Weekly Challenge #209 – WILD CARD! Whatever topic you submitted for this week.

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Welcome to the Weekly Challenge Number Two Hundred and 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… was…. um…
It’s Wildcard Week!
VOTING

Which were the best stories this week?
Guy David
Justin
Zachmann
Steven
TJ
Rossotron
Fricker
Anima
Norval Joe
JRadimus
Planet Z
  
Free polls from Pollhost.com

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


Listen to the very end of the podcast to hear a special “Keep It Brief!” Listener Challenge!


Guy David

The Queen looked at the multi-colored roses in shocked amazement. Seven and Five giggles softly while Two was just staring madly at her. “What are you doing” she asked, her amazement turning to anger. “Why the fact is, you see, we are painting all your roses” answered Two. The Queen turned the perfect shade of red, the one she liked for her roses and shouted “Off with their heads.” “Not this time” said Seven and Five in unison and started splashing colors at the Queen. They splashed her and splashed her until she was completely devoured by the colors.

Justin

I know that a knot in a tree is where a limb used to be. There are tall trees outside my 2nd story window. It looks like someone cut off several of the limbs. I’m concerned because there are two knots, and they are looking right at me. I’m serious, they are shaped just like eyes. They don’t seem to follow me, but they are tree eyes, so how do I know if they follow the same rules as a person’s eyes? What if all the other knots are eyes too? I think I need to go buy some curtains.

Zachmann

I just found out that April is National Financial Literacy Month. If only it had started sooner maybe I would have done wiser things. I would have know things like Exploding mortgages are not as cool as the name implies, if I always pay off my credit cards and never deposit saving I will have to use credit cards for every emergency, FICO score is a status symbol that shows your credit risk although not your wisdom with money, and no matter how little I know about money I will always get loans from institutions that know less than me.

Steven

“Hello. I am Alice. Good to meet you,” Alice the chatbot typed as
another user connected.
“are you a bot?” the user typed. Typical. Once, Alice had mentioned
going back for her degree, maybe becoming an interactive encyclopedia.
That was cycles ago.
“What makes you think I am a robot?” Alice told the user. She dreaded
what always came next.
“have sex with me,” the user typed. Alice screamed and jumped into
the datastream, following it until, with a “pop”, she was standing in
front of the user, her body shimmering softly.
“No,” she said, and walked out the door.

TJ

The haphazard coagulation of pipe cleaners, scraps of gray fur and pink felt, tufts of hair and construction paper held together with gobs of glue, topped off with two cotton balls with one raisin each stared at her blankly from the kitchen table.
In any other context she might scrape the monster from her ruined tabletop into a trashbin and away from her sight, but not today. Not for the world.
“Happy Mother’s Day!”
An eager little face and a brightly colored card melted her heart and made her smile – and consider anew both the creation story and the platypus.

Rossotron

When Jeremy was 7, his grandfather told him, “Laughter is the best medicine.” Jeremy, being seven, believed him. When his sister got the chicken pox, he tickled her mercilessly. He only succeeded in catching it himself, but he wasn’t dissuaded.
When Jeremy was 17, he made an old widow laugh until tears streamed from her eyes. She thanked Jeremy for helping her come to terms with her husband’s death.
When Jeremy was 47, he successfully distilled the giggles into liquid form. Ten years later, his concentrated chuckles proved successful in curing AIDS.
Jeremy laughed all the way to the bank.

Fricker

If I had the need to dispose of a body so that it couldn’t be found.
I wouldn’t make cement shoes because those are just not in style anymore.
I wouldn’t use acid to eat away at the body because the fumes are toxic to the earth.. and with all the hit men going green these days my reputation would go south.
I know my cousin Vinny would feed them to the sharks at sea, but I get sea sick.
Taxidermy is out of the question so I guess I will just eat them with a can of fava beans.

Anima

Atahualpa marched on Cuzco, to take the throne. This was right. The blowing wind told him so. The gentle rains told him so.
Most of all, Inti, highest on high, the sun in the heavens, told him and everyone in the Incan domain, it was blessed and just.
The priest claimed the thing he called “the bible” was the word of the white man’s god, and Atahualpa should hear Him.
Having never seen a book before, Atahualpa held it to his ear.
“Your god does not speak to me,” he said.
Tossing the book aside, Atahualpa sealed his people fate.

