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:

• Danny
• Lizzie
• Charlie Lacrosse
• Richard
• Tura
• Tom
• Serendipity
• Jeffrey
• Jon
• Norval Joe
• Planet Z

LIZZIE

Fired Future

She sat in the water, looking at the horizon. The future promised to be as bright as the brightness of that bright summer day.
She smiled.
Perhaps what happened would not mean anything.
A few seashells swayed with the tide.
Perhaps no one would notice.
The seashells bumped against her thigh. She watched them for a moment. Then she swatted them away, just as she had swatted him away, that greasy fucker who had got her fired.
Shame she swatted him too hard…
This was such a bright day and he would never ever see another bright summer day again.

CHARLIE

We were promised a majestic future. We got no such thing. Someone dropped me here, and left me with no guidance, no promise of majestic accomplishments, and no way out.

A remote radio prompt was sent every hour or so. The last one had me engage the drill and gyrate enough to jar a rock sample loose for inspection, photos and subsequent transmission.

The frustration grew by the day. I’d beep and screech so earth station personnel would be alerted.

As the last iteration of the Mars Rover, my time was almost up, after fifteen long years. I was dying.

RICHARD

#1 – Performance Review

I always got a bad feeling whenever I was called into the Managing Director’s office for one of his surprise performance review meetings, but this time it seemed I had nothing to worry about.

Almost the first words out of his mouth were, “I see a rosy future for you!”

“Yes indeed, you’re talented, very capable, and you pick things up very quickly. Not only that, you get on well with your colleagues.”

I couldn’t help but smile a little at his praise.

“Yes, you have a great future ahead of you. Unfortunately though, not with this company…”

“You’re fired!”

Hard Candy

After getting the sack from what I’d imagined would be my permanent career I went into a decline.

My father tried his hardest to snap me out of my depression: “Son, you can’t let life’s little trials get to you – there’s plenty of other jobs out there, you just have to go look for them.”

So I took his advice, securing a place at a sweet factory.

Proudly, I told my dad.

The horrified screech he let out brought my mother running… “What on earth did you say to him?”

“I only told him I was a fudge packer!”

Chocolate Bunnies

Funny how you can get bored with any job.

I’d only been fudge packing six months and frustration was already setting in. Everyone thinks working in a sweet factory is the perfect job, but you rapidly go off it when you’re surrounded by candy day, after day.

The prompt for me finally deciding to quit was the nightmare called Easter. I was transferred to chocolate bunnies and all was well until the sudden, majestic, explosion of the cocoa vat.

It’s not the first time I’ve ended up deep in the brown stuff.

But I vowed it would be my last!

TURA

Thanks a million for lending me your time machine. It’s been so long, I’d forgotten what it was like back at the start of the 21st century. I mean, you’ve heard about them burning up all their complex hydrocarbons just to get from one place to another, but you can’t really appreciate the scale of it until you’ve seen their big cities in the rush hour. And chemical space rockets! There’s a sort of majestic absurdity about the Shuttle. To think we’re descended from these apes!

Back in a few weeks, or centuries, depending how you look at it,

Lazarus.

JON

For Special Celebrations

By

Jon DeCles

Matilda fired the first rocket, and with a screech it did its gyrate dance across the night sky until it burst and made a majestic nebula of multi-colored pinwheels that brightened briefly the blackness of the sky. The report of popping shot sounds was prompt, coming back from where the fireworks exploded in a concatenacious sound array. Matilda felt some frustration that she had not been the packer on that particular display, but she knew that in the future she would be allowed to build the loads on the fireworks, and someday, perhaps, even invent new ones to shoot off.

SERENDIPITY

If you’re going to die, I’ve always thought you should plan for the future.

Let’s not have any half arsed, poor excuses for a death – if you’re going to go, then make it majestic, make it memorable, make it worthwhile.

After all, it’s not as if you’re going to have more than one shot at it.

And let’s not have any excuses about not knowing when your time will come… What you need is a consultant, somebody skilled in such matters. Someone who will handle not only the time, and the place, but the method as well.

Guess who!

JEFFREY

My Time and Your Time
by Jeffrey Fischer

The singer was ready. The players ran onto the field to cheers for the home team and boos for the visitors. Both sides lined up for the anthem. As the singer started her off-key rendition of the song, a half-dozen home team players turned their backs and made the Black Power salute. The fans booed lustily.

The general manager emerged, whispering two words to each protesting player: “You’re fired.” Security led the players off the field.

One didn’t go quietly. He engaged in colorful gyrations, shouting, “I got my First Amendment rights!” The GM said, “The team acknowledges your right to protest on your time. And we have the right not to hire people who disrespect the anthem, the flag, and the fans on my time. Now clean out your locker.”

TOM

Hi-diddle-dee-dee

Billy Clark was your average Midwestern corn-feed kid. 4th gen Lutheran Farm Family, really nice kid. When he got on the bus to LA everyone thought he was headed to the Lutheran seminary. Billy had other plans. Seems Bill was never that religious nor scholarly. What he lacked in brain power he apply made up in penis power. Billy was a carnal prodigy so when he got to LA Mr. Happy Productions got him a fake ID to add four years to his new identity and he got a great stage name: Majestic Packer. And so a legend was born.

NORVAL JOE

With a screech, Billbert’s mother jumped back. She rubbed her eyes before she fired off a barrage of questions, which ended with, “What on earth is going on?”

Billbert gyrated in frustration, trying to return to his seat, though the bag refused to let him.

“I’ve got this superpower, Mom. When I wear a grocery bag, I can fly,” he said as his hold on the table slipped and he headed for the ceiling.

