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:

• Munsi
• William
• Jeffrey
• Charlie
• Richard
• Tom
• Jon De Cles
• Lisa
• Tura
• Serendipity
• Lizzie
• Norval Joe
• Planet Z

MUNSI

Whilst Painting a Fence
By Christopher Munroe

It occurs to me, now that I’m the midst of the project, that painting a fence isn’t nearly as fun as that kid made it sound.

I mean, he made it seem like the best fun a person could ever dream of having, and I’ll admit, by the end of his little speech I was begging to do the job for him…

But now…

Now I’m growing to suspect I may have been had.

Still, I would hate to feel I was missing out…

I’ll finish the fence, and judge the experience as a whole, rather than jumping to conclusions.

WILLIAM

In an alternate universe, Vincent gets to speak with Kee. He presents his case eloquently—the man knows four languages for heaven’s sake! She becomes mesmerized by his vision to become the world’s greatest painter. Doesn’t notice the candle burning low.

Years later, Paul visits the couple from Arles.

“You still on your own in that ugly yellow house?” Vincent asks him.

Paul hangs his head sadly. Glances at Kee in the kitchen. “How did you do it, mon amie? How’d you keep your hand above the flame long enough to convince her?”

Van Gogh winks and whispers, “Fire-resistant paint!”

JEFFREY

Paint the Town Red
by Jeffrey Fischer

My girlfriend told me that tonight we were going to paint the town red. Even though our town is small, I thought that was a dumb idea, but she was hot and her body language suggested a good time afterward. I bought as much red paint as I could find and decided to make a head start without her. The earlier started, the earlier finished. I began with the police station. For some reason, the sheriff wasn’t on board with the plan. Worse, for some reason, my girlfriend was mad at me when she bailed me out. Women!

CHARLIE

I painted my house “opaque couché.* This shit brown, sewage-tinged hue actually has an important function, now that I’m living next door to the biggest choad in town. He stole the vote for the mayor ship in the last election, and he’s a closet hetero-phobic.

I am protesting this man and all he stands for. Every time he sees my house, he will choke back an urge to spew on his cardigan vest.

Next Spring, I am planning to install a small pond in the front yard. Of course the water will be dyed to match.

* Pantone 448 C

RICHARD

Artist?

I’ve never been the artistic type. Give me something practical or scientific, and I’m in my element, but anything that requires an artist’s eye or creative flair, and the results are invariably a complete disaster.

Whether it’s music, sculpture, dance or needlework – the outcome is always the same: I set out enthusiastically and full of hope, only to become disillusioned, angry and bitter. And my hard won creative efforts wouldn’t impress the kindest of critics.

All rubbish.

And as for brush and canvas – frankly, I wouldn’t trust myself to paint a plain wall with a coat of emulsion!

TOM

It’s all in the spin

I have a great fondness for dangling participles. Take this for instants, please. I painted the room with my brother. Later I painted another with my sister. I tried painting the kitchen with the dog, but he wouldn’t fit in the paint can. As a kid a loved the joke from film Mary Poppins. Set up: I knew a man with a wooden leg named Smith. Punch line: What was the name of his other leg? So if you’re free tonight I’d love to paint the living room with you. Or we could just have Donald Trump over for dinner.

JON

Truly Exciting

By

Jon DeCles

They used to say that something really boring was like watching paint dry. Let me tell you, watching paint dry can be very exciting. Suppose its latex paint, and you’ve just coated your prospective sex partner in it, and you can’t get started until the paint dries. That’s very exciting. Or suppose you have an enemy and you have painted that enemy with silver paint, like in a James Bond movie, and you are waiting for your enemy to expire. That’s very exciting.

The best is when your prospective sex partner is also your enemy. Then you can barely wait.

LISA

About me pictures

I’m late to collect and children pass me in the street clutching paintings that drip glitter and feathers.

I see my daughter through the window.
Alone in the playroom.
Back to me.
Head down.

The frowning playleader nods me aside as my heart plummets.

“I’m afraid she hasn’t done an about me picture. She covered her hands in glue first thing and has then spent the morning picking it off.”

My laugh breaks her concentration and she runs over. Smiling. As we walk home her hand is slightly sticky. It tells me more about her than any picture ever could.

