Celloboe

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When I was young, I played the cello.
I was great.
Then, as I grew older, I played the oboe.
I stopped playing music for a while, but I decided at one point I’d take it back up again.
My old oboe and cello were in storage, but they’d been damaged from the years of neglect and abuse.
So, I tried to fix them in my workshop, and I ended up with a celloboe.
Sitting down, I took a deep breath, drew back the bow, and tried to play it.
Bad idea.
I get out of the hospital next week.

Squirrel Gun, Hunting Dog

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I was in the park, watching a guy walk his dog, little puffs of grass and dirt kicking up all around them.
That’s when I saw the squirrel with the sniper rifle up in the tree next to me, nestled among the waving branches.
“You’ve got to compensate for the wind,” I told him.
The squirrel chittered, adjusted his sights, and fired a few more rounds.
POW! POW! POW!
The dog dropped first, then the man spun around into a hedge.
I heard something, and at my feet was that sniper rifle.
And that’s the God’s honest truth, Your Honor.

Blindfold

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Someone glued a blindfold over my face while I was sleeping last night.
Looking back, I’m surprised that I didn’t panic.
I use my cell phone as my alarm clock, so I reached for it, thumbed it off, and calmly dialed 911.
Waiting for the ambulance to arrive, I breathe slowly and meditate.
It’s rather calming, really, rediscovering everything in the darkness.
You know, when they get here, I may ask them to turn around and go back. Come back in a few hours, maybe tomorrow.
If at all.
My eyes are closed, and I feel fine.
Time to explore.

Piano Man

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I was sitting at a San Francisco sidewalk cafe, minding my own business, when a large herd of grand pianos slowly rolled along the street.
“Did they fall out of a truck?” the waiter asked.
“I don’t know, but I don’t think so,” I said. “They’re all going uphill.”
The pianos, paying no attention to our comments, continued their slow, rumbling roll up the hill and out of sight.
“Hey, maybe we should tell someone?” said the waiter. “They might cause an accident or something.”
“You’re right,” I said, pulling out a cell phone. “They completely ran that red light.”

Poor Support

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I’m reading through my emails when I come across one with the subject line of Poor Support!!!!!!
I count the exclamation points – at least twenty.
Then I think for a moment… did they mean Poor Support as in they got bad support, or are they showing sympathy for Support?
Email strips the nuance out of language.
And also, for that matter, the text of the show notes here on the podcast.
I read the message and it’s just some customer bitching that they had to manage their server themselves.
You know – like the contract says.
No nuances there, folks.

Leland Clay

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Leland Clay?
That’s a name that brings back memories.
He was the town’s banker, a decent enough fellow. Always dressed nice. Not too nice – just nice enough.
You know, Leland would leave candy out so the kids would come in to put money in their passbook accounts for college.
Leland vanished one day. So did all the bank’s money.
He turned up in the Bahamas – had himself a nice place there.
Not too nice – just nice enough.
We burned it to the ground with him inside it, and the investigators got the rest of the money back.
Want some candy?

Weekly Challenge #54 – Pea Shooter

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Welcome to the Fifty-fourth 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 Laieanna from HodgePodge Point, and it’s Pea Shooter.
Nine stories were submitted this week. Double digits!
The excellent theme music is by Guy David
And, once again, some disturbing madness from the one we all knew and loved as Planet Z.
Go ahead and listen to them by clicking on the grammophone thingy there in the left column and then vote for your favorites (multiple selections are allowed):

Which were the best stories of Weekly Challenge #54?
Chris from Platypus Society
Caleb from Black Tie Martini Club Oddcast
Tom of Footnote
Laieanna from Hodgepodge Point
Sister Mary Edith
Mike from Mike Thinks
Terrence from Never Was
To4m from Stuffcast
Ted from Ted’s Podcast
Planet Z
  
Free polls from Pollhost.com


WE GOTS PRIZES:
I will be sending the winner a prize… it’s a packet containing at least 1 refrigerator magnet and a CD with the archive of the entire 100 word stories podcast. (Well, minus promos and junk)
It is your voting that determines who wins. So listen, vote, and tune in next week to find out who won!

The full text of each story:
CHRIS

The only meal inmates ever looked forward to in Shawshank was shepherd’s pie. Ground beef covered with layers of mashed potatoes and peas, as prison food goes it was the closest any of us would come to fine dining.
My good friend Andy Dusfresne hated shepherd’s pie and for good reason. It always signaled a visit from “Pea-Shooter” Jenkins, a beefy bull queer from cellblock A. Pea-Shooter always asked for seconds, and then he’d go looking for Andy. In the days that followed, Andy would walk with a noticeable limp, leaving a trail of peas on the ground behind him.

CALEB

I reckon Whitey shoulda knowed not to flinch. I seen Pea Shooter Johnson shoot a pea out a man’s flat hand a dozen times from twenty yards away. The only time anything went wrong is when somebody flinched.
N’ I reckon Whitey shoulda knowed that he’d lose his other hand if he went seeking vengeance.
However, the trick of shooting the gun out a man’s hand is slightly less impressive when that gun has already fired.
I reckon Pea Shooter won’t be shooting anymore, rest his soul.
Then again, neither will Whitey… Less’n he learns to shoot with his feet.

TOM

One might mistake a drinking straw for a pea shooter, but it lacks the tinsel integrity rigidity and diameter to propel a pea with sufficient velocity to make one of your friends flinch. The fathers of my three best friends regulars beat them with fist shoe and belt. It was hard to make them flinch.
We would weave balloon tired schwinns between the cars parked at Garfalos grocery pneumatically pelting each other with peas. Getting catch in a cross fire I snapped my head back and plowed into the mirror of a 43 Packard.
Blood everywhere.
They flinched. I won.

