UFO

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Hubert was bored, so he picked up a camera and hucked a pie tin through the air to make a UFO photograph.
After sixteen reports to the FBI, they stopped taking his calls.
Later that month, gigantic pie tins floated down from the sky and landed in Hubert”s cornfield.
Hubert remembered The Boy Who Cried Wolf and realized he was completely and totally fucked.
Then, he remembered” he was the pie-eating champion of Bucktooth County ten years running.
Hubert ran towards the pie tins and… was blasted into smithereens by alien robots.
Come Fall, someone else will be pie-eating champion.

Garage Door

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Right after breakfast, when it’s time to go to school, Danny does this trick – he hits the garage door button and then watches the garage door go down and down and down…
When the time is just right, he runs for the garage door and rolls under it.
“Garage Door Limbo” he calls it.
One day, Danny’s principal calls his mom at work.
“Is Danny sick?” he asks.
His mom races back home, sees Danny trapped under the garage door.
Stone cold dead.
She weeps. If the garage door didn’t kill him, well, running him over finished him off.

Weekly Challenge #108 – Gold

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Welcome to the Weekly Challenge Number One 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 selected by Planet Z, who is going for broke with…
It’s Gold.
The excellent theme music is by Guy David
VOTING

Which stories were the best from Weekly Challenge #108?
Thomas
MCJC from stainless steel matryoshka
Justin from The Space Turtle
Tom from Footnote
Steven the Nuclear Man
Hotspur from Hibernia on the Skids
Eva Moon the Lunatic
Almo
Mike
JD from Writing.com
Anima Zabaleta
Guy David from Guy David
Craig from Wash The Bowl
Elisson from blog d’Elisson
Terrence from NeverWas
Planet Z
  
Free polls from Pollhost.com

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


THOMAS

Melvin Goldberg was his name, but his fellow demons called him “Gold”. He was impatient. Plenty of work still laid ahead of him, but Gold loved his job. The campaigns were in full swing with everybody eager to sell their soul.
Just a flash of his smarmy smile and they were Gold’s. Whatever promises he had to make he would. Democrat; Republican; hell, even Jedi! They would cast principles aside and sign on the dotted line. Winners and losers didn’t matter. He was, after all, in sales, not fulfillment. That was somebody else’s department.
So many politicians, so little time.

MCJC

Hip wears silver, family wears gold. She chose copper bangles, colored glass beads. On holidays she would receive gold hoops or rings, tennis bracelets, charms. She dreamt of melting them down into a bar as a door stop. Meaningless. Save, Lame’ tops, frosted hair, big broaches at JC Penney. Save, time spent before growing apart. Each unworn piece, treasure of mall trips, and distant sisterhood. Friends, adorned in silver and hemp shirts, said titanium lasts forever. Yet gold survives, fluid like memory and love, familiar in the glow, the ancient desire to capture the sun, the warm, and the good.

JUSTIN

Ehh you, Golden Boy, dat’s right, you. I’ve had enough of your shenanigans… makin’ my boys disappear… I don’t know where they go, but I don’t believe you turn criminals into people that help the poor, and me and my bat here are going to settle this disagreement.
The thug swung the bat. The man with a yellow ingot symbol on his chest grabbed it. The bat turned gold, as did the man that held it. The Golden Boy then melted the body down, forming it into golden bricks, which he then sold, donating the money to the poor.

TOM

Bill Ray slid across the vinyl in the booth. Alma Sue fingered the crystal salt shaker. The smell of coffee embraced the acrid tinge of sweet crude. Billy flipped the edge of the tiny black velvet box. The glow in Alma”s eyes reflected the gold and diamonds his token of love. Irene glided between the couple and deposed a piece of absinthe pie. “Oh Billy such opulence,” purred Alma sliding the golden ring onto her finger. The last rays of a golden sun was setting on loves labor lost. The tiny gold cross upon her neck glowed. “Oh Fuck “””””..Zombies”

STEPHEN THE NUCLEAR MAN

The machine goes ping and she stifles a laugh. They loved that movie.
His hands are cold in hers, so she is not surprised when the rhythmic
ping changes to a whine, then to the chaos of nurses and doctors
performing a full code. She allows herself to be ushered out to the
sterile comfort of the waiting room.
Couples fight silently overhead, the trash tv thankfully muted. Her
fingers caress the worn gold of her ring. She wonders if she will
wear it once he has gone.
She sees the doctor in the doorway, and stands to meet him.

