There’s an old joke that a priest or a nun on roller skates is a holy roller.
You’d think they’d update the joke to a priest or a nun on roller blades, but roller blades aren’t funny.
Not that most priests or nuns are very funny either, but that’s what makes the joke funny.
Except for Sister Mary St. Peachpit, who was an extremely funny nun.
She wore roller skates, a rainbow wig, and a pair of those Groucho nose glasses.
People found her extremely amusing. Especially when she’d fall down.
Until they realized she’d broken her neck and died.
Scavengers
The Von Neumann probe landed on Mars, surveyed the area, and deployed the initial fleet of construction bots.
The bots hastily gathered up raw materials, processed them, and then put together a shelter for the initial factory.
However, due to a bug in the system, instead of using those native raw materials to create more robots, the robots cannibalized each other to make more robots.
Well, newer generations of robots. Because their numbers kept mostly the same.
Until the materials began to wear out. Metal fatigue and oxidation caused supply issues.
The last robot rolled through the darkness, trailing sparks.
The last thoughts
Remember me as I was, before the madness took me.
All the memories we shared. The things we did.
Those are all gone now.
What’s left, please don’t let it hurt you.
This is not me. This is something else.
Something sick, and evil.
And it can make you sick and evil, too.
Bury it somewhere, no matter how much it screams.
Or how much it begs you to stop.
Bring a shovel, duct tape, a machete.
And a sleeping bag. Or heavy blanket.
Whatever it takes.
Don’t let it touch you.
And, please, God, don’t let it bite you.
Blessing
It’s hard to word a blessing properly these days.
Whatever you come up with, something’s just not right.
May you live long.
May you live long, and be healthy.
May you live long, and be healthy and be happy.
May you live long, and be healthy and be happy, and not be bored.
May you live long, and be healthy and be happy, and not be bored, but not be too busy to enjoy things, either.
By the time you come up with a decent blessing, they’re either dead, sick, annoyed, bored, or too busy to thank you for it.
Weekly Challenge #584 – VOID
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
Offer Void is Some States
Well the heart final gave it up. It had pretty much been winding down since 2030. Perhaps less cheesecake would have been in order. Naaa. Why eat to live, when you can live to eat. The last flashes of current are firing in the brain. A mini-mental sunset fades to concentric circles of deepening black and in the center of all thing is the void. And then …
A patch of red growing in size as it approaches. Protoplasmic fingers reach out for it. A scrap of paper tears away. I reads upon it “You’re number 40,001.” Oh Fuck.
JON
The Void
By
Jon DeCles
I’m a science fiction writer. As the anesthesia kicked in I heard someone say something about the void, and there I went:
Stars wheeling across the cosmos, galaxies spinning, black holes engulfing mega galaxies, comets sliding in and out around primaries, planets with a thousand different ecosystems, creatures populating planets and ships that sailed the endless dust laden emptiness between the tiny amounts of matter that make up what we experience directly as the Universe, dark matter balancing…
When I awoke, you can imagine how disappointed I was that the nurse had been talking about the contents of my bladder.
JEFFREY
A Void in His Heart
by Jeffrey Fischer
When Jeremy’s wife of 30 years died, it left a huge void in his heart. He tried everything he could think of to find happiness again. He joined a book club, but the books all seemed to focus on long, happy marriages. He went to a line-dancing group. Surely country music songs emphasized existential despair, but everyone else came and socialized as a couple. He even pretended to be an alcoholic to attend AA meetings, but no one wanted to grab a drink afterward.
He could take no more. He would end it all so he could be reunited with his wife. As he perched at the edge of a cliff, ready to dash himself on the rocks below, he had a vision: his mother-in-law beckoned him to cross to the other side. Jeremy quickly backed away from the precipice. He had no desire to be reunited with the old battleaxe any time soon.
RICHARD
Checking out
There are some things that technology should play no part in.
Take shopping, for example – who on earth thought it would be a great idea to replace people at the checkout with a machine?
Self-checkout – worst thing ever!
‘Unknown item in the bagging area’; ‘How many bags have you used?’; ‘Please wait for staff assistance’.
I end up arguing with that smug voice! It’s crazy, incredibly stressful, and takes me at least twice as long as I would dealing with a person.
Finally, I’m, done. I swipe my card.
And the machine says: ‘Sorry, your card is void!’
CHARLIE
When I finished law school, I interned at Null and Void for two years while studying for the bar and getting some clerking experience. My mentor was a sharp paralegal, and she taught me so much and so quickly. I passed the bar, and in a year, I was an associate.
My first case was a comedian charged with drugging and raping sixty women. He was rich and pretty well known in the community. The judge declared a mistrial, but one of the women accusing him of rape shot him in the head and groin as he left the courthouse.
LIZZIE
A young rabbit looks at an old tree. The tree whispers.
The rabbit hops back and forth near the tree. The tree whispers.
The rabbit perks up two long ears. The tree whispers.
And the rabbit rests.
The tree sways in the wind, its leaves rustling softly.
The tree is wise and the rabbit ponders.
