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

MUNSI

My Favorite Quote

By Christopher Munroe

Ridicule is nothing to be scared of.

It’s embroidered on the lining of my suit-jacket, and I try to live according to the line to the degree that I’m able.

It’s from an old Adam Ant song, and while the source isn’t the most dignified to admit to, that doesn’t worry me. I have, after all, learned the lesson of the song well…

I live life free of fear of ridicule, as best I can. Always, and in all ways.

A point, based on how ridiculous you’ve seen me so willingly make myself, with which I suspect that you’ll agree…

JEFFREY

Exam Day
by Jeffrey Fischer

Tyler woke and realized this was the day of his big history exam. He was utterly unprepared. This will be a disaster, he thought. Sure enough, he couldn’t begin to answer many of the questions. However, he was confident he had done enough to pass the course.

When grades came out, Tyler received an F in the course along with a note that reminded him he would be re-taking the same course next year. He made an appointment to see his history teacher to beg for another chance.

Miss Fitzgerald wouldn’t budge. “As we learned from Santayana, ‘Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.’ See you next year.”

Tyler consoled himself with the thought that perhaps he, too, could become a famous guitarist like Carlos Santana.

For the Gipper
by Jeffrey Fischer

Frank was on his third date with Caitlyn. The two had really hit it off after a mutual friend introduced them. She was an older woman with a masculine physique, but Frank was no youngster, and the two could talk for hours on any topic.

Dinner went well, and Frank felt bold enough to ask her to his place for a nightcap. To his delight, she accepted. As the couple waited for a cab, Frank placed a hand on her hip, then let the hand snake southward. Caitlyn smiled – right up to the moment he grabbed her crotch and squeezed.

“What was that for?” the woman angrily demanded.

“You moved like a lady but a guy can’t be too certain these days. As Reagan said, ‘Trust, but verify.'”

RICHARD

My Favourite Quote

My favourite quote hangs framed on the wall above my desk.

It’s not what you’d expect – no motivational words, stirring imagery or perceptive insights, in fact to read it you’ll have to move a bit closer. That’s when people get a little bemused: “It’s just an ordinary business document”, they say, “a quote for something or other”.

At that point, they usually get bored and don’t bother reading the small print.

Yes, it is just a quote – a quote for the sale of the web domain I owned, to Google:

alphabet.com: One hundred, million dollars.

And yes, they paid up!

CHARLIE

THREE, FAVORITE QUOTES:

“The pleasure is only momentary, and the position is ridiculous.” My old pal, D., had this to say about sexual coupling. He is right. For the amount of psychic energy and cost of a dinner and a show, the output is far more than the input. The formula: PE+D^2(S)=O-P proves my point. D. is English, and doesn’t say much, but he might have said: “”There are a number of mechanical devices which increase sexual arousal, particularly in women. Chief among these is the new Mercedes-Benz 380SL convertible.” , but this is attributed to P. J. O’Rourke, not to my friend.

Second

D. came into the family room. His wife, Maureen was drinking coffee and looking lovely. D. looked uncomfortable, and tugged at the fly front of his jeans. “Damn Hotel Covell pants. No ballroom. ” The Covell was a vintage,, small hotel in the center of town, and did not have room for a ballroom. This struck me such that I remember this quip to this day. His wife laughed so hard she spat out coffee. D., as always, had a slight smile on his face as he always did when he realized his impromptu, but clever joke, was a hit.

Third

“An abrupt beginning is much admired, after the fashion of the clown’s entry through the chemist’s window…then whack at your reader at once, hit him over the head with the sausages, brisk him up with the poker, bundle him into the wheelbarrow, and so carry him away with you before he knows where you are.” H. G. Wells gave this advice about writing an essay. Surely, it is filled with surreal imagery, but makes the point about a writing a strong essay or a tale you might find on these pages. I’d like to hit all my readers with sausages.

TOM

A very lame title: My favorite quote

My favorite quote actually is one my own. It isn’t a famous quote, because I’m not a famous sort of person. My quotes tend to be uninflected juxtapositions. Sort of wibbly wobbly timey wimey. They graze across the head more so then drill down deep. There’s: The faces remain the same only the names change. And: I’m not leaving the room is staying. But by far the one dew believe will get me listed in Bartlett’s is a play on an already well known quote concerning the nature and place of humankind in the universal order.

Tool the Man User.

LIZZIE

“He who has a why to live can bear almost any how.” He carried this quote in his wallet. The tiny piece of paper had been folded many times. It was so well hidden that he had completely forgotten about it. He married, had six children and worked hard to raise them. He lost his wife and many good friends. He now had 20 grandchildren and 7 great-grandchildren. At his death bed, his surviving daughter asked “How did you manage to do all you did, Dad?” That’s when he recalled the quote and replied “Look around. I had a why.”

SERENDIPITY

Roosevelt famously said: “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself – nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror”.

Well, Roosevelt was wrong… Fear is the very least of your worries – it’s what lies at the heart of that fear which should concern you: Peer into the darkness, lift the veil and there you will find me.

It is I that you should fear; and what I do that should provoke horror!