HOTSPUR

How do I explain? I had no clues to his identity. To me, he was a wandering drunk that passed out in my rose garden in his own vomit. A man in my position has to show munificence. It”s expected.
So the servants made inquiries and sent him back where he came from.
The magnificent gift I received in return.. well.. I”m set for life, I thought. It was delightful transforming mundane into fabulous. Then I got hungry. And, well, you know the rest.
What will I tell her mother? And yet, she makes a lovely statue, does she not?

EVA

At last a small cove yielded up a crescent moon of smooth sand.
The crossing had been harrowing and the coast, after months at sea, taunted
them for days with impenetrable cliff walls. But the promise of a new land
of gold and riches kept them at the ship”s rail.
Ernesto leapt from the boat into the foaming surf, ignoring the water
streaming into his leather boots. He scrambled up the rocks and gazed at the
expanse of small yellow flowers that carpeted the land to the line of
distant trees.
“Capitan!” he shouted, grinning, “We have found the gold!”

ALMO

The robber stood in darkness, flashlight in his teeth, and admired the exquisite inlay on the lid of the box. He ran his hand over the gleaming wood. He didn’t know wood, but it felt expensive, smooth and warm to the touch.
What jewelry would the rich have?
He opened the box and was awed by the way the contents sparkled under his light. The diamond earrings were first to be plucked. Then the necklace. Antique. Valuable.
Finally, he took the gold wedding band and let the lid of the casket drop as he slipped away into the night.

MIKE

Thousands have killed for it; millions, possibly, have died for it. In leaf form, it graces countless domes at all levels of government, as well as untold numbers of universities and church buildings. Few things are as beautiful as the gilt accents seen in pottery, porcelain, and glass, as well as on the edges of the pages of a fine book. I speak of the most desired of metals – gold.
But the gold that stirs my heart and fires my blood are the flecks that dance in the eyes of my one true love, every time she smiles at me.

JD

Johnathan stands next to the creek and watches the water wash through his homemade sluice.
His left hand, holding the long wooden handle, pushes and pulls causing the wooden box to rock gently left and right.
Johnathan’s eyes, ever watchful of the gravel in the bottom of the box, glints at his first sign of color.
His right hand, quickly diving into the water, grasp the nugget and lifts it to the sky.
The nugget sparkles in the sun.
Behind Johnathan’s back Ellen climbs onto the big stallion with the dark stranger and rides away.
Truly, this is fool’s Gold.

ANIMA

“Here you go,” says Jason, holding out the glass amphora to his cousin, King AEetes. A metallic pinging emanates from the jar.
The arrogant youth prates on, “I’m ready to take over the throne, like you agreed to””
“What are you babbling on about?” Asks the king.
“You said, if I brought back the golden fleas, I’d get my throne back. You never thought I would go all the way to the gates of Hades and pluck them from Cerberus. Man, does he have stinky dog breath”.”
“You Greek goof, clean your ears. You’re to bring me the GOLDEN FLEECE!”

GUY DAVID

Chaketo have really grown. Mama Chirapa always worried about him, so thin and pale. “Why can’t I go and play on the surface?” he would always ask. “The humans are suspicious of strangers” Mama Chirapa would say, “we can’t risk them knowing about us.” Chaketo could never understand this, why would anyone be suspicious of anyone else? “When I grow up, I would find a way to earn their trust” he thought. Meanwhile, The Chirapa mind the gold from the dipper underground tunnels in order to keep their cloaking devices operational. They really didn’t want those Humans to discover them.

CRAIG

Walking into the local vegetarian restaurant I felt tension, was my leather jacket setting them on edge.
Placing my order I smiled, looking deeply into eyes that didn”t look back.
My order of a simple brown rice bowl came with a bonus, a side of silence, no charge.
In the restroom HOWL played in endless loop. I washed my hands mouthing
“I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness,”
“who lit cigarettes in boxcars boxcars boxcars”
“who cut their wrists three times”
I stood looking at my gold watch wondering about different roles, then left.

ELISSON

Theodoric was in trouble. Deep trouble.
As an up-and-coming young alchemist at the Magisterium, he had boasted openly of his ability to turn base metal into gold. Too openly…
…for when the Regent”s men overheard him, they were swift to pass word to their master.
Now he shared a fetid cell with a heap of leaden ingots. Transmute or die, they had told him.
Sweating, trembling, he closed his eyes, tonelessly reciting the incantation.
An ill-timed stutter on the last word added fifteen protons and twenty-seven neutrons too many, whereupon the Magisterium, along with the surrounding countryside, ceased to exist.

