When I was little, my dad would drive us to my grandparents’ place in Chicago.
We’d visit for family things. Dinners out or dinners in.
Well, that, and to pick up the dry-cleaning. They owned a chain of dry-cleaning stores.
Sometimes, we’d borrow one of his employees to work as a maid.
They all looked so sick and weary.
Carbon tetrachloride cleaning solution. Nasty stuff.
My grandfather died from that stuff.
And dozens of his employees. Dozens.
You don’t tell your children about this kind of thing.
My other grandparents ran a grocer’s warehouse.
We just visited for free food.
Their Man In Washington
Bill wasn’t the brightest, but he was their man in Washington. So, his benefactors kept him in office, and they kept him happy.
Whatever he wanted, he got. And whatever they wanted, they got.
Sure, there were probes, but they gave him lawyers, and he never took the rap for anything.
Every two years, people went to the polls and voted for Bill. Unopposed, every time.
Bill would have a quiet victory party, and then head off to bed.
The next day, back to work, catching dogs.
His benefactors delivered the goods: food, litter.
Way, way overpriced.
Aren’t kickbacks great?
Weekly Challenge #526 – Flight
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
Flight Risk
By Christopher Munroe
Your Honor, I assure you, I’m not a flight risk.
Unless called upon to land the plane, which would be risky indeed.
I’m not a pilot, after all, I’ve never flown a plane in my life, and not for nothing I’m terrible in a crisis.
That’s why, should something hypothetically happen to the Pilot, it would assuredly not be me taking over in the cockpit.
What?
Of course, Your Honor, I also won’t be in a plane in the first place, because I absolutely won’t leave the country the moment this hearing is over.
Because I’m not a flight risk.
JEFFREY
The Customer is Not Always Right
by Jeffrey Fischer
Phil placed the bar menu in front of the customer, who asked, “Tell me about the Scotch flight.”
“It’s three half-ounce pours of single-malt Scotch, starting with the 12-year-old Glenfiddich, a light, almost floral whisky; then a Highland Park, another 12-year-old, with strong oak notes; and, finally, the Laphroaig 10-year-old, a peaty island malt with a very distinctive ocean character. Would you like to order the flight?”
The customer thought for a moment. “Nah. Just give me a Bud Light.”
It was moments like this for which Phil appreciated his strong impulse control, or otherwise he would have slugged the customer.
Takeoff
by Jeffrey Fischer
I inwardly groaned when the big man sat next to me, in the middle seat. He wore a beater undershirt and I could see sweat accumulating on his hairy arms. On takeoff, he gripped the arm rests so tightly his fingers gouged holes in the vinyl. When the flight attendant came by, he asked for two vodkas and downed both quickly. This caused him to sweat even more, but I could see some of the tension disappear.
“It’s my first flight,” he told me, apologetically. “I know I look like a mess, but I’m scared shitless.” I asked him what he did for a living. “I’m in the repo business.” He saw my expression. “Yeah, I know. I take cars away from angry people but I’m afraid of sitting in a metal can at 30,000 feet.”
I told him, “Let me buy you another vodka.”
RICHARD
#1 – Pockets
As an effective means of flight from immediate danger, the hobbit’s efforts had been spectacularly unsuccessful. When he finally came round it was with a throbbing headache and bruised face, and the certain knowledge that he really was in trouble now.
He sensed the creature whose cave he shared was very close by, and his groans signalling his return to consciousness prompted his tormentor’s renewed interest.
“So, is it going to tell us what it has in its pockets… Or must we see for ourselves?”
In the darkness, Boggins felt the disturbing touch of leathery fingers scrabbling at his tunic.
#2 – Flight
The weather was foul – so bad, in fact, that most flights had been cancelled.
My travelling companion was not amused. Hardly a happy flyer at the best of times, she’d turned into a nervous wreck during the wait for our gate to open.
“Please don’t worry”, I reassured her, “Flying is one of the safest forms of travel there is.
“What do you know?” she replied, “I’d rather hear it from an expert!”
Once onboard, I beckoned to the flight attendant… “For my companion’s peace of mind, just how often do these planes crash?”
“Only once!” she said, winking.
CHARLIE
The magic of flight intrigued my family. We all had licenses. I had my license while I was in high school. I used to take my dates for a tour, and make a point to fly over my date’s house so she could take some photos of her house and yard. It made an impression, and I was popular with the girls. If I was going steady and the girl cheated on me or broke up with me, I’d make it a point to drop some nasty substances on her house or in the family pool during a night flight.
