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 Nineteen, 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 100 Miles.

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

Thomas
Serendipity Haven
Tura
Tom
Lizzie Gudkov
TJ
Chris Munroe
Tom
Zackmann
Steven the Nuclear Man
Cliff
Logan Berry
Guy David
Norval Joe
RedGoddess
Planet Z

And if you want to spam your social networks with this episode, use the Share buttons at the end of the post…

Obligatory cat photo:

The more people see this on Google Plus, Facebook, and Twitter – the more explaining you’ll have to do with your loved ones, coworkers, and parole officers.

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THOMAS

The 100 mile race began in downtown Sequim and trailed up through the foothills. It was the annual EZ electric, shopping cart race, sponsored by Safeway and Kroger’s. Local retirees entered every year, some succumbing to the excitement and temperature, pushing 65. Last year, Monica Smithereen won, but it was later discovered that she had juiced, so the 2nd place winner, Horace Morris took the prize money and trophy home. No one discovered the plasticizers in his urine, as a result of Mrs. Morris hooking up her IV to Horace before the race and pumping him with B12 and amphetamine.

##

The first 100 miles of the southern border with Canada had ultimately been sealed with high walls of wire and concrete. It was hastily built to keep out the hordes of Chinese Yuppies, sneaking into the states near Vancouver to buy foreclosed homes, vacated restaurants, Hummer dealerships and real estate offices in Washington. Xenophobes panicked and rushed to their druggists and psychic counselors. The border was policed with air and sea drones cobbled together by local computer and RC hackers…among them J. Gordon, who built his armed drone out of recycled foam board and parts from his uncle’s weed whacker.

SERENDIPIDY

With legs horribly bruised and bleeding, he dragged himself across the finish line. Quite an achievement:100 miles, crawling on hands and knees, but where were the cheering crowds, the welcoming committee and smiling sponsors?

Coming to think of it, where the hell had any of them been throughout the whole, laborious route?

Throwing his rucksack to the floor in disgust, he watched as his trusty compass bounced across the tarmac.

That was odd.

He picked it up; shook it – the needle never moved.

In horror, realisation dawned… he’d successfully crawled 100 miles, but only in the wrong blasted direction!

TURA

Kate and I start together, but we’re both going at our own pace, so we separate fairly soon. First refreshment point at 20 miles. I drink some water, stop a minute, then carry on.

East Anglia is supposed to be flat, but on a bike it seems to be made of hills. Halfway point at 50. Food, water, and press on.

Sheringham, Cromer, Happisburgh, Horsey Mill. 75 mile stop, ten minutes.

At 80, I’m counting down the miles left. 90. Kate catches me up and we ride the rest together. Counting half miles now.

100 miles! Free water! Free BEER!

TOM

Badger and Bolin weren’t the smartest tools in the shed. What they lacked
in brainpower they made up in steadfast loyalty. Even though Bolin was
heisted to make the 100-mile trek through Grubber’s Swamp he matched
Badger’s led right into the pit of Unending Suck. “Well I guess this is
the end,” sighed Badger. “No my end is at the bottom of the pit,”
countered Bolin. “Then we’re saved,” cry Badger and scrabbled up Bolin’s
shoulders. Pulling his friend to safety, they lay exhausted on the ground.
“Maybe 100 miles is a bad idea, lets do rocky road instead.”

LIZZIE

The bright orange sun hid in the horizon as a light breeze unsettled the weary soul foretelling the storm. Politicians, millionaires, artists, common people looking for oil or peace all tried to buy their land. “Why do you need it? It’s just sand.” They didn’t know about the trap door behind the house, the tunnel, and the living thing in there. One day, it would travel the 100 mile long tunnel back to the surface and rule the world. They just had to feed it till then. They always wondered why no one ever noticed all those missing nosey visitors.

TJ

SIGHTING

Flickering images of drunken celebrations, couples rehearsing their
passionate intentions and lonelier hotel guests texting to absent
friends whizzed through the lobby and hallways in the security feeds I’d
loaded to my thumb drives. There was otherwise nothing remarkable until
about halfway through the third one. Karen let out a gasp to see her
missing daughter, Laurie, swimming in the hotel pool. The time stamp
said she’d been there from about 10:57 to 11:23, at which point a young
man appeared, tall and blond, wearing shorts and a t-shirt. They chatted
for about 20 minutes, and disappeared from our view.

