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

TOM

an aging scholar

Ok Ok. I know. It seemed like a good idea at the time. I got the good stuff, there was a lot time to figure out how to get out of the deal. Ya Ya, the quy has offered the same deal to bunches of folk over the millenniums. There’s a mess of operas and poems about how it turn out so wrong, but I’m a damn clever guy. I got an ace up my sleeve. So now at 110 years old, think I’ll lay it on the table.

Méphistophélès is turned away by the shining sword of the archangel.

CHARLIE

I always heard that the one who dealt it is the one who smelt it, or is it the one that smelt it is the one who dealt it?

This concerns the gaseous expression of hydrocarbons in and about the home.
My aunt was lighting a birthday cake with her butane grill lighter, and feeling an august explosion forthcoming, she reached behind her and lit it off, unknowingly starting the dining room curtains on fire.

She brought the cake into the living room as the house filled with smoke and flames. The fire squad put it out.

No big deal.

RICHARD

Deal

They offered me a deal: Names, in exchange for immunity from prosecution and a new identity.

I wasn’t sure about the ‘new identity’. The people I mixed with didn’t like snitches, if they caught up with me, who knows what they’d do?

Changing my name and relocating wouldn’t be enough, if I was recognised it was definitely game over.

“Don’t worry, kid, we can fix it so your own mother won’t recognise you!”

I gave them the names.

They set me up! Told the gang, and left me to their mercies.

My own mother didn’t recognise me after they’d finished!

JEFFREY

The Art of the Deal
by Jeffrey Fischer

“Deal me in.” I sat at the empty chair and tossed some cash into the pile. I sensed a big night coming for me.

As the hours wore down, so did my stakes. These pups were taking me to the cleaners! I felt my anger begin to rise, but I kept my cool.

Finally I was out. Beaten. The dollars weren’t the issue: I could afford to lose them. No, it was the blow to my pride that stuck with me. Who’d have thought dogs would be so good at playing poker? Must be all that practice those hounds got while posing for endless portraits.

LIZZIE

The deal was that you’d never scream at me. The deal was that a smile would be a smile and not a sarcastic sneer thrown at my soul. The deal was that I would live today, dream of tomorrow, regret nothing of the past. And now, I live today, dreading tomorrow and desperately trying to forget what happened. The more they told me to walk away, the more I pretended not to listen. I covered my ears, shut my eyes, sheltered my soul, and one day, in darkness, I decided to leave. May my tombstone read “The deal was broken.”

SERENDIPITY

Here’s the deal: Keep your mouth shut about what you’ve seen and neither of us have to worry about any comebacks – me, hassle from the law, and you, hassle from me.

Of course, I’m taking a risk in letting you go. It’s not what I’d normally do. You see I prefer to go by the principal of ‘dead men can’t talk’, but I think you’ll agree that one murder tonight is enough?

Even so, I’ll need to be sure… Mute men can’t talk either!

Did I say ‘keep your mouth shut’? What I meant to say was…

Open wide!

TURA

Deal
———
“Sharper on table 4,” said my colleague. He showed me a replay. “You can’t see anything,” he said, “but something’s off, I can smell it.”

The cameras go 200 frames per second, and I had to single-step to see it. Dealing from the bottom, under the top, peeking at the corners, faster than the eye could see.

Faster than human fingers could move.

“Android or just enhanced, we need a SWAT team to handle this one,” I said.

Sometimes I think we should give up and let anything sit at a poker table. They did that in sports years ago.

DUANE

Comedy Boot Camp

Comedy boot camp isn’t pretty. It isn’t meant to be. It exists to separate class clowns from comedians. New recruits are barraged with questions requiring rapid-fire responses. The first question is always, “what’s the deal with airline food?”

Routinely instructors yell “drop and give me twenty!” A recruit goes to his knees and begins shouting “Well, excuuuse meee!” Everyone thinks they can do twenty at first. After ten they’re sweating and shaking. They say it builds character.

At the end comes Hell Week. It involves drill instructors screaming orders as they randomly change persona from Sam Kinison to Jerry Lewis.

JON

An Excellent Deal

By

Jon DeCles

The deals of the table were red, Scots pine, not white: which meant that we could afford it. The lumberman told us that the white, from Norway spruce, might be stronger, but would be more expensive. He said the table would be very serviceable in any case, and vastly cheaper than one of hardwood.

We cared little for the ultimate quality of the table. It would soon be scarred by the strokes of our cleavers and saws. A plain deal table was all that was needed for our purpose.

The pine would burn readily, leaving no evidence for Scotland Yard.

NORVAL JOE

Axelrod wondered how fate could deal him such a crappy hand.
Born on the Galactic Battle Base to low ranking personnel who had as little ambition to transfer to a planet side duty assignment as they did to advance their careers enough to get a larger cube closer to the entertainment sectors.
Axel had twenty years of drudgery to look forward to before he could he could transfered out on his own merit.
He’d heard that others deal in black market goods.
That could be exciting, and get him a shuttle off the giant tube before he’s forty years old.

PLANET Z

Back in the Seventies, there was this game show called Let’s Make A Deal.
Audience members dressed up in stupid and crazy costumes, and the host would invite them to trade for various unknown items in a box or behind a curtain.
The best game was when the host offered money for a particular common item, like a comb or a toothbrush.
Things got awkward when he asked for a flask of whiskey or pain pills.
And downright awkward when he held up a twenty for a blowjob.
“If I feel your teeth,” said the host. “You only get five.”

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

TOM

Ladies and Gentlemen, Please ….

