Welcome to the Weekly Challenge Number One Hundred And One, 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 JD White.
It’s Life In The Sewer.
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):
STEVEN
I rise from the manhole, from my sewer home. Rain runs down my green
skin and the scratches in my shell. It has been twenty four years,
and I tire easily. My brothers’ weapons slew many soldiers before
they fell. Only I remain.
Our enemy is in his home, now just a slumlord with antique armor. He
watches our old cartoons and laughs. All anyone remembers are pizza
eating caricatures, our innocence as youths.
The enemy eats his pizza, ignoring the irony. He forgets that our
ninja skills surpassed his. Tonight, I will remind him.
I draw my swords.
Cowabunga.
STEVEN #2
I had sent the link to my grandmother, parents – all of those people
who like to see what I’ve written. And then – only then – do I start
to listen to the podcast. He dropped the F-bomb. Before the intro
music.
I am so glad I mentioned the dirty words.
I am going to be in trouble. I’m sure of it. I was going to run
away, but I would miss them. Instead, I’ll go down. It’s warm in
winter, and there’s never any traffic jams.
Once my nose adjusts, I might get used to my exiled life in the sewer.
AINI
Life is such a great journey. We learn a lot from living which helps us to deal with
different kinds of situations that we face. Living is a wonderful experience.
As for me, I love my life. It is amazing and a lot of fun. In life you can do so many things
that you can enjoy or learn from. In my life I have great things like money,
a home, my own room, a soft bed and a lovely pillow on what I put my sleepy
head every night. My life is fabulous. All these gorgeous things around me make my life perfect.
However, there is just this big word ”but” to all this. This is my life only when compared to life in the sewer.
PLANET X-RAY
Norton strolled down the tunnel looking for the valve that would drain this section. To think he had spent almost his life in the sewers and he couldn’t find one lousy valve.
His mind kept going back to last night’s bowling. It just wasn’t the same without Ralph. Oh sure, Laurence bowled great, but he wasn’t Ralph. He was just too stiff and didn’t joke around like Ralph did.
Plus, Norton was still in shock from when the cops handcuffed Ralph and led him away.
Oh sure, Ralph had said it a hundred times in the last 20 years, but who though he’d actually do it.
Well, he still had his life in the sewers to look forward to, poor Ralph would be in prison and Alice, well there just wasn’t any coming back from the moon.
GUY DAVID
Most of the time, only the rats and I live here. I say most of the time since every once in a while, a lonely traveler finds his way here.
This is the real underground. Got used to the smell, the crap flouting here in the sewer, you’d be surprised what people flash down their toilets. One can find all sort of strange toys down here for use on hapless lonesome travelers. Their screams can be heard for miles, but there’s no one to hear.
Would you like to come visit? I’ll have a special room ready, just for you.
TERRY TEE
Bizrocca strolled slowly along the walkway deep in thought
Here she was working her ass off to keep them living the life style that they were accustomed to, and what does he do.
He gives her that tasteless birthday cake with little meat in it, and she was sure he had used the neighbors pet as the main ingredient. Why she had found the toenails from seven of the beast’s feet in the cake for god’s sake.
And just what does he say”.
“But my lumpy dumpy, I wanted to catch that 4 legged beast the earthling brought with him, but it was just too fast for me.”
Too fast for him, shit, he was just too fucken lazy to get off his ass and leave their comfortable house.
Well, that was life in the sewer, it just doesn’t get any better than this on Mars.
ELISSON
I row through the Underground, navigating past the Ordure Ocean, the Beeyem Bay, the Sea of Shit. I”m a regular Crap Mariner, sailing the sewers like Jason and the Cacanauts.
After all these years, I”ve gotten used to the reek. Almost.
Life was different once. You might remember me: I was the Ty-D-Bowl Man.
With my blazer and jaunty captain”s cap, I”d paddle around in toilet tanks, freaking out the housewives. You”d freak too, if you found a little dude rowing a boat in your tank. Great gig while it lasted.