PURSUIT

Karen’s face was hard to read. Her 15-year-old daughter had disappeared.
She had, however, been spotted. She’d not been kidnapped, locked in a
stranger’s windowless van and already 100 miles away down the highway.
She’d just met a boy and gone off with him, willingly. Was probably
still in the hotel. Mom, however, wasn’t entirely relieved by this turn
of events either. We did, of course, have an image of the boy she’d met.
And it was now after 6 a.m. So we made our way to the front desk to see
if the desk clerk was back on duty.

MUNSI

Within 100 miles of here is a place I’d love.

Maybe a restaurant that serves cuisine from a country I’ve never visited, or a club playing music I’m unfamiliar with but would dig if I gave it a chance…

The specifics aren’t relevant, the point is it’s the perfect place for me, it’s within 100 miles of here, and I’d love it there if I ever went.

I might never find this place.

I get too trapped by routine to really look.

But it exists.

Can you say for certain there isn’t a similar place within 100 miles of you?

ZACKMANN

“It is a great day for a walk” exclaimed Joe
Mike replied “We still have over 26 miles to go. Like a marathon. Who do you think I am, Charlie White?”
“The car manual said charge will last 100 miles.”said Joe.
“I don’t suppose you read the fine print about using Air Conditioning or driving highway speeds.” taunted Mike
“Yes , but I still thought it would go farther than this. Maybe I should have bought a plugin hybrid but appeal of not having to do an emissions test was too hard to resist”
“Time to call the auto club”

STEVEN THE NUCLEAR MAN

Shane sighed in the backseat and tried to get his parent’s attention.

“How far is it to Grandma’s?”

“It’s a while yet, honey.”

“How far is that, Mom?”

Her sigh echoed his own. “A hundred more miles. Shush so Daddy can concentrate on driving.”

Shane looked out the window. Even an irritating sibling wouldn’t be boring.

“Mom, how far now?”

“Shane, just read one of your books.”

She’d used the “Mom” voice, so he stopped asking and looked out the window again.

When the first zombie shambled from the woods, he smiled.

It wouldn’t be a boring trip after all.

CLIFF

Marvin was a lazy monk. Marvin belonged to an unusual order. They believed that, since Jesus walked everywhere to deliver his message, then they had to walk to earn the right to tell their stories. Words were earned by walking. One mile equaled one word. A powerful sermon could involve a pilgrimage from Virginia to Oregon and back again. Marvin only made it from Philadelphia to Baltimore before sitting down to write. One hundred miles means one hundred words for Marvin. The Abbot was furious. After all, who would want to read a story that’s only one hundred words long?

LOGAN

The sky is the same color as the sand, a luminous Photoshop-layered, grainy, noisy, soft-focused, glowing, diffused, warm, creamy, grey-and-yellow. There is no safe horizon to guide me on my journey, no compass, only the feel of unreliable sand beneath my feet and the sure knowledge that I must move, or die. I am halfway there. I smell my own stale, dry, hot, recycled breath through the scarf wrapped like bandages around my nose and mouth. Move, or die. Finally, finally, I am there. I have travelled the 100 miles. I have travelled the 100 words.

GUY

It was a long but fruitful walk. Every word was a mile, and there where always 100 of them, but he pushed on, walking, stubbornly advancing word by word. He just had to. Everything depended on it. Laurence fought off the evils of procrastination, the monsters of the writer block, managing to release a new story every day for 7 years, accompanied by the ever loyal midget, the man from planet Z and an ever increasing army of cats, the Mariner robot pressed on to conquer the world, 100 words at a time, and thus the next 7 years began.

NORVAL JOE

The walls of the house appeared to bow inward as the intensity of the demon’s screams continued to climb.
“Farmer. Do you have a cellar?” Shareeka asked.
“Yes,” he said, “You stand on the trap door.”
The company and farmer crowded into the cellar and linked their arms, forming a circle. Shareeka chanted. Instantly, all was dark.
“What happened?” Owen asked.
“I moved us 20 feet north of the farmer’s cellar,” Shareeka said.
“Great,” Traveler said, “Do that for another 29 leagues and we’ll be at the mines.”
“I’m sorry,” She said, “Moving that much earth is beyond my ability.”

