Scientists say that Area 25 in the brain can be directly electrically stimulated to lift deep depression in most patients. It feels like a dark cloud is being cleared away, or a heavy weight lifted from their chest.
When the stimulation ends, the cloud and the weight eventually return, but they’re not as bad as they were before.
The scientists found Area 25 with MRI and careful testing, but I like to imagine them poking in wires, throwing switches, and saying “Area 7? Nope. Just gave him a hard-on and the smell of roast duck.”
Science should be fun, right?
Weekly Challenge #611 – Slack
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:
MAGNEETA
The Knock Out
The boxer approached the ring on bouncing feet pausing for effect, pawing the air with a quick one two punch. Fans in the arena twirling towels above heads. Towels blazed in red and gold flame colors like flags. They were chanting the words “Knock out” pointing towards the seated opponent in her corner of the ring. The cadence of stomping feet made a dramatic scene for the pay per view audience.
Dad sat slack jawed at home until orange cheesy fingers grabbed the remote, changing the channel. Bolting from chair and hitting floor little sis laughs pointing “Ha, knock out!”
RICHARD
Slack
Sometimes you have to be careful about what you ask for.
Work was tough: It was our busy time of the year, three people off sick, and I was expected to cover, do my own job and still meet the targets!
Then the regional manager called in, and I was summoned into his office.
“We want you to take on additional responsibilities…”
I protested. Asked him to cut me some slack.
He did!
A great big slice of slack – so now I don’t have to worry about any cover, there’s no targets and no additional responsibility.
And no job, either!
LIZZIE
“Dust everywhere.” Whenever the Duchess arrived at the hotel, she criticized everything. “Look at this.” And she slapped the velvet on the chairs.
Mr. Roberts, the manager, smiled and nodded, gently guiding her towards the elevator. Once she was safely tucked away inside the diabolic machine, as she called it, peace would return.
When the diabolic machine, no doubt highly offended, decided to take revenge, plummeting two floors down into the dust infested cellar, the Duchess went to the papers and vowed never to stay there again.
The hotel then became extremely successful. Dust can be such a lifesaver.
SERENDIPITY
There’s an art to this job – actually, it’s more a science than an art. You’d be surprised just how complex it is.
Too much slack, and they’ll crash into the ground below; messy, and a whole pile of paperwork to fill out.
A little less, and it gets even messier – you can imagine what being brought up short from a drop like that does to a body!
Too little, and they just hang there, dangling like a broken puppet – hardly ideal.
Yes indeed, bungee jumping can be pretty complex.
And the science comes in handy when I’m doing executions too!
TOM
GO Down to the Sea in Ships
The Mother watched in horror as the child pitch over the edge of the boat. The rope tied to the child trailed under the bow. If she put it tough her baby would be pull against and under. If she let the line go slack she had to trust the little one would boob to the surface. Though her white knuckles held the rope with a vice like grip she willed her arm to remain frozen. It was the hardest thing she had ever done in her life. When Sally surfaced she hooked the vest and pulled her into the boat.
JEFFREY
He’s Lost Control
by Jeffrey Fischer
Back in the early 80s, in high school, the marching band was taken VERY SERIOUSLY. Oh, not by the students, who, like now, found everything hilarious, but by the earnest band director. His opening speech at the start of the year included a version of: “I know you kids like to wear jeans and such, but we’re not going to do that. In my room, the girls will wear skirts or dresses and the boys will wear a nice pair of slacks.” This inevitably cracked up the room. The director, who apparently was unaware of the word “pants,” would turn red and demand to know what was so funny. Just say it out loud: “slacks.” It’s a funny word. Especially when you’re 16.
NORVAL JOE
Jimmy pulled in the slack of his line bringing the bait right in front of the fish’s nose. He could see his next meal hovering in the shadows beneath the bank. If only the trout was as hungry as he was. Then it would bite.
Thramble, the rock troll, crept as silently as a rock troll could, his net held ready to cast on the boy. Just two more steps and he would have his lunch.
Like thunder, the troll’s stomach rumbled.
Jimmy startled, kicking stones into the pool.
The trout dashed into hiding.
Consequently, no one got to eat.
DUANE
Slack
Tightrope walkers have always been some amazing risk takers. That’s what makes a good sport. They have crossed Niagara Falls, the Thames River and high between too many skyscrapers to even list.
Todays sport balance aficionados are slackers. No, literally slackers. While the rope walkers of yore would be hundreds of feet in the air and no net, today we find everyone showing off their skills on a “slackline.” A limp rope two feet above the nice soft grass. When tightrope walkers failed, it was epic, deadly and made the paper. Today they just get a rope rope burn.
Slackers!
