The 100 Word Stories Podcast

Richard Lizzie Tom Serendipidy Norval Joe Planet Z The next topic is Listed RICHARD --- Star quality --- We started rating the kids' chores around the house: one to five stars. It's gives them an incentive to do things well, and the number of stars they get is reflected in their pocket money. It's working well. Dishes are always washed, bedrooms are kept remarkably clean and tidy and any time there's an errand to be run, there's no shortage of volunteers. In fact, it's worked so well, I suggested using the system for the wife. Meals, cleaning, shopping and so on, all rated, and rewarded with… sex. "Can't see the point" she responded, "You're two stars, at best!" LIZZIE Five stars for what, crappy food? The food was not bad, said the receptionist. No? What about that horrid thing on the wall? The receptionist looked up at the bull head skull. It was a sculpture, not the real deal. Besides, continued the receptionist, we are not in the business of eating the decor. Insolent! The client's always right! Not here. You see, sir, here we rate the clients, not the other way around, and you are a 0. What?! Would you like the bull head skull wrapped to take, so you remember us, since we won't allow you back? SERENDIPIDY Five stars, shining brightly in the night sky, never seen before, not part of any known constellation. They gleam and twinkle more brightly than any other. What could they be? Meteors? Asteroids? Comets, perhaps? Or maybe they aren't natural at all. They could be satellites or space debris, burning up in the atmosphere as they fall to earth. They aren't satellites, although they are man-made. But who made them? That's the big question Was it the Russians? Are they Chinese? Could they be American or from distant North Korea? We'll find out, soon enough. Once they hit their targets. TOM The Game The rules were simple. Five cities. Five riddles. Five Stars. You could have five members on your team. And most importantly was the Five hundred thousand dollars. Linda was the first to figure out New York was the first city to explore. Better she had narrowed it do to a particular area in what was once Five Points. An old map showed that once there was a body of water in the city. “We find the center of the Collection Pond we will find the star.” Said Linda. Bill asked "Any idea what it will look like?” Not a Clue. NORVAL JOE “You’re going to do us a favor,” a gruff voice said from behind Patrick. “You’re the shooter from the meadow,” Billbert said when the man stepped into view. “You should be in prison.” He just sniffed. “Your friend is going to help us obliterate the Five Star Sisters and their coven. They’ve interfered with the Black Knights for the last time. We know your girlfriend is most powerful when you’re touching each other, so, you’re going to put your hand on Sabrina’s neck, and I’m going to tell Sabrina what to do.” Billbert hesitated. “And what if I don’t cooperate?” PLANET Z Normally, when you see a movie with five stars, it’s probably some Hollywood woke garbage that ticks all the diversity boxes and hates Republicans, conservatives, Trump, religion. everything the left preaches. So when I saw a well-known conservative reviewer give one of those leftist propaganda movies five stars I was completely flabbergasted. I wrote him asking why, and he said, he thought the movie was a parody of leftism in a comedy and not actually trying to be serious and he laughed all through it at how ham-fistedly stupid the writer and director and actor all had been.

I hated Brussels Sprouts. I also hated any boiled vegetable. Raw, I liked. Put a salad in front of me any day. But boiled vegetables? Awful. Still think that these days. So, when my mother said "Well, you need to try different things" and I tried it and hate it, what kind of asshole MAKES IT AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN? What? It doesn't taste like mushy vomit the second and third and eleventy billionth time? And if I don't like it, I'm the one who's wrong? What? No, mother... you were a fucking asshole. And you were a shitty cook.

Ah, faith healers. Claiming to do God's will. The thing I've never understood about faith healers is when they grow old and end up in the hospital with something terminal. "Can't you just heal yourself?" I want to ask them. But I already know their answer. They all say it... God wants them back. Then why go into the hospital? I mean, if it's God's will, why resist with doctors and nurses and medicine and surgery? But I know it's all a lie... because I was a nurse. And I gave a faith healer sugar pills. And the fucker died.

I'm on a diet due to a few health issues. High blood pressure, high blood sugar. That kind of thing. So I need to be careful about what I eat. I need to think about the things I eat and look up their calories and protein and other nutrients. Of course, thinking about eating things is a lot less calories than actually eating them. So I do a lot of thinking about eating and very little eating. When I think about things to eat, okay, so I let myself go a bit. Steaks and ice cream sundaes and fudge brownies.

I know a poet. She's been writing poetry for years. In her personal notebooks and diaries. Reading them at a coffeeshop. Handing out leaflets and pamphlets. Submitting them to magazines, receiving rejection letter after rejection letter. And then, she gets published. A magazine here, a university collection there. Submitted for a few prizes, until she wins a few. Then the commissions roll in. Write a thousand words on this, two thousand on that. From self-published books to a publishing deal. All the while, she's been sharing them with me. And I've been deleting them. I'm not all that into poetry.

I know when the COVID-19 pandemic will be over. It's when they run out of Greek letters. So many damn letters! "I have Omicron." "I have Delta." "I have Omega." "Oh, you have Omega? You're done." Then they give you three more boosters. And ice cream. This, of course, is a brilliant strategy because the WHO already skipped Xi so as not to insult the Chinese, who made COVID-19 in a lab. Of course, the Chinese have thousands of letters in their alphabet. Thank God they had the sense to use the Greek alphabet or this shit would never end.

