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:

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

RICHARD

Vibration

Years ago I owned a car that was fine until you reached sixty, but anything above that speed would cause a noticeable vibration through the steering.

I didn’t think much of it and put it down to the tyres needing balancing, or something similar.

I eventually passed it on to my sister, and forgot all about it.

We were chatting the other day about cars we’d owned, and she referred to it as the one that nearly killed her.

Apparently, she was doing over sixty when the steering wheel came off in her hands!

Lucky escape for me, I reckon!

CHARLIE

I am very sensitive to vibration. I am sensitive to vibrations when working at my desk, or studying. I’ve damped a number of things in the house and car.

I’ve used dense foam, old sponges, wood, cardboard, and other materials to stop the vibration and noise on my heat pump, washing machine and cold air injection on my truck.

A piece of heavy rubber jammed into the space between the washer and the dryer stopped the noise during the spin cycle, thus preventing a seizure and saving me from falling to the floor into a mound of incontinence and spittle.

#2

In the old days, a good vibe was the vibration you got being around someone whose company you enjoyed or cherished. It was the vibe you got by being with them, or an environment that was cool, soothing, and peaceful as they were.

A bad vibration was the one that struck you and harshed your buzz. The buzz could have been an artificially induced high, or the high a person gave you.

A bad vibe should be abandoned as soon as possible and forgotton. It should never be discussed or spoken of, much like the 14 years of my marriage.

PLANET Z

At the age of nineteen, the poet Maya Angelou worked as an exotic dancer.
Just image that.
You probably imagine her as some old lady reading “Why the caged bird sings” or her other works at various events.
Or her work with Martin Luther King. That was important, you know.
But me, I’m trying to imagine her younger self, working the pole at night and sneaking off to church during the day.
Imagine, going to one of her book signings, and telling her that back in the day, you had put a dollar in her g-string.
For her, maybe two.

TOM

My name is blue canary

MY heart beats

Like a tiny dove

The vibrations rising

It’s a song of love

I’m your only friend

I’m not your only friend

But I’m a little glowing friend

But really I’m not actually your friend

But I am

Blue canary in the outlet by the light switch

Who watches over you

Make a little birdhouse in your soul

Not to put too fine a point on it

Say I’m the only bee in your bonnet

Make a little birdhouse in your soul

I have a secret to tell

From my electrical well

Leaving out the whistles and bells

SERENDIPIDY

Can you feel that?

The subtle vibration that causes you to squirm slightly in your bonds.

Are you trembling too, with anticipation of what you think is to come?

Exciting, isn’t it?

But more so for me.

You see, I know you’re the one with whom my husband has been cheating on me.

And this isn’t an ‘erotic adventure’ that he’s set up for your pleasure.

Because I’m no dominatrix.

And that vibration is not the toy you think it is.

It’s a circular saw, and it’s moving steadily closer…

Now, you’re struggling!

And now, you’re sorry.

Aren’t you, bitch?

LIZZIE

The vibration was stronger as the herd approached. They continued to sleep under the giant plant.
The bamboos muttered a strange song, the thumping making it grow more and more intense. They didn’t wake up. They slept on, immersed in their dreams, their huge ears flipping back and forth as if they were awake.
The symbols on the stone became bright, dancing to the rhythm of the bamboo song.
The herd trotted past them and didn’t even noticed they were there.
They opened their eyes slowly. The bamboo became silent and the stone went to sleep under the giant plant.

JEFFREY

Normal Range
by Jeffrey Fischer

The new Metro trains were touted as modernizing the fleet: sleek, eight cars long, with overhead displays of the current and subsequent stations. The trains were also quite heavy.

Homeowners noticed increased vibrations as the new trains passed through the tunnels below their houses. Windows rattled, paintings shifted, and bric-a-brac walked in their displays. Metro downplayed the vibrations, claiming they were within “normal range.” That is, until house foundations began to crack and the occasional house collapsed. Even the transit system’s management had to concede the results were somewhat unusual and undesirable. True to form, their solution was to demand more taxpayer money to “improve” the system.

NORVAL JOE

Billbert wondered why Roderick was accusing him. So, he’d escaped from the tree and foiled the bully’s joke.

Feeling flippant, he said, “Maybe I flew down.”

Roderick made a fist with his other hand. “You better not be making fun of me.”

The boy couldn’t take a joke. Maybe Billbert could impress him, instead.

“I did fly. Come here. I’ll show you,” Billbert said and lead Roderick to the patio off the library. With his backpack still over his shoulders he made to leap into the air.

All that happened was a weak vibration from a pocket of his backpack.

JON

Hardly Any Time At All

By

Jon DeCles

I had been in Second Life a short time. Less than a year. Hardly any time when it comes to getting to know a person. Much less than a year if you count learning all the complex gobbledygook.

I was dancing in a club. My friend was bouncing next to me. Suddenly he explained to the barkeep that he was dead. His avatar was being occupied by his wife, who had never done SL before. He had died of a heart attack, and she came to tell us. Brave and kind of her.

I cried and drank Scotch all night.

Good (and bad) Vibrations

By

Jon DeCles

I like to dance, and I don’t mind feeling the vibration through the floor from the music when I am dancing. But when it is from the apartment upstairs, and I am trying to sleep, it is not a good vibration.

The people upstairs, or downstairs, never respond to polite requests.

