Weekly Challenge #92 – Candy

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Welcome to the Ninety-Second Weekly Challenge, 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 Kelly Burt.
It’s Candy
The excellent theme music is by Guy David
VOTING

Which stories were the best from Weekly Challenge #92?
Caleb from Black Tie Martini Club
Terry from Old Cootcast
Tom from Footnote
Guy David from Guy David dot com
Daphne from Going Broke
Kelly from Come Let Me Whisper
Laieanna at Hodgepodge Point
Planet Z
  
Free polls from Pollhost.com


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

CALEB

It was three thirty in the morning and I couldn”t sleep. I was haunted by all the imponderables of life. Is it the philtrum that holds the tip onto a pool cue and the ferrule that sits between your nose and mouth or is it the other way around? And what about philately? The smell of my cigarette burning in the night must have woken candy up she said, “come back to bed. I”m about to dream of swans in leisure suits, you wouldn”t want to miss out on that” She was right as usual. I went back to bed.

TERRY

The Candy has always been my downfall.
From the first time I tasted it, it had me.
It can destroy judgment as fast and sure as a man.
The Boss with his promises of fun and money soon had me also.
But, it was the Candy that I wanted the most, which he was glad to provide.
Through the haze created the Candy, so simple were the foulest of ideals.
With the Candy, I could do his dirty deeds.
The Candy had captured me and destroyed my soul.
With the Candy I became reckless and carefree.
With the Candy I seemed invincible and unstoppable.
With the Candy as my guide, I had gone out into the city.
Carefree and reckless, I again went to do his deeds.
Now, with the candy in one hand and a smoking gun in the other,
I watch blood flow from me.
The Candy has made me the enemy of myself.

TOM

Lt. Brumsfield pulled back the sheet covering the coed. Her face had the same stupid grin as the other UC students. Rudy the CSI photographer noted his discuss for Candy. That is what they called Germanium Tetra Lithium on the street cus it sugarcoated the DNA in the brain. Truth told candy never made it to the street, it could only be cooked up in the best of researcher labs. Thus it only appeared in the university population dues its steep cost and proxicimity. The guys who produced G4T were called the Candymen. They wrapped their wares in Wonker wrappers.

GUY

“I want candy” the overgrown 3 years old screamed at the top of her voice, while tearing off another building. Much to her disappointment, she found no candy inside, so she strolled of, leaving a trail of wrecked cars and screaming pedestrians behind. The scientists where waving their strange ray gun at her. “Do it” screamed the senator, “blow this intruder into kingdom come”. “But she’s a human being” protested one of the scientists. “shit, do it”, the senator shouted, so she was blown right into virtuality. “Oh, candy” said the girl and started climbing candy mountain on Edloe Island.

KELLY

Johnny spoke of candy hourly. They had ran through every candy they could think of from Almond Joy to Zero Bar. Still, nothing seemed to satisfy his sweet tooth. Johnny was 82 and an alzheimer’s patient, so the girls took as much time as possible with him. They hoped if one of them could find the key, then maybe they could assist him with living in the present more. Then it clicked, one of the girls realized that candy was not referring to a sugary treat, but to a lost love. Now they knew the correct question: Who is Candy?

DAPHNE

OK, remember when you were a kid and you were told not to do something but you did it anyway then something went wrong and you learned your lesson, that’s what this is. I took candy from a stranger, the next thing I know my hair is messed up, my clothes are ripped, I have this knife in my hand and I’m cover in… well.. it’s not blood, it looks like transmission fluid or oil and there’s a body, but it’s not really a body, it’s a wind-up toy… a Stepford Butler really… but I learned my lesson and no one really died… So can I go officer? I promise never to take candy from a tall, gray haired woman with wind-up keys in their back again.

LAIEANNA

It’s the race of the century, folks, our Gingerbread men lined up,
ready to take this treacheries course. They’re off! Green rounds
the corner, taking the lead. Blue and Red are right behind with
yellow on their heels. Green is down, stuck in Gooey Gumdrops. The
rest easily pass. Oh no, Blue ran off the track! He’s lost in
Lollipop Woods. Red takes the lead. Yellow changes course down
Rainbow Trail. Can he beat Red to Candy Castle? Red puts on an extra
burst of speed. He better watch”oh to late, he’s neck deep in
Molasses Swamp. Yellow wins CandyLand!

PLANET Z

Willy Wonka didn’t give a shit anymore.
After decades of exhausting prestidigitation in this fucked-up nightmare factory, he just wanted to escape.
No more worrying about quality standards, market share, and these damn, crazy-assed singing midgets.
He put his hand on the Everlasting Gobstopper, quoted Shakespeare, and knew he was condemning Charlie to misery.
But, just maybe, maybe it would be different for Charlie.
Happiness? Joy?
No, he’ll also end up a haggard, burnt-out hollow shell, a lonely, envied chocolatier.
The other kids, they were the lucky ones. They came away wiser.
Charlie, he’d never get away.

