The 100 Word Stories Podcast

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

This is Weekly Challenge Number Three Hundred and Forty, 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 Chain.

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

• Thomas
• Jeffrey
• Michael
• Lizzie
• Munsi
• Serendipidy Haven
• Botgirl
• Singh
• Zackmann
• Tura
• Tom
• Bonchance and Sevi
• Norval Joe
• Jeffrey Hite
• Cliff – Uncle Monster
• Steven the Nuclear Man
• Danny
• RedGoddess
• Planet Z

The next weekly challenge is a PICK TWO.

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:

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THOMAS

Ted bought chainmail from eBay to wear while he cut wood. Thinking it would protect him from the sharp teeth of the chain of his 22 inch Stihl, he over-confidently started his woodcutting chore after a very restless night of sleep, and a couple of shots of brown stuff at breakfast to stop his hands from shaking. You can easily guess the rest of the story. The chainmail worked fine, when he slipped while moving a heavy branch. The saw’s teeth bounced when they struck the metal chain, directing the saw upwards to execute an impromptu rhinoplasty on Ted’s nose.

#

The chain of events began when the Fosselbachs’ pestered their pet cockatoo, insisting that it learn how to relieve itself when held over a waste bin. Following a week of relentless coaxing and wheedling, the cockatoo lifted off and flapped around the kitchen, knocking a bottle of oil onto the stovetop. The oil erupted into flames, catching the cupboards on fire, and spreading to Mrs. Fosselbach’s collection of Indian baskets displayed on the kitchen walls. The cockatoo sacrificed a few of his tail feathers, but the Fosselbach’s lost half of their new doublewide and any hope of potty-training their bird.

#

The Weenie Chain, celebrated the hotdog, invented by a German butcher in the 1600’s, by opening another franchise operation at the West end of town. They hoped to get a lot of customers that shopped at Wally World, nearby. Weenie’s specialized in over 100 kinds of tube steaks, including steamed, charcoal broiled, stuffed, grilled, griddled, deep-fried, and bacon wrapped. They imported the “red snappers” from Maine, famous for their neon colored casings, and “hots” from New York – made from pork, veal and maple sawdust. Weenie’s sponsored eating contests at the local retirement home and were responsible for several, fatal accidents.

#

When Aretha sings Chain of Fools, I am reminded of the governing board that has attempted to command our local technology club. The elected gang for the past year have driven a majority of the regular members away by their choice of speakers and the lack of attention to detail at meetings. The sound system is never set up properly, the LCD projector is always out of focus, and the PowerPoint slides are a visual dirge. When asked if I would run again for office, I said that I would rather have my spleen eaten by rats, as I slept.

JEFFREY

Good Fences Make Good Neighbors
by Jeffrey Fischer

The chain-link fence separated our playground from the upscale neighborhood. The younger kids would sit on the swings and soar above the fence before falling back to our side. Older kids would kick a ball on the grass, or play basketball on the paved court, being careful the ball didn’t sail over the fence, as it was a long walk to get the ball back.

Once we showed up to find a gap in the fence where someone had cut the chain links. The hole was repaired that day. Afterward, we noticed a security guard patrolling “their” side.

We liked to pretend that the fence existed to keep them out of our playground.

MICHAEL

Daisychain,

By Michael Duturbure

“Aren’t the flowers pretty today?”

“Billy, what am I to you?”

“Urgh…Why do you always have to spoil the mood?! Can’t we just enjoy this…”

“Come on…tell me”

“Well….I’m your best friend, I’m your lover, I’m your ….anything”

“Hahaha That’s soooo adorable….? Come… you have to meet my parents”

“Uh uh….Not til you tell you tell them about me… your dad’s kinda scary, what do you think he will say”

“I don’t care anymore…. he doesn’t scare me…………ummm, what are you doing there, is that daisy chain?”

“No,I know it’s not the real thing …..buuut…..… Tom…..will you take this to marry me…”

“Get up you goof before I knock ya!”

