The 100 Word Stories Podcast

Welcome to the Weekly Challenge Number One Hundred And Eighty, 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 Wings!
The excellent theme music is by Guy David.
VOTING

Which were the best stories this week?
	Steven
	Guy
	Cary
	Lynda
	Josh
	Terry
	Norval Joe
	Anima
	TJ
	Justin
	JRadimus
	Planet Z
Free polls from Pollhost.com

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

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Steven

“We don’t have penguins,” she IM’d. Her avatar’s tail twitched.
He panned his cam over the alife chickens and turtles covering their
parcel. The virtual eggs filled his inventory.
“The people next to us have penguins,” she continued. “And scripted
flexiwings.”
He rezzed his own wings. “I got these from Yadni’s…”
“I don’t want some freebie crap,” she said, and logged off.
He made his wings stretch and flap. They’d been free,
but with full permissions. With them, he could do anything.
The neighbors watched the wings carry him over their chickens,
turtles, and penguins, heading east, never to return.

Guy David

Dragon soup is our specialty. Trolls and Orcs love them. They come all the way from Orgrimmar to sample out cuisine. I can tell you, some good fights are fought over the seasoning of dragon wings. Our place is a lively establishment. Not a dull moment. You should come around, try our bat wings. You are going to love it. Those wings are spicy. Just take the Darkriver road to the northern tower. You can’t miss it. While you’re at it, could you bring me some vampire blood on the way? It would be great for our Night Elf Gumbo.

Cary

“Hey”
“Hey”
“Can I ask you a question?”
“Sure, what’s up?”
“I was wondering what those things on your side are.”
“What things? Oh! Not really sure, never noticed them before.”
“Well they look kind of cool. What do they do?”
“Hmmm. Good question. Not really sure, but they are snazzy, aren’t they.”
“Yea. Where do I get some, you reckon?”
“Hey! Where are you going?”
“Seems like down. Well it was nice talking to you. If you find out where I can get a pair of those at, let me know,” as he disappears into a puff of dust.

Lynda

Red Bulls are so good, I drank a hundred of them and I didn’t get wings, but I cleaned my gutters and I didn’t even need a ladder to get to the roof, I just jumped! Then I helped change a tire by totally ripping off the tire, and then I threw the tire, and the tire flew all the way across town to the dump and killed a hobo, but I don’t feel bad about that–I can’t feel anything but pure unadulterated caffeine rushing through my veins, busting up my brain and I think I’m having a heartattack!

Josh

The day i tried to fly, was the day i met God.
“Poor creature,” he said, “did I not give thee sense to know thou art not a winged bird?”
i stared into indescribable eyes and saw everything – comprehending nothing.
“My child, did I not give thee legs to carry thyself across solid earth?”
i marveled at bottomless robes, praying to see what was beyond.
“I am Creator of the Universe, Life, Knowledge. Yet thou art compelled, dissatisfied by what I know not. What could exist that I would not bestow unto thee?
“Lord,” i said “…curiosity.”

Terry

Orville climbed the hill looking for his brother, Wilbur, after leaving their Buffalo bicycle shop.
He was rather excited to see the new wing design they had been perfecting for the past six months.
Today was going to be the grand introduction and they had invited all of their friends and neighbors.
Seeing Wilbur standing in front of a large crown of people, he headed toward him.
As he walked up to Wilbur he asked, “Are the wings ready?”
“Just about” answered Wilbur, “All that’s left is to toss them in the hot sauce and put them in a bowl”

Norval Joe

Steel cables ran side by side, up the eastern slope of Half Dome; poles maintained them at waist level. Jeff stood at the bottom, paralized by fear, and peered up. The other boys were out of site, probably already on top.
They had hiked through the night to watch the sunrise from the top.
“If I had wings, I could fly up there,” he said to the ground.
He grasped the cable with both sweaty hands, placed shaking feet against the granite and began to climb.
As the sun peeked over the eastern horizon, Jeff’s shadow stretched across the summit.

Anima

Eduardo sat in the garden enjoying the last of the September sun. Spring in Rio was simply wonderful! The flowers were starting to bloom – the orchids and the amaryllis, the begonias and hibiscus, the color riot of red and orange and purple were almost too much for the senses.
Silently, a butterfly landed on his knee. Eduardo was able to transfer it to his forefinger, where the spindly insect clung tenaciously. It slowly opened and closed its powder-worn and tattered wings.
“Where do you come from, beautiful thing? Far away, no?”
Meanwhile, in Houston, a tornado was brewing.

