Welcome to the Weekly Challenge Number One Hundred And Seven, 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 Craig from Wash The Bowl, who is going for broke with…
It’s The Chair.
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):
PLANET Z
Baby Bear looked at the shattered splinters of wood that were once his favorite chair and he wept bitter tears.
“Someone ate my porridge and broke my chair!” he growled. “I will have my revenge!”
“Son, don’t get carried away,” said Papa Bear.
Baby Bear would have none of it. “When I am through with them, death will be considered a mercy!”
The outburst woke Goldilocks up. Heart pounding with fear, she leapt out of Baby Bear’s bed and ran for the window.
It was painted shut.
Heavy paw footfalls on the stairs. Angry, muttered threats under his breath.
“REVENGE!”
FREEREED
cummings says… the artist is like the circus performer who sits on top of three balanced chairs. the three chairs are three facts of his life… “I am an artist, I am a man, I am a failure.” my chair is an old wood swivel from the brother in laws garage. in that garage is art made by mikey who was murdered at age eleven. They never caught the killer. i think this chair knows who killed mikey This chair knows me. “I am an artist, I am a woman. I am a failure.” Well, Off to the therapist now
RICH PALMER
A white room. A simple white room with no embellishments. One should look for windows, but there is no point. It is simply a white room. No curtains, no shelving, no tables. Just a white room. And the chair.
The chair that sits in the very center of the plain, white room.
The chair is nondescript. The chair has no ornaments. There are no intricately carved legs. There is no fine upholstery. The legs are wood. The back is wood. The seat is wood. It is simply a chair.
I sit in the chair. The white room has gone dark.
GUY DAVID
“Address the chair” said the head table. “I beg to differ” uttered the chest of drawers but the cupboard shushed her. The respectable window curtain walked in. An appreciative silence filled the room. The sofa moaned. “I think she ate too much last night” whispered a bed to a cabinet. The cabinet just shrugged and said “that sofa would be very hungry when there is no food left. There is a limited amount of unsuspecting people around you know.” The chair cleared his throat and said “We hold these truths to be self-evident: That all furniture are created equal…”
STEVEN THE NUCLEAR MAN
It first creaked as she rocked in summer’s heat, waiting for the baby.
Dad fixed it, but she wouldn’t sit in it until he made it squeak
again.
She rocked through my breastfeeding and tantrums. I showed up once
with teenage bravado and a cigarette. She stopped. I put the
cigarette out and heard the rhythmic creak again.
I missed it when I left for college. Squeaks lulled me to sleep when
I returned for Dad’s funeral.
It’s silent now. My wife asks if I’m okay.
The wind moves the rocker, and for a second I pretend that I am.
THOMAS
The chair, impressive once, sits in the corner. The center of the home for decades; but for several years, silent. After thirty years of marriage, the chair to the right of the once formidable recliner, is now the center of life.
The diminutive woman sits stoic: hands clasped. Behind her expression, sits tears, waiting to fall again. ‘Til death do us part was their promise to each other. However, she knew he wasn’t gone. Alone in the silence, looking at his chair, she could still see him. Faintly… briefly… but still he was there; a memory, a love, a promise.
EVA
Alma walked by that door a hundred times a day and even if she didn”t break
her stride, some part of her always lingered there for a thudding heartbeat
or more. Sometimes she”d pause for a moment to reach toward the knob and
feel its warm burnished surface, or run a finger down the dark, grooved wood
of the doorframe. She didn”t have the key. But it wasn”t like she didn”t
know what was in there: The room was completely empty save a single heavy
wooden chair. She shuddered slightly and glanced at the clock on the wall.
JD
Near the access hatch in the deck, under a dim red overhead light, the chair sits.
A slender figure occupies the chair and has done so, unmoving for long ages.
The skin of the face, the texture of leather, is pulled tightly about the skull, the eyes nonexistent.
Holding a short wooden staff, sharpened to a point at one end, he appears ready to offer a challenge to anyone climbing from below.
John 316 grasp the last rung and emerges, only to slip and almost fall back at the sight of this ancient guardian.