TURA
Slack
———
Bring me the metal and I can forge anything into a knife. Steel cable, a motorbike chain, the lock on a condemned cell, anything. Then there’s the quenching. What goes in the slack tub can get rather esoteric. Ordinarily it’s water or oil, sometimes sand, but a lot of people, usually from biker gangs, think bulls’ blood is just the thing. One client asked for baby fat, but it’s just too difficult to get in any quantity. The knife I’m forging right now, he wants it quenched in a live human body.
Don’t worry, it won’t hurt for very long.
———
PLANET Z
George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
He got caught a lot.
Dragged from a jail cell and into a courtyard, a yardarm and a noose waited for George.
“Any last words?” asked the magistrate.
“I guess I’ve come to the end of my rope,” said George.
The magistrate put the noose around George’s neck, tightened it, and shoved him off of the platform.
George landed on the ground below.
“You didn’t tie it down,” said George, laughing, and he ran for his ship.
They added the theft of a rope to his list of charges.
Jack
So let me get this straight…
Jack ignores his mother, and he sells the cow for some magic beans.
She throws them out the window, and they grow into a gigantic beanstalk.
Then he goes up the beanstalk and lies to the giant’s wife, robs the giant blind, and then kills the giant?
The dude sounds like a dick to me. He broke into a guy’s home, robbed, and then murdered him!
But I’m not about to say anything bad about Jack.
Because that guy just might lie to my wife, rob me blind, and then kill me.
That dick.
Puritans
H.L Mencken said that Puritanism is the haunting fear that someone, somewhere may be happy.
As first, I thought that this was Cherophobia, the fear of happiness and gaity, but H.L Mencken was very specific about the happiness being in others, not the Puritans themselves, which is quite an understandable mistake if you know any Puritans.
Sure, they’ll deny it, but Puritans are a very unhappy bunch. And they want to share that unhappiness.
At least they’re nice enough to share, right?
If only they were willing to share ice cream and bubblegum like that.
Those unhappy jerks.
Book by its cover
You really shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, the saying goes. But if a book is covered with wickedly sharp spikes, you should consider buying the Kindle version.
The same goes for books that have a cover that is on fire, although most bookstores won’t stock books that are on fire. And Amazon can’t deliver them fast enough. You’ll end up with a box of ashes.
As for the book that’s dripping with semen, well, that’s just plain gross. But then, maybe you should get it.
I mean, someone else enjoyed it, right?
Just wipe it off first, okay?
The Gates
When Elvis died (if you believe the news, that is), he didn’t just walk through the Pearly Gates. He drove his big ol Cadillac right through them.
Problem is, those Gates were made a long time ago, and they weren’t meant to pass a Cadillac, so it was a tight fit.
And Elvis, well, he had a problem with the booze and the pills, so it was a miracle that he didn’t scratch a fender or side panel.
The Gates of Hell, on the other hand, are wide enough to fit any vehicle.
(Just try and find a parking space.)
Matches
Superstitious Bob constantly struck matches for good luck.
The casinos didn’t like the idea of a guy striking matches all the time, like some kind of arsonist goon from the mafia, so they threw him out.
Same with the horse track. And the nearby dog track.
The dog fighting pit regulars threatened to let their dogs at him. Dogs don’t like the sulfur from matches.
He was down to the high school snail races.
And you know what? He got along fine with those guys.
Until he spilled some salt and tossed it over his shoulder. On to the racers.
Shaving
Oh, you want to know the real story?
Well, it started simple enough. Everyone on the team stopped shaving for good luck.
And it worked. After three wins in a row, the players all had stubble.
After two weeks, the coach said that they really ought to shave, but the players were superstitious and refused to give in.
After two months without a loss, the media got wind of the story, and it felt like every sports reporter was following the team around.
Eventually the school principal put their foot down and threatened the girl’s varsity basketball team with suspensions.
Weekly Challenge #610 – Endings
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:
CHARLIE
Most of us enjoy surprise endings. The biggest majority of us like happy endings. Some ask for it all and want happy, surprise endings.
What is a happy, surprise ending? How about an example? I suppose it could be a problem that you think you cannot overcome. You do overcome and it’s a surprise.
As the year draws to an end, I would like it to end with acceptance, beauty, ideas, kindness, justice, love, music, solutions, dancing, equality, freedom, good, vision, unity, wisdom, peace, transformation, consciousness, acceptance, respect, non-violence, harmony, and a stock of natural peanut butter in the cupboard.
RICHARD
Spoilers
There are few things worse than having the ending of a movie or a good book ruined by someone, before you’ve seen or read it. It seems some people are oblivious to the notion that we don’t want to know; whilst others take a malicious pleasure in randomly dropping spoilers into a conversation.
For me, much of the enjoyment of a story is the anticipation of what the eventual ending might be.
And that’s why I spend my days in the library, meticulously tearing the final chapters out of books.