TURA

Paint
———
Effective icons must be made with the best materials. Our wooden panels come from crucifixions and gallows. The paints are based on fat from companion animals. (Baby fat is available only to iconomancers able to compel us to provide it.) Our lapis lazuli is mined by slaves that are then buried alive, our gold leaf is beaten out from the jewellery of hanged murderesses, and we obtain cochineal from fire ants bred by the torturers of Hamat Zool. All icons are guaranteed to channel demons from at least the 4th circle of Hell.

At Icons-R-Us, every Friday is Black Friday!

SERENDIPIDY

When my date suggested painting the town red, he had no idea what he was letting himself in for.

His idea of a good time was very different to mine, as he soon found out, but I was in my element, and I was having fun.

I feel bad he’d made the effort to dress up – his suit was pretty much ruined from all the bloodshed, but that’s the price you pay – if you’re going to paint the town red with me, you simply have to accept that everything else is going to end up red as well!

LIZZIE

The agitated middle-aged chubby painter waved his arms while he explained what happened.

“The man said hands in the air. Drop the paint. And when I did, the can exploded. There was paint everywhere. I thought he was going to kill me but I couldn’t quite understand why. It’s not like I’m worth a fortune…”

The cute policeman nodded but the distraught painter suspected he was probably doodling instead of taking notes.

When the officer walked away, nodding, the painter sighed.

“I wish that wasn’t my last can of paint. Police uniforms can be amazing canvases,” he whispered to himself.

NORVAL JOE

Mickey settled down in the seat behind Cherry Cola, watching street signs on the highway fly past in the night. The clock on the dash glowed two thirty A.M.
The van suddenly filled with light as someone behind them flipped on their high beams and didn’t turn them back down until they had shot past. Once in front of the minivan, they jammed on their brakes, forcing Ferret to do the same.
In the van’s headlights, they saw the tailgate of a Chevy pickup with rusted and pealing paint, and a bumper sticker that read, “I don’t brake for nobody”.

PLANET Z

Remember when the coyote would paint the image of a tunnel of a rock, and the road runner would zoom through it?
Where did the coyote get the paint?
Or all the other wacky things he used to try to catch the road runner?
ACME?
Okay, so how did he pay for them?
Where did he get the money? Or the massive credit line to borrow from?
If he could afford all those devices, he could afford to buy food.
Maybe he was a beta tester for all those devices?
And every report the coyote send back was always: FAIL.

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:

• Munsi
• Jeffrey
• Richard
• Lisa
• Tom
• Jon De Cles
• Tura
• Serendipity
• Lizzie
• Norval Joe
• Planet Z

MUNSI

For the Bowie Fans
By Christopher Munroe

People forget that David Bowie’s “Berlin Trilogy” was actually five albums…

Bowie co-wrote/produced “The Idiot” and “Lust for Life” for Iggy Pop in Berlin, after all, and tonally they’re very much in line with Bowie’s own recordings of the time.

You know them, they contain every Iggy Pop song you remember. Lust for Life, The Passenger, Nightclubbing, Funtime, China Girl (which you probably didn’t know was Iggy Pop) they laid out one classic after another, and feature what’s easily Pop’s finest work.

My point? No point really, just pointing out that you really ought to listen to more Iggy Pop…

JEFFREY

Persuasion
by Jeffrey Fischer

You call me an idiot, a moron, an uneducated rube. You tell me that I’m misogynistic, homophobic, transphobic, xenophobic, racist. You decry my “white privilege,” as though individuals think solely along racial lines. You know nothing about me, yet you presume to lecture me on the error of my ways.

Does this seem like a persuasive line of argument to you? I’ll hear this litany of charges and rue my vote, that next time will be different?… I didn’t think so. But go ahead and call me names, if that makes you feel better.

RICHARD

Some sort of idiot

“What are you?”, bellowed Mr Andrews, my chemistry teacher; “Some sort of idiot?”

It’s one of those questions to which there’s no possible answer – if I said ‘yes’, I’d only be confirming his accusations; ‘no’, and I’d only be inviting further ridicule.

I opted for silence, not that it did me any favours, and Andrews’ bullying tactics continued unchallenged.

But that was years ago, and now that I was a government inspector of schools, things had changed, in my favour.

He sat miserably in front of my desk.

“Andrews, your methods stink… What are you? Some sort of idiot!”

