The 100 Word Stories Podcast

Welcome to the 100 Word Stories podcast at oneadayuntilthedayidie.com. I’m your host, Laurence Simon.

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.

The topic this week was BLANK:

And we’ve got stories by a lot of people:

• Thomas Pitre
• Jeffrey
• Lizzie
• Tom
• Tura Brezoianu
• Yordie
• Munsi
• Thomas N
• Serendipidy Haven
• Sam
• Steven
• Cliff – Uncle Monster
• Miata Stardust
• Caledonia
• Bonchance and Sevi
• Justin
• Danny
• Singh
• Norval Joe
• Zackmann
• Planet Z

The next 100 word stories weekly challenge is on the topic of OLD.

And if you want to spam your social networks with this episode, use the Share buttons at the end of the post… this obligatory cat photo should help make the Internet go faster:

---

THOMAS

Stanley’s mind was a blank. After two weeks of meditation, taking no food, and only sipping water, his mind was clear and thus so vacant that the natural operation of his brain that controlled breathing and movement had stalled to the point where all autonomic functions that sustained life had put him in jeopardy. His friend intervened, putting earphones on his head, and blasting Pink Floyd into his ears, while force-feeding him chili, shots of cinnamon whiskey and tickling him with a feather duster until Stanley’s mind exploded with stimuli and his breathing changed from life threatening to normal breathing.
#

Nick had no offspring. Nick shot blanks. A stuntman for a B film maker, he was responsible for weapons, explosions, and flames used in productions. When the set opened for a father and son day, Nick asked his brother, Don, if he could “borrow” his son to tour the studio, meet the actors, and help him do the set ups for a car chase and gun battle that was being filmed. Don’s son was quiet, but unknown to anyone, was the spawn of the devil, and intent on causing harm when the opportunity presented itself. You know what happened, right?
#
All the pages of TJ’s new book were left intentionally blank. Everything he had wanted to say, was already said in his other books and papers. The book, sold by Amazon, was intended as a novelty, but it soon jumped to number ten spot on the 2013, best seller list. People bought it and used it as a journal, or a notebook. Others put it in their bookcase or displayed it on their coffee table. The cover was made in China, of recycled automobile tires, and titled with gold embossing. Black, thick and malodorous, the books cried out to bibliophiles.
#
TJ’s next book contained blank verse. The first piece, dedicated to his lady friend, was his favorite:
By this morning sun, among red tulips
He stooped to pull weeds, and his knees cried out
Not up to the task, nor willing to submit
To more discomfort , for a glorious yard.

The book of mediocre verse sold one copy to his great Aunt in Waterbury. She had three of her Canasta Club members write fantastic reviews, and asked the congregation at Saint Luke’s if they would also write reviews that she would dictate to them. The author sold three more.
#

He was shot, point blank. Many have heard the phrase, but do not know that point blank is the distance between the gun and the target, such that the bullet in flight is expected to strike the target without adjusting the elevation of the firearm. If the assassin has to raise his pistol as little as one degree in order to strike the victim, it is no longer a point blank shot. Therefore, to avoid being shot point blank, it is recommended that you leap into the air as fast and as high as you can, as the hammer falls.
#
Joe’s assignment was to write a 100 word story using “blank” as the queue word. He wanted to please and impress his writing teacher and coach. He thought of a piece of metal used as a blank to form a car part, analytical blanks as it relates to chemistry, and the expression on a woman’s face when he complemented her on her shoes. He settled on writing more about his uneasiness when trying to engage a beautiful woman. His work as a Gynecologist in a woman’s prison had more to do with his lack of social prowess than anything else.

JEFFREY

Caroline
by Jeffrey Fischer

The first thing people tended to notice about Caroline, before the unkempt hair and jaundiced skin, was her blank stare. She gazed into infinity, not bothered by a visitor’s presence, not even acknowledging it.

Yet behind the unblinking eyes Caroline lived entire lives, free from the institution. She loved, married, bore children and raised them to adulthood, mourned the loss of loved ones. She grew old and died and was reborn, all this in an instant as she gazed impassively at the beige wall. She looked at nothing – and everything.

Shooting Blanks
by Jeffrey Fischer

The doctor looked at me kindly as he told me I was shooting blanks, that my wife and I could never have children, at least not the old-fashioned way.

When my wife could no longer hide her pregnancy, I was confused, then angry. I may be slow, but if I couldn’t knock her up, someone else must’ve done it for me.