The Uvalde shooter was a monster. He killed cats and threatened women, and all sorts of other sick things. His mother didn't report him, and didn't believe him when he was abused by her boyfriends. She is just as responsible for the massacre as he is. I remember back in school, a kid dying. Turned out, he was a sick son of a bitch. Abusing his sister and her friends. Tormenting their dog. The coroner ruled it a suicide. But we were all told it was a mercy-killing. "Be good," our parents and teachers said. "Or it'll happen to you."

Richard Lisa Lizzie Tom Serendipidy Norval Joe Planet Z The next topic is Five stars RICHARD --- Non-Standard --- Why do they call it a standard lamp? It's anything but. There's a bewildering variety of the damm things... Edwardian, art deco, modern, minimalist, futuristic, or that old classic timeless design. Do you want softwood, hardwood, metal or something more exotic? A contemporary stylish glass shade, or a big, old fashioned flowery one? Tungsten, LED, halogen… Frankly, I can't cope with the choice, I'm more than happy to simply grab the first one I see and get the hell outta here. But, it's the usual story - shopping with the wife, and she wants to know which one I prefer! LISA Being Neighbourly I’d been waving at him for years – he was always in the same arm chair, with the standard lamp behind it, watching TV when I walked to and from work. I could see the outline of his head, and I didn’t stare in – I’d never spoken to him so didn’t know if he liked me waving. He’d waved back sometimes though. And once you start something it’s hard to stop. It was only when the flies had covered his window that I realised there was something wrong and for quite a while now I’d been waving at a dead man. LIZZIE Look behind the phone. There was nothing. It's there, she said. But it wasn't. And she giggled. That old classic... Made you look! She giggled again. And where is it? When she started giggling, he lost it. He was standing there, holding the damn phone, looking stupid, and she was making fun of him. On top of it all, the phone was yellow, the one color he couldn't stand. I need that fucking code, right now. She bok-bok'ed and giggled some more. The next day, there was a headless chicken on her doorstep and no one saw her, ever again. TOM You need it, I know a Guy. I love cities. You can feel the pulse of life in the movement of people and cars, an infinite random dance. In a great city on one particular street, the people will lay claim, and a culture of its own will emerge. For generations my family has been part of the Maxwell St. street-life. I have heard stories of my great grandfather sharping knifes for a nickel a blade. Since my people have climbed up the economic ladder there or on longer Kosick’s and Valor’s on Maxwell St. But life on the street goes on. Life always finds a way. SERENDIPIDY "Banish her", they said. Different village, same old story, that old classic "she's got the pox"; reason enough to treat me like a pariah. So much for compassion and the milk of human kindness. They called a town meeting, just a formality really, the outcome a forgone conclusion: “she has to go”. And so, like every other occasion, every other village, I find myself cast out, never to set foot within its boundaries again on pain of death. So I'm going, and you'll never see me again. And yes, I have the pox. But, so do all of you now! NORVAL JOE When a sack was pulled from Billbert’s head, a shadow of a person loomed before him, lit from behind by a single standard lamp in the otherwise dark room. He looked around the small room and saw Sabrina beside him, gagged, blindfolded, and headphones covering her ears. “Sabrina,” Billbert shouted. “Don’t waste your breath,” a familiar voice said. “She can only hear what I tell her.” Billbert peered at the shadow form. “I know you. Patrick something, from school. What do you want from Sabrina, and me?” Patrick laughed. “You two, together, are going to do me a little favor.” PLANET Z Victor had been a renowned chemist before the war. Somehow he survived two years in the camps. His wife and daughters didn’t. He went to the states, got married and had a son and never talked about the numbers on his arm. He ran the paint counter at a hardware store. Every now and then a guy would paint a swastika on his door. He knew who he was because he kept track of who was buying paint.

The prisoner exchange took place on the bridge. Soldiers and snipers and floodlights everywhere. Two men shook hands in the middle of the bridge and waved to their respective sides. A line of men in chains with bags over their heads walked South. One man in a suit and tie walked North. When the line of men reached their side, the chains were removed, the bags were lifted, and their families saw them and hugged them and thanked God. "Did you use my latest formula?" the man in the suit said. "Yes," said the soldiers. The virus spread like wildfire.

Deep, in the deepest cave, there lies The Book Of Life. If you are written in The Book Of Life, you will live. If you are removed from The Book Of Life, you will die. Twenty monks watch the book constantly. The same twenty have watched for as long as people have known about The Book. They wrote their names in The Book, and have never removed them. Don't try to go down to the cave, because the monks will remove your name. We send down food and water, they send their gratitude. And we all live our lives happily.

Leroy Brown called every white person a racist. When he wasn't screaming it at white people, he was shouting it at the television. Neighbors who complained were in cahoots with the racist white folk. Cops who came to tell him to quiet down were sent by the racist white folk. But nobody did anything, because they didn't want to be called a racist. Leroy called the mailman a racist for walking on his property. The mailman said the mailbox was by his front door. So, from then on, he threw the mail on Leroy's sidewalk. And ignored the yelling Leroy.

