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:

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

TOM

Bodhisattva

Phil liked to drive at night. Less people. He wasn’t much for freeways, liked the city streets and county roads. Wasn’t into speed, just cruising. Rarely drove with anyone. Never saw him with a girl. It wasn’t because he was the anti-social type, hardly, party hardy as any of us. Driving was a deep meditate, he’d say. When blank stares and wobbling eyes met his words, he just order a round of beer, up went the cheers and everyone thought he was messing with them. I was stand outside Dunkin’ Donuts the night he and his car reached total enlightenment

JON

591

The Peloponnesian War, Part Two
By
Jon DeCles

“Now, looky here, Jack, it mightn’t be bad, Athenian women adopting some of the fashions of the Spartan women.”
“Are you out of your bleedin’ mind? We’re already forbidden to even mention their names without consequences! They keep to themselves except when they decide they want us! We have to hire hetaera if we want a woman to talk with. Imagine if, in addition to all that, they start taken’ off their clothes in public! This whole bloody war will turn into nothing but one enormous erection!”
“It’s pretty much like that already, down at the gym,” said Tom stiffly.

CHARLIE

The massive drive whirled away for a week, copying everything from the implant. The chip was tasked to collect the previous year’s data. The data included sound and images. This was the equivalent of storing about three million television shows.

The drive had to be cooled with extraordinary apparatus, including liquid nitrogen and elaborate heat sinks.

After the drive was filled and subsequently indexed, it was shared among the existing female members of the tribe and stored safely away for future use.
Stain McMillen was the oldest McMillen son, and was chosen to care for and maintain the storage cluster.

#2

Stain stored the cluster in the trunk of his Buick Electra. The top weather seal of the trunk had deteriorated and rain and the car wash allowed water to seep into Stain’s car trunk. In a short time, the family data was jeopardized and the danger was not discovered until Stain opened his trunk to check his spare.

Stain panicked, and took the bulky unit to his local computer store for inspection. The cluster was dried and packed in desiccant.

After powering up the drive, the techs ran integrity tests on the data and found everything intact. Thank you, God!

JEFFREY

The Right Prescription
by Jeffrey Fischer

I kept seeing ads for people with “Low T.” They caught my eye. I’m not saying I can’t… you know, but my sex drive hasn’t improved with age. Maybe I did have low T.

Several doses later, I was a new man. My wife didn’t know what overcame me, but she didn’t seem pleased. My mistress wasn’t happy, either, and both my girlfriends, while feigning delight at my regained prowess, were clearly more interested in nights out than nights in.

I complained to my doctor that the drug wasn’t helping. He squinted at the label and switched prescriptions. He said the original was in error. I now get endless refills of Lipton for my low tea. Decaf, of course.

RICHARD

#1 – Safari

You always get one on every game drive… The irritating, know it all idiot who ruins everything for the other guests, makes constant unreasonable demands, and thinks the whole experience revolves around them.

Today’s was the worst… Everyone in the vehicle hated him with a passion.

There we are, surrounded by a pride of lions, and he comes out with the inevitable question: “Are we safe?”

“As long as we stay in the vehicle”

I turned the key, with a secret smile, and nothing happened.

“So what do we do now?” he sneered.

“You”, I smiled, “Get out and push!”

#2 – Interview

“We’re looking for someone with drive and enthusiasm to be an inspirational leader in this company” said the guy behind the desk.

“Are you that someone?”

I opened my mouth to speak, but he cut me off…

“Don’t even answer that”, he barked, “I can tell already you have what it takes. Y’know, I’m going to take a risk – and I’m going to offer you the job right here on the spot”

“So what do you say?”

I placed the parcel on his desk…

“Package for you”, I said, “Sign here, and I can get back to my deliveries!”

#3 – Taxi

“Follow that car!”, I shouted, throwing myself into the back of the cab.

The driver, took off, tyres screeching – “I’ve waited years for someone to say that! So, are you a cop, or a gangster, or what?”

“No questions… Just drive!”

We tore through the city streets gradually gaining on the vehicle in front of us.

Finally, at a red light, I wrenched open my door, flung a handful of cash at the cabbie and calmly walked away.

No idea who was in that car, I’d just always wanted to jump into a cab and shout “follow that car!”

DUANE

Drive

This time I am going to get it done. I’ll finish it and submit it.

But I need a clean desk so I can concentrate. So, I’ll clean my desk and, then, I’ll get it done.

How did this desk get so messy? There sure a lot of icons on my desktop too. Messy. I guess desks and desktops have that in common. I’ll have to clean that up too. Clean my desk and my desktop and then I will get it done.

