The 100 Word Stories Podcast

Welcome to the 100 Word Stories podcast at oneadayuntilthedayidie.com.

This is the Weekly Challenge, where I post a topic and then challenge you to come up with a 100 word story based on that topic.

We’ve got stories by:

• Lizzie
• Richard
• Serendipity
• Jerry
• Tom
• Jon
• Norval Joe
• Planet Z

LIZZIE

“A polar front is approaching…” and I didn’t hear anything else.
Nowadays, it’s either too cold or too hot, too windy, too stormy, too something, too whatever.
The polar front is just another weather (aka stressful) event that comes for a visit to this quiet little country in the South of Europe.
The weather website mentions temperatures of 15C (that is 59F).
I think that’s OK. 15 degrees is not that polar.
Now that I think of it… if it starts to snow here, I’ll have to write something else about how silly I was for believing the Internet.

RICHARD

Attraction

They say opposites attract. I’m not so sure.

When I met my wife, we had plenty in common: Similar musical tastes, a shared passion for the same kinds of movies, and a range of interests we jointly pursued.

Now, according to her, we’ve somehow become polar opposites.

She’s an angel – I’m the devil incarnate. She’s always right – I’m always in the wrong. Her needs are paramount – mine, unimportant. And all her family and friends are wonderful, special people – mine are a bunch of losers and reprobates.

But I’ve learned one thing…

Opposites certainly do not attract!

SERENDIPIDY

I fed him to the polar bearsTo supplement their dietAnd soon I’ll do the same with youUnless you promise to stay quietKids really should be seen, not heardIf they want to keep their skinOr else it goes to the tigers‘ denTo stop them getting thinYour sister gave the lions a treatAll minced up for their teaThat’s what you get when you try it onAnd answer back to meSo let that be a lessonTo other children tooBe on your best behaviourWhen mum works at the zoo!

JERRY

Johnny looked out the window of his bedroom. 

Across the snow covered yards. 

Across the snow covered field. 

Across the line of leafless trees with snow outlining their branches. 

It was after midnight but something far away had awakened him. 

The iron tracks at the railroad crossing stretched north past the horizon. 

To the south a distant light wavered coming nearer. 

It was a powerful black engine with white steam poring into the sky above it. 

The passenger cars followed behind. 

Johnny smiled as he lifted the window and edged through to the ground below. 

It was the Polar Express.

TOM

Home From the Hill   

The polar coordinates showed he was high and outside. Ben executed multiple thruster corrections. A pulsing blue vector “X” nudged in line with a pulsing red vector “X”. The high pitched response speaker cut off, which made deep thought a bit easier. Ben feed the new polar coordinates in to his right input panel.  A green X appear on his heads up. “Not my favorite mode of descent,” he mused to ships board computer. “Like you had an opinion, monkey boy.” A tongue of flame set the landing pad a glow. “Me nail banana” hooted Ben. “Not impressed.” chided Sexy.

JON

Words

By

Jon DeCles

It’s easy to get obsessed with things you don’t understand.  Rond got obsessed with the word polar.  Thought at first that bipolar disorder meant having too much negative and positive energy at the same time.  Sat still for almost a month, doing absolutely nothing.  They took it for meditation, which it might have been. 

Found out the Earth had a north and a south pole and booked a tour of Antartica, then headed north.  The Inuit talked about polar bears, but Rond heard bare instead of bear, got confused about magnetic and geographic and was found meditating, polar and bare.

NORVAL JOE

Billbert scratched his head. “Are you telling me that you and Mom have superpowers?”His father blushed. “Well, actually, just your mother. Not me. I married into the family.“”Sorry, Dad. I still think your cool, but, what can mom do that’s super special?“”Haven’t you noticed?” his father asked. “She can go days without needing rest. When we were first dating, I thought she was bi-polar, but then I realized, she never had any of the down times.“”What about Uncle Sylvester and Aunt Eustashia?”His dad shrugged. “Sylvester turns into a cat and your aunt never smells bad.”

PLANET Z

Fierce winds ripped across the endless snow and ice.
Listen to the windmill generators creak as they power the station.
You can look out the window, but you won’t see anything.
The night never ends in June… it will be months before the sun rises again over the South Pole.
We walk through tunnels from one insulated hut to another, checking readings and conducting experiments and analysing samples.
At night… well, during the evenings, we cook dinner and play cards.
And no hiding any aces up your sleeve, either.
Cheating gets you one minute outside, where it’s a hundred below.

Welcome to the 100 Word Stories podcast at oneadayuntilthedayidie.com.

This is the Weekly Challenge, where I post a topic and then challenge you to come up with a 100 word story based on that topic.