And, with understanding comes knowledge: fear does indeed have a name, it is reasoning, and your terror is completely justified.

The only thing you have to fear is…

Me!

TURA

Your favorite quote
———
Who said this?

“Love is the question. You are the answer.”

Gandhi? Mother Theresa? No, yours truly. The inspiring quotes you see online are mostly written by hacks like me.

“Life does not HAVE meaning, it IS meaning.”

“Your truest enemy is your truest friend.”

I sell these to greeting card publishers, self-help writers, and anyone wanting deep wisdom to decorate a web site.

Here’s my second favorite quote: “A mine of glistening jewels of insight, an enlightenment experience on every page.” That’s from the blurb for my latest book of quotations.

And my favorite? “Pay to the order of…”
———

NORVAL JOE

In 1997 the TV Guide awarded the 1975 episode of the Mary Tyler Moore show, “Chuckles Bites the Dust”, the #1 slot in their 100 Greatest Episodes of All Time.
Chuckles the Clown, the host of children’s programming on WJM-TV performed as several characters, one of whom was Peter Peanut. Dressed as such when acting as grand master of a circus parade, a rogue elephant attached and tried to shell him. He later died from his injuries.
Since that episode in 1975 I’ve adhered to Chuckles’s philosophy of, “A little song, a little dance, a little seltzer down your pants.”

Suggested prompt……..Don’t be a crybaby.

PLANET Z

Many years ago, a deranged candymaker muttered “So shines a good deed in a weary world” as he prepared to hand over his business to what he thought was a worthy successor.

A kid.
Okay, so he was an honest kid, but still, he was a kid.

A kid who had no idea how to run a business.
Suppliers, health inspections, labor disputes, and accounting meant nothing to him.

The chocolate factory went bust within a year. Everyone was ruined.

The candymaker’s arch-rival bought out the plant, automated everything, and hired Darrell Hammond to play the chocolatier in the commercials.

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:

• Tom
• Lizzie
• Munsi
• Jeffrey
• Richard
• Charlie
• Serendipity
• Zackmann
• Anima
• John Musico
• Norval Joe
• Tura Brezoianu
• Planet Z

TOM

Predicting the Near Future

I am a devotee of Faith Popcorn the muse of the future perfect. I am the future. I embrace the deeper currents in Vox populi. It’s a level above seeing around corners. You see around corner that haven’t been built yet. Not an easy job letting your feet lower into the void counting on the bridge being completed as you arrive. When you Fire, Ready, Aim the world isn’t just malleable it’s damn Quantum. I’m seeing musical theater as the next Zeitgeist. To that end I am embarking on a visionary production. A music version of the move SAW.

LIZZIE

The Saw House

The “event” was that day of the year when the black house demanded feeding. They tried small animals and big animals; these always came back unharmed. As revenge, the house would draw people in. They would simply disappear, only to be spit out in pieces throughout the next days. The town learned. They started with the “As”, moving on to the “Bs” the following year. It was terrifying for everyone; for everyone except for 101010010. His parents wanted to choose a name starting with an “R”. They couldn’t figure out which, so… He was extremely fond of his robot name.

MUNSI

Saw

By Christopher Munroe

I’d rather cut my own foot off than watch the movie Saw.

I’d crawl through broken glass, have my body torn in two by elaborate spring-loaded apparatus, wake up chained to the wall and helplessly watch time tick away as everyone I’ve ever loved is killed to avoid it.

I don’t want to watch that movie, is what I’m saying.

I hate it.

It’s the worst movie I ever “Saw.”

See what I did there? Do you get it?

It’s important to me that you get it.

But seriously, fuck that film.

Ah well.

At least it’s not fake found-footage…

JEFFREY

Magic Trick
by Jeffrey Fischer

“For my final feat, I shall saw this lady in half!” cried the magician. Rural audiences were fickle, but the “cut the lady in two” trick always brought down the house.

The trick went as planned, the magician’s assistant appeared to be divided, but the audience was oddly quiet. Finally, one old codger stood and shouted, “You didn’t saw the lady – that’s wrong!”

A second stood and agreed. “You *seen* the lady. Get it right, Mr. Magician.”

The first turned to the second. “Naw, that ain’t right, neither. He *done seen* the lady.” As they squabbled, the magician resolved never again to take a gig with a local chapter of the Pedants Club.

The Scientific Method
by Jeffrey Fischer

I’d heard the old saw that you can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar, so I suggested testing the proposition for my seventh grade science project. I placed a bowl of honey in one room of the house, placed a bowl of vinegar in another room, opened all the doors to the outside, and waited to see what would happen.

Every hour I would visit both rooms and carefully note the number of flies in each. In the first hour, I found two in each. Hour two: still two for vinegar, 27 for honey. Hour three: eight for vinegar, though I suspected several wandered from the honey room, 294 for honey, plus or minus a dozen on account of my forgetting my counting a couple of times. Hour four: maybe 15 in the vinegar room, thousands upon countless thousands in the honey room, and a painful spanking for me from my dad when he came home from work to a house full of flies.

