and far, far worse.

And let’s wait and see what you have to say.

Will you be screaming the F-word?

And by F, I mean, Final!

LIZZIE

Never say the F-word, her mother had told her when she was a child.
The day she boarded that plane, the prospective of enjoying two carefree weeks in the sun was all she could think about.
Halfway through the flight, a storm hit the plane. She felt like saying the F-word often, especially when the plane started diving uncontrollably. But she didn’t.
When the pilot managed to control the plane again and they landed safely, she stepped out of the plane, calmly and composed, raised her arms and yelled FUCK YOU! Then she looked up and smiled “Oops! Sorry, Mom!”

TOM

WTF

When I was young I never swore. My parents were major Catholics, so it never happened in my home. Now I just about punctuate every sentence with CF. Which is pretty accurate description of how reality is working out. Some say the uses of vulgar language is a sign of a lack metal capability. Without equivocation I can state it is my deeply held belief that in fact the f-word is the proper word. Show me a term with more impact and emotional strength and I’ll use it. The question is it consensual or is the work just fucking with you.

NORVAL JOE

Linoliumanda had said it. They flew back from the dance.

Flustered, her father frowned. “You Flew? Even for our family that’s a little far fetched. I fear your fellow is too friendly and I’m fairly certain he influenced you to forsake the festivities to find yourselves secluded in the fogginess of night.”

“Forgive my forwardness, Mr. Withybottom,” Billbert said. “Your fable is more fantastic than Linolumanda’s confession of flight. I find your daughter fair and fascinating. As a faithful friend, I would never be false or fickle with her.”

With a feeble smile, Linoliumanda said, “Enough with the f words.”

TURA

The F word
———
“How many F-words are there?” my girlfriend asked.

“Um, context?” I replied.

“It’s this crossword clue, ‘The mostest F word’, four letters. Begins with F.”

“That seems plain enough,” I said. “Why is obvious answer not obvious answer?”

“Not in this newspaper,” she said.

“Maybe the crossword compiler just got sacked?” I suggested.

“Hang on, I’ve got the second letter now. It’s also F. Makes no sense.”

“Ah,” I said, in my most smugly knowing manner. “You don’t read music, do you?”

She knows my ways and waited for me to drop the other shoe.

“FFFF!” I roared, fortississimo.

PLANET Z

When my wife goes to visit her sister, the cats only have me around.
Which is fine for Tinny.
She is a clingy cat and loves to sleep on me when I am on the sofa.
The problem is Myst.
She tends to sleep under the bed, and comes out to eat, poop, and scream to be let outside to roam.
She usually expects to go outside around when my wife gets home.
But seeing as how my wife is off at her sister’s, I get to deal with the little shit.
Guess who’s staying inside for a whole week?