Okay, right after lunch I’ll clean my desk and desktop. Then I can finally get it done.

LIZZIE

She couldn’t walk but she had a very nice bike. It was parked outside the house and it was covered by flowers, violet, red, blue, and white. And she smiled. The bright colors made her smile. And the bicycle rusted away parked outside the house. Every now and then, she’d look at that bike. She’d close her eyes, and ride it, her legs completely paralyzed, but moving freely in her imagination. Whenever she got home and parked the bicycle outside the house, the flowers would sway back and take hold of her bike, becoming the sole guardians of her dreams.

SERENDIPITY

It was a long drive through the night, during the course of which the muffled thumps from the boot grew gradually more faint, until they ceased altogether.

Finally, in the grey pre-dawn light, I pulled off the desert road and found the spot I’d previously chosen. It was cold, but digging would soon warm me up.

Three hours later, the sun was climbing over the horizon and i was packing away the shovel and brushing the dust from my hands.

That was the potatoes planted… I’d be taking the body home with me to brew into fertiliser for future use.

NORVAL JOE

When I was a kid, my parents saved money on movies by piling us all in the station wagon and taking us to the drive in theater. You paid by the carload and not by the individual person.
On warm summer nights we would sit on the hood of the car and watch the latest Disney flick–like, The Love Bug, The Teenage Professor, or Song of the South.
I saw the beginning of a lot of movies. Since they couldn’t start until it was dark and the sun set around 9 pm, I was usually asleep before the show ended.

TURA

Drive
———
It began with the gene drive. It’s a mechanism to make a gene pass itself to all your descendants, even if you only inherited one copy. It was used against mosquitos, to stop malaria.

Trouble is, those genes can get mutations, like any other. The mosquitos evolved to handle it. Then it got into humans via mosquito bites. It incorporated retroviruses to copy itself between your cells, and learned infectiousness from the common cold virus.

The endgame is something that can turn a crowd into a giant blob of cancer in the time it takes to watch a football game.
———

PLANET Z

In Hebrew School, the rabbi taught us about The Golem of Prague.
“When you put a prayer in its mouth and whisper a name, the golem will hunt down that person.”
Every time I saw a statue, I’d put a hastily-scribbled prayer in its mouth.
“Hymie Schwatrz.” I’d whisper, imagining the fifth grade bully dragged from the schoolyard, kicking and screaming.
But the statues never moved an inch.
So, I put a garden gnome in my backpack, and the next day at school, I bashed in Hymie’s skull.
“It was the golem!” I screamed, as the teachers dragged me away.

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:

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

TOM

Satoshi Kon
I’m by no means a deep-field anima fan. Sure I have been in the game since 1959, when Astro Boy hit America. I’ve done Vampire D, Full Metal Alchemist, Ghost Hound, Serial Experiments Lain and the Studio Ghibli films, actually all the Ghibli films. I drew the line at Fruits Basket. That was some pretty weird cultural stuff. But for over the top surreal eye candy you cannot beat: Paprika. There are random parades of rivers of cartoon characters like some kind of Japanize Hieronymus Bosch mash-up. Time Magazine included it in its top 25 animated films of all time.

JON

The Peloponnesian War
By
Jon DeCles

“Bert, what makes this stew taste like this?”
“Hits somefing my little kiksy wiksy got when she was wisiting the Afenians. Hits called paprika. I finks they gets hit from up in the Carpafian Basin. Some errant Kelts brings it down.”
“So, how is your kiksy wiksy, Bert? Mine has been eying some of the fashions from up in Athens. Wants one of them fancy himataeons the Athenian women wear.”
“Gor, hain’t it bad enough they keep us away except when they want us in bed? Now they gonna cover everyfing up? You wanna wank now, Sidney, or after mess?”

LIZZIE

A comedian added paprika to everything, to the food, the stove, the counter, the walls, even to his co-presenter who tried very hard not to burst out laughing before the cameras.
The day they ran out of paprika, he started using ketchup. It was a commercial nightmare. Shocked viewers complained and advertisers pulled the plug.
When they went back to paprika, everything got back to normal, except for the cameraman whose ketchup company was hoping to make a lot of money.
Why does a cameraman own a ketchup company and work as a cameraman? Rich people are odd… well, sometimes.

EMILY ANN

Escape
by Emily Ann

She woke, startled by the cool air on her face. Sleepily she rose and walked across the dewy grass into the grey mist that swirled along the edge of the forest. The pain she once felt, crippling her body from within, was gone. She raised a hand and ran it through her long, soft brown hair. Hair she thought she’d never touch again. Warm. Calm. Elevated. She knew now that a world she once thought to be imaginary was her new reality. Turning back, she blew a final kiss to those she left behind. Saved. Free. She smiled again.

