The 100 Word Stories Podcast

Welcome to the 100 Word Stories podcast at oneadayuntilthedayidie.com.

This is 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
• Charlie
• Richard
• Lizzie
• Serendipity
• Marsha
• Zackmann
• Tom
• Anima
• Norval Joe
• Tura Brezoianu
• Planet Z

MUNSI

My Favorite Card Trick

By Christopher Munroe

Shuffle the cards, and make sure they’re shuffled well. Allow others to shuffle, if anyone would like, it makes no difference.

Once the deck’s randomized to everyone’s satisfaction, have somebody pick a card, not show it to you, and put it in their pocket.

Then look that person in the eye and, in a calm, steady voice, ask: “Is your card the queen of clubs?”

One time in fifty-two, this trick CRUSHES, people I did it for years ago STILL wonder how I pulled it off.

I tell them I’m an actual sorcerer.

There are times when they believe me…

JEFFREY

Reading the Future
by Jeffrey Fischer

Madame Zathras turned over five cards from her private Tarot deck. Beth watched in fascination as the reader explained, “First card: two rocks. Misfortune looms before you. Second: pencil stub. You will have a short life. Third: eyeglasses. Misfortune will be the result of one who does not see well. Next card: bleeding heart. Your husband will miss you terribly. Last card: blind man. You are skeptical of my predictions.”

Skepticism didn’t come close to what Beth thought. She mainly regretted the $25 she had given this fraud. Nodding to Madame Zathras, she left the shop, banging the door behind her. Still angry, she stepped off the curb and into the path of a Metro bus, whose driver was texting and failed to see Beth.

Madame Zathras was wrong in one respect: Beth’s husband was not particularly upset.

Indecision
by Jeffrey Fischer

“I just can’t decide,” said Stanley. “Maybe Ozzie Smith, the ‘Wizard of Oz.’ You know he won an amazing 13 Gold Gloves?”

“Uh-huh. Good choice.” The day was drawing to a close, and the dealer was getting tired. One more sale and he’d be on his way.

“No, wait. How about the amazing Rogers Hornsby. Lifetime .358 batting average, two Triple Crowns, the only player to hit 40 home runs and bat above .400 in a season. Or Bob Gibson, with his 1.12 ERA in 1968. Or my namesake, Stan Musial, with a .331 lifetime average over twenty-three seasons. Or Lou Brock and his 938 stolen bases.”

“All great choices, kid, but I ain’t got all day. Just pick a Card, any Card.”

CHARLIE

I shuffled the deck and asked one of the guests to pick a card. A woman pulled a card from the middle of the deck and held it close for a moment, setting it down on the table. It burst into flames and the ash and smoke lifted up a few feet, and in a split second, vanished. The flame was the trick. I asked if anyone had taken a picture or was filming during the trick. No one had. What person or force had caused the flame and the total absence of ash or residue? The maid laughed aloud.

##

I am a jack of all trades, a bit of a showoff, and a self-taught pilot, inventor, poet and astronomer. I carry six different business cards wherever I go. When I am engaged in a conversation, and it’s time to leave, many ask for my card because I am so frigging fascinating. I pull out my packet of cards and ask them to pick a card…any card. Cards list one of my six, different occupations. The cards include all the basic information, including my hourly rate. I am not affordable, and don’t like to be bothered, excluding Goth women.

RICHARD

Cynic

Call me cynical, but commercialisation of every notable occasion is getting out of control.

It used to be that we only celebrated birthdays, weddings and Christmas. Now it seems anything Is fair game… ‘Grandparents Day’, ‘Congratulations on getting the sack’, ‘Best of luck with your bankruptcy’ – if there’s an occasion that can possibly be marked, Moonpig has you covered – and you dare not forget to send a card.

Personally, I no longer try to conform, I just pick a card – any card, and whatever it is, I send it.

So, Happy Persistent Vegetative State Day! Enjoy it!

LIZZIE

The seer spread the cards on the table.