When my son was born, the doctors did another test and said he was really mine. Those earlier tests were wrong, they said, or my stuff got better. That made me very happy. I apologized to my old lady for thinking she whored around on me. But I couldn’t stay long – just a few minutes at her grave then the guards took me back to prison.

LIZZIE

Blank Humans

“This is a nightmare,” the man sighed. “We all died. Some of us came back. So what?”
The woman sat in silence.
“Who’s your government source?” she asked, scratching the paint off the table.
“Frank.”
“A fool.”
“I’m afraid we are past that.”
“Just type it, then. Some of us will die again. No one will come back. There aren’t many of us left.”
“They’re…”
“Producing them, I know.”
He started typing – Project for Sector X75: Production of Artificial Humans – Top Secret.
“Were we ever really humans once?”
“Life’s not fair,” she said, the word “Alive” on the rusted table.

TOM

A vague recollection of a breakfast conversation with my beloved Anne connecting the name I saw with a chain of familial reference that lead to the realization that through law I was related to Mr. Poe, the author. In Ernest I repeated, was there need to summon a doctor? He took my hand. The fabric of his coat was thread bare and seemed ill fitting for a man of his station. “Give this to Lee,” he said, a gray shroud fell across his eyes. I tore a blank page from this very journal, hastily penned a note to Dr. Snodgrass.

TURA

I don’t actually know how to say my last name. After choosing it, I googled it. It’s Romanian. There’s a main street in Bucharest named for one Ion BREZoYAnu (or should that be breZOYnu?). He is famous for having a street named after him.

At first I read it as “BREzoYAnu”, but the other week, I thought of saying “breZOIanu”, which I quite like. Or maybe Romanians would squeeze it down to “brezWAnu”? Or “BREZwanu”?

I’ve googled up some Romanian tutorials, so I know what sounds the letters stand for, but as for the stress patterns, I’ve drawn a blank.

YORDIE

The Samurai’s Poem
by Yordie Sands

I approached the samurai seated in my teahouse. I bowed with respect, saying, “konnichiwa honorable sir.”

He looked at me with inquisitive eyes, unlike the blank stares of those warriors who engage in battle to feel alive.

He bowed and said, “Honorable lady, please sit by me. I’ll read the poem I wrote for you.”

If of love I die
then above my grave mound, dear
Yordie come and cry

I smiled and bowed to him.

I’d read many haiku and recognized the one he read to me. It was by the courtesan Oshu, except she didn’t use my name.

MUNSI

He was blank, of average height and average looks, favoring neutral hues in his clothes and uninteresting hairstyles.

He was friendly, personable, but never took a stand on any issue, never offered an opinion that was in the least bit out of the mainstream. He kept to small talk and platitudes, and listened more than he spoke.

Once he left a room everyone immediately forgot he’d ever been there.

He was invisible.

And it was only later that they realized their jewelry was missing, never making the connection to the fellow who’d been with their crowd but not of them…

THOMAS N

She sent me an apology tape. Our relationship began that way, with a mix tape. I declared my love through others’ poetry set to music, encased in plastic. Hundreds of tapes, each song carefully selected to send a message from my heart to hers, or vice-versa were the artifacts of our history. How to respond to this latest betrayal, and the apology? I should be depressed, relieved, angry, something. But I was just tired. I unwrapped the cassette, labeled it, and contemplated the eventual contents. I closed the box, addressed the envelope, and dropped the tape in the mail, blank.

SERENDIPITY

Turn on laptop and stare intently at the blank screen in front of you.

Chew fingernail reflectively.

Let attention wander; distractedly tidy desk. Stare intently through window.

Type for a moment – tippy-tap, tippy-tap.

Pause.

Backspace, backspace, backspace, delete.

Critically examine chewed fingernail. Chew into more pleasing shape.

Sigh.

Make coffee. Drink coffee.

Strengthen resolve… fingers poised over keys… brow furrowed with concentration.

Nothing happens.

Run hands through hair in frustration.

Stare, and stare, and stare at the blank screen, willing words to come.

But the words stay stubbornly silent.

There’s nothing today – my mind is a complete blank.

SAM

The sheriff stood facing the outlaw, hand poised over his pistol, ready to draw.

“When both y’all are ready, I’ll start counting,” said the impartial judge. Both men inclined their heads, in the barest suggestion of a nod.

“Ten, nine,” he counted, while sweat trickled down the sheriff’s brow.