REDGODDESS

As guests whisk by Lola’s desk, they yell gleefully “TGIF.” Who can forget Friday is Margarita day at the hotel. Since Lola is on duty, she can’t drink alcohol but can still mingle. Two giggling women in their 20’s, wearing sundresses, designer dark glasses hurried to the gift shop. They seem immersed in chatter and trying on perfume samples. Lola suddenly misses her childhood best friend. She appreciates a good cocktail. They had a big fall out after collegel and have not spoken since. They now live 100 miles apart, yet the memories they shared are always a heart beat away.

PLANET Z

My science book says that if you laid all the blood vessels in the human body end to end, they’d stretch 100 miles long.

So, me and Bobby picked up a hitchhiker, killed him, dumped him in the back of the pickup, and got to cutting.

Parkersburg is fifty miles, so we figured we’d just head out there and back

A mile out of town, we look back, and birds are picking the goods out of the gravel.

Bobby said ignore ‘em. They’re just picking up the stuff we already measured.

I wiped my hands and went back to cutting.

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 Eighteen, 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 Bar.

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

Lizzie Gudkov
Guard 13007
Thomas
Chris the Nuclear Kid
Bonchance and Sevi
Laetizia Coronet
Tom
Serendipity Haven
Cliff
Chris Munroe
Holocluck Henly
Norval Joe
Guy David
Logan Berry
Ginger J
Zackmann
Tura
Steven the Nuclear Man
RedGoddess
Planet Z

(An additional story from Circe Broom will be posted in the Weekly Challenge: After The Bell once it arrives. My apologies to Circe for not spotting the mistake earlier.)

And if you want to spam your social networks with this episode, use the Share buttons at the end of the post…

Obligatory cat photo:

The more people see this on Google Plus, Facebook, and Twitter – the more explaining you’ll have to do with your loved ones, coworkers, and parole officers.

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LIZZIE

He twiddled his thumbs impatiently. That rule of thumb everyone kept referring to in the local contest was bullocks. “Thumbs down to that,” he thought. As he thumbed through the plants catalog it was pretty obvious; it stuck out like a sore thumb. His green thumb was the envy of the whole village. Yes, he always thumbed his nose at the whole commotion and never accepted to be under anyone’s thumb. So, it was time. He decided to simply thumb a ride out of there and start somewhere else where thumbs would not even be mentioned! Thumbs up to that!

GUARD

There was once a little girl named Jane. They told her she lived a fairytale life and had a green thumb. She was a young servent girl, that did not hold back her dreams. Jane knew with all her heart that she would one day rise to rule them all.

Then came the day where she thought she’d get her magic wand or something else to change her life. Nothing special happened on that day, so she grew quite sad. She had nothing left but her green thumb.

Now she uses it to scare away others and get free food.

THOMAS

Fran had a green thumb. Each of her children were under her thumb, raising kohlrabi for the local markets. The children spent hours thumb wrestling in the greenhouse. Her eldest, Assende, was all thumbs, and had no interest in the family business, so she thumbed a ride to the city, where she earned cash drawing thumbnail sketches for a web designer. Her thumbs opposed her, so she had to overcome her disability. Each sketch grew more complex, getting a deserved thumbs-up from the director. Assende applied all the rules of thumb she knew to produce work, faster and more diligently.

##

Thumbelina had wild adventures with marriage-minded toads, moles, and cockchafers. She was very, very tiny, frail, and hunchbacked. She had to defend herself with her pal Tom Thumb and an assortment of supernatural beings her father put in her hands as her creator. Her Father, Hans Anderson, was a shoemaker and part-time author, writing hundreds of drabbles for the entertainment of the other Danes. He sang and recited until he turned fourteen, escaping to New Zealand, where he took up with a band of thieves and miscreants, spending his later teens under the influence of native potions and wild mushrooms.

CHRIS THE NUCLEAR KID

I pressed the doorbell and ran to hide behind the bushes. My neighbor opened his front door and looked around with a confused expression on his old, wrinkly face. I stifled a laugh and waited for my neighbor to go back inside. I ran back up and pressed the doorbell again. I yelped in pain as a thumbtack pricked my finger. Apparently my neighbor had placed a thumbtack on the door bell when I wasn’t looking.
“Ha gotcha, that will teach you to mess around with a poor old elderly man like me!”
“Ow that hurt a lot!” I whined.

BONCHANCE AND SEVI

Thumb by Severina Halostar and Bonchance Longfall

Andrew and Hope had waited desperately for the day they found out they were with child.
The injections and constant monitoring was worth it.
They saw the test strip turn blue in front of their eyes while they cuddled in bed.