She folded her arms and looked up at him hovering above her, and said, “I’d suggest, in the future, don’t wear that bag in the house.”

PLANET Z

“I’m glad I got fired!” shouted Betty, dancing on the bar again, gyrating her hips and waving her arms without any regard to the beat of the music blaring from the jukebox.
Her frustration with her job had been all she’d ever talked about.
Tomorrow, she’d be washing down aspirin and antacids with Gatorade to kill the hangover.
She’d pick up another job quickly, because she was that good.
Too good. In time, she’d go back to bitching about the new job.
And the next one. And the one after that.
Eventually, she gave up looking, and bought the bar.

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:

• Danny
• Charlie Lacrosse
• Richard
• Lizzie
• Serendipity
• Jeffrey
• Tom
• Norval Joe
• Jon
• Planet Z

NORVAL JOE

After three flights around the backyard Billbert went into the house.

Sitting in the dining room, he ate butterscotch pudding with vanilla wafers, when his mother walked in and dropped bags of groceries on the table.

“How was your first day of school?” she asked.

“Okay,” he said and slid his chair closer to the table. He hadn’t thought to take off his bag before sitting down.

“Good. Help me bring in the rest of the stuff,” she said, waiting for a response.

How could he explain flying in grocery bags? he thought before he levitated off of his seat.

JON

What’s in a Name?

By

Jon DeCles

The old textbook said you were supposed to consecrate a wafer and it would turn into the blood and body of Christ. As ‘Christ’ was a word that meant ‘light,’ Tolund thought it would be an amazing and beautiful thing to achieve: but although he could readily picture a body of light, he had a hard time imaging what the blood of light might be like.

Nevertheless, he was determined to cast the old spell, and he set about gathering all the ingredients. There was water in the time vault, and some Thunderbird wine. For the wafer, a peppermint patty.

JEFFREY

A Little Bit of Treason
by Jeffrey Fischer

Hillier looked at the wafer-thin USB drive before scooping it up and placing it in a pocket. His contact within DoD had come through, copying the design of plans for the next-generation of nuclear missile technology from an insufficiently-secured laptop and leaving the USB memory stick at the designated drop point. Hillier just needed to verify the contents of the stick before passing it to his buyer. He didn’t think of it as betraying his country. It was just a way of making a living.

Once in his apartment, Hillier placed the USB drive into his own laptop. He double-clicked on the icon. But instead of seeing a schematic of a new missile, the drive launched a video of Rick Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up.” Rickrolled by some Defense Department geek.

TOM

Straight to hell

Raise Catholic it is reasonable to say I’ve eaten my fair share of wafered waffles. It’s on art to get each wafer fully filled with equal amounts of butter and maple syrup. Since we’re talking decades of Friday meatlessness, damn near everything you can imagine had gone into the batter. Nut, bananas, rock candy. There were various vegetables, but those general sucked. The acme of wafer delight had to be ice-cream and waffles. Messy, but so sweet. Once my kid sister dropped in a bunch of cut-up hot dogs. So for 12 hour all of us were going straight to hell.

SERENDIPITY

The boundary between life and death is rarely as distant as we’d like to believe. Death loiters beside us, sometimes far too close for comfort. Indeed, that boundary can be barely perceptible… it can be practically wafer thin.

A split second’s indecision when crossing the road; the ill-advised swim just a little too far from shore; a moment of distraction when driving; or perhaps choosing to take that short cut home along the lane tonight.

The lane where I am waiting, cold steel in my hand and blood lust in my eyes.

And with every step, death grows ever closer.

RICHARD

Pink wafer biscuits

One of the constants in my life – ever since my earliest days. My grandmother used to serve them as a treat if I’d been good. You’d always see them wheeled out at church socials, reposing on china plates along with the chocolate digestives.

Yet, there was nothing to them – a couple of layers of pink cream filling, sandwiched between those unassuming delicate pink wafer fingers. And the taste… Well, even to this day, I can only describe them as the flavours of pink, and wafery!

Even so, a single bite can transport me effortlessly back to my childhood.

LIZZIE

Mr. Probitas stared at the store window.
The new notice was titled Antisocial Behavior Order, an anti-sugar diatribe.
Ever since the intake of sugar became controlled by decree, Mr. Honey’s store was in a financial crisis.
Mr. Probitas walked in.
“What’s that all about?”
“I have to close. Or I’ll be arrested…”
“Arrested?!”
Mr. Honey shrugged.
“Why?”
“For being antisocial. Here, have a wafer. Be antisocial while you can.”
It was then that Mr. Probitas and Mr. Honey started an underground movement to import wafers.
But it was not really about the wafers, was it?

CHARLIE

That’s all it took. A wafer, containing all the circuitry, was placed under the skin of the top of the hand. It was close enough to the surface so any luminescence would provide enough power.

It was still in beta, but the first mechanical brain stimulator on the market. The device would excite the cortex immediately, when activated.

My device was a transplant from a deceased donor. His device shorted and blew out a piece of skull from just above his ear. For a few seconds, the donor had an I.Q., estimated at 400, and his eyes shown like lasers.

PLANET Z

The wine represents the blood of Christ.
The wafers represent his body.
Dr. Odd pondered how to obtain both.
He ran some experiments and ended up with what he called Quantum Duplication.
With a simple set of nine-dimensional coordinates, he could flash a copy from the past into the present.
The short, hairy messiah babbled endlessly in Aramaic.
Dr. Odd smiled, and made a few more copies.
Then, he tasked the Jesuses to stomp grapes from his vineyard.
“Wine made from grapes stomped by the feet of Jesus himself.”
The ones who became exhausted or uppity went into the dough.