#2
My wife took flight as soon after discovering some things about me. She came home early and found me sprawled, asleep, on the bed, naked from the waist down, with the vibrator still clutched in my right hand, and her antique, Raggedy Anne doll in my left. I had used the vibrator to pleasure myself, and dozed off. She pretended she hadn’t seen anything, awakening me from the other room by calling out. I discovered that she had packed and was gone when I came home the following day, leaving a note that mentioned “perversion and unfaithfulness…employing a mechanical device”.
#3
Former President Bill Clinton was a frequent flyer on Jeffrey Epstein’s jet. Epstein is a registered sex offender. Clinton took at least 26 trips aboard the “Lolita Express”, a 727. Epstein allegedly had a team of traffickers who procured girls as young as 12 to service his friends on “Orgy Island,” an estate on his 72-acre island in the U.S. Virgin Islands. Flight logs show Clinton flying aboard Epstein’s plane to such destinations as Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore, China, Brunei, London, New York, the Azores, Russia and Africa. What does a creepy guy like Bill Clinton do on these trips?
SERENDIPITY
It’s the most basic animal instinct… Fight or flight – and, to make the wrong decision could literally mean life or death.
For most, that decision is taken entirely out of their hands: it’s a primal, reflex action that happens in a split second at that critical moment when life hangs in the balance.
At least, that’s how it’s supposed to work.
Because instinct isn’t going to save you when you come face to face with me.
Fight, flight, whatever you choose, it’s not going to save you. I’m stronger, faster and my primal instinct is far superior to yours.
LIZZIE
Cramped in their seats, no one moved. No one could move. The flights had become sheer torture. The number of seats increased but no one complained because the prices were irresistible. When the row started at the back, no one gave it much thought. It was only understandable. When the frantic voice of the stewardess asked people to remain seated, no one reacted. When a clearly tense captain announced an emergency landing, most were relieved. When the emergency crews arrived, the biggest piece to be found was the size of a handbag. Dirt cheap, said the flight advertisement. So true.
TOM
UP
Bill and Jack had procured a number of weather balloons from advertisements in the back of Bat Man comics, issue 257 to 265. Getting the canisters of Hydrogen and Helium prove a bit more dicey. Some Midnight requisitioning was employed. They justified the theft under the banner of greater good. They strapped two lawn chairs back to back with a monster amount of duct tape. They got their cool Uncle Frank to haul their airship out to the high desert. The flight was supposed last two hours. The thing finally came down three day later. Their parent seriously ground them.
NORVAL JOE
Mickey wrinkled his nose at the girl’s blood covered hand and asked, “Were you in a fight?”
She frowned and said, “I think I’ve missed my flight.”
“Why. Were you going somewhere?”
“That’s something I shouldn’t share.”
Frustrated, Mickey asked, “Do you always speak in ryhme?”
She laughed. “Don’t you have the time?”
“Stop this. It makes me think you’re crazy,” Mickey gasped.
“Okay,” she said. “I think I should probably go to the hospital.”
“I work across the street. I’ll see if I can borrow my manager’s car.”
“I’ll try to walk, if it’s not to far.”
She winked.
TURA
Flight
———
“We’re flying out from JFK this Sunday,” I said to my friend Fred.
He froze. “Which flight?”
“Early, 05:45 I think.”
“Don’t be on that flight,” he whispered urgently.
Fred worked in avionics. “You mean,” I said slowly, “like that Egyptian flight that crashed into the Mediterranean?”
“Avionics is pwned,” he said. “China can press a ‘SMITE!’ button and a plane crashes. Russia too. We’re playing catch-up, too many here think it’s a bad thing.”
“This is a civilian flight to Europe. Since when was the Atlantic a war zone?”
“Test run on an easy target,” he said. “Catch-up, remember?”
PLANET Z
The fight or flight reflex is a powerful one in my family.
We’re all cowards. There’s nothing that doesn’t scare the bejesus out of us.
Loud noises. Flashing lights.
We’ll even flee at the drop of a hat.
Really. If you dropped a hat, I’d be running away.
Any time someone drops a hat, it’s a mad rush out of the room.
Even Grampa Wally, and he’s got a wooden leg.
We’re not sure which leg is wooden, because both look kind of nasty.
We make him wear a blanket in his lap so as not to scare the children.
Penmanship
Fred always got high marks for penmanship. And nothing else. So, he never got into college, let alone earn a high school diploma.
That’s when he had the idea to kidnap. He figured one or two a year would net him a decent living.
The first was easy, until they got the ransom note.
“This is stunning penmanship!” said the hostage’s wife. And she had it framed.
He sent more ransom notes, and they got auctioned at Christine’s for a fortune. “Send more!” said the hostage’s wife.
Fred cut off the guy’s ear.
“That’s worthless!” said the hostage’s wife angrily.
