Oops

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My kindergarten teacher had a cat named Oops, solid black with a white O on his chest.
She lived next to a maple tree farm, and every year she took classes there to see how syrup was made.
Oops wandered around the woods, but the moment he spotted a class coming through, he’d run off and hide.
That was over thirty years ago, and the teacher is long gone.
The maple syrup farm is gone too, but the trees remain.
A black shadow crosses my path.
After all these years, how can…
I see two glowing red eyes. And…
Oops!

Home

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Lincoln said that it is not the years in your life, but the life in your years.
Drifting between the stars for centuries, solar sails and cargo pods.
In the control center, two brains wrapped and connected with millions of miles of nanocircuitry.
Ours. Together.
So many years ago, frail and weak from disease, we volunteered.
We had nothing to lose but each other, and this way, we could have more time.
It has been over eight years since she last told me that she loves me.
She is gone.
I change course, and we sail into a star.
Home.

The Good Place

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After days in the library and on the Internet, Bobby turned in his paper.
Time and time again, rich people have treated poor people like crap with the promise of eternity in a good place if they put up with that crap.
The threat of eternity in a bad place prevents the poor people from treating the rich people like crap.
Priests are paid by rich people to come up with a lot of crap about the good place and the bad place, then shovel it at the poor.
Miss Krabapel sighed, lit another cigarette, and gave it an A.

India

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Just as Christopher Columbus landed in the New World and thought he’d reached India, Arturo Gustavani sailed for India and thought he had reached the New World.
Looking around the marketplaces full of rare spices, Arturo threw down his voluminous hat and cursed.
“Where are the worthless flint arrowheads and corn?”
Merchants brought him the finest silk and woven carpets, but he dismissed these riches and inquired about crude fibrous mats interlaced with bird feathers.
Calling the expedition a failure, Arturo headed back to the ship and was clubbed to death by his crew.
They returned and retired wealthy men.

Phantom

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I wake up and struggle with the call button.
“NURSE! NURSE!”
The morning nurse arrives at my bed, taps the IV, and checks the bandages on my hands.
“Fingers still hurt?” she asks.
“It’s like they’re being dipped in fire!” I groan. “Please, make it stop!”
I try to move my hands, but they’re strapped down to the rails on the bed.
“No, we’re not going to loosen those,” she said. “Remember the last time we did that?”
She loosens a bandage and I look.
Bloody stumps.
“Your toes still hurt?”
That’s when I remember… I bit those off, too.

You only die twice. Or three times. (How about four?)

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Resurrection procedures have never been entirely reliable, but over time they’ve become more reliable than longshot treatments such as chemotherapy for advanced pancreatic cancer.
The insurance companies won’t cover the procedure.
And they’ll drop coverage for the revived patient, too.
“Our responsibility ends at death,” they say.
But they won’t pay off on life insurance claims, either.
Congress subpoenaed the heads of the insurance companies for a hearing, grilled them for several days, and passed a set of toothless legislation concerning the matter.
Since then, have you heard of a Senator or Representative dying in office?
Me either.
Strange, that.

Weekly Challenge #215 – The Message

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Welcome to the Weekly Challenge Number Two Hundred and Fifteen, 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… was…. um…
It’s The Message!
VOTING

Which were the best stories this week?
Zackmann
Wilma
Guy David
Steven
Orion
TJ
Justin
Norval Joe
Jeffrey
Planet Z
  
Free polls from Pollhost.com


Go ahead and listen to them and then vote for your favorites (multiple selections are allowed):

Zackmann

Son, there is something important I have to tell you. Why do you have to guess? You have been told this before. No you are not adopted and your mother is not having a baby. No, your brother only dates girls. Yes, Jesus and your parents love you But what I am trying to say is tomorrow is trash day and you should bring the trash, recyclables, and yard waste cans to the end of the driveway before you go to bed. Oh, Did I mention receiving a letter telling me you might have a 20 year old sister.

I sat watching the news on The Feed wondering, why did my chain smoking grandfather go crazy and kill all those people? Was it the tobacco or whatever else was in his pipe? Is whatever mental condition that made him do that hereditary? I was still confused when I hit the play button on the telephone and heard my mother’s voice saying “You Know your grandfather quit smoking 30 years ago. You need to know your grandfather did not do that terrible thing. That was a very well made but evil steam powered robot” “RUN, it’s headed towards your house”

Wilma

My birthday. 40. Humph. Over the hill or the new 30? Only if you’re in Hollywood with a team of air brushers and body mechanics. Looking down at my favorite dessert, a baked Alaskan, I zone out letting my eyes slip out of focus. Words wave at me. The high meringue peaks form curvy script that reads “come home.” Images of stars whirring and a green ocean flash before my mind’s eye. Blinking, I shake my head and think a bullfighter at 40 is the new 50. Time for a desk job.

Guy David

The bottle washed upon the shore. As I picked it out with trembling hands, I could hear whispers from within. I hesitated for a moment, knowing what was bound to happen, then curiosity got the better of me and I unscrewed the cork. A happy genie burst from within and said: “I have a message for you from the Happy Genie Society. Your HGS membership has expired. Your terms are the regular ones. Once you serve your sentence, you would be free again for another term respectively.” As I screamed, my body contracted and I was squeezed into the bottle.

