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:

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



JEFFREY

Relax
by Jeffrey Fischer

The past few weeks had been very stressful for me. An internal audit and the loss of a big client had left me edgy and irritable. My friend Mack, sensing my tension, proposed a weekend trip to go fly fishing. “Trust me, you’ll never have been so relaxed in your life.”

That’s how I found myself in a freezing stream at 6 a.m., casting a rod adorned with colorful plastic into the water. Three hours later I was in the same spot with nothing to show for it beyond my increasing frustration and perhaps some frostbite. I snapped my rod in two, did the same with Mack’s, and threw our gear into the stream. “You’re right,” said, “this *is* relaxing. I should have done this hours ago.”

RICHARD

#1 – Leave it to the birds

If we were meant to fly, we’d have been given wings and feathers. Unfortunately we weren’t, so those crazy Wright brothers came up with the mad idea of creating the aeroplane.

C’mon… I don’t care what the laws of physics state, there’s something incredibly wrong about five hundred tons of steel and aviation fuel defying gravity and taking to the skies.

I’m dead against it – people were not meant to fly, and nothing you can argue to the contrary will change my opinion.

So, you might ask why it is I love flying so much.

Two words: Free booze.

#2 – Fly!

As a child, I always wondered what it would be like to fly. Stories of Peter Pan inspired dreams of flitting above the rooftops, soaring through the clouds and sailing through the misty air.

And then, one day, I met the gypsy woman, and fumbling with the few coins I had saved from my pocket money, I whispered her my most fervent wish.

That night, as the moon rose above the horizon, so did I, and it was everything I’d dreamed of, and more.

Sadly, that was the only time.

And I shall never fly again.

Landings are a bastard!

#3 – Ecology

I watched the fly struggling in the web outside my window, and felt the stirrings of compassion.

Perhaps I should intervene and set the poor thing free?

But then the spider would go hungry; and maybe the bird that would have feasted on the spider would go hungry, and so on, right up the food chain, until we reach the ultimate apex predator… human beings.

And we can’t have hungry humans, can we?

Ecology is terribly complex.

However, that’s not the reason I left the fly struggling in that web.

I left it there, because I really can’t stand flies!

CHARLIE

A fly has been buzzing around the inside of my window, opposite my desk. It managed to avoid a scrap of flypaper pinned to the sill. It’s big, and I think it’s a male. The male is smaller than the female and the genitalia looks darker, blunter, untidier, and more convoluted.

If and when the fly gets stuck to the flypaper, I will take it outside and do my best to free the fly, using disposable gloves and plastic tweezers.

I will release it above a steaming pile of dog crap, so it can find nourishment after its stressful ordeal.

#2

When I was a lad, I dressed fly. I was the picture of sartorial splendor and a model for the hippest and most sought after style in the city.

I sewed many of my own garments, learning how to make patterns by tediously disassembling my favorite shirts, jackets and trousers. I made patterns, bought fabrics and piping at a large fabric store, and stitched things together with an antique, treadle-powered Singer.

People would ask me where I bought my clothes. I told them they were original, and I made them. I was offered cash, trades, and drugs for my wardrobe.

TOM

Pretty Fly For a White Guy

Technically Elvis Presley was fly before fly was fly. Clothes from Lansky’s moves from Chuck Berry. Pat Boon would take decades to catch up even with a Big Mama” Thornton kick start. But you got to give credit where credit is due. Back stage at the T.A.M.I. Show in 1964 Mick Jagger is watching the Hardest Work Man in Show Business kill it on stage. He the Stones go on next and Jagger pretty much steals every move James Brown made. Keith Richards said of the moment, “the biggest mistake of their careers.” You just can’t out fly James Brown.

LIZZIE

“The photo’s really bad. Where’s this?!”
“I don’t know. But this is where the hot air balloon is.”
“I can see that… Do you have any other irrelevant information to volunteer?!”
“There’s a lighthouse on the photo.”
“I can see that too… What else?”
“Nothing… Except those red leaves.”
“Special leaves?”
“No. They’re quite common.”
“Then, we have nothing.”
“Nope.”
“Why did you bring me this photo then?”
“Because at the back someone wrote the coordinates.”
“And you waited this long to tell me that?”
“I just hate negative people.”