CHARLIE

I saw what I wanted to see, and when I wanted to see it. When ready, I chose to open the visor and view what was before me. I could hear ambient sounds, filtered to an extent, and with focused receivers. I could navigate my environment using the sound alone. Last Saturday, there was a ruckus outside my front door. Some folks were arguing, swearing, and shaking their fists. I watched for two seconds, then closed the visor. I shut off the sound, turned on the display, and watched a cartoon, while people raged outside my door for two hours.

Second

My favorite old saw, one Jack Douglas coined, is to never trust a naked bus driver. I always volunteer this when anyone asks me for advice, regarding me as an “adult”, and a potential reservoir of wisdom. If you have any favorite old maxims, please post them here, or Tweet them. Folks will fall for anything, as attested to by the grunts and drivel of Hollywood flimflam artists, politicians, and people from England with lots of initials after their name. Another old saw is the worm drive, side-winder I have in the shop. I built a cedar shed with it.

SERENDIPITY

The old saw mill was perfect – abandoned, forgotten and away from prying eyes.

Although it did present some difficulties – I’m no expert, and it’s taken me a while to get everything running again. I hope you appreciate the effort I’ve made: It’s taken over a month just to sharpen the big circular saw… you wouldn’t want it blunt, would you?

You won’t feel a thing – I’ve thought of that too. Plenty of local anaesthetic, and you won’t even know when I remove your limbs.

There won’t be any pain. But, afterwards, you may feel a little sore!

ZACKMANN

“I saw you sister this morning and I think she might be irritated with me.” zack informed his wife.

“Why?”

“Well she came over for Miter Box I borrowed then I gave your niece cookies for breakfast.”

“Do you mean Cookie Crisp?”

“No, because the cereal vampyers drank the milk. Also because your sister is doing that whole natural foods thing and doesn’t want her daughter eating anything she can not pronounce. She could say oatmeal, flour, sugar, and eggs. I would have liked to have made her some hot oatmeal but it turns out she couldn’t say Dihydrogen Monoxide”

“I am sure I have cereal vampyres. What else would explain the disappearance of my milk right from my cereal bowl? Twice this week. I thought it might be the cat but it also happened when I used almond milk. I considered trying quinoa milk but remembered how it tastes with cereal then I feared that the vampyres wouldn’t show up that day. I told my wife I installed the mirror in the dining room to make the room look bigger. The cereal vampyers will think I can’t see the kitchen but I’ll be watching for them in the mirror.

ANIMA

THE ALCHEMIST

Robert hated his job as an alchemist. All the bitter failures. So what, if diet cola (with it’s new, better tasting formula) was not the elixir of life. Nothing ventured, nothing gained…

Last week Rob’s niece was visiting, and wouldn’t stop singing “Make new friends, but keep the old, some are silver, the other gold.” Hmmmm, Maybe it wasn’t base metals that should be turned to gold, but base people!

Tonight, his eyes glittered expectantly in the neon lights of the Dew Drop Inn. Rob pondered the old and new friends he was going to make… and designed new experiments…

JOHN MUSICO

# 100: I Saw the Golden Monkey

John plodded along on his old typewriter.
By far, the most challenging format for writers is the short story and of those; the “Drabble”; exactly 100 words.
Achieve that, and be the recipient of the prized Golden Monkey award. Deadline pressures stymied him at times into writer’s cramp only worsening the needed mindset to be creative. The weeks and months floated by, the image of the revered Monkey kept him going.
He had lost count so, one by one, he counted up his fruits of labor. Could it be? Yes, this is number one hundred- the Monkey was finally his.

NORVAL JOE

Rocky the squirrel saw it happen.
Natasha lured Bullwinkle out with a donut and Boris blew him up with a round, black bomb.
Social media judged the incident as reprehensible and flooded Yelp with one star reviews of the Russian Consulate. They plastered posters on the consulate’s gate that said, “Send them to Siberia” and “Die in the Salt Mines”.
Their vigilante cries for mob justice fell on deaf ears.
Boris said, “He was just moose and I am diplomat.”
The Russian couple mounted Bullwinkle’s head in their trophy room next to a small empty plaque that said, “Flying Squirrel”.

TURA

I saw the Devil
———
I went out to the woods one night
No goblins or bogeys can me affright
I looked for my cronies by the big oak tree
Then I saw the Devil and the Devil saw me.

“Yer mates have fled to their own front door”
says the Devil, “they’ll never have sleep no more”
So I spits in his eye and I says to he,
“You can scare off my mates but you won’t scare me.”

He showed me the tortures of hell fire to come
But I just laughed and the Devil was dumb
For the Devil looked within me and saw worse than he
When I saw the Devil and the Devil saw me.

PLANET Z

The prosecution’s case rested on a single eyewitness.
However, the defendant arranged to have a hit put out on that witness.
The witness survived, but they were blinded.
So, yes, the prosecution opened up with “Tell the court what you saw.” and everyone on the jury winced.
When the defense attorney began with “Is the prosecution seriously asking us to believe the eyewitness testimony of a blind person” the witness asked for them to speak a little louder.
“Why?” said the attorney. “You’re not deaf, too, are you?”
“It’ll help me aim,” they said.
And they shot the defense attorney.

Music: http://www.bensound.com/royalty-free-music