Lousy defective flapper valve.
I still miss my cap.
ANIMA
After pulling on hipwaders, I slurp the last of the tea. Collecting my Browning BAR and a fistful of.338 Mag cartridges, I head down the main utilidor”
I can tell its after 8 ” there’s lots of brown trout nudging downstream. Sometimes, I come see the afternoon surge around 4:30, weekdays. In this sector, trout are quiet on the weekends.
CHUDs have been spotted to the north… that’s where I’m headed. My job is to protect topsiders from becoming lunch, but I do it more for the fun. I hope to bring home a huge trophy mount today. Wish me luck!
TOM
It was cramped but doable. The easy bake on Maria, Maria in Arnesto”s lap. “Is the air always red here?” Ask Maria. “No last time it was green about the constancy of pudding.” he said gazing out at the mists of vermilion. “Are we there yet?” laughed Arroway, the Kronomer didn”t get the reference. The mist cleared to reveal a dim dust filled room. Something was very wrong. As they stepped into the room Maria noticed the following scrawled on the wall: Life In The Sewer. On the floor was a package from the future: Book Number Three.
CRAIG
The dog is dead, cat living in a tree, me I”m living in a city sewer.
Everything I ever owned or dreampt of owning is out of reach
cause I”m living in a city sewer and someone has closed the grate.
Neighbors are rats and their getting fat living in the city sewer.
We all bob like apples when it rains in the city sewer.
The other day Hank drowned living in the city sewer.
We all scramble for heat when buses idle over the city sewer.
In the summer we all hold our nose living in the city sewer.
BRYAN / KA-KLICK
The elevator sank quietly into the shaft. His spirits racing ahead of it. As it came to rest at the lobby his spirits continued into the abyss. The doors slid open silently. He clicked across the sterile marble and glass space and stepped out into the street.
It was a cool night and the grates in the street billowed forth a steady cloud of steam.
It made him pause to wonder: What would life in the sewer be like?
Could he just fake a really bad accident, set up some kind of secret lair, become the phantom of Wall street?
SOUGENT
It’s the smell you notice at first, when you first go in, a raw foul stench that permeates the air.
It clings to you, thick and cloying, wrapping around you like a warm blanket.
Moist and steaming, it flows around you.
So strong, you can taste it, every nuance, every flavor.
After a while, you get used to it. Stay long enough and you learn to love it.
Ah, yes, close your eyes and inhale deeply, breathe in that wonderful fragrance.
Life in the sewer.
My life, my world.
It’s the life of a sewer rat.
JD WHITE
I stand in a dim shaft of fading yellow light.
Around my legs the black stagnant water is disturbed only when I move.
Before me the curved walls of the tunnel quickly fade away into the darkness.
The smell no longer turns my stomach.
At the edge of my vision red pinpoints no longer blink out when I scream.
Time has lost its meaning here where the only sound is the scurry of sharp claws on wet stone.
For long years I fought its call until its blasphemy overcame my will.
It draws near in the dark.
The Cthulhu comes.
And I love it.
DAPHNE
I moved to the sewer after it happened. I wasn’t the only one there. Some people went to the subways but we found that the sewer gave us more mobility. They run all over, we were able to get to supplies we needed to live. We’ve managed to adapt to living down here. We can go to the surface, but only at night, it’s only safe at night. The remaining surface dwellers help us out, until they get caught. Kids talk about the surface like priest talks about heaven, you might get to go there someday if you are good… and dead.
PLANET Z
Every cell in our bodies is a living thing.
Fat cells.
Muscle cells.
Nerve cells.
And blood cells.
The collective that is you may be dead, but these cells will live on for as long as they receive oxygen and nutrients.
As I watch the blood drain from your body, run down the gutter and into the sewer, I imagine that your life’s journey is not quite over.
Life is taking a detour, if only briefly, into the sewer. Bon voyage, life! Pleasant journeys.
Oh, and your kidneys, packed on ice, will live on in a very wealthy businessman in Tokyo.