“Two. One. Draw!”

Both men drew and fired but the outlaw was just a smidgen faster. Yet the sheriff stood, and the outlaw fell.

“What happened?” The judge exclaimed in amazement.

“He must have been shooting bl…. shooting blan….what’s the word?” Asked the sheriff.

“I don’t know. I’m drawing a blank.”

STEVEN THE NUCLEAR MAN

This isn’t a story.

You want purpose? You want some kind of reassurance that there is meaning?

There is no evidence that there is meaning. None.

Faith, maybe, but no evidence.

As far as we know, there’s just a huge, empty, terrifying blank. A vast nothing, throwing your brainstem into survival instinct protective recoil. It’s terrifying, no matter how many times you look at it.

You want to just give up. To give in to the nothing.

And then you get up. You go on. You do something awesome anyway.

Then it gains meaning.

Only then does it becomes story.

CLIFF

I’m not saying it was my idea. It wasn’t. I just asked a question, that’s all. It would just be nice to be in the footnotes somewhere, you know? You see, I was working with the boss on the big project. No one knew what the project really was. The boss didn’t like to explain himself, even back then. Problem was, you couldn’t even see the thing. It was just a big blank his studio. So, I said “Why is it so dark?”. That inspired the boss. He sat a moment and then said the words.
“LET THERE BE LIGHT!”

MIATA

This week, I’ve drawn a blank. So, here are some quotes…..enjoy.
“Writing is like surfing – it’s a challenge to stand on the board, but when you do, it’s a glorious ride.” – Sark
“A human being is nothing but a story with skin around it.” – Fred Allen
“Judge each day not by the harvest you reap, but by the seeds you have planted.”
– Robert Louis Stevenson
“If music be the food of love, Play on, play on, play on.” – Shakespeare
“Fire not only consumes; it purifies.” – Unknown
“Write a saying and your name will live forever.” – Anonymous

CALEDONIA

“It is a huge expanse of white, gaping emptiness. It could be so many things. It could not be so many things. How will I know? Fingers drum on the clean, white formica worktable. What is it? Hand sorts through the long clutch of wooden handles in the ancient Taco Bell mega-cup. What size? Digits dance over the bottles crammed into the oversized Christmas cookie tin whose lid is long gone. What color? Just make a choice! It doesn’t matter what. The only failure is the failure to engage. The brush poises over the surface. Contact: embracing the many possibilities.”

BONCHANCE AND SEVI

Ode to…

His name was Mr Cinnamon.
He loved to sing.

Lost among the crowd, yet within the throng,
lifted his head and began his song.

Without thought, the flock would open and part
the burdened would feel an uplifted heart.
His songs, each one, were simple and pure
and none could escape the magical allure

of the one who sang
the one who went
by an aromatic name.

He never rumbled.
Always humble.
Females preened and posed.
Offering needed repose.
His first name was always a blank,
He only wanted to do one thing.

His name was Mr Cinnamon
He loved to sing.

JUSTIN

A piece of paper, a blank slate. This is a character sheet for a role-playing game.

Formless, then with dice and a creative mind: life, an avatar into imaginative, fantastic worlds.

The person’s existence is like a character in a play, and only exists when the stage is set and the lights are on. But what will they be like?

The toss of the dice determine if they are strong or smart, and the imagination of the player determines how they will live. What choices they make.

Use wisdom, especially if they’re a mage. Use strength if they’re a fighter.

DANNY

Whenever I’m in public, I always wonder if I reek of alcohol. Whether others perceive my inebriation. My mind draws a blank. I walk down an empty hallway, then start cursing because the hallway never ends. “This isn’t a hallway,” I proclaim, “it’s a god damn treadmill! I grow tired of walking it!” I go to an open bar, stand with drink in hand, in a loud, crowded room. I’m the lonliest man on Earth. Yet I can go online, letting everyone literally walk through my brain. Then I’m at one with the world, yet that world is a delusion.

SINGH

The Tumult Cards

1.
Dante was always drawing Safe Passage and blank Time-Outs, until the first Tumult Card turned up. It brought real storms. Fresh tribulation. Ongoing trouble.

Last time, a car crash, then two cracked ribs. Before that, an obscure company posting – a banishment overseas. But this time, Dante was determined to crash and burn, or crash through and end this cycle of bad karma, or what ever psychological self-sabotage was going one. Three tumults in a row! Could he break the bad cycle?