“Big ears don’t make you hear better, do they?” The tree whispers on.
The rabbit ponders, intrigued.
Maybe, just maybe, the rabbit will hop away with a tiny bit of the tree’s wisdom.
Maybe, just maybe, the tree will smile, watching the rabbit hop away.
SERENDIPITY
I inhabit the void between thought and spoken word; I wait in the spaces between questions and answers; I lurk in the netherworld between your dreams and wakefulness, and although you acknowledge my presence, you pretend I’m not there.
More than that, if pressed, you’d deny I exist – you’d laugh off the suggestion as absurdity and nonsense.
But, I am, most definitely part of you.
I am your hidden thoughts… The murderous ones, the lustful ones, the sick and twisted ones that you keep close to your heart and would never pursue.
Or would you?
If given the opportunity?
TURA
The Void
———
“We check and recheck everything all the time, because any misstep in these tin eggs and the vacuum claims you. You’re not an astronaut until you feel the void closer than your own heartbeat.”
The spacer paused for another swig at his beer. “But what would you know, metal man?”
A great deal, in fact, much more than these evolved monkeys knew about us. The void is our natural habitat, away from their sweaty, corrosive atmospheres. The day may not come soon, but in the end it is we who will explore the cosmos, for ourselves, leaving our ancestors behind.
NORVAL JOE
In the late 1980’s Domino Pizza advertised with an animated little character called ‘The Noid’. He destroyed pizzas, except for Domino’s of course. So, the only way to avoid the noid was to order from Domino’s.
If all it took to avoid annoyance in ordering pizzas was to have it arrive on time, and you didn’t care if the fast food was barely edible, then, the advertisement had merit.
However, if you wanted flavor and the reasonable expectation of not ending up in the emergency room, then you would avoid Dominos and order your pizza from almost any other restaurant.
LAIEANNA
“The Calling”
Tom once hid from the world, but people still sought him out, and he
learned to live with it. Sometimes several, sometimes just one,
people constantly begged of Tom until he exposed the void at his core.
The depth of nothingness was a startling sight, but its calling never
failed to force people past their fear and reach into the darkness.
Tom stepped over bodies with vacant eyes mirroring the black inside
him. He mourned as they fell but for what they had, not what they
lost, for he could not follow and the void was always calling to him.
PLANET Z
George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
After he read some of Nietzsche’s books, he searched for The Abyss so that he could stare into it.
It took him a week to get there. And once he was there, the line was five hours long.
“What’s it like?” he asked the pale and haggard people walking back to the parking lot.
They didn’t respond. They just shuffled past.
When George finally got to the head of the line, he took a deep breath and stared into The Abyss.
It stared back, and then roared with laughter.
Out of sight
Leland’s mother liked to say “out of sight, out of mind” a lot.
She was also blind. And she was often out of her mind.
Some of it was the booze and pills, but insanity ran in Leland’s family, and he was sent off to live with relatives.
And then sent off to foster care when those relatives went missing.
Did Leland kill them? The police investigated, but couldn’t prove anything.
They never found the bodies.
People have a habit of disappearing around Leland.
“I don’t mind them at all,” he says.
And he smiles through the prison cell bars.
Prankster
Joe liked to joke around.
He played a lot of practical jokes on people.
Most of them were really good.
But some of them backfired badly.
His best one was when he put a sign by the River Lethe.
It said “This river will help restore your memory.”
People would splash some of the water on their faces and forget everything.
Then, they’d see the sign, and splash more.
This went on for days and days.
Until his victims slowly starved to death.
There, among the bodies, was Joe.
He’d gotten wet while hammering the sign into the ground.
Dumbass.
The girl in room 24
The old janitor likes to visit the girl in Room 24.
She was in a car wreck, and was the only one of her family to survive.
She doesn’t remember a thing.
She doesn’t remember the kids who visit, and say that they’re friends.
She writes a lot down, but can’t remember.
The janitor tries to help her, telling her who’s who.
Sometimes, he likes to have a little fun.
“This is Jimmy,” he says. “He burned down the church last year.”
What’s the girl’s name?
“You name is Jenny,” the janitor says today.
Who knows who she’ll be tomorrow?
The loops
They built a freeway through the city.
Then, they built a loop around the city so people could bypass the city.
Then, they built another loop around the loop so people could bypass the city and the inner loop around the city.
Over time, they built more and more loops.
Until they ran into another city’s loop around a loop around a loop.
The two cities thought about starting a war.
Instead, they kept building loops, trying to loop around the other city.
In the long-distant future, the people were gone.
So were the cities.
But the many loops remained.
Love the movies
I fell in love with The Wizard of Oz the moment I saw it.
I swore that one day, I’d marry The Wizard of Oz.
I know that it’s illegal in most states, but I don’t care.
Then, I read the book.
It was so much better.
Sure, I loved the movie, but the book was just marvelous.
Is it cheating when you fall in love with a movie, but love a book more?
Or are they the same, just two different facets of the same gem that you adore?
I ended up marrying a hooker in Vegas, named Toto.