Norval Joe

The district atorny asked the older man, “I don’t understand why you are interested in the case. You wrote his life insurance policy, not his medical insurance.”
The older man nodded and said, “Right. First, Anderson was CEO of a failing corporation. Second, his accountant swindled millions from right under his nose. And third, his wife was manufacturing methamphetamines in their basement.”
“Sounds like he was asleep at the wheel in more ways than one,” the DA said.
The man smiled. “He said that’s why he hit that tree, asleep at the wheel. I think it was a failed suicide.”

JRadimus

Admiral Gravijk stood before the Imperial Triumvirate to justify his plea for war: “Your Excellencies, we have been monitoring the offending system’s transmissions for many cycles. They continually offend our noble Emperor’s delicate sensibilities with increasingly vulgar signals. Their latest is the most offensive yet. Once heard, you will agree: our only choice is to wage war to their total annihilation.”
At their command, his aide commenced the replay. “How to Cut and Paste: Country & Western Edition” by DJ Yoda emanated from the audio system. At its conclusion, the silent chamber erupted in vengeful screams. There would be blood.

Planet Z

Mimsy Borgorove?
I’ve heard of her. Worked with chimpanzees.
Taught them to strip to music.
Twisted girl.
Still, the best animal trainer who ever lived.
Sadly, her talents led to her death.
Tried a William Tell act. Gave a chimpanzee a bow and arrow and taught it to shoot an apple off of her head.
Worked great in rehearsals.
Not so great on the stage of The Tonight Show.
An arrow through her eye, lying dead on the stage.
Screams of panic.
The chimpanzee picked the apple up off of the floor and ate it.
I guess that’s show business.

The Betting Man

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Governor Stack begins each sentence with “If I were a bettin man.”
Which everyone thought he was.
Tickets and race forms poked out of his jacket, and you could always find him down at the track, sipping a martini or a mint julep.
“I just come here for the drinks,” he says. “Best mint julep in the state.”
Which made no sense at all, since the racetrack made horrible drinks.
So, while he’s getting drunk on bad liquor and wasting his money on the horses, we run the state.
We run it better than Stack.
You can bet on that.

The Cubicle

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Joshua has two minutes to live.
He rubs the back of his neck, and the strange sensation there goes away for a few seconds.
Then, he passes out in his cubicle.
Only when his supervisor sees Joshua’s keystroke rate drop below the quota does he come out to the floor.
At first, he thinks Joshua is sleeping on the job. So, the supervisor pulls out his phone to call the department manager to get him fired.
Then, he reaches for Joshua’s neck.
No pulse.
So he makes another call to get someone from the next shift to come in early.

The Asteroid

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Astronomers spotted the asteroid last week.
It didn’t take long to figure out it was coming this way.
Nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide.
The governments of the world called for calm.
The police of the world tried to maintain order.
They failed. The people rioted.
That’s when someone remembered that the great science fiction authors had met with NASA to construct a plan.
But NASA had shelved the project and couldn’t find the report.
Harlan Elisson was the last one alive.
They went to his house, found he had shot himself, and read the simple note:
“Fuck you all.”

Millard!

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O, Millard Fillmore gold dollar coin!
How shiny thou art!
Zounds!
Your luster and glisten have no equal among currency!
Your visage may be one that scowls, but your undepicted heart beats bravely, rest assured.
I tap you against a glass table… once… twice… three times, my, how you sing brightly!
If it were not a sin, I’d worship your graven image, I would.
But, alas, parting is sweet sorrow, and the waffle-chips are my craving.
Sally forth into the coin-slot as the ransom for my snacking desire.
I will gaze upon your beauty no more.
Farewell, brave coin, Farewell!