Her debut came too early. Anxiety filled the delivery room until little one pound Esperenza made her entrance to the world.
The day arrived; Esperenza was swaddled in soft brush cotton and placed on Hope’s bosom, Andrew protectively watching over. The little babe settled and drew her thumb to her mouth, softly suckling, a sweet gift to her parents.

Thumb2 by Severina Halostar and Bonchance Longfall
Clarence loved to tease Jake!

Running through the yard, beating Jake to the door and slamming it shut.
Clarence would then wiggle his thumbs and point at the door knob.

“I will have a piece of that inbred human”

He panted, looking up at his worthless owner. Clarence teased him with his thumbs.
The mutt turned his head as his new play buddy came over to see what was happening. Caesar the spider monkey glared at Clarence.
The deft monkey smiling a monkey smile, curled his fingers, human like, around the handle.

Jake relished Clarence’s look of surprise just before he pounced.

L CORONET

The big man explained the workings of the machine to Hameed. The Somalian mathematician found his first job in Holland in a factory, stamping pans from aluminium sheets. He was determined to do well.

“As a rule of thumb we expect you to stamp out 250 pans per hour,” the man said and Hameed thought: 4.1666 per minute. He kept count of pans and time and found his rhythm.

But then his nose itched insufferably. He had to scratch. Three pans a minute, then two. He panicked and frantically started feeding the machine aluminium.

Until it caught his thumb.

TOM

Outside of Bishops Gate Timmy lurked. He simmered with a deep hatred for General Tom Thumb. Timmy’s career had been eclipse by Thumb. Tiny Tim was ill equipped to compete with the likes of the General. So In his darkest hour Tim contrived a plan to gain back his glory and forever besmirched that American upstart. He had learned of Tom’s deep seeded fear of rats. One gentle drop into Victoria’s coach and bedlam would ensue. Unforchantly for Tim the coachman swung hard right and knock him into a second story window of Bedlam; from whence he was never heard.

SERENDIPITY

The king was a wise and powerful man – just in his judgments and respected by all. Throughout the empire his edicts were respected and his word was law; in fact whenever any question was in doubt, the people would simply say, “how would the king answer?” In this way, all matters of doubt were resolved.

Unknown distances were estimated in ‘King’s Miles’, sacks of barley were assumed to be a ‘King’s Hundredweight’ and, when planning journeys of indeterminate length, the people would say, “It’ll take around a King’s hour”.

Sadly, King Thumb died… and so ended ‘The Rule of Thumb’.

CLIFF

Jake’s Green Thumb

When I was a child, we had a gardener named Jake. He was the quiet sort, always happiest when we left him alone to the lawn and flowers and shrubs. My father always joked that Jake had a green thumb. One day, I noticed that Jake really did have a green thumb. His left thumb was a deep forest green. I wanted to ask him about it but Father always said to leave Jake alone.

Then I saw Jake’s thumb fall off. It didn’t seem to bother him. I guess that’s one of the advantages of having a zombie gardener.

MUNSI

I’ve made a movie!

Basically, it’s about a high school girl who’s really into archery who falls in love with a car that transforms into a giant robot. But at the same time a pirate, played by Johnny Depp, falls in love with her, and she must make a fateful decision about who to be with before an asteroid collides with the earth, destroying the world.

Nobody’s hands have enough thumbs down to review this movie, but that’s okay.

With the money I’ve made, I can pay somebody to look me in the eye if I can’t do it myself…

HOLOCLUCK HENLY

I thought I could fix my own deadbolt. The lock cost $35 but a
locksmith hundreds. It required firm application of the thumb and
bird fingers. Weeks later a bottle of juice dropped through my hands.
Specialist diagnosed it as Flexipolicus Longus Tendonitis or Trigger
Finger. “People with your chronic condition have this tendency.”
Surgery was weeks away. Clever ways to hold a sketch pad or wipe.

You learn to miss your thumb and everything it does for you. “It’s
that pincer effect,” someone said. It took ten minutes to fix and
worked immediately. Was this worth forfeiting a locksmith?

NORVAL JOE

The farmer sat dumbfounded at his table as if the company crowded into his small sitting room weren’t even there.
The house shook like a whirlwind danced circles around the clapboard building. Dust drifted from the wooden slats of the shingled roof.
Elbownor swirled his hands in front of him, chanting at the hearth. Shareeka formed a rectangle with the forefinger of each hand to the thumb of the other and whispered through it, facing the door.
The door buckled inward as if rammed by a mad bull, but it held.
Outside, demons screamed and tore ineffectually at the walls.