TERRENCE

Over the years many had feared Raoul. Many trembled at his mere presence. People fled from him. He was after all the most feared of all his brothers, even if he had been written out of the ‘Good’ book.
There was, however, the one time all that changed. People were not running or quivering at his presence. They were cheering him. This had not been his intent. He had hoped that his actions would lead to the damnation of millions. He would have never guessed people would be happy that he turned all those hopeful singers in to Golden Idols.

PLANET Z

For months, we sack and pillaged the New World, plundering the riches of Empire and carting away tons of finest Gold.
Cortez check his math.
“Did we plunder six or seven cities of gold?” he ask.
Some of the men say six.
Some say seven.
One say eight, but Pedro, one who say eight, he not so good at math.
“Do we go back?” I ask.
“No,” say Cortez. “We have enough. It give something to go back to, no?”
We load the ships, raise the sails, and head back to Cleveland.
So simple to rob Canada these days, yes?

Willy Lied

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Willy Wonka said that they’d come away unchanged and unharmed, but just a little wiser.
Willy lied.
The fat kid drowned in the fudge vats. They didn’t bother scooping him out. Choppy-chop!
The gum-chewer exploded into blueberry goo in the hallway. Fucking gross!
The greedy bitch was crisped in a furnace, followed by her father. Good riddance to them both.
The TV kid survived. But he was only four inches tall. That makes it hard to treat for radiation sickness.
By the time they buried little Mike Teevee in a shoebox, Charlie and his family were moving into the factory.

Confession

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Confession is good for the soul.
And for the community, too.
Every few nights, Max shows up with a bag of cash.
It scares me to think what he’s done to his wife and daughters this time.
Over the years, we’ve renovated the church with that money. Put in a community center. Added computers, tutors for homework.
Last night, soaked with blood, all torn up. Hands me a briefcase.
“Make it last,” he says. “You’ll never see me again.”
I don’t even listen. I just put it in the bank, and watch the news as they bring the bodies out.

Mailed It

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When you can’t be there for someone, sometimes you do the best you can with what you have.
This wasn’t much comfort to Sarah, but she didn’t feel like wasting time complaining or getting angry over something she couldn’t change.
She kissed the slip of paper, put it in an envelope, and mailed it to her one true love.
The mailman took it for himself and hid it away in a desk, bringing it out every so often when he felt sad and lonely.
A coworker discovered the letter and showed it to their boss.
He growled and mailed it.

Ask A Grampa

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All the ATMs are gone.
These days, whenever you need money, just ask a Grampa for it.
He”ll pull out his roll of bills, licks his thumb, and gives you one last look before he peels off what you need.
Need to deposit your cash? Just give it to a Grampa, and it goes right in his pocket.
There”s always a Grampa around when you need one.
Little, fuzzy-eared wrinkled old men, puttering around, smiling wide, enjoying the beautiful weather.
Nobody would ever think to rob a Grampa. After all, he”s our Grampa!
We love Grampa, and he loves us.

Mark Brown

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Mark Brown. Spoiled rotten rich kid.
The worst bully in the entire school.
He pushed kids down the stairs.
Nobody ever stopped him.
One day, he tried to push me down the stairs.
But I saw him coming and ducked to the side.
Mark lost his balance and fell, tumbling down.
Crack… he broke his neck.
Laying there in the hospital bed, he tries to apologize to me.
“Say it like you mean it, Mark,” I say.
He’s crying, looking at the ventilator hose.
My hand, crimping it shut.
“Cry for me,” I say.
There’s a new bully in town.

She Wore Angry

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There’s some kinds of hate that wash off like dirt in the shower, and there’s others that go deep that you can’t dig it out without killing the wounded heart it’s wrapped around.
She wore Angry like a mask and Vengeance as a necklace, barbed wire around her ankle while she hunted us down one by one.
We knew she was coming for us. Like a force of nature, there wasn’t a damn thing we could do but dig deeper and pray she passed overhead.
Someone calls you. Your phone’s set to vibrate, but it rattles loud.
Did she hear?