“Is that a no?”

“You’re sooooo tacky…hahaha yes..of course I will”

LIZZIE

Numbers roared in his head, louder and louder. He looked at the phone and repeated them incessantly. 100 links of distance, the carbon atom, and the hotels, theaters, restaurants, banks, his mind was filled with an excess of information that no one comprehended. “Yes? Yes. Ok, I’ll tell him,” but he wouldn’t. He hung up trying to stifle the noise. What was once comforting was now drowning him. This obsessively loud chain of numbers paralyzed him in a motionless repetition of helplessness. Make me a prisoner no more, he wished, whispering at the mountains above, hoping to beat his demons.

MUNSI

Chains

By Christopher Munroe

If you think about it, in a way we’re all in chains.

Chained by self-imposed obligations to one another, to notions of family and friendship. Chained to jobs we only took to pay student loans we thought we’d need to get jobs better than the ones we were eventually forced to take. Chained by outdated notions of morality.

Yes, we fancy ourselves free, but in a way we’re all in chains.

But in another, more literal way, only you are in chains, here in my soundproof basement.

Now, make yourself comfortable while I head upstairs to fetch my straight razor…

SERENDIPITY

Congratulations!

This letter will bring you unlimited good fortune – but only if you make twenty-five copies and send them on to your friends within the next day!

DO NOT BREAK THE CHAIN!

Breaking the chain will bring you terrible misfortune!

If you do break the chain, we will hunt you down, come to your home with baseball bats and very sharp knives and make sure that you never walk again!

Incidentally, how is married life? We’re all very much looking forward to seeing you both at Christmas… please give us a call soon.

All our love,

Mum and dad.

BOTGIRL

“Chained” by Botgirl Questi

I used to believe that my mind was free from gravity . . .

that the pull of Mother Earth had no dominion

in the realm of awareness, thought and identity.

For a time, I seemed to have escaped both the dictates of biology,

and the laws and constraints of the atomic world.

I raced faster than light beyond the known universe,

danced in the silent vacuum,

and stared into the face of a hundred suns.

But all the while there trailed behind me

A chain of perfect weave.

Unseen or mayhaps merely denied,

Her life-giving umbilical was all that sustained me.

SINGH

Chain Gang Ant

I am just one of the gang, a thousand moveable mandibles rubbing thorax to red thorax with purpose ­–– to crop, to crimp, to chew and glue two sides of a leaf-cathedral together. The higher-ups send down the orders, and then we’re off –– marching and singing to engineer another leaf-horn cornucopia trumpeting up the jungle jazz. See my jaws of silk in a dewdrop, tick my attendance in the scheme of things. I am a pest-controller of the citrus orchard, a waterproofer of nursery nests,
the tiniest sweat worker in the emerald forest. I’m a little link in the chain of command.

ZACKMANN

What a hangover and I only had one glass of zinfandel. At least it is dark in here. I feel a daisy chain around my neck or rather with my neck since my hands and feet are chained to a wheelchair. Oh God No, this is a movie theater. I should have never told her she can’t make me and there is nothing she can do to get me to see a Twilight movie. I should have know she would see it as a challenge. Never say “you can’t” to a woman if you don’t want them to do something.

TURA

I heard this story from the driver of a taxicab, who said that he had had that David Attenborough in his car last week, who told him of a book in which Marco Polo recounted a story he had from a Chinese nobleman, whose grandfather told him he had once known a sailor who had journeyed to the Western edge of the world, to the Land of Anger, or as they call it, Ire-Land, where he had seen the grave of St. Elvis who, the monks told him, would return at the world’s greatest need.

So it must be true.

TOM

I would like to say I am having a string of senior moments, but the truth is I’m having intermittent consciousness. I’m capable of forgetting anything. To this end I own a wallet, and the only reason I still do is it is chained to my pants. I’ve always thought if one loss their pants, that a wallet would be a serious secondary concern. After walking away from my ATM card for the zillionth time I’ve chained it to the wallet. The car keys chained, flashlight and cell phone. The wallet weights 16 pounds. Gail have you seen the Subaru?