Your Other Left

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The road turned left.
Macy turned right.
They found her truck the next morning, smashed into a big oak tree.
Macy was sitting in the bed of the pickup, smoking a cigarette through shattered teeth.
The Sheriff asked her if she was alright.
Macy looked back through two black eyes and shrugged.
“I guess so,” she said. “I”ve felt better, though.”
The Sheriff got up in the truck bed and bummed a smoke off of Macy. “Shame about the truck,” he said.
“Shame about the tree, too,” she said.
He nodded, and they waited for the tow truck in silence.

Moonshine

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Nothing ever good comes out of a mason jar, my grandmother always says.
And if you’re drinking her special blend of moonshine out of one, well, she’s absolutely right.
What’s stronger than a mule kicking you? An elephant? An ostrich?
This shit kicks harder that a whole zoo stampede.
Takes the wallpaper off of the walls, too. Every damn clich” you can come up with for moonshine, well, this shit does it to you worse.
That’s why I poured mine out on the daisies and filled my mason jar with water.
I may be kinfolk, but I ain’t fuckin crazy.

Space Program

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You know all those monkeys and dogs they shot up into space in the Sixties?
They never told the public the truth about those animals in the space program.
But I will.
Every time they fired up one of those monkeys up into the sky, a dog would come down.
And when they fired a dog into space, back down they’d get a monkey.
Scientists couldn’t explain it. Dogs turned into monkeys and monkeys turned into dogs.
Years later, the Russians revealed that their dogs also turned into monkeys and their monkeys turned into dogs.
They couldn’t explain it either.

Does it snow?

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It never snows in the colony. It never rains, either.
We keep the environment stable. The crops like it that way, and we don’t have to keep clothes around for seasons we don’t have.
Still, every year, kids keep asking about snow and rain they see on the video we brought from Earth.
We’ve tried to shave and blow ice to recreate snow in the refrigeration chambers, but it’s just not the same.
When the kids whine, we show them the live video feed from Earth.
Well, live, as in current. No life there now.
Which is why we’re here.

The Little Muse

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I know a girl who buys notebooks with a watercolor kitten in the corner of each page. She calls the kitten her little muse.
Sometimes, the kitten will take an interest in what she’s writing, romping among the words, chewing on commas, batting the letters around like wadded-up newspaper.
Other times, the kitten curls up on a warm, light sentence for a peaceful nap.
Once, she tore out a page and taped it to another to see if the kittens would play.
They didn’t.
And that’s how I found her body seven hours later, the blood-soaked notebook in her lap.

Pyramid Sam

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Pyramid Sam offers to take us on a tour of Giza for fifty bucks, the most authentic and comprehensive tour around, he says.
That’s way cheaper than the government guides. And he says it’s the most authentic tour, which I’m not sure what he means.
The signs say to only take tours from the government guides, but what’s the harm, right?
So, we follow Sam into his tent, and that’s when he reaches for a set of controls and sends us hurtling into the past.
Outside the tent, Ancient Egypt awaits.
I hope I bought enough batteries and memory sticks.

Weekly Challenge #91 – Clowns

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Welcome to the Ninety-first Weekly Challenge, 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.
It’s Looking Back On 2008
The excellent theme music is by Guy David
VOTING

Who had the best stories in Weekly Challenge #90?
Kelly from Come Let Me Whisper
Duckyfresh from SLCN
Caleb from Black Tie Martini Club Oddcast
Tom from Footnote
JD from Writing.com
Guy David at Guy David dot com
Laieanna from HodgePodge Point
Terry the Old Coot
Planet Z
  
Free polls from Pollhost.com


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

KELLY BURT

Ok what f-ed-up person was the first to think, “Yes, clowns”you know, for the kids.”
Clowns are terrifying–you know, for the adults. I have never been a fan of clowns…I know, what a surprise. Clowns are evil. They are the ones that walk the night in search of victims. People are afraid of things that go bump in the night, but they should be afraid of CLOWNS! They wear make-up and lurk. I hate things that lurk. I know that I must find a way to rid us of these foul creatures. I hope that there is a cure.

DUCKYFRESH

The wise Bart Simpson once said, “Can’t sleep, clowns will eat me.” We laughed at the time; we all thought it was a funny gag because really, clowns won’t eat you in your sleep. That’s not very clown-like behavior at all. I certainly don’t find it amusing one bit to think clowns might creep into your bedroom with fork and knife at the ready, to gobble you up while you slumber peacefully. I am quite certain there is a rule in the Clown Book of Ethics that strictly forbids such nocturnal atrocities. The clowns prefer you awake and screaming anyway.

