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:

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

EVA

The Story of Is

There was a beauty that radiated about her, penetrating the most solid of walls, the most bitter of men. I watched through impenetrable glass as the breeze lifted her hair, skin luminescent. I press a hand to my own. Cold. Lifeless. Gray.

The way of our worlds. Light and dark. Mine, devoid of life, of beauty. Of purpose. I sigh, gazing, as she plucks a flower and tucks it behind her ear.

This is the the divide, the unalterable conclusion. What is will be, what was will be no more. I am is. She is was, and someday will be…me.

RICHARD

Life?

‘Is this what my life has come to?’ I wondered, emptying the can of soup into the pan, and waiting for it to come to a bubbling heat.

I’d once had dreams and ambitions, goals to achieve and challenges to meet, but somewhere along the way, the daily grind took over.

Travelling the world, pushing my limits and living the dream somehow became less of a priority than paying the bills, putting out the bins and trying not to run out of milk.

They never warn you about this when you’re a kid.

And the soup’s not that good either.

LIZZIE

The Crow and the Spaceship

The crow muttered a few words. No one could understand him. He looked up and everyone mimicked him. They couldn’t see anything.
The crow flapped his wings. His nervousness was increasing.
Then, they saw it. It was blinding. It tinted the whole sky with an overwhelming tone of orange.
“What is that?”
“That, you idiots, is your end.”
They did understand the crow this time, but they stood there mesmerized, watching the spaceship fly over them, again and again.
It didn’t feel like the end.
The talking crow took off and hid.
They… they were never seen again.

TOM

Between a Rock and Hard Place

Bennie pulled back hard on the inertia damper. The Red Turtle dropped into the gravity well between Seti Alpha 5 and Drake’s debris field. Navigator Strobeck point out that if they didn’t pull a sufficient Z maneuver they’d likely end up fried by the dwarf binary suns of the Dawson cluster. Captain Winslow gave the order to engage the Repetition Drive. The spaceship commenced a near infinite series of braking actions. When the Turtle had finally come to a rest, they were orbiting between the suns. “Captain,” said Bennie noting the read out on the chronometer, “We overshot two millenniums.”

JON

But I Had That for Lunch!

By

Jon DeCles

The axial rotation of the spaceship meant that they had gravity of a sort, but they suffered from Repetition Disorder, which had been discovered first back on Earth by examining psychotics who had got that way from watching re-runs of “I Love Lucy.” The spaceship simulated day and night easily enough, but the seasons were harder, as seasons are pretty specific to the distance you live from the equator.

The mission was countering the disorder with culinary adventures to keep the awareness fresh. Hildemare sniffed and looked at the can, detecting both lime and saffron in the bubbling soupy stuff.

SERENDIPITY

People come from far and wide to visit my delicatessen, lured by my speciality black pudding.

It’s won prizes and accolades, and although it’s pretty expensive, you’d be amazed what foodies will pay for something of the quality that I make.

I’ve been asked many times to divulge my secret ingredient… “Is it saffron?” a customer will say as the inhale the rich, heady aroma from the freshly sliced sausage.

Another will take a guess… “It’s lime juice, I just know it is”

There’s no fancy ingredients in it.

Just blood and seasoning:

Rich, thick blood… Of the human variety.

NORVAL JOE

Billbert walked home from Linolimanda’s birthday party, new emotions bubbling up inside him from her unexpected kisses. The first kiss was surprising enough, but with the second repetition he was over the moon without a spaceship.
Of course, the weird part was how her father acted when she told him they’d been kissing. He looked like it bothered him, but that it was alright.
Bilbert planned on asking Linolimanda at school on Monday if he can come over again.
He was sure she would want to fly again. That would be fine with Billbert, if they could kiss again, too.

PLANET Z

Hector saw strange lights out in the cornfield, so he picked up his shotgun and flashlight.
It took a few flicks of the switch and a bit of shaking, but the flashlight came on, and Hector walked out into the field.
A bubbling, glowing orange slime lay in the middle of a clearing.
Hector walked back to his house, called the authorities, and packed a suitcase.
Leaving a note on the front door, he then drove to a hotel and got a room and waited for the authorities to tell him when it would be safe go to back home.