I read in Mark Twain about Tesla and his experiments with vibration. Twain talks about standing on Tesla’s machine and feeling very comfortable until he suddenly had to run full speed to the rest room. I built the machine.

Now the vibration ends with the sound of repeated flushings.

VIBRATION

Vibration

“This is the best way to find water. Trust me.” He picked up a limb with a Y in it and held it in both hands.

“When you are over water it will kind of vibrate in your hands like text message” He said. “Then it will point down to the water and bingo!”

He walked in a big circle sweeping the stick back and forth. Whenever the stick pointed down I would run up and dig a hole in that spot. By sundown we hadn’t found any water, but I had six pull tabs and a Rainer bottle cap.

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 Lacrosse
• Richard
• Lizzie
• Serendipity
• Tom
• Jeffrey
• Norval Joe
• Duane
• Planet Z

CHARLIE

His apartment in San Francisco was hardly larger than the closet he had as a youngster. He paid twenty-five hundred a month rent. Utilities were included, but he shared the bath and kitchen with six other people.

He slept on a shelf, high on the back wall. His clothes were hung on nails, with some of them on pulleys, so he could pull them up to ceiling.

His laptop folded down with the desk from the wall. The small camp stool folded out from the table once it was in place.

He was happy until he found the peep hole.

RICHARD

Dental: Mental!

When I was a child, our family dentist was a very affable and friendly fellow, but even so, I was terrified of him.

To be fair, he tried his best to reassure me whenever I attended the surgery, but usually his attempts were worse than useless.

Take his stock phrase that he’d invariably trot out, prior to ramming a novocaine injection into my gum:

“This is hardly going to hurt… Just like being punched in the mouth!”

Now, I don’t know if you’ve ever been punched in the mouth – but it bloody well hurts!

And so did the needle!

LIZZIE

Matt winced. He adjusted his glasses and looked at the huge sign. “Gone Fishing”.
And off he went!
Everything was fine until the neighbor kid noticed he never brought back any fish.
“I ate them.”
The kid wasn’t convinced, but Matt didn’t mind.
In his pocket, he had three gold nuggets. He placed them carefully in the box he hid under the floor planks. He needed a new box. This one was full.
When the kid sneaked inside the house to see what was inside the box, he found a lot of yellowish pebbles.
Matt really needed new glasses!

SERENDIPITY

I’d barely settled down to a cup of tea, when the doorbell rang: It was that idiot woman from across the street, complaining about how I’d parked my car.

I invited her in, and – using all my powers of persuasion – explained why it was perfectly reasonable to park where I did.

You haven’t witnessed my powers of persuasion, but they are very convincing, especially the sharp, pointy one; the dull, rusty one; and the one with the corkscrew end.

Since then, I haven’t heard a peep from her.

Hardly surprising, since her tongue went down the waste disposal!

TOM

That Which is Remembered Lives.

Hardly a day goes by I don’t think about Jack. It gets stronger with the coming of spring, which is when he died. There are some souls that pass into your life with such a lust for life that their absence leaves a gaping hole in time/space continuum. I had things I needed to tell him. Things I’m just figuring out. Come July it will be the 17th time we have made the road trip to Seattle. He would be so proud of how amazing his daughter has grown into an articulate young woman. He just left to soon.

JEFFREY

Hysteria
by Jeffrey Fischer

The gun-grabber march seemed filled with teenage girls engaged in group-think: all were “scared” to go to school. Some held signs asking “Am I Next?” Hardly. The CDC reports an average of 43 violent deaths per year at schools for the decade ending in 2010. 43 may be 43 too many, but the 15 million high school students face pretty good odds. In contrast, the CDC reports 2,333 deaths of 16-to-19 year old teens in road fatalities in 2016, many involving poor decion-making, driving under the influence, excessive speed, and lack of seat belts. If kids truly cared about saving their lives, instead of goofing their way down Pennsylvania Avenue preening for the cameras, they’d march to raise the driving age. Fat chance of that.

NORVAL JOE

“Get to class,” Coach Slaughterball said to Billbert, following the last of the boys out of the locker room.

Billbert didn’t waste any time. The coach had hardly left the room and he was pulling his clothes on.

He shoved the plastic grocery bag into a pocket of his backpack and ran to the office. After turning in the soggy note from the coach, Billbert hurried out of the office and ran into directly into Roderick.

He grabbed Billbert by his shirt. “How’d you get out of that tree? One second your were there. The next second you were gone.”

DUANE

Hardly

I hardly knew Isaac, but since I sat across from him I was asked to give his eulogy. Asking around the office nobody could tell me anything about him, so I lied.

I said Isaac had been a Fuller Brush salesman and draft dodger in the 1960s. In the 70s he taught disco and ran a desert ashram until the IRS raid. He spent the 80s as a cold-war spy.

The local paper printed my tribute and it went national. Since Isaac had no family I received a 100K book advance for his biography and later sold the movie rights.

PLANET Z

On April 7th, Hilda turned to stone.
She’d been walking in the park when it happened.
At first, people thought she was an abandoned statue.
So did the birds.
Hilda’s family recognized her from a photo in the newspaper.
How did this happen?
Was she alive?
Could she be changed back?
Scientists looked over Hilda, but they had no answers.
After a year, Hilda’s family held a memorial.
The city allowed them to put her back in the park.
With a plaque bearing her name.
Some people say she’s creepy.
Kids dare each other to touch her.
Then they run.