Welcome to the Weekly Challenge Number One Hundred And Forty-Five 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 Concrete Shoes.
The excellent theme music is by Guy David
VOTING
Go ahead and listen to them and then vote for your favorites (multiple selections are allowed):
Michael
I spiral downward as my depression sweeps through my body.
My arms are heavy as if weary of carrying the entire burden of my thoughts.
My legs feel as if they are lifting concrete shoes with each step I take.
I look around me from corner to corner, floor to ceiling as my mind searches for an alternative to the conclusion I’ve reached.
I grow tired of the argument within my head as I reach for resolution.
Finally, relief consumes my being.
Sherry
Every spaceport has its own version of the mob.
The expensive suit had skin like a warthog, but he looked over my webbed fingers and gill-flaps like I had a revolting disease. I could see him thinking “gene-mod freak” but he still loaned me the credits.
And I bet the wrong side and lost them.
So when the cheap suits with big muscles came looking for me, I couldn’t run far. Blow to the head, length of rope, and I woke up at the bottom of the reservoir.
But yeah, I woke up. Gill-flaps. Best gene-mod investment I ever made.
Serge
All she does is shop, he thought, mixing the cement. And nag.
Alex, I need more money to buy this or that.
Alex, I need a new handbag; none of the other 78 match my new cocktail dress.
Sick of it, he did something no man should ever do.
Never give a woman your credit card: she will run you dry.
He couldn’t believe she maxed out his Platinum Express in two hours! TWO HOURS!
Alex, I need new shoes, she said today.
Well, honey, I got you something with a perfect snug fit that will last you a lifetime.
Sophie
I sit at a local bar, waiting for a stranger.
This happens so often I know the outcome by heart.
He’s just outside.
Ring removed, he enters and notices me alone.
After a few drinks and small talk, he excuses himself and looks back, wondering if I’ll still be here when he returns… I will be.
As we leave together he chuckles and asks me what my name is…again. I smile to hide my irritation and say “Sally”.
He doesn’t know that this little liaison will cost him his life…cement shoes in the nearest lake, courtesy of his wife.
Ashley
“So where’s the money you borrowed?” asked the old man.
“You tryin to make me look like a clown?
“How bout I fill some really big clown shoes with concrete, then stick your feet in. Then I drop you in a nice deep river wearing those concrete shoes. Then who look like a clown, eh?”
The kid slapped a twenty into the old man’s hand. “Jeez dad, here’s the money. What’s with all the drama?”
Then she flashed him a smile radiant as sunshine, snatched the money back and prissed right out the door.
Smiling, the old man said, “typical.”
Guy
They where perfectly shaped. They knew they would fit him perfectly. The three friends nodded silently. They would have to wait for night time to secure them to his tiny, pixelated feet. Soon they found him snoring, face down on his typewriter, sleeping soundly. He didn’t wake up when they slipped them on his feet. They took his little boat for a spin and tossed him overboard. He sinked down in the murky waters. “That’s one sound sleeper” said the woman’s cockatoo in laughter. The Podmafia took the boat back ashore and left Mariner at bottom of the Edloe river.
Justin
No Louis, those aren’t concrete shoes, we are a lot more sophisticated in the twenty-fourth and a half century. I put neutronium shoes on those late paying feet of yours. They are extremely heavy, but, you can’t tell yet because that airlock is fitted with an anti-gravity generator. You will be able to though when I press this little button and you get sucked out into space. The extreme gravity of the shoes will crush you! Wait, what are you doing! Don’t turn off the anti-gravity generator!
For eternity, Vinnie knew what it was like to be in Louis’s shoes.
Norval Joe
Two huge men stood in the doorway of the shoe repair shop.
“Joey, Tony, whadaya talking about? You know me, I’m your uncle. I’m just an old shoemaker,” the elderly man plead.
“We have a glue; comes from Germany called Renia multicolle. We have another one, called superset; its an ugly yellow color. The one shoemakers like to use most is call ‘Barge Cement’. I can custom make you some shoes, and I can even cement the soles on, but if you want cement shoes, you gotta talk to somebody else.”
“Give your mother my love.”
“Sheesh, kids these days.”
Terrence
His brother stood, his arms stretched out, “What do you think?”
“I am surprised you have not lost your head,” Raoul rubbed his forehead slowly, “again.”
“You think I need a matching coat?” Raoul shook his head, “A hat then?”
“Where did you get the idea?”
“What? I’ve seen a lot of people wearing them. It’s the latest fashion”
“They were all dead, right?”
“At the bottom of the river, how did you know?”
“You do not think the shoes had something to do with it?”
“I’m not stupid.” Death replied. “They really should have been more careful around water.”
Anima
Some say Italians make the best shoes: supple leather loafers, spiky fashion heels, sturdy Alp summitting boots. I despise concrete shoes…
I prefer abstract footwear, known as shoeness in certain circles. My favorite designer, Lincoln Haddock, conceives shoeness that allows toes to express their individual “phalangeness”. He sees them as splatter-colored chaotic motion ideas for feet. I’ve never seen my Haddock’s, but they go with positively everything, and are always a perfect fit. They feel like walking on the beach, without the grit.
Waiter, can I please order now?
What do you mean, “No Shoes, No Shirt, No Service?”
Tom
The Palermo and Sons shingle had hung in the Near Northside neighbor since 1888. Purveyors of fine shoes for a discrete circle of businessmen using a Roman process over 2000 years old. The delicate detaining and classic lines no one who ever stepped into a Palermo shoe ever voiced a complaint. In 1902 Joe Palermo started adding a Portland product to stiffen up the instep. Traditionally the shoes were placed in a white oak barrel lined with straw in the 1930s the barrel was replaced with the now ubiquitous 55 gallon drum proudly baring the Palermo motto: Somnus Cum Piscis
Planet Z
Welcome to the Palace.
That statue of Queen Margaret The Easily Pissed Off consists of 50 tons of steel and 300 tons of concrete. It took 4 years to complete, fabricated off-site and assembled in blocks.
Even though only her upper half is visible, the statue is actually complete. Below ground her body extends, all the way to her royal footwear.
The stairs down to that level are being repaired, the target of an antiroyalist bombing. So, instead, we will proceed to Queen Margaret’s corpse gardens.
Perhaps you will recognize some of the newer residents – those antiroyalist bombers, for instance.