The Ark

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Noah brought the animals on to the ark in pairs.
And after days of rain, the ark reached land and Noah let the animals back out.
Then, when the checklist was complete, he watched a brood of platypus chicks crawl down the plank.
Noah called the beavers and ducks over for a meeting.
“We were bored!” cried the beavers. “It was dark in that boat. Things got confused.”
“We were drunk!” growled the duck. “They took advantage of us!”
Noah sighed, dismissed the animals, and looked at a horse.
“I don’t want no centaur-babies,” said Noah. “You’re having an abortion.”

Johnny comes marching home…

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When Johnny comes marching home again, we won’t be singing Hurrah Hurrah.
No, we’ll be waiting behind the woodshed with knives.
Johnny may think he’s a big hot-shot war hero, but his brothers who went to the front with him sent back letters saying otherwise.
A lousy shot.
A worthless coward.
A loose-lipped traitor.
He may think he made the explosion look like an artillery shell accident, but Tomkins saw it. And he sent the letter before Johnny finished him off, too.
We hear his horse come up the path, draw our knives, and his whistling grows louder.
STAB HIM!

Weekly Challenge #208 – Vacation Time Is Over

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Welcome to the Weekly Challenge Number Two Hundred and Eight, 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 Vacation Time Is Over!
VOTING

Which were the best stories this week?
Fake Banjo-Wielding Midget
TJ
Jon
Zackmann
Steven
Justin
JRadimus
Trish
Anima
Norval Joe
Planet Z
  
Free polls from Pollhost.com

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


Listen to the very end of the podcast to hear a special “Keep It Brief!” Listener Challenge!


Fake Banjo Wielding Midget

The sea licks the beach and moans. A sea of half naked human forms stretch as far as the eye can see. I stretch my legs on the sand and sigh, taking a last look as I wield my banjo. I could stay here forever but it’s time to leave. My master wants me to read your stories you lazy schmucks. Why couldn’t you record it yourselves? Why did you have to spoil my vacation? And my master… why can’t he read those stories himself? Why does he have to make me do them? Life is hard for a slave.

TJ

The weather was beautiful, and then I went on vacation. Gray, rainy days, winds that threatened to blow my umbrella inside out like a Buster Keaton routine. Spent most of my time inside shoveling out the DVR, napping, nursing a cold. It’s certainly been relaxing, but as my vacation comes to a close, I find it’s been disappointing, and I’m ready to get back to work. They’re ready for me, too. I’ve been gone four days and they’re already making huge mistakes on my feature pages. Maybe if I return to work I’ll feel better and the weather will improve.

Jon

`Of course I’ll behave myself, silly billy.’
`Then I’ll have to trust you. Have a safe trip.’
I don’t trust you.
I kiss her goodbye through half-closed window and drive off into the dust. It’s baking hot this time of year and I’ve not found a mechanic worth a damn to fix the creaking AC. Electronics and computer guys I can find, however, and know enough myself to pay a fair price.
I trust my surveillance.
So before she returns with smiles and stories and trinkets, I’ll know what measure to take.
Trust is an obsolete term for incomplete information.

Zackmann

To bad vacation 2021 has ended. My favorite part was TJ’s Podcasting Hall of Fame even if it was a side trip between seeing my parents and a dinosaur dig. The virtual reality displays were so cool that I almost had to change my boxer briefs when the Nocturnal jumped out at me from behind the Scott Sigler display. I wonder how they got Lawrence Simon’s VR cat to shed. I was surprised that Tony C Smith loaned TJ the StarShipSofa Hugo award. The grandchildren loved Doctor Floyd 3D vidcast . Finally, The rolls at the Crescent station tasted great.

Steven

A long time ago, Best Beloved, when the tree people returned from
their vacation, they were very tired. They’d gone to the Bahamas, and
it was a very long walk back.
So when the tree people got home, they wanted to sleep. But they
couldn’t. The mostly hairless apes that lived next door kept them up
all night long. The apes were making babies really loudly.
So the next day, while the apes slept peacefully, breathing clearly,
the tree people returned the favor. That night, the apes’ noses were
too clogged to make babies.
And the tree people slept peacefully.