Crowns
In the Kingdom Of Brand, everybody wears a crown except for the king.
Brand is a fairly wealthy region, with many productive gold and silver mines.
Since coins are fairly useless in a rich country, people turned all the excess precious metal into crowns.
At first, the king commissioned a bigger crown, but everybody wanted bigger crowns, too.
Pretty soon, everybody’s neck and back were sore.
The wise king took off his crown, and he never put it back on again.
As for everybody else, well, they’re just stupid.
And bald. So, to cover up their heads, they wear crowns.
Colonists
The colony ship dropped the nanobot construction pods and waited.
The nanobots would send signals when the atmosphere was ready for the first round of organic seeding.
After laying down the bacteria and plant life, a few test species would be released.
If they survived and thrived, then a carefully-planned set of predator-prey relationships.
Finally, the handpicked colonists would be thawed out and sent down.
Yes, the land shaped up nicely. And life thrived.
But instead of reviving the colonists, the colony ship was boosted into the sun.
“You’re not wrecking this place again,” said the nanobots. “Earth is ours.”
Stars in the sky
It has been a long time since I last went to the planetarium.
I remember going to the planetarium when I was growing up in Chicago.
I always wondered why there were so many more stars inside the planetarium as opposed to the actual night sky.
“Light pollution,” said my grandmother. “Too many lights.”
Nowadays, the planetarium does a lot less science, and a lot more rock and roll laser light-shows.
The audience is made up of stoners and kids dropping acid.
“Puff puff pass,” says my grandmother’s ghost, reaching for a joint. “Didn’t your mother teach you to share?”
God Hates
Whenever I see a sign that says “God hates” I ask “Why did God create that thing in the first place? And if God hates it so much, why doesn’t this God dude do something about it himself? What, is this God guy some kind of coward? Or wuss? What kind of asshole does that kind of shit?”
It’s not God that hates that thing. It’s you. You hate it.
So, let’s change that sign from “God hates” to “I hate”
Here, hand it to me.
Aaaaaaaaaaand done.
Now bend over so I can shove this sign up your ass.
Better here
When I feel down about things at work, I have to remind myself that things are much better here than anywhere else I’ve worked.
This isn’t the fucking public TV station, threatening to take muppets away from kids if you don’t pay up.
This isn’t the fucking news TV station, polluting the airwaves with sensationalist bullshit in between the commercials.
This isn’t the fucking webhosting company, treating broken freaks and geeks like slaves so they can host porn, jihad, and stolen music and movies.
“This is better,” I tell myself. “We are better than that.”
And, thankfully, I believe it.
Weekly Challenge #525 – Out of my brain
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
The Human Brain
By Christopher Munroe
This sentence came out of my brain.
So did this one.
That’s weird, right? I mean, it’s just a lump of meat, maybe three pounds or so, yet everything we are and everything we’ll ever be is contained there. Just bobbing around, inside our skulls, behind our faces, a little scrunched-up looking thing from which we build an identity, from which we pull words, sentences, language, stories, ideas…
I mean, not necessarily good ideas.
This one, for example, doesn’t make a lot of sense, but ideas.
We don’t appreciate our brains enough, I think.
They do so much for us…
JEFFREY
5:15
by Jeffrey Fischer
Four fifty-seven p.m.: time to leave the office. Planning the evening commute required split-second timing. Four minutes to the garage, another two to exit the garage, 12 minutes on the surface streets, though this depended a bit on catching the lights just right, and onto the expressway by 5:15. Traffic was building; in another few minutes the road would be impassable. Leaving those three minutes before the hour made all the difference.
Five-fifteen: into the traffic flow, his job was now out of his mind. He punched several buttons and the opening sounds of Quadrophenia filled the car.
Moving in Stereo
by Jeffrey Fischer
I looked down at my body on the operating table. I had read about out-of-body experiences, but I never expected one myself. I watched the respirator move up and down, breathing for me as my body remained unconscious.
I was jolted back to reality by a high-pitched squeal. The monitors flashed an alert and medical personnel scurried to find and resolve the problem, to no avail. Well, that was it for me, I supposed. I was dead. Nothing more to see in this grim room, so I tried to leave. Uh-oh. With growing dismay, it began to sink in that I might be stuck in here for a long time.
CHARLIE
I have psoriasis. Consequently the internal ear is dry and itchy. Fish oil, Vaseline, goose grease, schmaltz, and other moisturizers don’t work. I am digging into my earholes frequently with old Popsicle sticks, paperclips, and twigs. Last Saturday, I was doing some excavation work on my earholes and I inadvertently sneezed and farted concurrently. Consequently, the Popsicle stick was rammed into my ear and I heard a loud pop and my right side went limp. I yanked the stick out, and some orangey, pink jelly covered the end of the stick. It was something out of my brain, I’m sure.