The corpse grins with sightless eyes.
TOM
It took Allan and his guys two months to overhaul the Cronomotive. It was deemed too dangerous for Maria to return to the timepad. On departure day only Allan was present bidding Arnesto farewell. As Cervante moved through time a jolt rocked him backwards. When the time machine came to a rest there was Allan next to him PM Arnesto Arroway the third.
“Tell me of Maria, Allan.”
Quartemain turned away.
“Come with me grandfather.”
A chair was set out next to a statue
of Maria tearing open the easy bake.
“She did this to save her students.”
Arnesto wept.
PLANET X
“The Chair has been watching you and wants your resignation on his desk now” Stella calmly stated to Frank the file clerk.
“Why me?” Frank retorted.
“Well, let’s see”. ” Stella replied.
“You come in late and leave early”
“You spend half your day around the coffee pot”
“You take three hour lunches”
“You’re lazy”
“You’re incompetent”
“You lie and cheat your fellow employees on the football pool”
“You’ve sexually harassed almost every female here, along with a couple of the men.”
“Oh, and by the way, Frank” Stella continued
“Starting on Monday, you’re hired back as a mid-level manager”
ANIMA
Management has always made an effort in improving workforce motivation.
The last Friday of the month, we gather in the board room for supermarket cake and a corporate cheer”
Recently, We’ve been playing ” Musical Chairs”.
The boss plays music, and we circle like a pony ride at a county fair. When it stops, we scramble for a seat. The job on the nameplate before you is your new post, until the next time we need “better morale”.
Each month, there are more jobs and fewer chairs.
Their plan is working! With the mortgage due, I find myself very motivated”
ALMO
As he stood at the kitchen counter and slathered extra mayo on the bread, John heard the television announcement rather than saw it.
The name was familiar — a young, fit athlete. He had died of a heart attack while running.
John took his plate into the living room and sat heavily in his La-Z-Boy. He leaned back, picked up the remote and changed to the football game.
“You never hear on the news of anyone having a heart attack while sitting in his recliner, eating a sandwich and watching the game,” he thought.
John smiled, relaxed and ate.
CRAIG
“It”s something and yet nothing” Angie said, “what do you mean something yet nothing” I asked? She smiled saying” the peace you”re feeling right now.”
A terror overcame me, she knew what I was feeling.
I started jogging in place trying to slow my mind as my thoughts assaulted me from every direction.?
A hard stick struck my head with a loud whack. Angie grabbed my arm yelling ” open your eyes, you”re indulging your own fears, open your eyes.”
My eyes opened to see Angie completely alone in a field of opposites, offering me a chair in which to sit.
CALEB
He had a plan” a Brilliant Plan! But if only he could be heard over the screaming horde and the stupid band that would not stop playing! He could save them all” or at least most of those who couldn”t fit in the lifeboats. He knew about buoyancy. He knew a thing or two about structural architecture and if the remaining passengers could get all the furniture fastened to the outside, he could keep this thing afloat. But no matter how he screamed and tried to explain, he couldn”t convince anyone that rearranging deck chairs would help on the Titanic.
SOUGENT
The Chair.
It sits there, in the center.
Sometimes, it’s the focus of a great deal of attention.
Some call it the hot seat.
To look at it one might consider it unremarkable.
But it’s not what it looks like that makes it special.
Some see it as a symbol of power, others a curse.
Many desire it, but few have what it takes to sit there.
For him, it’s where he belongs. If there is such a thing as destiny, then his is to sit right there.
For Captain James Kirk, The Chair is the center of the universe.
LAIEANNA
Thesus walked up fifteen marble steps, bowed, and placed his offerings before the ornate chair of the goddess Nahmudida. It represented her place of power. Thesus opened the blue silk pouch to present, for his deity, two apples, rosemary sprigs, a lock of his daughter’s hair, and five gold coins. The priest standing at his side held, in eyesight, a ceremonial knife. Slowly, Thesus took the weapon, but was quick to slice it against his skin. The blood poured down as he prayed. “Please welcome my dying daughter into your house. I shall take her place wandering in the wasteland.”