Because, without their endings, no-one can spoil the readers’ pleasure.
LIZZIE
Up the stairs into a new time. It’ll be difficult, it’ll be difficult, I mutter. I know it well. I have climbed many of those stairs, slowly and steadily. I may stumble often, I know I will, as I always do. Sometimes, it will be my fault. Other times, well… But I keep looking at each step and climbing those stairs. I never give up. It’s not in me to give up. I would’ve done it a long time ago, I suppose. But I didn’t. And now, I keep looking up and moving forward, from one ending to another beginning.
TURA
Endings
———
It has been told how the gods created Man, when they were yet young.
Man came and passed, and his existence was the briefest, tiniest spark of light amongst everything that the gods made, each more magnificent than what came before.
But at last, the gods themselves grew old.
“All that we can do, we have done,” one lamented.
“All that can be, has been,” said another.
And so they came to an end.
* * *
“Look, how pretty!” said the little girl. She pointed to the jewel that had grown overnight on the tree.
“Yes,” said her Father. “It is perfect.”
TOM
The End in Near
Samuel Russell excelled at up-endings stuff. These up-endings tended to drill down right into the center of the time/space vortex. After his seminal work on the grand unification solution, he withdrew from the world. Some said he took up surfing, other said he enter a Tibetan Monastery, still other said he opened a hot dog stand somewhere in Strasburg. Actually he set up a tiny lab in the basement at CERN. Created a God Cloud by up-ending a matrix of Higgs boson. When the tiny galaxy took shape in the utility sink Samuel Russell slowly backed out of the room.
SERENDIPITY
Endings come in many different ways.
Some are noisy, messy affairs, full of violence and pain; some go quietly, with barely a sign another life has passed.
Some are planned and premeditated; some, unforeseen accidents and twists of fate, then there are those who simply shuffle off their mortal coil – just the natural order of things.
But we can’t have that.
A proper ending should be full of drama. It should be compelling and disturbing, an event that grabs you by the throat and screams in your face!
And that’s where I come in…
The beginning… of your end!
JEFFREY
The End
by Jeffrey Fischer
I hate endings. They are mawkish and go on too long. There’s the feeling of having overstayed one’s welcome at a party, fixing a last drink while the hostess is rinsing out the dishes. “It’s been too long.” “Oh yes, we must do this again soon.”
So I’ve short-circuited the process. When a guest becomes tedious, I operate the trap door into the soundproof cellar. Yeah, I know that only moves the problem one floor, which is why my assistant is stringing you up by the neck. Don’t worry, the fall will surely snap your neck and kill you so we can move your body out the trade entrance. After all, we don’t want our guests hanging around too long, do we?
NORVAL JOE
I don’t like change. Once I’ve gotten used to something, I want it to stay that way.
Consequently, I hate endings.
The end of relationships, the end of the school year, the end of a calendar year, the end of youth. When a child grows up and moves away, when a favored pet dies, when a family member passes away, the final episode of Phineus and Ferb. Moving to a new house, selling an old car, even replacing worn out furniture.
So, I’m a hoarder. Stacking up books I won’t reread, and piling up unused toys, dysfunctional relationships, and memories.
DUANE
Endings
The suspects had been gathered in the study and I prepared to name the guilty party and make the big arrest. I presented the clues and in a dramatic conclusion said, “Therefore the only one of you with means, motive and opportunity was… the chauffeur!”
The butler jumped to his feet. “The chauffeur? Are you kidding me?”
“But I was certain it was the gardener,” shouted the maid.
The cook stepped forward and motioned for silence. “Okay, okay. Everybody just calm down. Who picked the chauffeur in the pool?”
The chauffeur looked around the room and slowly raised his hand.
PLANET Z
The Washington Brothers broke into retirement communities and yelled that they were the Ghosts of Kwanzaa Present
The Ghosts of Kwanzaa Future would kill anyone that called the cops.
They got jewelry and cash, but not as much as they wanted.
So, they cased a drugstore, thinking they could fence some expensive prescription pills.
The robbery didn’t end well. All three, dead from police gunfire.
Mama Washington screamed racism and tried to organize a Black Lives Matter rally.
But she got her heart pills from that drugstore, and a “prescription error” landed her in a grave next to her boys.
Easy Street
You think life is so good on Easy Street?
Well, you fool, I own a house on Easy Street, and life’s not so good.
Any window that’s not boarded-up is broken.
Half of the streetlights are out. The rest have been knocked over.
Stripped cars up on blocks, or sitting out on the curb.
Nobody comes around to pick up the trash. Mountains of trash.
Rats and vermin everywhere.
Naked children splashing in mosquito-ridden muddy puddles.
Disgusting.
Thank God I don’t actually live there.
I just own that house to establish residency in that ward for my city alderman job.