Santa Cruz is not so much a place as a state of mind, sort of the land time forgot. In the 70’s the soundtrack to that state was Fleetwood Mac’s Rumors. It was literally playing everywhere all the time. Perhaps it was because the band had been infused by two Atherton kids. I think it was more a talisman against neo-reggae that seeped into the seaside town. Don’t get me wrong, I played the grooves flat on Jimmy Cliff’s Harder They Come, but Stevie Nick’s post-adolescent angst was the heart of a darkening America that would never break the chains.

BONCHANCE

Love those tigers!

The “waiting lounge” was encased in cool steel. Pablo waited to see Chairman Meow.
“Pablo?” A familiar voice echoed from the corner of the cell.
“Anthony?” Pablo rushed to his old friend. He was chained to the wall.

“ Geez what the hell!?!

The tiger explained that shortly after Pablo left the circus, he left too.
He quickly realized the world loathed the tigers.

Pablo insisted that wasn’t true, although the mad Siberian kitty chairman was holding them captive.
Pablo insisted that EVERONE loves the tigers.
They began to plot their escape from the evil clutches of the psychotic Chairman.

CLIFF

An Unlikely Chain of Events

Fred spread his arms and let his wife remove the chains and moldy jacket.
“Did all go well, darling?”
“Of course. The old man was clay in my hands. His fear, my power of suggestion, and the elixir that I put in his soup will do the trick. His hallucinations will drive him out of his mind over the course of the night and by tomorrow, we’ll have the best Christmas present ever. My uncle’s fortune will be mine.”
“What if he does something crazy?”
“What could he do? Give away his money? No, no. Not Uncle Ebenezer. Not Scrooge.”

NORVAL JOE

The goblins rushing toward the circle of people around the way-stone stumbled to a stop as the circled company faded from sight. For a moment the scene before him remained, though his friends had already disappeared. Owen felt his guts wrenched from him, spun around above his head like a lasso and then shoved back down his throat.
When Owen’s vision returned, he and the others lay on their backs in snow, high mountains rising above them. Shareeka alone remained on her feet, a stone in a silver bezel hanging on a chain around her neck shone with azure brilliance.

JEFF HITE

I watched Tron the other day, the original not the new one. Though I really enjoyed the new one almost as much as I like the original. If nothing else there was some really great Music in that new movie. But I’m getting off track here. When you think about that movie you think about powerful computers taking over the world, and everyone connected via “dumb” terminals. Ten years ago I saw the reintroduction of dumb terminals, but they were called thin clients. Now the chain’s complete, Google the biggest computer in the world has the chomebook, a dumb terminal.

STEVEN THE NUCLEAR MAN

He pulls against the thread, biceps bulging with strain.

I tisk and shake my head. “Not so easy, darling”. I pull out more thread. I wrap it slowly across his torso.

He strains again. My threads are unmoved.

“You should watch more nature programs,” I chide. My first arms caress his cheeks. My second arms spin the thread while my third arms spin him in place.

“Stronger than steel chains,” I whisper. “Useless to resist”.

He tries anyway, and my pulse quickens. My fangs extend and I plunge them into his chest.

I drain him before my red hourglass empties.

DANNY

Just when I had a chance to ask what’s in a life, I met the woman of my dreams. This was the grand love story that fell short of the fairytale ending, unless fairytales end in chains. After years went passing by, I was finally jolted awake from a five year coma. Suddenly aware my friends had moved on, the opportunities I once had for new relationships were now long gone. I refuse to go back into the chains of another 5 year coma, I’d rather bask in the freedom of loneliness. That’s a freedom nobody will ever take from me.