We’ve got stories by:

• Lizzie
• Richard
• Tom
• Jon
• Serendipity
• Norval Joe
• Planet Z

LIZZIE

A mother came to me.
She was holding a photograph.
It was her daughter’s.
A mother came to me with tears in her eyes.
She wanted to tell me about the stories.
She wanted to tell me about the singing. The painting.
“My daughter, you see…”
And she held the photograph close to her chest as if that would bring her daughter back.
“I’m writing a book, you see…”
And she poured her soul into it.
A mother came to me and whispered.
“It was too much…”
And I thought, it was. It was too much pain.

RICHARD

#1 – Excess

“You can’t have too much of a good thing”, my dad used to say, and I took him at his word.

First it was an excess of sweets and chocolate. Then, as I grew older, I discovered sex, drugs and rock and roll, so true to my dad’s advice I binged on the lot.

These days as I lie, morbidly obese, toothless, deaf, and mentally destroyed by the excesses of my youth, unable to move from my bed, most of my time is taken up with sleep.

As dad always said, you can’t have too much of a good thing.

#2 – Well, would it?

“Would it be too much to ask you to put the toilet seat down after you’ve used it?” She’d complain every morning, “And, while you’re at it, is it too much hassle to replace the toothpaste cap?”

Every Thursday…  “Is it too much trouble for you to put the bins out?”

Then the constant nagging “I suppose it’s too much to expect you might attempt the washing up, the laundry, the housework, the shopping?”

Maybe I come across as lazy, but it’s part of my ploy to make her divorce me…

I’d divorce her myself… 

But it costs, too much!J

TOM

Late For Tea

I was lucky enough to grow into the Beatles. In 1963 I was a mere 10 years old, not old enough to be even a teeny-bopper. But by 1969 I had six years of Beatle-ness under my musical belt.  Sgt. Pepper’s was height of cool in its day. My favorite track on the LP was: It’s all too much. It totally capture the growing gash in suburban-culture. Story goes Harrison’s wrote the song about his LSD trips. Six years later in the warm California sun I dropped up first tab of acid. Damn if George wasn’t spot on.  Too much

SERENDIPITY

You’ll let me know when the pain becomes too much, won’t you?

Of course you will… You’ll shout, scream and thrash about in your bonds, begging me to stop and pleading for mercy. 

Then, as the pain does indeed become too much to bear, your jaw will clamp so tightly your teeth splinter and shatter; you’ll strain so hard, the restraining wires slice through your flesh to the bone.

Then I’ll stop…

Not to save you from further pain: Nothing is further from the truth.

On the contrary, I’m saving you…

So we can do it all over again, tomorrow!

JON

No Elf Eats…

By

Jon DeCles

“Any liver at all is too much!”

“You’ve probably never had it cooked right.  You have to wash it thoroughly, then you put bacon on top and grill it for a few minutes, not too long, and then you drizzle maple syrup on it just before it’s done.”

“That is a total waste of bacon and maple syrup.  It still tastes like liver! In addition to the flavor, it has a texture that reminds me of dog shit.”

“Well what about pate´?  That’s delicious, and…”“It’s liver.  Too much iron.  It’s my Elf blood, on my mother’s side.  I’m Allergic!” 

Dug

By

Jon DeCles

Doug dug himself a hole in his backyard so that he could play at being a soldier in combat.  He thought of it as a foxhole because, like many boys, what he knew of war was a mashup of lingo from conflicts about which movies had been made, and a mixup of costume and equipment and technique and weaponry.  His parents did not discourage him.  It cost about the same as killing people in the endless series of first-person-shooter video games.

When he died his collection would have been worth a fortune had anyone been still alive to buy it.

NORVAL JOE

Billbert’s dad put an arm around his shoulders and walked him to his room. “Don’t worry about it too much, Billy. You’ll find, in time, that girls will become a very important part of your life.”
Billbert panicked when his father followed him into his room and said, “Have a seat, son. There are some things we probably should talk about.”
Billbert squirmed. “It’s okay, Dad. They teach us those things at school, now.”
“What? Oh. Of course, they do.” His dad cleared his throat. “But, the kids in our family line are different. When puberty arrives, they develop superpowers.”

PLANET Z

How much is too much?
Well, start with nothing.
A lot of people start with nothing.
Then, add a little.
Which is somewhere between not enough and nothing at all.
Then add some.
Not much, just a little more.
Which is more than a little.
And maybe just enough.
Then add some more to that.
Which is more than some ever have.
Add even more to that. And some more. A lot more.
More than you could possibly want. Or need.
At some point, you’ll wonder if you have too much.
That’s when you know you have too much.
Stop.