CALEB

Ever since his last trip to Arkham Asylum the Joker, that one time clown prince of crime decided to go straight. His penchant for wild inventions and gadgetry quickly made him the richest man in all of Gotham. Corporate takeovers proved even more exciting than heists and were so much more profitable. Still, he did wish he could exact vengeance on that meddlesome Batman.
When an accountant notified him of some irregularities in the recent Wayne Corps acquisition, he couldn”t help but smile even wider. Atomic cars? Helicopters? At shareholder expense? Batman was done for.

TOM

I have notice same memories are no longer connect to corporal space. I no longer remember having been at a kiddy clown show. Being the luck child called up to help with a balloon trick. The only latent image in my brain is a 8mm movie shot by my dad. Just as the balloon was growing to amazing lengths the film ran out. The last few seconds of the film turns to a orange red streak and poof I”m and he are gone. I remember being told the clown was Emmett Kelly but it probably was some other 2d clown

JD

Most of the time I love clowns.
The orange hair, large red noses, pants 10 sizes to large, their over size shoes.
They make me laugh until my eyes squirt water like the flowers on their lapels and my voice becomes a croak.
They exhaust me.
This last few weeks I find little to laugh about.
I turn on the TV and there they are.
A full menagerie of clowns, without costumes.
They all say that we, the people, are in trouble and they are the only clowns in town that can fix US.
That’s with a capitol U S

GUY

The clowns came over today. They where just on their way to Kentucky. The big boss knows who to send on an off mission, I mean, no one would suspect a clown. They always get their target and those poor bastards just don’t know what hit them. Was it the little plastic hummer? Maybe it was the pennywhistle? Those are deadly. One note played the right way and all the gray staff comes running out of your ears screaming. Not this time though. This time it was that little electric hand buzzer. Gets them every time. Those clowns are good.

LAIEANNA

Ladies and Gentlemen, it’s all just an act.
Don’t be alarmed to see this clown on his back.
He’ll be up again, clowning about,
And when he does, let’s cheer and shout.
Announced as Potato, the fainting clown,
Known one minute to be up and the next minute down.
Life, he spent quiet and shy wherever he’d dwell.
Career, he was magic except those pesky fainting spells.
You’d think and assume it tough on his heart,
But the clown kept strong from the very start.
What did him in one day in fall,
Was bad trajectory of a human cannonball.

TERRY

In the good old days, people who wanted to become clowns ran away to the circus.
Or so Billy Bob thought the legend went. It was a far cry from reality, now that the city put a bounty on their heads.
The bands of clowns and their midget cars involved in drive-by pie in the face incidents were now a daily happening.
The final straw was the mayor’s wife being targeted as she walked down Main Street.
Billy Bob was more than glad to put his army training to work. The money from the bounty would come in handy,
now with jobs were far and few between. All he needed was one of those incidents to happen.
He knew as soon as he heard the car; he was in luck, who else but clowns would be driving like that.
With a quick click, the safety on his rifle was off. Billy Bob would be dining well tonight.
Clowns, damn those clowns!

PLANET Z

There’s an old joke where a guy who’s suicidally depressed goes into a doctor’s office, tells the doctor he’s always miserable while everybody else is so happy.
He’s tried everything ” pills, booze, sex, intense shock therapy… nothing’s worked.
Doctor thinks a bit, says a famous clown is in town, always brings laughter and joy wherever he performs.
Man says “I am Pagliaci.”
Doctor says “What? No, I’m thinking of Bertoli, not you. I mean, let’s face it ” people are laughing because you’re just so awful.”
Then he gives Pagliacci his theater pass, some Zoloft, and kicks him out the door.

Afraid Of

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Susan was afraid to fly. You couldn’t get her on an airplane, let alone anywhere near the airport.
She’d scream in horror the moment a commercial played on television for an airline.
Her life was an absolute wreck.
Then, she went to the hospital for a special research project they were conducting for people afraid of flying.
And, three weeks later, she was cured of her fear of flying.
However, she slowly but surely became deathly afraid of not flying.
Pretty soon, she had to be suspended from the ground by wires.
Maybe we can change her fear to pancakes.

A Night On The Beach

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I wake up and shake the sand from my shoes. This happens every morning.
But I haven’t been to the beach in years.
Only in my dreams.
Sometimes, there’s driftwood in my hand, seaweed wrapped around my ankle.
Salt in my hair from the ocean spray.
On a shelf over my mirror, I’ve put my seashell collection.
All these things, I dream of. And bring back with me.
When I dream of you, take my hand, and let me bring you back.
I will leave my sadness on the sands of my dreams.
To be washed away with the tide.