Weekly Challenge #107 – The Chair

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Welcome to the Weekly Challenge Number One Hundred And Seven, 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 selected by Craig from Wash The Bowl, who is going for broke with…
It’s The Chair.
The excellent theme music is by Guy David
VOTING

Which stories were the best from Weekly Challenge #107?
Planet Z
Freereed Freenote from Murder on Moondust
Rich Palmer of Audio Gumshoe
Guy David from Guy David dot com
Steven the Nuclear Man
Thomas
Eva Moon the Lunatic
JD from Writing.com
Tom from Footnote
Planet X-Ray from Planet X Podcast
Anima Zabaleta
Almo
Craig from Wash The Bowl
Caleb from Black Tie Martini Club
Sougent from SL Adventures of a Southern Gentleman
Laieanna from Hodgepodge Point
  
Free polls from Pollhost.com

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


PLANET Z

Baby Bear looked at the shattered splinters of wood that were once his favorite chair and he wept bitter tears.
“Someone ate my porridge and broke my chair!” he growled. “I will have my revenge!”
“Son, don’t get carried away,” said Papa Bear.
Baby Bear would have none of it. “When I am through with them, death will be considered a mercy!”
The outburst woke Goldilocks up. Heart pounding with fear, she leapt out of Baby Bear’s bed and ran for the window.
It was painted shut.
Heavy paw footfalls on the stairs. Angry, muttered threats under his breath.
“REVENGE!”

FREEREED

cummings says… the artist is like the circus performer who sits on top of three balanced chairs. the three chairs are three facts of his life… “I am an artist, I am a man, I am a failure.” my chair is an old wood swivel from the brother in laws garage. in that garage is art made by mikey who was murdered at age eleven. They never caught the killer. i think this chair knows who killed mikey This chair knows me. “I am an artist, I am a woman. I am a failure.” Well, Off to the therapist now

RICH PALMER

A white room. A simple white room with no embellishments. One should look for windows, but there is no point. It is simply a white room. No curtains, no shelving, no tables. Just a white room. And the chair.
The chair that sits in the very center of the plain, white room.
The chair is nondescript. The chair has no ornaments. There are no intricately carved legs. There is no fine upholstery. The legs are wood. The back is wood. The seat is wood. It is simply a chair.
I sit in the chair. The white room has gone dark.

GUY DAVID

“Address the chair” said the head table. “I beg to differ” uttered the chest of drawers but the cupboard shushed her. The respectable window curtain walked in. An appreciative silence filled the room. The sofa moaned. “I think she ate too much last night” whispered a bed to a cabinet. The cabinet just shrugged and said “that sofa would be very hungry when there is no food left. There is a limited amount of unsuspecting people around you know.” The chair cleared his throat and said “We hold these truths to be self-evident: That all furniture are created equal…”

STEVEN THE NUCLEAR MAN

It first creaked as she rocked in summer’s heat, waiting for the baby.
Dad fixed it, but she wouldn’t sit in it until he made it squeak
again.
She rocked through my breastfeeding and tantrums. I showed up once
with teenage bravado and a cigarette. She stopped. I put the
cigarette out and heard the rhythmic creak again.
I missed it when I left for college. Squeaks lulled me to sleep when
I returned for Dad’s funeral.
It’s silent now. My wife asks if I’m okay.
The wind moves the rocker, and for a second I pretend that I am.

THOMAS

The chair, impressive once, sits in the corner. The center of the home for decades; but for several years, silent. After thirty years of marriage, the chair to the right of the once formidable recliner, is now the center of life.
The diminutive woman sits stoic: hands clasped. Behind her expression, sits tears, waiting to fall again. ‘Til death do us part was their promise to each other. However, she knew he wasn’t gone. Alone in the silence, looking at his chair, she could still see him. Faintly… briefly… but still he was there; a memory, a love, a promise.

EVA

Alma walked by that door a hundred times a day and even if she didn”t break
her stride, some part of her always lingered there for a thudding heartbeat
or more. Sometimes she”d pause for a moment to reach toward the knob and
feel its warm burnished surface, or run a finger down the dark, grooved wood
of the doorframe. She didn”t have the key. But it wasn”t like she didn”t
know what was in there: The room was completely empty save a single heavy
wooden chair. She shuddered slightly and glanced at the clock on the wall.