LAIEANNA

“Got one in the nostril! Watch him flail,” Bernie celebrated over screams and cries. A celery stalk whizzed by, hitting a howling child. Tom gave Bernie the thumbs up then aimed his bow again for a redheaded girl.
“Hey!” Shawn shouted next to Bernie, tapping his helmet. “Look there!” He pointed past the barrier towards the west. Clambering over a broken wall, preteens were making off with a Wii and Xbox.
“Bazooka,” Bernie ordered, dropping his pea shooter to load a broccoli head. The weapon was fired. Four kids fell. “When will the brats learn? These are adult toys now!”

SISTER MARY EDITH

Dr Janet sighed as she clicked on her nostril flashlight. The concerned father flitted about her like a bird watching a cat approach its nest. Janet peered into the darkness. A great green orb nestled in the coral pink.
“That, Mr. Totenpepper, is a pea.”
“Oh is that all! Sweetie blow your nose…Blow like this…Blow or no desert!”
The child’s face crinkled and she opened her mouth to howl but Dr. Janet was ready. She whipped out a colorful cardboard target and a sucker.
The girl’s face cleared. She took a deep breath and…The pea clung to the cardboard. Bulls-eye.

MIKE

Ted was disgusted.
“This pea shooter is practically useless.” he thought
Previous mistakes weren’t important now,
someones coming.
Ted dashed into an office
looking for anything useful.
Suddenly, the door shattered, a menacing form appeared.
“This is it” Ted muttered
Letting loose with abandon,
running behind his adversary,
Ted’s pea shooter making pathetic yet satisfying “pops”.
His enemy stood motionless, as Ted destroyed him,
Screaming cheers of victory!
Thousands of miles away, Jeff cursed,
monitor cable wrapped around his ankle.
His brother behind him roaring in unrestrained laughter.
Jeff reconnected it just in time to see Teds text message
“n00b!”

TERRENCE

Shifting Raoul tried to ignore the increasing pressure in his bladder.
Eve was sleeping but not deeply. ‘I do not want to wake her’, he
thought to himself before giving himself a mental slap. ‘What I am
worried about?’ he scolded himself, ‘I am Raoul, she should be
cowering before me.’ Even though he thought it firmly he knew that
there was something about Eve; something that changed him when she was
around.
Carefully he slid out of bed and tip-toed to the bathroom. He then
slowly lifted the seat, took his pee shooter in hand and emptied his
bladder.

TO4M
No text given
TED

Tommy and Nick were bored. It was a rainy Sunday afternoon and there seemed to be nothing to do.
I explained to them, that when I was a boy, we used to make peashooters, and have compeitions. See who could be the best marksman. I also told them that the cat was not a target. “Use soup cans” I said. “or make paper targets”.
The boys disappeared into Tommys bedroom.
An hour later, the boys emerged from the room, soaking wet. Stinking of urine. Empty squirtguns in hand.
“Uncle Rocky?” Tommy squeaked. “We’re out of ammo. Can you pee in my waterpistol for me?”

PLANET Z (as IRA GLASS)

Paul and Zachary were ordinary kids from Harlem, sitting around, bored.
Zachary looks at the massacre in Bush’s illegal war in Iraq and comes up with the idea to go on a killing spree.
“But let’s make it interesting,” says Paul. “Let’s kill people we know in alphabetical order.”
So they go on a tear through the neighborhood: Andy, Betty, Cecil, Dwanitra… all the way up to P.
And that’s when Zachary pulls out his gun and shoots Paul.
“Why did you do that?” gasped Paul.
“Because you talk too damn much,” said Zachary. “And we don’t know any Q’s.”

Thanks to everyone for sending in their stories, and I look forward to what you’ve got to write (and say) next week.
The theme for next week’s Weekly Challenge will be posted shortly.

The Diva and The Devil

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I know I’ve been gone for a while, but I’m back.
And, by gum, do I have an opera!
Sold my soul for it.
Drop what you’re doing and meet me at the Old Opera House tonight.
I don’t care what it costs to do this. Put it on my tab and just get it all done, okay?
Bring musicians, instruments, singers, costumes, lighting, ushers, and caterers.
Bring the fat lady, too. We’re going to need her.
This’ll be bigger and better than the last one we did.
They’ll be packed to the rafters, paying anything… everything…
Just like me.

With Them

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I used to dance. But I don’t anymore.
For a while, I tried. But the braces on my legs were stiff and awkward.
Everyone smiled and was very supportive.
Too supportive. Like a spotlight was on me.
So, I stopped. And I stopped listening to music, because it made me want to get up and dance with it.
Maybe I can start a dance club, where I can teach others to dance. Or a dancehall where people can dance to my music.
I will dance through them.
And who knows? With medicine as it is, maybe with them some day.

Pickling

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“Anything can be pickled,” said Joe.
We were sitting on his front porch, watching the dust blow over the road when he said this.
“What?” I asked.
“Anything can be pickled,” said Joe.
A squirrel ran across the road.
“Could you pickle that?” I asked.
“Not yet,” he said. “Hold on.”
Joe pulled out his gun, shot the squirrel, and walked out to get it.
“Did you have to shoot the thing?” I asked.
“Well, you can’t pickle these things alive,” said Joe. “They tend to claw up the inside of the glass and crap themselves.”
I guess he’s right.