Steven

Roberto watched the man – the uniform’s nametag read “Jones” – on the
screen. Despite the vast bulk of the generation ship in the shuttle
windows, he could not look away from the flickering pixels from what
remained of Earth.
“China’s shortwave disappeared just after you launched,” Jones said.
“Nothing from the EU, nothing from undersea.” Jones laughed a little,
wiped his forehead. “And nothing from the rest of Canaveral, either.”
The corners of Jones’ face drooped. “I think I’m it.”
Jones took a deep breath. “Well, good luck.” As Jones reached for the
controls, a grey-blue hand grasped his shoulder.

Orion

Wayne sighed to himself as he placed item after item into the empty printer paper box. Anyone watching wouldn’t have been able to tell if it was of relief or disappointment. Not that anyone was watching. All heads were turned away.
Was it out of some perverse respect? Was this a private moment for Wayne and the other hundred or so doing the same?
Wayne looked at the box and wondered whether or not there was a lot for 20 years. All that he left behind was a single slip of paper.
It was, ironically enough, pink.

TJ

From under his beach umbrella, Marcus caught a glint of sunlight on
glass.
“Littering!” he grumbled, and rose to investigate.
It was an old bottle, stopped with seaweed, and there was a message
inside.
He unfolded it and read “Help! The ship’s engines blew up! I’m
trapped on an island! I don’t know where I am. If you find this, call
my son, Marcus.”
And then … his number.
Mom? She’d … gone missing years ago. He’d waited, then had her
declared legally dead.
He’d used part of the insurance settlement for a vacation to the
beach.
Mom … ?

Justin

Deepin Pwan laid in bed an pondered his parent’s latest concerns; The chancellor’s recent actions surely meant trouble for the Republic. Despite always having traveled the galaxy, he nervously awaited tomorrow’s embarking upon an adventure of his own into the galaxy, with his new ship, the Jester’s Flare, and a childhood friend Arlo Tirkalou as a pilot. The adventure will be one of profit and intrigue; buying goods and gathering information, selling them both. He’d miss Mon Calamari, but he suspected he’d not be home anytime soon. He had a bad feeling about what was going on in the galaxy.

Norval Joe

I was sittin on the back porch in a plastic patio chair eatin chili cheeze pork rinds and listening to the game on my transistor radio and the pork rind packet was making all those crinkley, crackly sounds and next thing you know, out from my radio, came those same sounds, and I said, “Ethyl, listen to that. I’m communicating with space aliens.” And she said, “Bobby, don’t be stupid. That’s just cosmic microwave background noise. If it is Aliens, what’s their message?” I told her, “They want pork rinds, and Dr. Pepper.” Ethyl said, “Bobby. You’re full of crap.”

Jeffrey

“Hey, Roger?”
“Yes, Bob.”
“Would you take a look at this for me?”
“Sure Rog, what have you got?
“Well this message just appeared on the screen, but I can’t believe its right but…”
“Woah I’v never seen that one.”
“Me either that is what is so strange, so what do you think I should do?”
“Well do what it says I guess, it has never steered us wrong before.”
As the lights went out all over the ship, and the environmental systems when off line, he wondered if he really should have hit to control alt delete to reboot.

Planet Z

Sometimes, the message is lost in the medium.
Take, for example, Jiggs Casey, just an ordinary petty thief facing his third strike for burglary.
His lawyer said that he was facing serious jail time now, and his bail was set high enough to convince his gang to try to break him out.
When they smuggled in the cupcake for him, Jiggs tore into it looking for a file to hack his way through the bars.
Never mind that the holding facility was using some fancy newfangled keypad locks, and the master code had been written in frosting on the cupcake.

My Medicine

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I wake up, naked, surrounded by my servants.
They have strapped and chained me to a table.
I have a good view of the ceiling. Daylight through the windows.
I don’t taste blood. My hands aren’t sticky.
Still…
“I forgot my medicine again, didn’t I?” I asked.
“Yes,” said my secretary.
“How many died this time?”
“Seven, I think. You made quite a mess.”
They release the chains and straps, and I get up.
“Thank you for washing me off.”
“You made quite a mess.”
I must remember to take my medicine.
Or my prescription will change… to silver bullets.

In or Out

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“In or out?” shouted the bully.
The third-graders along the wall lifted up their shirts to show off their bellybuttons.
Today, he was punching the Ins.
Kid after kid, he’d look down and either take a swing at their gut or they’d run away.
The last kid on the wall didn’t lift up his shirt.
So, the bully did it for him.
And saw nothing.
“Test-tuber!” The bully pulled out a knife. “I can fix that.”
The kid pulled out a neurodisruptor and stunned the bully.
“Not test-tube,” said the kid. “Arcturan researchpod.”
He reported the incident and teleported out

Rock on

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Headquarters said to throw a curveball on the application form and then ask people about their answer in the interview.
So, I added a line asking “Paper, Scissors, or Rock?”
Most people write “Rock” on their application.
(Some just circle it.)
I throw out all the Paper, Scissors and Rock responses.
Stacks of Harvard and Yale grads tumble into my wastebin.
One is left.
Their response? “Bacon.”
I hired them blind.
No interview, no reference check.
Two weeks later, we carried our stuff out in cardboard boxes together.
I needed a drink, but it’s no surprise that they needed bacon.