JD

Near the access hatch in the deck, under a dim red overhead light, the chair sits.
A slender figure occupies the chair and has done so, unmoving for long ages.
The skin of the face, the texture of leather, is pulled tightly about the skull, the eyes nonexistent.
Holding a short wooden staff, sharpened to a point at one end, he appears ready to offer a challenge to anyone climbing from below.
John 316 grasp the last rung and emerges, only to slip and almost fall back at the sight of this ancient guardian.
The corpse grins with sightless eyes.

TOM

It took Allan and his guys two months to overhaul the Cronomotive. It was deemed too dangerous for Maria to return to the timepad. On departure day only Allan was present bidding Arnesto farewell. As Cervante moved through time a jolt rocked him backwards. When the time machine came to a rest there was Allan next to him PM Arnesto Arroway the third.
“Tell me of Maria, Allan.”
Quartemain turned away.
“Come with me grandfather.”
A chair was set out next to a statue
of Maria tearing open the easy bake.
“She did this to save her students.”
Arnesto wept.

PLANET X

“The Chair has been watching you and wants your resignation on his desk now” Stella calmly stated to Frank the file clerk.
“Why me?” Frank retorted.
“Well, let’s see”. ” Stella replied.
“You come in late and leave early”
“You spend half your day around the coffee pot”
“You take three hour lunches”
“You’re lazy”
“You’re incompetent”
“You lie and cheat your fellow employees on the football pool”
“You’ve sexually harassed almost every female here, along with a couple of the men.”
“Oh, and by the way, Frank” Stella continued
“Starting on Monday, you’re hired back as a mid-level manager”

ANIMA

Management has always made an effort in improving workforce motivation.
The last Friday of the month, we gather in the board room for supermarket cake and a corporate cheer”
Recently, We’ve been playing ” Musical Chairs”.
The boss plays music, and we circle like a pony ride at a county fair. When it stops, we scramble for a seat. The job on the nameplate before you is your new post, until the next time we need “better morale”.
Each month, there are more jobs and fewer chairs.
Their plan is working! With the mortgage due, I find myself very motivated”

ALMO

As he stood at the kitchen counter and slathered extra mayo on the bread, John heard the television announcement rather than saw it.
The name was familiar — a young, fit athlete. He had died of a heart attack while running.
John took his plate into the living room and sat heavily in his La-Z-Boy. He leaned back, picked up the remote and changed to the football game.
“You never hear on the news of anyone having a heart attack while sitting in his recliner, eating a sandwich and watching the game,” he thought.
John smiled, relaxed and ate.

CRAIG

“It”s something and yet nothing” Angie said, “what do you mean something yet nothing” I asked? She smiled saying” the peace you”re feeling right now.”
A terror overcame me, she knew what I was feeling.
I started jogging in place trying to slow my mind as my thoughts assaulted me from every direction.?
A hard stick struck my head with a loud whack. Angie grabbed my arm yelling ” open your eyes, you”re indulging your own fears, open your eyes.”
My eyes opened to see Angie completely alone in a field of opposites, offering me a chair in which to sit.

CALEB

He had a plan” a Brilliant Plan! But if only he could be heard over the screaming horde and the stupid band that would not stop playing! He could save them all” or at least most of those who couldn”t fit in the lifeboats. He knew about buoyancy. He knew a thing or two about structural architecture and if the remaining passengers could get all the furniture fastened to the outside, he could keep this thing afloat. But no matter how he screamed and tried to explain, he couldn”t convince anyone that rearranging deck chairs would help on the Titanic.

SOUGENT

The Chair.
It sits there, in the center.
Sometimes, it’s the focus of a great deal of attention.
Some call it the hot seat.
To look at it one might consider it unremarkable.
But it’s not what it looks like that makes it special.
Some see it as a symbol of power, others a curse.
Many desire it, but few have what it takes to sit there.
For him, it’s where he belongs. If there is such a thing as destiny, then his is to sit right there.
For Captain James Kirk, The Chair is the center of the universe.

LAIEANNA

Thesus walked up fifteen marble steps, bowed, and placed his offerings before the ornate chair of the goddess Nahmudida. It represented her place of power. Thesus opened the blue silk pouch to present, for his deity, two apples, rosemary sprigs, a lock of his daughter’s hair, and five gold coins. The priest standing at his side held, in eyesight, a ceremonial knife. Slowly, Thesus took the weapon, but was quick to slice it against his skin. The blood poured down as he prayed. “Please welcome my dying daughter into your house. I shall take her place wandering in the wasteland.”