“Pick a card… any card.”

The one Sophie picked said “Wind, Doll, Disgust”.

“Which deck is this?” asked Sophie.

“My own… You’ll die.”

Sophie was horrified. She had been told that seers never announced someone’s death like that.

“Stabbed.”

“What does that have to do with wind, doll and…?”

“Nothing.”

Annoyed, Sophie left.

A gust of wind dragged a naked, headless doll to Sophie’s feet; it was covered in blood. She stopped to kick it out of her way and… a piano fell on her head.

Yep, the seer was still learning.

SERENDIPITY

Is lady luck smiling on you today?

Go on, pick a card, any card, and don’t tell me what it is.

Not that it really matters what card you’re holding – you see, I’m the dealer, and the odds are firmly in my favour.

How about we raise the stakes a little – are you willing to bet your life on that hand you’re holding?

Now, let’s see your cards.

Impressive. But I still win.

You see, not only was the deck loaded, but so is the pistol pointing straight at you, that I had hidden underneath the card table.

MARSHA

GYPSY

Every year I went to the carnival that came to town. I entered a small battered tent that read “Madame Sophia”, your heart’s delight will be revealed. A dark haired beauty stared at me and said it would $20. She laid ten cards face down on the table and asked me to take a card…any card…..I awoke 3 days later in an alley outside of town with a tattoo on my penis that says Shorty’s. When erect it says Shorty’s Truck Stop, Chattanooga Tennessee.

ZACKMANN

After Cliff said “If you people keep linking to things on Pinterest, I’m going to have to sign up for it.” I actually lemented Pinterest’s steps toward Facebookafication. Changing their website to require signing in to see posts. My current Pinterest Board is a sportball Board maybe I will start with that one city, Defiance or whatever it’s called. You know the one with giant silver half a McDonald’s sign. I don’t really follow much sportsball but want to Pin a profile of one important player for each sportsball team. What I am saying is “Pick a Cardinal any Card.”

TOM

Now you see it, now you don’t

Frankie double fanned the black dagger desk and lowered it level to Laura’s eye line. “Pick a card any card,” he said. Laura ran upstairs and dragged a stool under dad’s dresser. She dug around the top draw until she felt the edge of the card. “Here.” She said. “That’s not part of the trick,” said Frankie. “Is now,” said his sister “Don’t you dare,” yelled Frankie. “Ecto Morta, Esto ProMorta,” invoked Laura. Later that evening just about supper time Mom asked her if she had seen her brother. “Oh I saw him hop off in search of carrots.”

ANIMA

EVER THE OPTOMIST

My life is a game three card Monte. How does that damn one eyed Jack always show up where the red queen just was?

Lady Luck, why have you forsaken me? I put my five dollars down, and you sent me to a second rate college. I upped my bet, and got a job as a Lifestyle editor at a newspaper. I doubled down, when I thought I had enough in my 401K, but the shill called out “Cops!” and the stock market tanked.

So pick a card, any card, Is the lovey Judith going to show her face today??

NORVAL JOE

A stoop shouldered fortune teller limped through the crowded fair.

“One copper to reveal your future,” she cried in a crackling falsetto.

A gaily dressed lord approached the crone, winked at the lady holding his arm, and said, “Here’s a copper. Now, reveal my future.”

She thrust a tattered deck of cards at the man. “Pick a card. Any card.”

He chose and turned the card. “Ace of spades. Am I to die?” He laughed, slapping the deck from her hand, revealing all as ace of spades.

“Yes.” She gathered her cards as the man dropped dead at her feet.

TURA

Pick a card … any card!

———

“This is a nice card, don’t you think?”

“Goodness, no! It’s a misch-masch of Christmassy imagery, without composition or draughtsmanship. Your aunt will think we have no taste at all!”

“What about this one? Old Master fine art!”

“On a Christmas card? The very definition of kitsch. Anyway, it’s an inch too large. Remember, I hardly know her, and this would be slightly too much even for my own aunt.”