TJ

Elmer Popplewood was mesmerized. For the first time, there in the dark, watching “Up,” he saw so clearly what those upgrades to his furnace and the oversized windmill installations to his Frank Lloyd Wright-inspired cantilevered roof extensions had been leading to all along. He’d been creating a flying house!
Some extensive termite activity later he connected the treadmill to the decorative rooftop rotors, and he hit the oil painting of a big red button in his living room that said “LAUNCH!”
At first, nothing happened.
Oh, of course.
He added the liquid hydrogen to the furnace.
And … he flew!

Justin

Gahamut and Raul, demon and angel, fought on a plateau. Viciously struck, Raul fell off the edge. He did not yet have wings.
Robert looked into his Arby’s bag and realized no one had asked if he wanted sauce. Exiting, he glanced at the ‘good service’ bell, leaving it unrung.
Raul’s shoulder blades tingled, but then nothing.
Rick almost rang, but an alert employee said hello first.
The ground grinned at Raul.
Jeremy looked at the annoying alarm. It would ring any second, if he could just…
Wings burst from Raul’s back, his fingertips slid across dirt, then he soared.

JRadimus

The pain was indescribably excruciating. She passed out at least four times during the first seven-hour session, but lost count after that. By the end, she thought she was going to die, but she didn’t. This wasn’t Tabitha’s first tattoo by any stretch, but it was her first enchanted tattoo, and thus, her most complex, expensive and painful, one by far. After thirteen tortuous sessions, it was done. Full-sized angel wings sprawled across her back. And when the moonlight kissed the ink, all the pain was forgotten as she flexed her feathery new outgrowths and took flight.

Planet Z

Welcome to Three Buckets Icehouse.
There’s only one thing on the menu: Bucket of beer and a bucket of wings.
I know, that’s only two buckets.
We used to give out a third bucket for throwing up in, but we eventually figured out what was wrong with the wing recipe that was making everyone sick after a couple of em.
Now, by the time you feel sick, you’re either on your last beer or last wing.
“Where’s the third bucket?” you ask.
The bartender’s pointin’ to the bucket that has TIPS written on it.
Don’t throw up in it.

Welcome to the Weekly Challenge Number One Hundred And Seventy-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 Who Knows? and Magic Toaster.!
The excellent theme music is by Guy David.
VOTING

Which were the best stories this week?
	Steven
	TJ
	Norval Joe
	JRadimus
	Lynda
	Jeffrey
	Guy
	Anima
	Justin
	Terry
	Z
Free polls from Pollhost.com

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

---

Steven

Bob gapes at the holoscreen. “Sally, have you seen the artificial life sim?”
Sally peers over his shoulder. “What?”
“Up in the sky,” he says.
Above the simulated people walking virtual streets, a blue and red
figure swoops down. It lifts a car over its head, stopping it from
hitting a jaywalking alife boy.
“That one,” Bob continued, “is using a software exploit! It does
things the others can’t!”
“Huh,” Sally said.
Bob’s face was red. “Who could have known about that flaw? Who could
have installed the exploit?”
“I dunno,” Sally said, hiding the install CD behind her back.

TJ

The third rummage sale I visited seemed a little picked over already, but a flash of weathered metal drew me further into the garage. A toaster sat on a workbench looking broken, but I dusted it off with my sleeve. A genie appeared. “For freeing me from toaster. I grant you three wish.” I wished for power, money, fame! Just then, I was zapped by a short in the power cord, fell backward into the cash table, just as someone snapped a vidcap and uploaded it to YouTube. “Who’s that guy?” someone asked as the genie vanished. Shrug. “Who knows?”

Norval Joe

“Yeah, I guess you can call me Jasmine. I’ll call you Aladdin.” She shouted over her shoulder. The rush of wind made it hard to hear and her long black hair whipped his face.
He held her tightly on his lap.
He shouted back, “One thing they don’t point out in the movie is how cold it is flying around on a magic carpet.”
“Who knows,” she said, “press that lever down and it might warm us up.”
“Right. Try it when it’s your turn to fly this thing. Magic toaster or not, it would probably just burn my butt.”