Rhapsody Hope was a pole dance from Barstow. A perennial favorite of the Marine Corps Logistics Base jarheads. Oorah. The money she earned in her youth paid for her degree at UCLA. The strength she gain server her well and brought home the gold in her back to back Olympic showings. In the end she return to Barstow to work with troubled youths. Dr. Hope exemplifies the best of Bastow, and tonight we call all present to stand to acknowledge her contribution to this city and nation. We confer upon Doctor Rhapsody Hope the Barstow City Council’s Medal of Honor.

JEFFREY

Genetic Washing
by Jeffrey Fischer

In 2017, Iceland announced that it had nearly “eradicated” Down Syndrome. This was a lie. A more accurate description would be that nearly 100% of women carrying a child with the Down gene had an abortion. Delighted with this success, the government “eradicated” hemophilia, cancer, hair loss – you name it. Pregnant women were happy to participate – after all, who hoped for a child prone to teenage acne?

One day in 2037, the government proudly announced the eradication of all “defective” children. The press conference took place in an elementary school, where youngsters had once thrived. Now there were plenty to choose among, as no child had come to term in two decades.

CHARLIE

While tasked with all the washing and pesky maintenance for the summer writing workshop, I was hoping that my downward plummeting mood would be nixed. One little lie, and I would thrive again. There would be joy in my life, and I could henceforth spin only rhapsodic yarns as I did before I joined up with this dull group of radish growers and feet pickers that fancy themselves a writing salon.

I lied and told them that I had been asked to teach at the local university, and my pay would be what I asked for the special, fall workshop.

RICHARD

In memoriam

I won’t lie to you… Since I did away with the other half, contrary to expectations, all the joy has left my life.

Now it’s just one long downward spiral of washing, cleaning and housework – how could anyone hope to thrive on that without something fun to redress the balance.

Things were going nowhere until I discovered an old pair of her nix, tucked behind the bedroom dresser.

I still have to put up with the housework, but it’s much more fun when done to a backing of Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, wearing nothing but my dead wife’s undies!

LIZZIE

Letter to Nobody

My eyes roam the land, the short golden grass dancing in the wind as the purple clouds fly away softly, caressing a bright blue sky. A lonely seagull makes its way out to sea while the waves lap gently on the shoreline. I stand against an ancient tree and try not to blink fearful this picture-perfect moment would fade away too soon. I thought the busy, fast-paced life would suddenly gain some sort of meaning. I thought, one day, things would change. They never did. And a picture-perfect lie ends now at a picture-perfect place.
Signed,
Hope

SERENDIPITY

You find me sitting in the darkness, lost in my thoughts, a widening pool of blood spreading from my latest victim.

The tools of my trade – ligature and knife – rest in my lap; their work, like mine, complete.

Whilst I wait, the rain comes, cooling and refreshing; it’s rhythmic patter mingling with the blood, washing it slowly away into the darkness.

It is a perfect moment.

The sound of the rain, the red stain of blood and the calm quiet as the adrenalin slowly drains from my system combine…

I call it my symphony: A rhapsody of death.

JON

Be Careful What You Wish For

By

Jon DeCles

Washing my hands came first, then my clothes, in the hope that the blood would just go away.

It had been a downward spiral ever since my husband suggested we might kill the king. At first I tried to nix the idea, but it began to lie more easily on my conscience. I thought how we would thrive once he had the crown. What joy we would experience. Soon the vision of being queen sang like a rhapsody in my dreams.

After the deed my dreams were not so splendid. My hands felt sticky, and I took to sleep walking.

DUANE

Hair of the Downward Dog

I found a half dozen of those little bottles of whiskey pushed way back in the cupboard. They’d been there about five years.

I finished them off in a few minutes. A warm sensation washed over my body. I felt the tension leave my shoulders and my muscles began to relax. My breathing soon calmed to a steady rhythm. My mind was floating from one thought to the next without getting stuck. For a while all the worries and troubles of the day disappeared. I had a wonderful night’s sleep.

I had forgotten how much better booze is than yoga.

NORVAL JOE

Axelrod took the stairs, downward, to the lower levels of the Galactic Battle Base. Maybe he could find an unguarded airlock and freeze out.
Hope of becoming an Assault Frigate Commander had fled with his poor Astrogation final scores.
There was no joy in daily labor as a mechanic, launch technician, or one of the other menial jobs he’d qualled for. Not like the rhapsody the pilot feels when a frig streaks out from the Base and reaches point-two-eight of light speed or jumps through a gate to a star system light years away.
No lie. Axel’s future looked bad.

TURA

Hope; Downward
———
The elevator doors opened, and I found myself looking down an impossibly long liftshaft. I fell forwards… and awoke on the floor of the elevator, surrounded by anxious, unknowing colleagues.

The vision obsessed me. How large is the world? The elevators never go more than a hundred floors, but one can take another. How far up, or down? How large is the Building, the Universe?

Our scriptures preach a Foundation and a Penthouse, but now I see that these stories are to dull our curiosity, not sharpen it.

I must continue ever downwards, hoping one day to find the truth.

PLANET Z

Medieval life was hard, but Jane had it harder.
Raped by her father, pregnant at sixteen, kicked out of her home.
She stole a tub from a nunnery and took in washing.
When the baby came, she drowned it in the tub and secretly buried it in the cemetery.
Her last hope was to lie her way into that nunnery.
She couldn’t read or write, but she listened to their prayers and songs and memorized them.
Crushed by an oxcart, she died in the road.
When they dug a hole to bury her in, they dug up her baby’s corpse.