“This one?”

“Too eclectic. There’s symbols for at least four different religions!”

“Darling, we’ve been looking at Christmas cards for three hours.”

“Oh, just pick a card then. Any card!”

———

PLANET Z

The first card game I learned to play was War.

Deal out the cards, then show one card after another.

Highest card wins.

There wasn’t any skill to it. Unless you counted stacking the deck so you got all the aces.

Eventually, I learned Solitaire, Gin, Poker, Eurchre, Bridge, and so many other games.

Plus, Liar’s Poker and countless drinking games.

At my first job, I went back to War.

We’d collect everyone’s business card, and whoever you’d think would win an argument, won the matchup.

The owner of the company learned about the game, and he tore up my card.

Welcome to the 100 Word Stories podcast at oneadayuntilthedayidie.com.

This is 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
• Charlie
• Jeffrey
• Richard
• Lizzie
• Tura Brezoianu
• Serendipity
• Tom
• Norval Joe
• Planet Z

MUNSI

On Cosplay
By Christopher Munroe

I love Hellraiser, but I’ll never cosplay Pinhead.

A fact that at times does hurt my heart.

I’d like to, either for Horror-Con, Halloween, or just out at my local gothic nightclub, but I won’t. The costume’s too elaborate, even if I COULD afford it I’m not good enough at makeup and prosthetics to get the look right.

And a character that iconic you do have to get right.

So no, sad though it makes me, I’ll never cosplay Pinhead. It’s not the end of the world…

After all, I’m pretty sure I could pull off Chucky like a boss.

CHARLIE

Pinned down by enemy as tough words in letters to the editor appeared during the time we tried to convince them that the new building housing the city offices was atrocious — looking like a large freighter on its side in dry dock. Twelve million was spent on this atrocity. No “architecture” in the architecture…no style…no panache, no departure from the mundane. The color palette they chose for the paint and trim was reminiscent of hotel facades in San Francisco in the sixties. City fathers puffed out their chests the first weeks of occupation. Deflation ensued in the following weeks.

2nd

You put up too many pictures on your wall, Fred. You have pictures covering pictures. You used roofing nails instead of pins or tape. I like most of the pictures, but some of them are…shall we say…vulgar? Why did you put that picture of a scrotum on the wall? Whose scrotum is that, anyway? Is that a human scrotum? Oh. I’m sorry. That’s a picture of that nutjob that’s running for president. Where did you get that, Fred? Was that from the novelty store, or did you find that on line? How much did a poster of Donald Trump cost?

3rd

Pin point pupils. Skin flushed and itching. He was higher than a kite on opiates, and he was only ten. I had four others like him in my classroom. I agreed to teach at the private school because of the loss of the math teacher in the middle of the semester. She had been arrested for consorting with pupils in her ethics class. It was a progressive, Quaker school in Maryland. The principal was a tyrant, and worked weekends as a dominatrix. It was the best job I ever had, and provided tons of material for short stories and essays.

JEFFREY

Pin Money
by Jeffrey Fischer

The taxi dropped off Caroline at a strip mall on the sketchy side of town. It was Monday morning, which meant Bob had left Caroline’s pin money for the week on the counter. She wasn’t sure how it had come to this. Before they married, Caroline had a decent job and could take care of herself. After she married Bob, he convinced her to quit her job and move to this lousy town where she knew no one. He then provided her with a small amount of cash every week for her to “go wild,” as he put it. It was humiliating.

She had been saving up that pin money for several months, and she was ready to go wild. She entered the gun shop and smiled at the guy behind the counter, pointing at the Smith and Wesson .38 Special. “Do you give a discount for cash?”

Quiet Neighborhood
by Jeffrey Fischer

The neighborhood was noisy at night, with drunks coming home from the bars, kids playing outside, horns honking a steady beat. But it was peaceful in the late morning, a time when Yusef found he could work without interruption.