GUY DAVID

Ten Thumb Joe set in the bar, drinking his usual poison when Strike Team Alpha walked in. “You’ve been blowing smoke long enough” they said, “it’s time we blow your cover”. Back in the hotel, the moon shaped alert went off and his two lazy bodyguards sprang into action. Hugs and kisses followed. Sensing that he won’t get any help from them, Joe mattered “you are a bunch of sick bastards”. The team just smiled and said “you have been a fool if you thought you could get away with it”. What they did to him afterwards rhymes with itch.

LOGAN BERRY

3 Rules of Thumb for Happy Hitchhiking

1. If your hitchee is male and pulls over to the side of the road near a picturesque but abandoned farm in rural France, leaves the Citroen and stands at the rear of the vehicle for several inexplicable minutes, DO NOT turn around or look in the rear-view mirror.

2. If your hitchee offers to drive you and your co-hitcher a ride to the next town in the middle of the night because the hotel in Skopje was full and you were lost, then stops on the way out of town to pick up a burly friend who needs a shower, DO NOT pretend to be convent-educated virgins because that will only encourage them.

3. If your hitchees are nudist organic farmers in Devon who ask you to babysit their three children in a rainstorm while they attend a protest against fruit-machines-in-pubs, DO NOT agree to look at their wedding album in exchange for breakfast.

GINGER J

my how I would suck my thumb
when I was small and very young
I’d snuggle a little blanky

it’s not odd when you’re young
to think that a thumb
is something worth gnawing on

how grievous to me
they should take my blankee
and make me disengage from my thumb

for it had become
something to rely upon
and was never squirreled too far away

but, time came soon
when all I could do
was learn to sit on those thumbs

sit on my hands
and pretend I had plans
just as my mother intended

then boredom set in
and I was chagrined
to learn that puppets were also a tool

to keep fingers out
of my small mouth
because my sitters just couldn’t stand it

they’d rotate and shake
if my thumb I’d take
and offer them a view of my callous

for I had a thumb
that was a little numb
from all the sucking it got

so finally they put my hands into socks
and Ozonol on besides

because, when you’re not two
sucking thumbs is taboo
and I was the saintly age of five

ZACKMANN

I am beginning to suspect that the Crap Mariner is practicing some form of mind control. Lawrence Simian, who is pictured on this very website next to his typewriter, likely assisted the Crap Mariner in making you think about Thumbs this week. It is just as likely that they also have you thinking about cats. What surprised me is how they got Lawrence Santoro thinking about thumbs therefore choosing to have “4 AM, When the Walls are Thinnest” by Allison Littlewood narrated for Tales To Terrify number 20, a story in which Stumpy Ellis tells what happened to his thumb.

TURA

When I were a lad, we made proper black pudding. Dad would clout t’ pig in ‘ead wi’ ‘ammer, ‘ang it up by hind legs, slit throat and drain t’ blood int’ bucket. Us littluns would be set to stirring’ it wi’ ‘ands and suckin’ fingers, while they’d throw in lumps of fat and brains and everythin’.

When it ‘ad set, our ma would put it through big ‘and mincer into pig’s own ‘testines. Once she tore ‘er thumb off, but it didn’t bother ‘er, she just kept on crankin’ the ‘andle, and that were the best black pudding ever.

RED

“It’s official, spring is HERE!” declares the weather guy. Lola has caught the gardening bug after watching too many DYI landscaping shows. In one hour, she can build a lush city garden or bump into a handsome handyman at the home improvement store like on TV. He will then buy all the plants, come to her apartment with an army of skilled laborers, to transform her asphalt yard while being held in seclusion until the big reveal. Lola is a jack of all trade at her job, but she’s embarrassed that she doesn’t have a green thumb like Martha Stewart.

PLANET Z

When I was little, I remember biting my toenails and getting an infection in the corner of my right big toe.

The doctor cleaned it out, smeared some goo on it, bandaged it, and warned me about biting my nails.

I kept biting them anyway, and suffered infected toenails, fingernails, and thumbnails.

Then, six years ago, I stopped.

I trimmed them with clippers and a nail file.

Still, every now and then, I clip them too close, or I peel off a hangnail into the corner, and it’s back to the bathroom where I keep the antibiotic and small bandages.