Francine dealt. Dante turned his card over with trepidation and then, relief. It wasn’t ‘Tumult’. He’d drawn ‘Shadow’.

2.
The lights blew out.

“Francine,” Dante called. “Joe, Krystiana.” No answer. “Hey guys, this isn’t funny.”

But all he could hear was panting and growling in the shadows.

“Alright, I’m done. You win!”

There was the scratch of a match. Dante still couldn’t see much until the flame became a lit candelabra. He was shocked. A leopard, a lion and wolf were sitting around the table.

Their eyes narrowed about to pounce and rip.

Where was the door? No. He’d never make it.

There was only one thing left that he could do. He reached for the deck and drew ‘Paradise’.

3.
Paradise Beach is a heavenly place for a deckchair and a piña colada beside it on a bamboo table.

Composing a homily to sun and surf in his head, life seemed to have turned a corner since the last Tumult Card.

Not for long. The Three sprang from the palms transformed in swimwear. Leopard Girl dropped a porno DVD on his lap, Lion Man thrust a hand mirror before his face and Wolf Girl fanned the deck before him like credit cards. Choose, their glaring looks said. Why leave Paradise after just arriving? They glared. Reluctantly he flipped the Heart Card.

4.
Dante landed on a dance floor. The neon sign throbbed, ‘The Heart Club.’ The topless girl in leopard skin miniskirt danced up to him, eyeball to eyeball. He felt a chill, but couldn’t help grinding hips with her.

“Why am you here?” he asked.

“To be eaten by desire, Dante.”

Then he realised what the throbbing was. It was his heart. She dug in her red fingernails. Dante felt the moment of puncture, but couldn’t stanch the bleeding.

“Help!” He cried, coughing up arterial blood.

There was a Card tucked in her cleavage. He grabbed at it, desperate. It was ‘Giant’.

5.
Dante heard music coming from The Brobdingnagian Brothers Carnival. Wobbling on giant stilts he stepped over the entrance. The crowds were ants. He would much rather be down there eating hot dogs and candy floss.

While thinking this, the massive crowds began to unbalance him. Then another stilt figure stepped over the ferris wheel. It was a giant lion-head.

“Why are they pushing?” Dante yelled.

“Because they think you are vain and lofty,” the lion said.

By now Dante was toppling over.

“Help me!”

The lion flicked a Card. Dante caught it in mid flight. It was the Credit Card.

6.
“Good luck, sucker,” growled the blonde-headed Lion teller.

Gradually he had emptied Dante’s $20,000 credit card in casino chips. Up $57,000 at first, it was gone. Dante was down to his last.

He returned to the Black Jack table. Leopard Girl attached herself to his shoulder, ready to leap on any gazelle competitor grazing nearby.

Turning up two picture cards, Dante hungering for windfall split them for a double Black Jack.

Wolf Girl, the dealer slid over two. He turned them up. Cruelty and Pain.

“Don’t be greedy,” snarled the she-wolf in her tux. “Choose just one.”

7.
She wore pants, jackboots, SS cap. The suspenders over a malnourished chest made her boyishly desirable. She sang and moved, leopard-sleek and didn’t flinch when his riding crop struck her. So far, prostitution and cabaret art had kept her from the gas showers.

Obersturmfuhrer Dante Engel was not a bad officer, but to love a Jewess had to be negotiated through a masquerade of cruelty in front of other guards, just as her blank face hid her own affection. She bowed theatrically and offered him something tucked in the braid around her visor cap. It was the Pain Card again.

8.
Joy and suffering cohabit. Dante didn’t want to move from their bedroom into the spare room, but she left him no choice., Too accepting, forgiving he’d brought pain upon himself. To leave would be to lose — game, set, house.

It was a matter of pride now. He cared what others would think, so endured their rough trade through the plasterboard. She tortured Dante with her lover’s leonine moves. He felt sick in the gut sitting at the mesa of the table cutting the deck of cards. He didn’t want to play, but fate spoke up. ‘Murder’ tumbled out as he shuffled.

NORVAL JOE

Borle panicked, sweat running freely down his face. Flerdy only shook his head.
Fifteen amazon warriors stood behind the two spacemen, their spears aimed at the two men’s backs.
Before them sat a small man in a wicker chair, his bald pate a mosaic of freckles.
“You see? My daughters very persuasive,” he said and giggled.
“We’ve done nothing wrong. You’re holding us illeagally,” Borle protested.
The small man’s face went blank.
“Don’t lie to me. I know who you are. You’re spies for O’Malley,” he said, calling one of the maidens forward. “Katie. Take the sweaty one for questioning.”