#2
It’s fun to open up your document, release your inhibitions, and let the words flow. The stories that come out of my brain each week often surprise and shock me. If I didn’t know me better, I’d say I was nuts. I am a thin, confused, M to F transgender individual these days, but I am holding on to my netherrod, hoping to find a high bidder when I’m ready for my lower surgery. They tell me I will have a lot left over when they do the surgery, so I’m putting an ad on Craig’s list for a buyer.
#3
He was yelling and pointing in front of Safeway. No one was there. He was out of his mind, or his brain, I suppose. He mumbled something about acid, and I offered help, so I approached him, walking backwards towards him, and sticking two pencils up my nose as I did. When I reached him, I spun around quickly and started singing “I am the Walrus, Goo goo g’ joob Goo Goo Goo g’ joob.” His eyes popped out of his head and he ran screaming into the bushes behind the store. I did my good deed for the day.
RICHARD
Zzzzzzzzzz
Have you ever had one of those nights when you just can’t sleep?
You lie there, thoughts constantly buzzing around your head, whilst you become ever more frustrated with your complete inability to get some sleep.
The more you try to empty your mind, the worse it is. You constantly find yourself recapping the day’s events… They fill your mind – a neverending distraction from the one thing you crave more than anything else…
The blessed relief of sleep!
Then, finally reaching your wit’s end, you sit up, sheets in complete disarray and desperately cry…
“Get out of my brain!”
SERENDIPITY
After the explosion, it was touch and go whether I’d live, but – thanks to a genius surgeon, and the wonders of modern medicine – I survived.
Of course, having half a pound of assorted shrapnel and metal shards pulled out of my brain, even by a genius surgeon, was always going to have some unforeseen consequences.
Nothing significant, just occasional mild insanity.
Personally, I think it’s been the making of me, and looking on the bright side, when the worst happens you can rest assured that it’s not going to bother me at all…
Although…
It might bother you!
—
LIZZIE
The roads were littered with metal scraps. The food was scarce. No one dared say a word. The real problem was none of this; it was the compulsory pea-sized contraption. Then, they went back home and all the brains on Earth were placed in suspended mode, our bio energy being sucked away, long-distance. When they returned for a check-up, I was part of the test sample. I hid, and jabbed my eye to get them out of my brain. I lost an eye but they never saw me again. More have done it too. We’ll get Earth back, one day.
TOM
Oh No!
Murray had a habit of saying the most unappropriated thing at the precisely the most optimum moment. “It just came out of his brain, “his sister Ann would say “It was like the tin-foil was just strengthening the signals from Planet Murray. No one wanted to sit next to Murray at a family funeral. Visits to sick relatives often ending with 911 calls. During his wedding to Laura there was brisk wagering on how long it would take him to fuck it up. To everyone’s surprise and loss Murray just stayed in his brain with the help of his heart
NORVAL JOE
The auditorium was too dark to determine the nature of the body between the rows of seats. Male, female, young, old, dead or alive.
Mickey climbed down from the seats and knelt by the unmoving body.
“Oooh, oooh? Are you okay?” he asked, pulling lightly on a strand of hair.
She groaned and shook her head, pulled herself to her knees, and onto one of the seats.
“I’m Mickey. Who are you and what happened?”
“I’m, um, shoot. I know it, but it slipped out of my brain.” She rubbed her head and pulled her hand away, covered with blood.
TURA
Out Of My Brain
———
After a long rehabilitation, I visited the scientific team to see the tumour the surgeon had cut out of my brain.
I’d volunteered for the experiment. The neuroma had to come out anyway, so I’d donated the tissue to the project. It had been grown to fill a tank dominating the room, surrounded by tubes and machines.
“Penrose was right about quantum neural computation,” said the project leader. “This thing thinks faster than anything before. We’ve just completed the speech and hearing interfaces.”
“You can talk to it? What does it say?”
“MO-O-O-O-RRE BRAIINNZZZ!!” replied the brain in the vat.
PLANET Z
Apple, Microsoft, Google, and Amazon formed a partnership for the ultimate online product.
mybrain dot com was a computer-human interface. It would allow instant learning, store memory backups, and so much more.
And they gave it away for free.
Government regulators went completely ape-shit over it.
Until the four companies declared war on anyone that opposed their efforts.
Millions of bureaucrats, protesters, and religious officials discovered their email and data had vanished.
The hypocrites among the opposition who used free mybrain units all died in their sleep.
Massive cerebral hemorrhages.
Everyone else instantly learned not to oppose the new masters.