REDGODDESS

Since the passing of Mr. Chip, Lola has been in a manic mood. She has avoided her lover in fear of being too vulnerable. She tries to keep herself busy with work but is still numb with sadness. No one has come to claim Mr. Chip’s belongings. She’s beginning to wonder who will make the funeral arrangements. There are certain chain of events that turns life on its ugly head. Lola wonders if this job is the pinnacle of her existence. Would anyone care if wasn’t at the hotel? The next day, Lola calls in sick for the first time.

PLANET Z

Eddie loves to write chain letters. The crazier, the better.

Instead of saying that you need to forward e-mails to 10 friends to avoid being hit by a bus, he’d scare people with solar flares or runaway steamrollers.

Then, one day, there was a solar flare and runaway steamroller ran him over, and he spent the next two months in the hospital.

He wasn’t able to type his chain letters with his arms broken.

So, he used speech to text software instead.

The chain letters continued until annoyed readers broke his jaw. And another solar flare roasted him to ashes.

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

This is Weekly Challenge Number Three Hundred and Thirty-Nine, 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 Circle.

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

• Michael
• Tura
• Thomas
• Jeffrey
• Rahel
• Munsi
• Singh
• Serendipidy Haven
• Zackmann
• Tom
• Kimianne
• Lizzie
• Botgirl
• Bonchance and Sevi
• Cliff – Uncle Monster
• Norval Joe
• Danny
• Steven the Nuclear Man
• RedGoddess
• Planet Z

The next weekly challenge is on the topic of chain.

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:

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MICHAEL

I hid in the shadows when the circles from the sky came and offered us death (16) (deep beastly alien voice)(5 words)

Now… death would be kind…. (21)

My world is broken… lost…(26)

I am alone …….(29)

Vengeance flames my soul…I insist….my purpose…Arghhhhhh…… hear my rage …. (40) (said fast )

I will feed on mountains of your mutilated corpses (50) (Spoken aloud with rage)

…It seems they hear me…(55)

It is time…(58)

No more shadows…(61)

Come to me sky circle things…You shall be the first….(72)

The first to bare the sufferings for your actions….(81)

Don’t worry…..I will sustain your life(89)

Your sufferings shall be great(94)

Come closer….(96) (pause)

C..L..O…S…E…R (said slowly)

Arghhhhhhhh…….You’re mine (100)(loud in rage)

TURA

Look at the sucker, walking down the street without a care. It’s not like I have a choice, doesn’t he know this is a bad neighbourhood? I grab his jacket and show the knife, idiot doesn’t hand over his wallet, so I have to stick him, don’t I? Must have got an artery ‘cos he just falls down hurry clap all his pockets but nothing there NOTHING shit idiot’s dying blood everywhere run for it run car slams into me—

Look at the sucker, walking down the street without a care. It’s not like I have a choice… is it?
——–
Christian theology is strange. Did you ever wonder why Satan was cast out from Heaven?

Because he refused God’s command to bow to Man.

But Man was created a little lower than the angels, so why must the angels bow to Man?

Because God was incarnated as a man.

Why did God incarnate as a man?

Because he intended to redeem Man from his Fall.

Why did Man Fall?

Because he was tempted by Satan.

Why did Satan tempt Man?

Because he desired revenge upon God.

Why did Satan seek revenge upon God?

Because Satan was cast out from Heaven.

THOMAS

Sarah Glacé walked the circle of bricks in the big meadow near the Louis’ house. It was on private property, and the largest labyrinth open to the public in the area. Sarah removed her shoes as a gesture of reverence, and to feel the brick underfoot as she walked slowly to the center and back out to the entrance. As she walked, her breathing slowed, but her sight and hearing magically heightened in sensitivity at each step. As she reached the center, she was startled for a moment, as the sky grew brighter and clouds moved away from the sun.
#