In fact, it was so quiet in the little apartment that one could hear a pin drop. Unfortunately for Yusef, that pin belonged to a hand grenade, one of several he had recently acquired. As the seconds ticked by, his hand frantically swept the floor, to and fro, hoping to find the pin so he could replace it in time. How long was the fuse in one of those things anyway?

Aha! he exclaimed. There it was, just a few feet away…

RICHARD

Party animal

As a child, I was never one for going to parties. It’s not that I didn’t like jelly and ice cream and dressing up, I even liked clowns!

However there was one thing about parties that terrified me… party games, and there was one game in particular that lay at the root of all my fears:

Pin the tail on the donkey!

A simple, inoffensive parlour game you might think, but not so when you have well meaning, but misguided parents.

And, if you’ve ever tried sticking a pin into a real donkey’s arse, you’ll know exactly what I mean!

LIZZIE

The young reporter was nervous.

“They pinned it on me, the bastards,” said the prisoner. “I was there, but I didn’t see anything. I didn’t do anything. I swear on my mother’s grave. I tried to explain how things happened, but they didn’t care. They wanted a scapegoat. Yeah, that’s right. So, here I am. The bastards pinned it on me.”

Years later, while reviewing old cases, the reporter found the photo they had published back then. Readers always enjoyed reading about familiar faces of the past. So, he decided to interview the prisoner’s mother, who was still very alive.

TURA

Pin
———
Voodoo is too mired in tradition. Everyone insists on sticking silver pins into the doll, but it’s always worth experimenting, or how will the art develop?

With modern technology, you can make pins of diamond fibre. The target dies of epileptic seizures, which I wasn’t expecting! Pins of enriched uranium bloat the target with radiation cancers. But rather difficult to get hold of. My latest idea is to manipulate the instruments under liquid nitrogen and make the pins of high temperature superconductors.

Calm down and stop struggling, it disturbs the measurements. Now, what do you feel when I do THIS?

SERENDIPITY

Always clean up after yourself – that’s what my parents taught me from an early age, and it’s a lesson that I’ve never forgotten.

Which is why, after every job, when others would run away and hide, you’d always find me taking that extra moment to tidy up, clear away and spend some time checking I’ve left nothing behind that might give me away.

I’ve learned that to rush away from a crime scene is to invite disaster – always take the time to clean up.

Try all you like, but you’ll never be able to pin it on me.

TOM

It Was A Simpler Time

There was a time in America when courtship was signified by a series of tokens which marked the passage from initial meeting to matrimony. When one committed to “going steady” one would give their girl a pin. The costume was oddly known as “pinning.” When things got a bit more serious a Lavalier was giving, yup it was call Lavaliering, and beer, vomit, kissing and abduction played an important role. An engagement ring followed by a wedding ring would round out the collection. In the age of the Hook-Up this all must seem quite amusing to the millennials

NORVAL JOE

An automated voice spoke from below a keypad in the door.
“To access this function you must establish a personal identification number of 8 to 26 characters.”
Dergle entered, 12345678.
“Your PIN must include upper and lower case letters.”
Dergle entered A12345678z.
“Your PIN may not include more than four consecutive numbers in a row.”
Dergle entered, A12348765z.
“You must use at least two special characters which do not include, @, &, or #.
Dergle added, $ and %, to the existing string.
“Please re-enter for security reasons.”
Dergle entered $A12348765z%.
“That is correct. You may now access the restroom.”

PLANET Z

When Parker was born, his parents gave him a map.

“You can use this to track all of the places you travel to in your life,” they said through the glass of the incubator.

Parker, full of tubes and surrounded by wires, struggled to breathe.

After three days, his parents agreed to pull the plug.

Despite the initial setback, Parker’s map accumulated many pins.

His parents carried his plastic-encased corpse all over the world.

Oh, sure, there were some strange looks from security personnel, but it was only a matter of a sufficiently-convincing bribe.

Plus, he’s a pretty good paperweight.