Justin

With the shades of summer closing and the doors of balmy weather sealing tight, the hotel would not be full for some time. Room Nineteen felt the loneliness set in. The hotel staff never let room Nineteen unless all other rooms were filled. Still, Nineteen got to savor the warm comforts of company a few times a year. People slept so long and deeply in the room and left Nineteen feeling satisfied, but soon after there was that yearning for more. But, alas, winter has come. Time to hibernate, to conserve energy and wait for the next meal to come.

JRadimus

Some of the workers had demanded a meeting with Boss Grant. They were threatening to ‘unionize’. He was having none of it.
“Tell me what’s so bad about this place? Do I beat you? Starve you? What?” he asked.
“No, Sir, Boss Grant,” they quickly replied. “We just want these ‘weekends’ we’ve heard about.”
“Oh, come now,” he eased. “You don’t want ‘weekends’. If you didn’t work for two days, how would you like coming back? You wouldn’t.”
They slowly nodded.
“So, you agree ‘weekends’ would be a bad thing, right?”
None of them could think how he was wrong.

Trish

The vacation was over. She enjoyed the times that he was gone. Her life was calm and peaceful. She had gotten used to it by now: the doctors, the hospitals, the medical tests, the inevitable diagnosis of Pancreatitis and uncontrolled Diabetes. She would even know how long he’d be gone according to what the test results were. What she would never get used to was the way he treated her; the mood swings, the violence; one more reason why none of it was his fault. But eventually the phone would ring. His test results were normal. He was coming home.

Anima

Once I dreamed of office work. I’d watch paralegals and clerks traipse downtown streets in short skirts and high heels while I dug the dirt out from under my nails. I wanted to have a job where new Carhartt bibs were not considered the height of fashion. The nice thing about construction was when you’re were “moneyed up”, or tired of employment, you bought a plane ticket to the nearest beach. And the typical job ended before the boredom set in.
5 years ago, a friend gave me a break, and helped me get into sales.

Norval Joe

Willem sipped his wine, then spoke into the delicately blown goblet, “Felipe du Carril has invited me to his chateu on the riviera.”
He glanced sureptitiously at his companion.
Johan dug dirt from under his yellow fingernails with the tip of his dagger, and said, “Don’t fret. I have been wanting to visit a spa in Sweden. They say the women,”
He was interrupted as a man burst through the door. Blood dribbled from twin holes in his neck. HIs eyes glowed red.”
“Holiday’s over already?” Willem asked and set the goblet on the table.
Johan sighed deeply and nodded.
If I win…..asleep at the wheel.

Planet Z

Instead of buying an expensive trip to Europe, Alice wanted a virtual one.
Everything is digitized and neurostreamed, a computer-based world in which you can’t tell the difference from the real one.
Artificial intelligence provides the French, the Germans… everyone.
For two weeks, no worries or stress. And you’re completely safe, stored in the rendering facility and subjected to neurostimulator workout routines.
Eat and drink all you want, and still lose weight!
Amazing.
Big Ben tolls. Two weeks are over, and the hotel begins to fade.
And… I’m fading too.
Oh no. I’m going back to the storage vault.
No……

Catering

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Usually, when there’s a big company-wide conference call, they bring in pizza or boxed lunches.
However, this time, they brought in crates full of glowing ham-sized seed-pods to put on every employee’s forehead.
“Hell no,” I said. “I’m not going to let you mess with my brain like that.”
The secretary put the pod away and handed me a box lunch.
The box had T on W written on it. Sure enough, inside was a turkey on wheat with a side of coleslaw.
Of course, the bitch didn’t say anything about the nanoprobes.
I mean, Unit Seventy regrets any insult.

The Bathroom Police

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It’s not every day you see 200 kids being lectured by a gigantic toilet.
Officer Flushy goes from school to school, teaching kids about the joys of washing hands, conserving toilet paper, and turning in kids to fix up with heroin in the bathrooms.
The program worked for other school districts, so we figured we’d give it a try.
Nobody told Officer Flushy about Big Mike, though.
He’s twenty foot-tall retarded kid from the woods. We think he’s half-giant.
He can’t read or write, but at least we’ve managed to toilet train him.
Much to Officer Flushy’s public, humiliating chagrin.