“Mr. Dunderspawn. I’ve been assigned by the state as your lawyer,” a man said from outside his cell.
Dergle swolled as he tried to decide if the man’s wrinkled shirt was originally white or was supposed to be yellow.
“Ok. What do we do now?” Dergle said walking to the bars.
Close up the man’s skin had the same yellow cast as his shirt and his few strands of greesy hair failed to cover the pale baldness of his head.
“You just need to sign this,” he said. “I’ll take care of the rest.”
“But this is blank,” Dergle said.

ZACKMANN

“Your sign says Will Draw Stars Living or Not. Draw me a blank.”
“Like polar bears in a snowstorm?” the street artist asked
“Well you see Doc, I want you to draw me the Blanc. The Blanc, I say.”
“Oh, Sy”
“Si”
“As, Sy?”
“Si. Sorry hard to stop that. Not as Sy but that age. Mel Blanc was the voice or rather voices of my childhood. I remember him better form Man of 10000 Voices interviews but really like the work he did with Benny. Maybe he will be easier to draw since he was in black and white”

PLANET Z

Leo Blankfein was the best accountant, but his sense of direction was total shit.

Hire him for a job in Queens, and he’d call you from Hoboken asking for directions.
Hire him for a job in Yonkers, and he’d call you from Harlem asking for directions.
Hire him for a job in the Bronx, and he’d call you from Staten Island asking for directions.

I tried to test this by hiring him for a job in his own apartment.
And he called me from Riker’s Island.

Okay, so the son of a bitch murdered his wife with a claw hammer.

Welcome to the 100 Word Stories podcast at oneadayuntilthedayidie.com. I’m your host, Laurence Simon.

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.

The topic this week was JOURNAL:

And we’ve got stories by a lot of people:

• Thomas Pitre
• Jeffrey
• Richard
• Munsi
• Tura Brezoianu
• Zackmann
• Lizzie
• Tom
• Serendipidy Haven
• Cliff – Uncle Monster
• Miata Stardust
• Singh
• Norval Joe
• Justin
• Danny
• RedGoddess
• Planet Z

The next 100 word stories weekly challenge is on the topic of BLANK.

And if you want to spam your social networks with this episode, use the Share buttons at the end of the post… this obligatory cat photo should help make the Internet go faster:

---

THOMAS

I have a large, thick, journal. I didn’t write in it. I used it to prop up the end of a table I bought for the family room. It was just the right thickness, and more attractive than a brick or block of scrap wood. The journal sat there, propping up the end of the table top, until I removed it one day to clean and rearrange the room. I opened it and read a few words: “This journal is the property of Edgar Poe. Please return if found. A modest fee will be your reward for its return.” E.A.P.

#
The ship’s massive, main journal screamed. The bearings had turned to dust, and the sound of the heavy engine indicated it was far too late to repair. The engineer shut the old diesel down, and our ship was left to drift until we could get a tow. Sparky radioed for help, and the captain calculated our drift, based on the wind and currents. We drifted for a full day until a sea tug was sighted, hopefully to tow us to the nearest port. Thirty Somolians were on deck, and they signaled that they were coming on board for our cargo.
#
I read my daughter’s journal, to my regret. She wrote, recently, that she would like to give me “a swift backhander right across my red, steaming face”, and she thought I was “a Hitler worshipping, gypsy scum!” Little Angela had a dark side, and little did I know a web cam was aimed at her dresser drawer where she kept her journal. My indiscretion was uploaded to her web site and stored as a series of still images that she would access the next day. I was busted, and the photos were posted on Twitter, Facebook, and on her BLOG.

#

My belief for journal writing follows the belief of my literary hero. Walter Benjamin wrote: ulla dies sine linea [No day without a line]. I vowed that I would write the minimum of one page a day in my journal. My muse would be roiled if I ignored my daily pledge. I didn’t always have something to say, and I was too self- critical of my entries – just as I often was with my lovely and insatiable wife. I wrote about that, too. I wrote about how I felt when I didn’t have anything clever or profound to say.

JEFFREY

Birthday
by Jeffrey Fischer

When I was a child, my father was always aloof around me, carrying out his paternal duties with competence but not apparent affection. After he died, I took a week off to clean out his house. In the attic, I found a set of journals in his handwriting, dating from his teens to his early 30s. I spent every evening before bed perusing his old thoughts, trying to come to terms with our complicated relationship.