The members of the science club were a tight-knit circle of gadgeteers, engineers, and hackers. Meeting once a week at member’s workshops or garages, the club began collaborating on building a large, 3D printer. Each of them contributed time, materials and money for critical parts, and soon the printer was being tested. Choosing to build another 3D printer as its first project, they loaded the printer with thermoplastic stock, turned it on, and left it to work. Monday morning, sixty printers were built, each in the process of building another printer, until the walls of the workshop were pushed apart.
#

Conrad was a clown, running with a circle of friends of even lesser intelligence and sense. The gang of four was a circle of jerks. They would spend hours at the bus stop, spitting, vandalizing property, yucking it up with sniffs and snorts as they made fun of people waiting for the bus. One day, they made fun of Big Betty. Betty’s hoodie had been hand-lettered with “Bring it, weenie”. They taunted her, yucking and snorting until she pulled the device out of her belly bag, aiming at their throats. From that moment, the circle could only make chirping noises.
#
We gathered at The Red Eye in the Center of The Head Retreat to form our Autumn drum and dance circles. The drum circle was formed outside the dance circle, while the dancers jumped, swayed and moved until they fell into a trance or passed out from dehydration. The campfire died quickly because the only wood we had was from a few, broken palettes and some of Mrs. Kincaid’s lawn furniture. Nancy Creamcheese wanted to show off her brand new bosoms, so she stripped to the waist and scared most of the small children, the dogs and the older men.

THOMAS

Circle the Wagons
by Jeffrey Fischer

“Circle the wagons!” Ralph cried as he piloted the big RV into a space.

Tess sighed. “We’re not on the prairie, surrounded by Indians, Ralph. We’re one of only three RVs in a camp site just off the interstate. For Christ’s sake, you can see a Wal-Mart from here!”

“Geez, I’m not stupid. I know where we are – drove here, remember? Can’t a guy get into the spirit of things, thinking we’re on an adventure instead of cruising in an air-conditioned bus with all the amenities of home? I don’t see anything wrong with ending the day with a call to circle the wagons, like our pioneer forefathers, worrying about waking up surrounded by Indians.”

“Ralph, you’re hopeless.” Tess went to bed in a huff.

The next morning, she woke early and decided to stretch her legs before Ralph got up. She was amazed to see the RV park full of vehicles. She asked the site manager what drew them here.

He pointed to a sign that read “Welcome Patel Family Reunion!” “Them folks come from all over the country – we even got some from as far away as Bombay! Don’t know how they drove here, though.” He chuckled at his own joke.

Ralph would never let her live this down.

RAHEL

The Golden Circle
by Rahel Jaskow

“Here, watch this.” The woman tapped the couch beside her, and the little red tabby cat jumped up and burbled.
“Would you like some skritches? Want a cuddle? How about a tummy rub?” The red tabby cat arched her back, yawned and flopped over on her side, purring and kneading the air with her front paws.
The woman and her friend took turns massaging the cat. A few minutes later, the cat curled up and went to sleep.
“She looks like a fuzzy golden ring all curled up like that,” the woman said. “Sometimes I can’t resist whispering, ‘Precious…. Precious….’”

MUNSI

Inside the Circle

By Christopher Munroe

They circled us, cheering, as we circled one another, knives at the ready.

I don’t know how to fight, but when he accused me of insulting his honor I refused to apologize. Why should I? It was just a joke!

Still, I didn’t expect him to turn up to the duel, and when he did I was worried. Especially since, from what I’d heard, he DID know what he was doing.

Still, no backing down now…

So I pulled the pistol I’d tucked into the waistband of my pants, and shot him.

…always bring a gun to a knife fight.

SINGH

Circle 101

Chris Mooney-Singh

I walked. In circles. I got hypnotized like a chicken to a chalk line and my footsteps made ring after ring in the sand. First, like a Zen monk raking the stone garden of Kyoto; then, steady as Giotto drawing a free-hand circle for Pope Benedict IX. But my circles got smaller, smaller until, I came to a full stop at the heart of zilch.

Seasons passed. I turned grey as stone. The bumps and sockets are my eyes, mouth and nose tuned to the wind and rain. Yet, my mind? It’s still crammed full of the same old burning questions.