LISA

Online struggles….

There was a clue in how I danced in 1984. We missed it.
But now, online.

The CAPTCHA code gets me every time. I see different letters. Numbers. Start adding punctuation. Is it case sensitive?

Just a word with a line through it- honestly it throws me.

Those picture ones…. How many buildings can you see? I don’t know. Is that distant rectangle one? Why is this so hard? I’m not an idiot, I only want to comment on a blog.

The latest one has really got me stumped.

Are you a robot?

I just don’t know how to answer.

JON

Idiot

By Jon DeCles

“Idiot!” David yelled at his brother.

“No, you’re the idiot!” Daniel yelled back.

“I didn’t vote for him!” yelled David.

“Well, you should have,” responded Daniel.

“He’s going to make things a lot better.”

“Better for who?” asked David. “Surely not for us!”

“Better for the whole country. Better for everyone. You’ll see.”

“We’ll be the laughing stock of the whole world,” said David.

“He’s going to make our country great again!” shouted Daniel.

“Our money will be worth something again,

we’ll make our own goods again, our language will be respected again.”

“Idiot! Germany has always been great!”

TOM

sound and fury

I’m a full contact Idiot. An Idiot beyond the limits of the major arcana of the tarot. No matter the scope or precariousness of the position I will excel to galactic level of screw up. The ability to chain the simplest event into a major cluster-fuck is mine alone. I seem to be improving with age. Like an 80 year old fencing master who’s economy of action is distilled into a one fluid attack, my refined unconscious indifference to objects and surrounding turns on a single point. Avert your eyes, stand not to close, for chaos follows in my wake.

TURA

Idiot
———
Once upon a time there were three brothers. Harry, the ordinary one, Garry, the clever one, and Larry, who was so wise that people thought him an idiot.

When a dragon terrorised the village, Harry valiantly went to fight it. The dragon ate him.

Garry dug a clever trap, but the dragon was cleverer, and trapped him.

Larry went and stared the dragon straight in the eyes. So wise was he that he turned into a dragon. The dragon turned back into a man, and Larry ate him.

And if no-one wiser has challenged Larry yet, he’s a dragon still.

SERENDIPITY

I’m not an idiot – I never take chances… Always clean up after myself, always wear gloves, avoid security cameras, plan meticulously, and never underestimate the authorities.

It’s the sloppy ones who get caught: They think the cops are stupid and will never catch up with them. They’re careless, leaving evidence at the crime scene, taking risks and pushing their luck. They deserve to get caught.

Then there’s the complete idiots… The ones who think they’re terribly clever, but then go boasting about their exploits to complete strangers, by posting all about then on the Internet.

Idiots!

Nothing like me!
—

LIZZIE

Millie sat at The Tea Room, a beautiful picturesque café while a friendly waiter served a tea, his belly struggling inside a tight vest.

She watched the couple in the corner whispering, the elderly woman reading a book, the teenager checking his phone.

When the flash mob invaded the café singing The Sound of Music, the couple smiled and the elderly woman clapped enthusiastically.

Millie covered her ears in horror and waved to the waiter for the check.

The Tea Room had just become a nightmare and the resident idiot was still checking his phone, oblivious of everything around him.

NORVAL JOE

“Great. Let’s go,” Mickey said. “Do you have a blanket in the car?”
“No,” Cherry Cola said. “But I have some sweat pants in my backpack.”
They were neon pink with black letters across the butt that said, ‘Dance’. And though they were tight, it was better than sitting in the car, naked.
Ferret started the minivan and headed for the highway.
“I feel like an idiot in these sweat pants,” Mickey said.
“I’m the idiot for helping you get away,” Cherry said.
“We’ll all look like idiots if we get pulled over,” Ferret said. “This is a stolen car.”

PLANET Z

They say that if you cannot forgive someone and forget the past, you are allowing them to live rent-free in your head.
Which is fine by me, because despite the free rent, I charge a fortune for the electric and water.
Oh, and I don’t allow cable or satellite dishes. Or pets.
The schools are lousy in the neighborhood. Lots of crime.
Horrible traffic, lousy cell reception, and no WiFi anywhere.
It’s practically a prison cell, a pit in a dungeon.
No hope of escape at all.
The torment you will suffer in my head is nothing compared to mine.