Like many such journals, Dad’s started off with frequent, detailed entries about all manner of trivial things, and tapered off to the occasional entry of greater importance. His last entry was dated the day I was born. It read, “Should be a happy day for me but instead all I see is a lifetime of obligation.”

Therapy
by Jeffrey Fischer

My shrink told me I should keep a journal. Write down your thoughts, he said, and reflect on them. Every year, look over the previous year’s entries to understand your mental space at the time. Anyway, pen and paper are a lot cheaper than an hour with me, he chuckled in that annoying way.

So I did. I dutifully made notes every day about what I was doing, what I was thinking, what I was feeling.

Truth be told, though, I’m having trouble staying motivated, especially about that year-end review. Well, especially after the computer in this spaceship told me the oxygen recycler was broken, and I have about twelve hours to live. But hey, it’s therapy.

RICHARD

#1 – Good Dog
He’s getting on a bit now, somewhat greyer and slower, but I wouldn’t be without him.

People ask why he’s called Journal – odd name for a dog – but it makes sense to me.

I’m not one of these new-fangled bloggers, putting every trial and tribulation of my life into print, but Journal’s been with me every step of my life: He’s chewed up my achievements and gnawed my trophies. When I feed him my trash, he sometimes sicks it up; other times, he devours it with relish; and, every so often, I’ll throw him a juicy morsel.

Good dog.

# 2 – Unicorns and Rainbows

I remember sneaking into my older sister’s bedroom as a teenager, intent on prying into her personal life. So, when I discovered her secret journal under the bed, I was convinced I’d hit pay dirt.

Seems I was mistaken – after thumbing through pages of girlish drivel, I was convinced that not only was my sister intensely boring, but for a girl her age, it was about time she grew up.

It was only after her arrest I realised that her girly ‘fairy dust’ and ‘barbie doll’ entries were actually detailed accounts of her extensive drug dealerships and lucrative prostitution rings!

#3 – For the Record
Once George had recovered from his cat encounter, he couldn’t help but wonder what other, less savoury encounters he might have, once he ventured outside the hospital walls.

It occurred to him that he should chronicle his struggles, in the hope that his experiences might someday have a greater purpose – he would write a journal! An inspirational account of survival against all the odds – his legacy and gift to the children of the future!

Sadly, for the children of the future, George could find neither notebook or pen, so – for now at least – the journal would just have to wait.

MUNSI

Entry: May 1st.

By Christopher Munroe

We found a battered journal among the wreckage. It’s our first lead to date as to what may’ve happened to the seek/rescue-team sent out mid-February in the aftermath of the initial incident.

No survivors have been found to date, nor trace of the seek/rescue-team.

I’m pouring over the journal for potentially pertinent details while the rest of the response crew combs through the wreckage of the research lab in the hopes that some clue might be uncovered.

Personally, my hopes aren’t high. Still, I’ll give the journal a read…

“Entry: February 14th. We found a battered journal among the wreckage.”

TURA

My dear Dr. Brezoianu:

I regret that the Journal of Neurosemantic Research must decline to publish your paper, “Obstruction of Remote Memetic Excitation by Aluminized Mylar Composites”. It has been closely read by three referees, all experts in the field, who unanimously recommend rejection on the respective grounds that its results are absurd, well-known, or trivially obvious. Furthermore, I don’t care for the over-familiar manner in which you approached my wife at the Oslo conference last year.

With best wishes for your publication, but not in any journal I have anything to do with,

Prof. Dr. Dr. Jarogniew Grzeszkiewicz (Editor)

ZACKMANN

Sue started writing a diary of her new work experiences and some of the unusually things that happen.

Dear Diary: Today I was training as a nurses aide. The senior aide training me took me to answer a call.

Oley, who had pulled the call sting said “Hand me the yournal.”

My trainer said “I sometimes have trouble with Mr Erickson’s accent. He subscribes the Fergus Fall Journal. Oley, would you like to read the Fergus Journal?”

Oley said “No,” pointing to a plastic container near the end of the bed “I need the yournal. Quickly, I have to pee.”