SERENDIPITY

“What is the sound of one hand typing?”

Surely that wasn’t right? – I looked quizzically at the bald guy, sat in front of me, clad in orange robes.

“Ahhh?…”, I ventured.

“Life”, he said, “is a circle – from the day we arrive on the planet, and blinking, step into the sun.”

The nagging doubt in my mind grew.

He smiled at me, reaching out with his hand…

“My son, never forget that material wealth is an illusion from which we should seek freedom. That concludes today’s teaching. Fifty dollars, please!”

I paid up.

Since when did enlightenment become so expensive?

ZACKMANN

“What are you doing at that desk?”
“I found this drafting book and I am designing my dream home.”
“What is that circle by the rectangle?”
“It is a giant phallic symbol that holds kimchi for cows.”
“What?”
“I mean a silo since the rectangle next to it is a barn because my dream home is sort of a hobby farm.”
“What about the big circle around all those buildings?”
“Oh, that is the moat the sea monster lives in. The small circles are fruit tree, isosceles triangle a dragon landing strip. Like I said this is my dream home.”

TOM

A circle is a degenerative ellipse. Yup right up there on the corner with the guy in that questionable overcoat. But how does this happen, you may ask Tom? Well that has to do with a 2nd degree equations, the adventurous landscape of conic sections. Ok, you slept through your entire 2nd year of high school algebra. Try this, take an ice cream cone cut it perpendicular to the point you get circles. If your angle of incision is the slightest bit off you get ellipses, in fact 99.999% of the cuts you can make will give you not circles.

With me so far. Good. If you want to make an ellipse with out the mess of chopping up an ice cream cone, try this, take a fixed loop of string and rotate it around two fixed points maintaining ample about of outward pressure with an appropriate drawing implement. Now to have two fixed points those points must have some reasonable distance between them. Math guys call these points foci that is plural Latin for ya. When the foci degenerate to a single point the ellipse becomes a circle. How truly sad for it. Care for a Walnetto my dear?

KIMIANNE

Circle

The healer traced the sacred circle around the young woman who sat cross-legged at his feet.
Spirit had whispered to him late last night, “Be ready.”
He grimaced…not at the command, but at the nebulousness of it.
It didn’t matter; he was always at the ready.
The girl had tears streaming down her delicate face. It wasn’t from any emotional outburst, but from the intense smoke coming from a sage bundle. It’s good that she cries now, he thought. Tears… with girls there’s always tears. He’d tell her soon.
He chanted ancient words of protection. They would need them.

LIZZIE

In the dark, he walked slowly touching the damp walls to find a way out. His hands stretched forward surveying the cold path. The maze seemed to expand mysteriously, endlessly. To the left, to the right, lightheaded and lost, he tripped over rocks that fell from crumbling walls. Was I here before? In twists and turns, he walked into blind alleys again and again. Yet, a perpetual string of decisions pushed him forward to find the exit. One more, only one more turn. Would it ever end? For him, it did. And he was actually still quite tasty, they thought!

BOTGIRL

100 screaming citizens jumped to their feet as the two combatants entered the caged fighting circle. It was time for the main event. A clear knock-out by either party would determine the fate of the nation. After contributing $100,000 apiece for a ringside seat, the studio audience wanted to see blood.

Already breathing hard, sweat glistening on his age-spotted skin, the incumbent looked for his pretty wife in the skybox above the teaming throng. But the holographic image of the moderator pulled his eyes back to the ring.

“Welcome to the 2040 Presidential Cage Match Debate,” she announced.

BONCHANCE AND SEVI

The amateur hunters were beginning to whine. They had been trekking in what they thought a circle through the
trail for over two hours. “When is this beast going to present itself?”, growled a Brit.

Suddenly Mark eye’s saw the clearing in the bush, that lead the pack into a ravine basin.
The hunters relished the moments of needed rest.