J Radimus

“Whose turn is to load the toaster?”
“It’s mine,” chirped Emma.
Mom handed Emma the slices of bread, which she carefully loaded into the slots. “I hope it’s Eggs ‘Bunny-Duck’ today,” wished Emma, not quite wrapping her tongue around ‘Benedict’.
“No,” interjected Alex, “it’s gonna be chocolate cake!” He always hoped the toaster would return chocolate cake.
“We’ll see in 2 minutes,” Mom sang cheerfully.
The bell dinged, and the children squealed. Mom opened the toaster door, and pulled out … 4 slices of unevenly toasted bread.
“I think the toaster’s … magic, or something. It somehow cooked our bread.”
Beyond all expectation, I just couldn’t get my head around any ideas for the pirate theme. I had something specific in mind from the original, and the change completely through my creative gears out of kilter. The only thing I could think of was to retell the old joke about the captain and his Brown Pants.

Lynda

Life was never the same for Alex after his brother was poisoned by their father. He kept to himself a lot before then, but after his brother began communicating through the toaster, things turned around.
At first he tried to convince himself there was nothing magic about the toaster, he’d been drinking the first time it spoke, maybe he was developing schizophrenia, who knows? Sure, he’d like to do what the toaster told him and throw it in the tub with dad, but it made great toast. Browned evenly, not too burnt. It didn’t even need to be plugged in.

Jeffrey

We have a magic Toaster. Its not like the one in the kidie movies, no our magic toaster does weird things. Last week, it burned images of famous art works in all of our toast. It was cool at first, but it is a little hard to eat when the Mona Lisa is staring back at you.
This week it has been experimenting with geometric patterns. We have been trying to eat our way around the patterned to cut out the shapes, but our mom tells us to quit playing with our food. Who knew it could be this cool.

Guy

The Who sang about a magic bus. The Who Knows sang about a magic toaster. They had a small audience. They struggled, trying to make it, but they never did. For every band that makes it, there are thousands who don’t. There is someone that hears those bends before anyone else, and that’s you – the audience. You can put a musician on the throne, but you can also be the judge, the jury, and sometimes – the executioners. Like many others, The Who Knows never recorded anything and disappeared into oblivion before they could contribute their musical vision to the world.

Anima

“Go ahead, ask a question.”
“This is silly. I’m not going to ask a question.”
“Who knows, maybe you’ll get the answer you want from the toaster… You don’t like my opinion, or Brenda’s or Shellie’s. All you have to do is shake it a bit while you ask your question aloud.”
“Ok already! You’re not going to leave me alone until I ask, are you? Sheesh. Magic Toaster, is this the right hairstyle for me?”
“Now you push the lever down…”
(tick tick tick… clunk)
“What’s it say?”
“Dislodge the burnt toast with a knife for the best results….”

Justin

Has this ever happened to you?
“My toast isn’t toasted the way I like!”
Don’t wake up every morning to toast you don’t love, get the toast you deserve with the Magic Toaster!
Designed in Germany with the best in metaphysical science, this toaster will toast your bread just like you want, every time!
Check this out, the bread goes in these slots and you press this switch, and in just seconds your toast pops out, perfect!
Check this, are you following my camera guy? This toast is golden on both sides. How does it work? Who knows, it magic!

Terry

Dan began the construction by fastening sheets of plywood
together forming a rectangular box,
Tommy, Dan’s little brother asked question after
question as he watched the construction and finally
asked, “What’s it going to be?”
Dan, casually answered as he attached
the final hinge on the door, “Who knows,
maybe a magic toaster”.
“Let me try it!” Tommy yelled.
Dan motioned Tommy inside, closed the door
and knocked three times on it before reopening
it.
Tommy was no longer inside the box!
Quietly, Dan snickered, “well looks like
no more questions tonight, at least I got the magic part right”.

Z

The flea market in Zagreb.
Stjoytch spreads bedsheet on ground, lays the appliances down on it.
This blender. It blends.
This eggbeater. It beats eggs.
This rice cooker. It cooks rice.
He put down silver box. No cord, no buttons.
This magic toaster.
How you get bread in magic toaster with no slots?
How it toast without power?
Stjoytch say who knows? 200 kuna, take it or go.
I buy it.
It sit in kitchen for a year, do nothing.
Maybe I go to flea market, spread bedsheet next to Stjoytch.
But Stjoytch gave bargain. I sell for 250 kuna.