LIZZIE

Wrapped in a magic spell

Alexandra wrote her most private thoughts in her red and green leather journal. To make sure no one read it, she wrapped a magic spell around it. Most of her spells were quite benign so her roommate decided to take a peek. The next day in class, in walks a red skinned young woman with glowing green hair. Everyone laughed. Alexandra didn’t. She stood up and said “Begin”. Her roommate turned into a journal instantly, flapped her pages and clumsily flew away, only to find, down by the forest, a collection of similar journals being pecked at by ill-tempered birds.

TOM

From The Journal of Josef W. Walker

October 7 1849
I met a most peculiar man this evening exited Patterson’s Glove shop on Lombard. He was propped up against a gas post inches away from the gutter. His voice, barely a whisper, seemed to be working through a delirium fancy, punctuated with clearly audible cries to his personal muse. “Cassandra” he said at once a declaration yet at the same time a questioning lament. I asked him if he was in need of a doctor? “Call me Mercutio.” Said he handing me a folio upon which the in most delicate hand the signature read E. A. POE

SERENDIPITY

Who in their right mind would want to read a psychopath’s journal?

Actually, it gained a huge following, and I suddenly found myself acclaimed, ‘bestselling author’!

It seems my readers had a huge thirst for intricate plots, liberally interspersed with graphic descriptions of murder and mutilation, all executed with a callous disregard for humanity, leaving only sorrow, pain and bumbling, ineffective detectives… always one step behind the killer they sought.

The plaudits, and hard cash, came rolling in – nevertheless, I was unhappy with the book’s reception.

It annoyed the hell out of me that they insisted on calling it fiction!

CLIFF

Day 1: Got my assignment. This one should be easy.
Day 2: What was that assignment? Oh yeah. I got this one.
Day 3:
Day 4:
Day 5: Wife reminded me; I have an assignment. Need an idea. What was the word?
Day 6: Going to have to write my story tonight. Can’t get distracted.
Day 7: Get up early and sit down to type. No ideas. Search Wikipedia for inspiration. Latch on to an obscure idea and throw words onto the screen. Record my story and send the email. Send second email because I forgot to attach the recording.

MIATA

I sat at my table, looking out my window. It is a beautiful view, the pinks of the azaleas, the white dogwoods, green grass, and the blue stream. There is no better place to write than this….well, maybe at the beach.

As I look out over the serenity of it all, I’m reminded that my life is so opposite. I love a man. I know he thinks I am a stalker. Love unrequited, but he consumes my thoughts daily. I am getting better, no contact, but only thoughts. It is hard, and my fault. I will love, and live, again.

SINGH

The Mailman Journal

1 Journal
I am recording this, Mailman. Since The Shutdown other channels have closed. I only have this chair, a pedestal keyboard and screen in the wall. It blinks on randomly with a new daily word like a carrot. I am your donkey. Are you pulling me by the golden chain of language, Mailman? To where? I write to keep the will to live flickering like a firefly’s shadow on the screen of my own parochial consciousness. Why am I here? Isn’t that the only question worth asking? I think, I tap. After 100 words, the screen blinks off. Not one more.

2 Burn
I remember Mailman, how the Zen master took a wooden image, chopped it up, and made a fire, warming himself. Seeing this, one of the other monks asked, “What are you doing, setting fire to the Buddha?”
The master replied, “Where is Buddha?”
Before the Shutdown we said — religion? It’s poison. We also wanted to burn the Buddha. That monk was wooden and stuck, just as we were anti-form. So someone shut us down, obliterated us, but that didn’t end attachment. See beyond existence and nonexistence, Mailman, and make a Buddha of gold out of garbage scraps, appearing and…

Whistle
Dear Mailman, do you think I need the future? What use is it when I can reach into memory and pluck out the wind whistling against my old garage. It still rattles the roller-door, it still speaks to me with a taunting sense of its endlessness beating against my puny shelter like a house of straw. Are you telling me to whistle Dixie with folded gum leaf or some other cute tune as if it were a new creed to place trust in? I do not need to believe because the old wind still blows right through my bones.

Pizza
Fortunately, there is tinned food. A small mountain in the corner. That’s my pizza. I have water from underground. It seeps and I lick it up. Rocks glow in the cavern’s ceiling. How long before I am plunged into the full dark? I am adjusting, finding my way, practising on all fours with eyes bound. I must. I do not trust the light. These rocks are emitting a little less, a little less. As for this screen and your daily mail, I can only place trust my own process, not what prompts you try to steer me with, foolish Mailman.