SERENDIPITY

Isn’t this just amazing?

I know you’re nervous. Who wouldn’t be nervous before their first jump? Some would say you have to be more than a little crazy to throw yourself out of a perfectly good plane at thirteen thousand feet, with nothing but a thin sheet of silk to stop you from hitting the ground below at terminal velocity.

But I know you, and that you’re not at all crazy, not even a little bit.

There’s no way you’d jump out of a plane with only a parachute to save you.

Not that I packed one for you anyway!

TURA

We burst out of our cocoons in our new bodies, rise into the air, and scatter. Our throng is more numerous than I can grasp. But each must strive to outdo the others, and find a mate to receive our payload alone.

I sense how much energy yet remains. I have no mouth and cannot feed, but I must not fail. At last I detect an unmated target. With my utmost effort I expend my last reserves, and at the end I achieve consummation.

The drone swooped down from the sky and exploded in the centre of the enemy outpost.

JON

I believe I can fly, and in dreams I know I can. The problem is the aerodynamic imagination.

Some people, when they fly in their dreams, fly with their arms outstretched at their sides, kind of like wings. Some with their arms stretched out in front of them, like Superman. If you are in the dream time, you never see anybody flying the other way, the way that is not your way.

If you do, you lose faith and you crash.

I heard when you hanglide you cease to dream of flying.

Now I fly for real and don’t crash.

NORVAL JOE

Sitting in the back of the bus, Billbert thought he was home free, until Roderick climbed on. Though the bus was crowded the bully made straight for him and sat.
“Give me that bag, or you’re going to fly out the window of this bus,” Roderick snarled.
When Billbert hesitated, Roderick pulled his backpack from his hands and rifled through the pockets until he found it.
Dragging Billbert from the bus at the next stop, Roderick held the bag in the air and declared for the rest of the students to hear, “This bag is going to make me fly.”

PLANET Z

We walked through metal detectors, got patted down, and were escorted into the conference hall by bodyguards.
More bodyguards sat in a row in front of the podium as celebrities shouted about how much they hated the NRA and demanded gun control.
So, I shouted “GUN!”
All of the bodyguards quickly pulled out their weapons and scanned the crowd, and then… there was a shot, and another, and then…
The bodyguards were shooting each other.
Instant panic. Celebrities rushed the exits, but they were locked.
“SEE HOW WE NEED GUN CONTROL!” shouted someone.
A shot rang out, and they screamed.

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:

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

JEFFREY

The Morning After
by Jeffrey Fischer

In the 1970s, my parents participated in a monthly bridge game that rotated among houses. The host would put on a record, put out some food, and provide a great deal of liquor. They’d drive home, somewhere between tipsy and plastered – the 70s were groovy, children – and loud enough to wake the kids.

By the sober – and hung-over – light of the morning, the recriminations started. “You should have bid six no trump!” “I clearly signaled to you that I had no spades.”

Bridge games faded away like bell-bottoms in the 80s. So did my parents’ marriage.

SHO

George was a pirate,but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
Pillaging and burning was fun, but it didn’t seem like a reliable vocation.
He enrolled in the local Jr. College and took several courses in accounting.
In time George developed great bookkeeping skills and set up shop as an accountant.
Soon he was working for Calico Jack, Henry Morgan and Black Beard.
“Wow” thought George, “this is like plundering with out all the blood.”
Everything was great until Black Beard took a look at the books. They tried George for
misappropriation of funds and made him walk the plank.

CHARLIE

The record, and all the pertinent data, including videos viewed, was inscribed on the granite pedestals of the bridge. A bronze tag was prepared and attached to the bottom of the column. The record was that of all of my personal Facebook history.

Zuck agreed to pay for all the materials, property, and labor. I threatened him with exposing his dicpic from school. If he did not comply, he would surely be embarrassed, and so would his wife’s family.

I was amazed at how much data was in the file. I requested it from FB, and it arrived minutes later.