JEFFREY

Cooking with Paprika (1)
by Jeffrey Fischer

My wife complained when I started cooking that the meals were bland, so I experimented with various herbs and spices. Cilantro tasted of soap, she said, while sage was too harsh, garlic too smelly, dill too pungent, basil too sweet. There were others, but you get the idea.

My spice cabinet was looking quite bare when I decided to open one of the few remaining jars: paprika. I made a lovely goulash, if I may say so. To my surprise, she actually liked it. Once. After that, it was the usual complaints. Well, I was almost out of ideas.

It turns out that she froze well, once I had dismembered the body and discarded the inedible bits. Now my friends agree that I make the best goulash they’ve ever had.

Cooking with Paprika (2)
by Jeffrey Fischer

When Frank started cooking occasionally for the family, he wasn’t very good. Stella gave him a Hungarian cookbook, hoping Frank would take the hint. He did improve, but not by much. “But I’m cooking with Paprika,” he’d say. “Surely you can’t get more Hungarian than that.” Eventually “cooking with Paprika” became his mantra.

One day Stella came home from work early and found Frank in bed with another woman. “Er, hi, Stella. This is, uh, Paprika.” The redhead blushed. Stella stormed out.

When it was Stella’s turn to cook, she also used the Hungarian cookbook, but substituted Old Bay seasoning for paprika. The two spices looked similar, and Old Bay had the advantage of being toxic to Frank.

NORVAL JOE

In a fit of nostalgia, Esme tried to recreate her high school persona from the mid 1980’s.
She searched every second hand store in her city and many within driving distance for a raspberry beret. According to the song, that’s where you should find one.
No such luck.
The closest she came to that type of hat was a floppy cotton sun hat of a rusty red color that reminded her of paprika.
The lady at the counter said they don’t carry many used hats because of hair lice. She said that Esme should try looking online for new one.

CHARLIE

Sally’s boobs jostled grandly as she jogged with her Cocker Spaniel. She ran every morning, and attracted attention as she moved along the main thoroughfare through town. Morning drivers honked and some catcalled. Older ladies tsk tsked, while modest old men averted their eyes or plunged their hands quickly into their pockets. Sally ran in place at stop lights, sometimes smearing her lips with a fresh coat of Dagget Ramsdell Shea Butter Lip Skin.

Sally sat on the bench at the bus stop and took a hard-boiled egg from her hoodie pocket, sprinkling it lightly with sea salt and paprika.

RICHARD

Smoked Paprika

Smoked paprika – it’s my favourite spice.

There’s little that can’t be improved by that wonderful flavour. Goulash, chilli, pasta: It makes all the difference.

Not everyone appreciates my taste. When I ask “One spoonful, or two?” I’m invariably met with: “No, I don’t want paprika in my coffee!”; and nobody ever wants it on their cornflakes.

It’s made finding a girlfriend who appreciates my culinary tastes tricky. Although I’m pretty discerning when it comes to my taste in women too, which hasn’t helped.

You see, I insist that my women – like my food – must be smoking hot!

TURA

Paprika
———
Everyone called the little old man Paprika, but no-one knew why. Some said it was because he was Hungarian, and the Hungarians put paprika in everything. Others said that it meant “little father”, and he had once been a priest. Which technically would mean he still was one, even if you never saw him in church. Some said that he used to have a market stall, and he had once given a whole village food poisoning from a contaminated crate of paprika peppers. But if you asked him, he would just say, “because that’s the name my parents gave me!”

SERENDIPITY

My favourite recipe isn’t something you can knock up on the spur of the moment, but believe me it’s worth the hard work involved in the preparation and cooking.

The secret is the marinade – red wine, lots of paprika, plenty of seasoning, and – the secret ingredient – a decent helping of quality, grated dark chocolate. Leave for a good two days to tenderise, then slow roast, until the meat is falling off the bone.
Trust me, it’s worth the effort.

The last time I made it, we had Aunt Susan here for dinner…

And she was absolutely delicious!

PLANET Z

Every spice and herb in the kitchen brings back memories of when my grandmother would cook.
The garlic. The onion powder. The paprika.
How she’d spend hours in there, preparing and cooking and boiling and baking.
Pots and pans clattering, bashing, clanging.
And then, the smoke alarm, and the burst of the fire extinguisher.
The white cloud engulfing everything.
When the smoke cleared, she’d pick up the phone and order pizza.
All she had to do was call.
They knew her number, knew it was Saturday family dinner.
They’d send a few extra, for the firemen, no charge for those.