Once collected, Mark began to notice the scatted bones. This was the work of an experienced killer.
Mark gave the warning shout, the beast had circled back on them, just as the Brit went down and disappeared into
the brush.

CLIFF

I lined up the shot and waited. My target was working his way up the tree line, exactly as I’d expected. He’d shot one of my team and I was getting ready to get revenge.
“Circle of life, pal,” I muttered as he cleared the brush that had hidden him. I gently squeezed the trigger once, twice, three times. His grey shirt exploded in vivid color. That’s when I felt the impact on my back. I spun to see his son grinning. He’d circled around behind me even as I’d been waiting for his father. Paintball is a vicious game.

NORVAL JOE

The sun had just crested the horizon as Elbownor returned the final piece of the way-stone to it’s place. The company formed a circle around the stone, except for Spleen who cowered by a tree and sniffed the air.
Shareeka chanted a monotonous hymn and drew a horizontal circle in the air over the stone with her finger.
Spleen hissed, “They’re coming. The goblins have found us.”
“Spleen, Join us in the circle, quickly,” Shareeka said and placed the cube on a small circle on top of the restored stone.
Goblins screamed in astonishment as the company faded from view.

We was drivin the heard over the Platt River when them native americans came out of the hollers, hollerin. We circled up all o them weenie dogs and hunkered down behind them little critters and waited for the worst.
We was lucky, we was. Cuz them indiginous peoples were of the flat foot tribe and their totem was the weiner dog.
When they seen us cowering there, fearin for our lives, they done thought we was a prayen to their wiener dog god.
They stayed with us for vittles, smoked some tobackie an went on thier way. Jus like that.

DANNY

“Welcome to T-Moble’s customer service site,” the computer generated female voice rattled into my ear. “Please say what you are looking for, such as, I want to pay my bill, or, I want to change my service.” So I said the following, “Why am I being charged an additional $14.95 a month to use my smartphone as a WIFI hot spot when that was originally included in my plan?” I had this strange feeling I was about to be led into a circle. The computer voice responded, “One moment, please.” Then, a voice responded in Japanese, “Kon’nichiwa, watashi wa dono yo ni kyo wa anata o tasuderu koto ga dekimasu ka?

STEVEN THE NUCLEAR MAN

“You know,” he said, “we’ll see all our pets again.”

I didn’t say anything, just kept walking through the woods. The clearing was just ahead. My other dog pulled at her lead in excitement.

We stepped into the clearing. He continued talking. “I really believe that.”

“I know.” I circled the clearing while he talked.

“I read this really inspiring poem about a rainbow bridge…What are you doing?”

“Lighting candles.” As my match touched the last one, Bifrost shimmered into existence and the world shifted.

All the dogs greeted each other as Valkryies gathered.

I smiled. “Welcome to Asgard.”

RED

Hellene, a wannabe cougar, comes from old money. Many of her socialite friends gossip behind her back. She’s part of the big charity circle in town, fancy galas for the poor and overprized dinners at political fundraisers. She tries hard to do good with her money by supporting public causes.

At the hotel she treats the immigrant maids like trash. Recently, she accused a valet of attempting to steal her car. All the workers avoid her except for Lola. Lola handles all of the Hellene’s. One big circle of white Helene’s Lola can’t even tell one from another any longer.

PLANET Z

Vultures are circling overhead.
I don’t know why, though. I feel great.
Plenty of chips and queso. A gentle breeze off the lake.
“I’m doing fine, right?” I ask Esteban the waiter.
“Absolutely, Mr. Garcia,” says Esteban. “Would you like another drink”
“Yes,” I say, handing Esteban my empty canteen. “I’ll take a margarita this time.”
Esteban returns quickly with the canteen, and I lick the rim of the cap.
Sand not salt
“Esteban?” I say.
He’s not there.
The chips are gone.
So is the hotel.
And it’s horribly, dreadfully hot.
That’s it, Esteban. I’m not leaving a tip.