Weekly Challenge #4 – Mother

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Welcome to the fourth Weekly Challenge, where I post a topic and then challenge you to come up with a 100 word story based on that topic.
In honor of Mother’s Day, the topic is: mother.
You have until midnight on Friday the 12th to email me your story.
It would be preferred that you attach your own recording of the story to capture those nuance and inflection things, but I’ve always got the trained midget slave of dubious moral character available to record the story for you should push come to shove.
Once all the stories are in, I’ll assemble them into a single podcast collection for your enjoyment.
Good luck, and feel free to e-mail me with any questions you have.

Time’s up!
Six stories submitted this week, plus the usual madness from the planet of insane bards, Planet Z. Go ahead and listen to them by clicking on the grammophone thingy there in the left column and then vote for your favorite:

Who had the best story this week?
Tommy of Striving For Average
Erica of Gardenspot
Andrew Ian Dodge of of Dodgeblogium</
Elisson of blog d’Elisson</a
Kris of Gradualdazzle
Beck of Incite
The Mystery Man From Planet Z
  
Free polls from Pollhost.com

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 will be posted shortly.

Jolly

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Asparagam stood, staring off into space, a tear running down his chlorophyll-stained face.
It had been a hellish season. So many of his family cut off in the prime of their lives. Flayed. Stuffed into the brightly colored body bags, then trundled off into cryogenic storage.
But he could not mourn for them. That was…forbidden.
It was in the contract. The hellish clothing, perversely constructed of stinging nettles. The omnipresent shit-eating grin. It was all there in green and white. He was sworn to obey.
Just the same, he thought, can’t the Jolly Green Giant weep for his lost children?

Sad Sack of a Sacker

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Ronnie held the dented can in his hand. Just a few seconds earlier, it had rolled out of its sack, fell through a hole in his cart, and rolled under his foot.
Ronnie counted to ten and took a deep breath.
“Excuse me,” he said to the sacker. “This fell out.”
“So?” said the sacker.
“Can you get me another one?” asked Ronnie.
The sacker sighed deeply, turned around, and shuffled off to the Canned Vegetables aisle.
Three minutes later, he returned with a fresh can.
“Now shove it up your ass,” said Ronnie, pushing the cart out the door.

Screwball

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Ned held the ice pack to his head and realized that he’d been hit in the head with a foul ball every game he went to.
He pointed this out to the stadium’s medic.
“Interesting,” he said.
The next day, free season tickets arrived. Courtesy of the team.
Outfield boxes. Home run territory.
So, for the next home game, Ned sat in the stands and waited for a ball to hit him in the head for a home run.
In the fifth inning, a bat slipped out of a batter’s hands, flew 300 feet, and clocked Ned in the face.

The Hero

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Lenny Spiderman was the class clown.
We were kids together, growing up on Long Island. And Lenny used to drive the teachers nuts.
He’d build webs up by the ceiling in homeroom, and then swing up there and hide. Mrs. Hentoff never thought to look up, but he’d be hanging there making faces. It was all we could do not to laugh.
But when he got older, he got serious. “With great power comes great responsibility,” that crap.
Peter Parker? Bullshit for the reporters. It was always just Lenny.
But I’m the guy who got him to use the hyphen.

Evil

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Odd tales abound in the mind of Andrew Ian Dodge as he continues to parlay with the Sage…

“With all the evil about you would think the Catholic and Protestant churches would have better things to do than rail against a novel. What with the earth shaking in the pacific, apocalyptic Mormon prophets on the loose, stones with Jesus’ face and all other nastiness you would think they would have their hands full. But then again Christians always tend to pick on the easy targets ignoring the real evil out there.” And with that the Sage sighed as hit the send button on his email.
“Those fools are the ones that call me satanic… ” He thought to himself.

Lord of the Flies

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I was sitting at my desk in the Home Office, pounding out the PowerPoints, when I heard the buzz of a housefly.
We don’t get flies in the house too often. Where had this fucker come from?
As I toiled, I kept hearing the buzz more often. It became evident that there were several flies performing reconnaissance runs through the house. What the hell was going on?
By nightfall, almost all of the flies were dead, their corpses scattered like raisins throughout the house.
Damn. I’m going to have to stop leaving that poisoned raw meat in my sock drawer.

The Odd Daughter

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Doctor Odd looked at the destruction in the yard, sighed, and kneeled down to talk to his daughter.
“Pumpkin,” he said. “Remember when Daddy taught you about grafting?”
Pumpkin nodded her head.
“Well, there’s a good kind of grafting and a bad kind. Good grafting is when you combine plant varieties to make bug-resistant species or crops that survive droughts.”
Pumpkin smiled.
“Bad grafting is what you did with your friend Bobby, the lawnmower, and your dog.”
Pumpkin frowned.
“Daddy will clean up this mess. Now go wash up for dinner.”
Pumpkin ran inside and squealed happily for tater tots.

The Wacky Adventures Of Abraham Lincoln 58

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After much shouting, Abraham Lincoln could take no more.
He stood face-to-face with General Grant.
Well, as close to face-to-face with General Grant as one could manage. Grant’s beard presented a formidable barrier, his whiskey breath even more so.
Not wanting to waste more time arguing, Abe put his hand on his heart and said, “I now wish to make the personal acknowledgment that you were right, and I was wrong.”
Grant grunted, holstered his guns, and leaned over a railing to throw up.
Abe would wait until Grant passed out before doing what he was going to do anyway.

The Songs

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Andrew Ian Dodge turns the creepy dial another notch with his latest reading from his arcane tome of horror…

The Sage hit a key to open his webcam eye.
Good evening all. I am glad you enjoyed last week’s poser. Leo is telling me you like my research questions. He paused.
This week I want you to try to explain why religious types are so paranoid about the Devil’s Interval yet all we read about – evil – music from Lovecraft’s writings and classical authors is that they sing beautifully to lure unsuspecting mortals to their doom.
I bet the Sirens of Greek myth sound more like Celine Dion or Barbra Streisand than Arch Enemy, Slunt or Die So Fluid. Discuss.