The 100 Word Stories Podcast

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

LIZZIE

Something was different. She could feel it. She turned the pages slowly, trying to figure out what was going on. She couldn’t see any difference, but she knew something had changed. Then, suddenly, she turned to page 22 and there it was. A whole paragraph was different. It had nothing to do with the rest of the story. She frowned. She turned to page 23. Everything looked fine. She turned back to page 22. The paragraph was gone. She slammed the book shut and put it back on the shelf. The writing demons were out again. And so it started.

RICHARD

Furrow

Furrow is such a difficult word to insert into a story, unless you happen to be speaking to a farmer, buying a tractor or writing a novel about a struggling writer whose brow was furrowed with frustration about his inability to use the word ‘furrow’ in a creative manner.

Halfway through, and the writer’s brow furrowed as he pondered what to do with the next fifty words.

“Why can’t we write about pirates?” he uttered in frustration.

“Because”, said the kindly librarian, “what would we write about for ‘Talk like a pirate day?”

“Now, knuckle down, and write about furrows!”

SERENDIPIDY

The rabbits at Appleby Farm were better organised than most. Rather than take pot luck at finding a worthwhile meal, they organised a foraging council and planned to burrow beneath a furrow and purloin the carrot harvest from below.

The first year was a resounding success, and the council resolved to extend the burrow beneath the freshly planted parsnips the following season.

Farmer Brown was not a rabbit, and was infinitely more intelligent. After losing his entire carrot crop, he laced the second planting with strychnine.

It worked better than expected…

The following year’s rabbit crop was the best ever!

TURA

Furrow
———
The scholar-cleric with his furrowed brow
That labours long to pierce the ancients’ thought
Whose learning’s but a library of scrolls
And never once the truth of things has sought;
Who reads one argument and sets it by
Another passage arguing against,
Then other fragments brings from other books
And writes a new work patch’d from all the old,
Yet never steps outside to see the things
Of which these authors wrote — such dullards all
Know nothing of entangling with the Real:
Such is the only road to knowledge sure.

Better to make one observation new
Than endlessly debate about the True.

J RADIMUS

Jay held his breath, stifling the giggling for all he was worth. He felt Trish doing the same, lying next to him in the furrow between rows of cornstalks. They were still as statues as the white beams of flashlights crisscrossed above them, red and blue flashes painting the landscape. Amid the radio squawks, and clamor from the deputies’ fruitless searching, Jay stole a glance to his right, and saw Trish grinning back, felt her squeezing his hand, her eyes sparkling with excitement and police lights. He didn’t know what he’d been thinking, but he knew what he was feeling.

NORVAL JOE

With the power off, the only lights shown from the distant admin building and did little to illuminate the crowded room. Most of the kids chattered and laughed, others let out artificially high-pitched screams to add to the confusion.

Linoliumanda kissed Billbert. This was good. It took him back to the quick kiss in Linolumanda’s bedroom and the sensations he had wanted to experience again.

Unfortunately, the lights came on. Billbert and Linoliumanda floated head and shoulders above the crowd. They quickly dropped to the floor.

The principal stood on a riser, a frown furrowing her brow, scanning the room.

PLANET Z

When we planned the music festival, we made a list of the things we needed.
Food, water, electricity, stages, and so on.
We worked up plans for everything.
We went to other music concerts and sports events with stopwatches and clipboards, estimating the traffic to the bathrooms.
Then, we set up the budgets, and sold tickets to raise funds.
Across the city… across the state… across the country…the money rolled in.
And the people came from all over, setting up their camps and tents.
On the first day… nothing.
We’d forgotten to book acts.
Or budgeted for an escape plan.

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

LIZZIE

The priest stared at a silent room packed with anxious people. Suddenly, a truck arrived. Three men, heavily armed, entered the room. Halfway through the aisle, one of them raised his gun and fired a totally unnecessary warning shot. The crowd remained in silence. “Everybody out.” They stood up and walked quietly. “Where are you taking them?” asked the priest. “None of your business.” When the crowd got to the truck, the three men had disappeared. The priest drove the vehicle down a ravine a few miles away. They had bought some time to run and now they had guns.

RICHARD

Pick One

Why is it that bomb makers can’t seem to resist using colour coded wiring in their devices?

Is there some sort of anarchists’ bomb manual that gives step by step instructions in making your own explosives; or do they do it simply because it’s easier to identify which wires to disconnect if they accidentally activate the timer?

Perhaps they’re just being cute… Deliberately not using red for live, and yellow for control, simply to wind up those faced with the almost impossible decision, ‘which wire to cut?’

If it was up to me, I’d just use the same colour throughout!

SERENDIPIDY

With a sputter, the vehicle died, coasting to a gentle stop. The headlamps dimmed and flickered, before fading completely.

A desolate road; a lonely forest; a broken down car and four teenagers rapidly succumbing to abject fear.

And, in the darkness: Shuffling footsteps, steadily coming closer.

My footsteps.

My hunched silhouette.

A disturbing figure, in the middle of nowhere, trudging along the road at midnight, holding a full can of fuel.

In different circumstances, in daylight, I might be a welcome sight – a guardian angel. A saviour.

But tonight, in this place, in the darkness…

What do you think?

JRADIMUS

•Summer, 1944, Rural France
Sgt. Wilford Green’s squad was encamped on a farm for the night, taking advantage of the relative security and comfort to rest from their patrols for German soldiers scattered by the Allies’ D-Day invasion.
As his men slept, Sgt. Green stood watch from the hay loft of the barn. While scanning the dark French countryside, he felt a voice shout in a whisper above him ‘Get down!’ He immediately obeyed, ducking to the floor. The next instant, a rocket flew through the window he had been watching from, his life spared. So much for a quiet night.•

NORVAL JOE

Billbert and Linoliumanda bobbed and shifted in a way they assumed was similar to what was considered dancing. As the song ended the DJ said, “Don’t go anywhere. Here’s a slow song for you cute couples.”

Before he could move Linoliumanda had Billbert in a bear hug. Resigned to enjoy himself, he put his hands on her back and swayed in rhythm to the music.

Halfway through the song, someone shut off the power. Standing in the darkness with his arms around Linoliumanda, Billbert wondered if he could keep dancing, even though the music stopped when the lights went down.

TOM

Darkness Darkness Be My Pillow

In the darkness I followed the color coded floor. Red as good as blue. A memory of things past, deeply stored flashes from childhood, set in stone by the horror of that moment, cold and hard. So here I was again letting my feet led and my brain accept that choice. In the end the end is just being left with a single choice, neither bad nor good, just what it is. Still in the black I wonder are my last steps pressing against blue or are they coursing over red. When the white return I see it was actually neither.

PLANET Z

Franklin worked in Municipal Services as a street-cleaner.
Until the robots came, that is.
Drones took over garbage collection, pothole repairs, and road cleaning.
Service Union Nine called for protests, and Franklin went out, attacking robots with baseball bats.
Sweeper Unit 482-Blue had a scratched proximity sensor, and instead of detecting Franklin’s son Ray and stopping, it ran the boy over.
The city showed Franklin the tape from the onboard security camera, seeing his own face repeatedly slamming a robot with a bat.
Digitally faked, but still enough to get him to settle out of court for much, much less.