Escape
Are you provoking me? Squinting my eyes, yes I see an empty canoe waiting on the shore, a motorbike ready with a key in the ignition. The word of ‘escape’ is meant to throw up a goldfish leaping out of its bowl. Mailman, you think I am your mouse in the treadmill, the passenger in your a car about to plummet, the hand over my mouth stopping me from uttering the name of the one who caused The Shutdown. Do you think your daily morsel of words can handcuff me? Mailman are you taunting me when such escape is irrelevant?

6. Mailman
Let’s get to the point, agent provocateur. You deliver, I respond, you set agendas, I reject. The Shutdown was my good fortune. Time is a coat on the hook. Whether you are male or female is my fiction. 0h bird-like flutter in my biological heart, I understand everything. Your prompts make me believe in neither the wooden Buddha chopped and burning, nor the golden Buddha sixteen feet high. You’re not, but in. I am your mailman. You only exist to receive these hundred intentions. Knowing this, today, I add one to the golden chain. It’s my gift, the extra factor.

NORVAL JOE

Flerdy tapped his voice recorder and said, “New page. Journal entry number 1685. Professor Flerdy Phlegmbburn in command. Day four on the planet O’Gillyham.
“My pilot and traveling companion, Borle Torquespindle, while availing himself of an opportunity to vegetate, found himself surrounded suddenly by countless Amazon warriors. The women’s lithe frames and bare buxom breasts belied their deadly prowess.
“Sweat trickled down his temples as the women crept slowly toward him.”
Borle cleared his throat. “Ahem. Flerdy?”
“Don’t interrupt me. I’m recording.”
“Right,” Borle said.
“Borle held his breath as the razor edge of a spear hovered above his throat.”

Sitting in a jail cell, Dergle sighed and thought, “Some super hero I turned out to be. Wiener Dog Man? More like, Big Stupid Loser Man.”
Someone in a cell down the hall yelled. He sounded Latino. “Guard. My journal no is working.”
“Keep it down,” the guard shouted back.
“How is that fair?” Dergle mumbled looking around the empty cell. “They didn’t let me keep anything, and he has a journal to write in.”
The man shouted again, “I’m telling jue. I need to juse the journal. If jue no fix it, I going to piss on the floor.”

JUSTIN

Artyom gazed at the sky. Condensation from his heavy breath obscured the gasmask’s lenses, but he stills saw the demon flit across the sky, it’s wings beating against the poisoned air. Artyom sprinted across the roof, leaped over a tripwire and landed hard on the unstable floorboards, leg nearly pushing through. The demon crashes above and peered into the room. Artyom rolled through a doorway and pointed his pistol, firing on the wired explosives. In a blast of splinters and stone, the demon tumbled into the air, where it flew away on tattered wings, dripping black blood onto the snow.

DANNY

Charles Manson started writing a journal after being incarcerated for his crimes. Way to delusional to admit to his guilt, he kept writing, convinced his journal was a novel. Because he has no right to privacy in prison, his journal is read to the parole board everytime he is up for parole in the California prison system. At every parole hearing, Charles screams how fixed the system is, then the parole board simply reads back his own journal entries, and properly denies parole. Charly, baby face, why don’t you know when to drink a cup of shut the fuck up?

PLANET Z

For a hundred years, Middleton was a two-paper town.

The Middleton Journal and The Middleton Chronicle competed for stories, subscribers, and advertisers. The quality of both papers was exceptional.

One day, the owners of The Journal and The Chronicle met to negotiate a merger.

They tossed a coin, it came up tails, and the staff of The Middleton Journal emptied their desks into cardboard boxes as The Middleton Chronicle-Journal began its run.

The journalism got lazier and sloppier, many subscribers of both papers cancelled, and advertising rates skyrocketed.

Sure, I read it. When I steal it off my neighbor’s porch.

REDGODDESS

Lola reads all kinds of tabloid magazines while at work. The hotel subscribes to the top five fashion magazines and newspapers. The guests steal them like the little shampoo bottles in the bathrooms. She’s repulsed by the tasteless covers yet intrigued by articles that show 769 ways to please a man. She wonders, if these magazines hold the answers to women’s satisfaction, why the majority of their readers are still hopeless lost. Are there magazines that offer men better advice for a better sex life? Recently, Lola learned that the Good Housekeeping Journal is the most reliable source of information for all women, regardless of marital status or income. It occurs to her that women spend as much time worrying about keeping a clean house as they do about pleasing a man. With that kind of obsession, these magazines hold the mirror to women’s angst for generations.