LIZZIE

Mr. Caramel was surely the one who knew more about everyone else. He noticed every single detail regarding the neighborhood and memorized it thoroughly.
Mr. Caramel could hear his wife chatting languidly with Mr. Granite, that Mr. Granite…
Mr. Caramel decided, right there and then, that he wasn’t going to do anything but enjoy the warm hours of a lazy afternoon. He slowly stretched his neck towards the sun.
If Mrs. Caramel wanted to eat, she could go prepare things herself… or ask Mr. Granite.
He stood on the pole and closed his eyes. Mr. Caramel was a proud seagull.

RICHARD

#1 – Murder!

“Cover it up, I’ve seen everything I need”

The officers pulled the tarp over the bodies, hiding the crime scene from prying eyes; Detective Fredericks sighed. A senseless waste of life… And why?

These two victims brought the total to six: All young supermarket employees, just doing their jobs, brutally murdered in bizarre circumstances.

The first victims, crushed by half a ton of wheatflour; another suffocated – oats forced down his throat. Now these two, stabbed through the heart with corn cobs.

He didn’t know the motive, but Fredericks knew for sure, he had a cereal killer on his hands!

#2 – Pride

Just for the record, I want to make it clear that I’m proud of my kids. Sure they may not exactly have ‘excelled’ in their endeavours, with Joey in prison – for the third time – and Amy banned for life from athletics for doping. And then there’s George, the pirate. Pirate, my arse! He was an undercover cop, until his cover got blown and they forced him to walk the plank!

So, not very good at all at what they do.

But still, I’m proud of them, because there’s one thing that they all do extraordinarily well…

Get caught!

TOM

In the moonlight blood turns black

They found the body under a tarp at the center of the Granite Bridge. The head Detective placed a toe tag on the victim and noted his cursory finding in a small book to record the basic facts. The watch commander asked Reilly a lot of very pertinent questions later that night. “Surely, the perp entered the bridge from the south end,” said Captain Jeremiah O’Brien. Lieutenant Caramel Santiago suggest a counter argument. “Given the marks on the lower section of the bridge it is possible he came up from the river.” All eyes turned to Santiago, she beamed proudly.

JON

My Fair Lady

By

Jon DeCles

The detective found the pertinent record in the corner, under a caramel-colored tarp covered in dust. Surely the builder was simply too proud to notice his error, which was why he wore a tag on his toe down at the morgue, victim of a disaster of his own making. The great span of the new granite bridge had been impressive until the vibration of usage proved it to be weak where it could not afford to be weak. The builder was standing at the base when, like London Bridge, it came falling down. She decided the cold case was closed.

SERENDIPITY

In my profession, we have standard methods for disposing of bodies.

We’ve moved on from acid baths – they take forever, they stink, and there’s only so much acid you can buy before arousing suspicions.

These days, we keep things simple: wrap the body in a tarp, and bury it; or wrap the body in a tarp and throw it off a bridge; some wrap the body in a tarp and weigh it down with rocks, for disposal at sea.

But I’m getting too old for manhandling bodies in tarps.

Although, I make decent money: Manufacturing tarps for the Mob!

NORVAL JOE

Billbert ate his lunch alone, constantly surveying his surroundings like a detective on a stakeout.

Roderick was a grade higher than he and ate his lunch at a different time. Surely, they were unlikely to cross paths at this time.

The pertinent question was how was he going to get home after school without getting beaten up?

Maybe he could tag along with some of the kids who lived in his neighborhood. Would Roderick confront him with witnesses to record the event?

Then he realized. He could take the bus. Crammed in like sardines Roderick wouldn’t get close to him.

PLANET Z

It has been a record-setting year for people jumping off of the bridge.
Leonard with the Park Service has his electric cart ready with a tarp when we spot someone going over the rails.
Ricardo handles evenings, and Paco handles weekends.
For a while, they kept score in the breakroom.
Someone complained to the director, and they wiped the board clean.
When the electric cart runs low on power, they plug it in to charge.
But sometimes they forget, and they try to run out with the tarp.
It’s too heavy to carry. They end up dragging it out there.