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
• Tom
• Jon
• Norval Joe
• Tura
• Planet Z

LIZZIE

To my grandmother who loved daisies

Winter is coming, they say. The flowers will go to sleep.
But these daisies flourished on. They never gave up.
The rain flooded the flower pots. The snow stifled everything cold. And they still managed to bloom.
He plucked a few and placed them in a beautiful jar. They collapsed that same day.
It was strange but also somehow comforting.
Eric felt his grandmother had something to do with this because she loved daisies.
He sneered. “Yes, Granny is watching from heaven and all that.”
Heaven was a strange concept for him. But then again, resilient daisies were that too.

RICHARD

Jacked off

The day that Jack exchanged the cow for a bag of ‘magic’ beans was not one he’d look back on with any pleasure.

His mother was unimpressed and flung them out of the window, whilst Jack hid away in his room and hoped she’d forgive him.

Turns out the beans weren’t beans at all, but flower seeds, and the next morning the garden was full of gigantic sweet peas.

He picked a bunch for his mum to placate her.

It didn’t make her any happier though – she didn’t have a vase anywhere near large enough to display them in.

SERENDIPITY

It starts, almost imperceptibly; a tingling, pricking, stinging sensation that slowly grows and spreads.

Over time, the pain begins to blossom and grow, like a flower unfurling its petals reaching out towards the light. Tendrils enveloping your vitals, spreading throughout your body.

The pain fills every fibre of your being; poisoning you, destroying you – both body and mind.

Then, in the fullness of time, when the time is ripe, I burst forth from the husk of your body… An explosion of blood and gore.

My spores, flying through the fetid air, seek out new hosts to make their home.

TOM

A Dash of Panache

As I noted last week I began my forays into courtship in the last 60s and by way of the timing of said wooing had little to go on except the practices of the two decades before. Theirs humble epochs were informed by the machinations proposed by the film of that time. A care taken to impression a celluloid female was to produce from behind ones back a gathering of flowers. The choice of roses a premium, thus a more excellent level of the heart. The wrinkle I add to this was to give half the bouquet to the mother.

JON

Katheryn Hepburn

By

Jon DeCles

The Corpse Flower produces the largest unbranched inflorescence of any plant in the world. It blooms rarely and people travel long distances to see it, and inhale the pungent odor of decaying meat. Its dark burgundy color looks like meat, and it raises it temperature to 98 F. to further imitate the preferred diet of the carnivorous insects that come seeking a meal and leave disappointed: but covered with the pollen that ensures the survival of the species.

If you have a greenhouse and you are tired of saying “Oh Look, the Calla Lilies are in bloom,” try growing it.

Winner

By

Jon DeCles

Winning was going to be a combination of grinding, tedious patience coupled with a downright rustic simplicity, a mindset that would allow him to plow through the confusing maze of rules and exceptions to the rules that would have done justice to the devious mind of a writer for the Infernal Revenue Service. But Arthur wanted to be a winner: he wanted to be the only winner, the winner who gained all of the prize.

He looked at the perverse architecture of the pagoda, with its tentacle-faced idol set up in warning, and walked toward the entrance to the crypt.

NORVAL JOE

Linoliumanda’s father put his fists on his hips and waited for an answer.
She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. “We’ve been kissing, Dad.”
Billbert was considering what kind of flowers he would like at his funeral when her father opened his mouth, waggled his finger in the air, and then turned, descending the stairs. “It’s getting late.”
Billbert looked at the door. “I’d better go.”
Before he could, Linoliumanda grabbed him and kissed him again for a long time.
She took his hand and walked him out. “This was my best birthday ever. Thanks for everything.”

TURA

Flower
———
Plant breeders spent centuries trying to produce a blue rose. Nowadays, it’s a day’s work in the lab. Glow-in-the-dark harebells. Fluorescent pink lupins. I’ve designed pond lillies with leaf veining like fractal Tibetan mandalas — very popular with wealthy Japanese businessmen for their private Zen gardens. My latest creation is tartan roses. I designed software to model flower development, and used AI to design a genetic network, exploring millions of years of evolution in a few months.

Some people protest. They chant, “Roses are red! Violets are blue! God made them that way and so should you!”

PLANET Z

Ted wore a trick flower in his lapel.
He loved to invite people to sniff his flower, and he’d squeeze the bulb hidden in his hand to squirt them with water.
At first, people laughed. But after a while, the joke got old, and nobody laughed. A few got really mad.
Finally, one guy picked up Ted and threw him down the stairs.
Ted suffered massive brain damage and languished in a coma for months before he died.
It was an open casket funeral, and some people thought it would finally be safe to sniff Ted’s flower.
It didn’t squirt.