The Clone Law states that no clone may be activated as long as the source is alive. When Roger 7 woke up Roger 8, it meant death to one or the other. Roger 8 climbed out of the copytank and looked around. Just a note: "Meet me at the drugstore." So, Roger 8 showered, got dressed, and walked to the drugstore. Where he was met by the police. "You have the right to remain silent," they began. Roger 8 tried to explain he didn't kill his wife. It was his source. "Well, then," said the police. "Then you'll die anyway."

I'm on a lot of teams, and I have a lot of meetings. They're usually pretty good about scheduling them so they don't conflict, but sometimes, it's unavoidable. Nobody ever says the other team's meeting is more important, so go see them. If I pick one meeting, I get follow messages about super important stuff from the other meeting. And vice versa. So, I started filling a coin to decide. Heads, one team. Tails, the other team. Then I use the coin to scratch off a lottery ticket. And pray that I don't need to attend either meeting ever again.

Governments are passing laws about data collection consent. And browsers are making it easier to block all cookies and data collection. So, we added a consent popup to our site. Do you allow this site to collect data and store cookies on your browser? And it saves your choice... as a cookie. People complained that they had to tell it no every time they came to the site. "That's because we store your answer as a cookie... and you're blocking cookies." They complain over and over about it. But we don't remember their complaints, because we aren't tracking that data.

Richard Lisa Lizzie Tom Serendipidy Norval Joe Planet Z The next topic is PICK TWO Street life Pox Behind That old classic… Standard lamp RICHARD Random Words Every week I go through the same process. I retrieve the old cardboard box from its place under my desk, give it a good hard shake, remove the lid and close my eyes. Reaching into the box, I rifle around its contents and pull out a selection of folded postcards, and then I can open my eyes. The postcards have a selection of random words written on them. I lay them out on the desk and rearrange them thoughtfully. When I have what I'm looking for, I add some filler words. And, hopefully, end up with a hundred word story. LISA The One That Got Away She was delirious when I entered the woodcutter’s cottage. As ever I was amazed how cramped the space was with so many living in it. I clasped my scarf to my face; burned rosemary to try to cleanse the air. She lay there, wet from the sweats, rambling random words. I couldn’t feel any lumps under her armpits so felt perhaps this time there was still hope. I stayed just long enough to give her a draught to bring the fever down but made my decision to answer the King and to live at the palace ‘til this pestilence passed. LIZZIE 'I don't... you... me'. This could mean anything, said the detective, where's the rest of it? No one knew. Is this blood? No one knew that either. Did you search the rest of the house? That they did know. And? Nothing? Nope. How about the garden? Silence. OK, forget it. Send this to the lab. They all nodded, relieved. By the way, said the detective, I don't care what you think about me. I'd fire the lot of you. Amateurs, thought the detective. Wait a second, what I just said... Perhaps these words are not as random as they look. TOM Without Merit I have found no matter how vacuous two individual might be, if one passes by during any random collection of words that flow in the public space, those random words will sound pretty cogent. Lingering for additional context will help one to understand the form and purpose of the discourse, but nearly always leds one to question why matters so banal, merits the level and length of inquiry. Chalk-it up the mind-numbing list of stuff one needs to get done in the average day. Little time to ponder the deeper questions of life. As why isn’t any more penny candy? SERENDIPIDY They may sound like random words to you. You may think I've made some of them up, or perhaps I'm speaking a foreign language. What could they possibly mean? Nobody really knows. I certainly have no idea! I found them in an old leather bound book, hidden away in my grandmother's attic. Many thought grandmother was a witch, and if the book is anything to go by, she quite definitely was. You'll see. As I chant the mysterious words, you'll start to feel very strange. Until, with a poof of smoke… All of a sudden, you'll turn into a frog! --- NORVAL JOE Mandi and Bobbie sat in the back while Mrs. Weinerheimer drove north out of Eureka. A small gray-haired lady with dark glasses held both hands flat on top of her head and muttered random words, “Kelp, wind, stinkweed, bottlebrush, cardboard box, thunderhead.” After passing windy beaches littered with piles of kelp, Mandi glanced out of the window, and shouted, “Over there.” A single cloud rose above the low hills. They quickly turned onto Bottlebrush Lane and drove until they came to a broken down cabin, the front yard crowded with weeds, and a tattered cardboard box rotting on the porch. PLANET Z If you stir alphabet soup enough, you’ll see words. Usually short words, but the longer you stir, a few longer words will appear. I imagine the noodles sloshing around in my stomach, forming words and sentences and poems nobody will know about. Dissolving into goo as I digest them. Maybe they’re not gone? And somehow,

Oh, Greta. You little Nazi. Hitler Youth wet dream, blonde and blue-eyed. Chiseled features, the Nordic ideal. Danish? Dutch? It doesn't matter which master race you come from. Like any child star, you've memorized your lines. Your father's words, hurled at the audience from your mouth like a plunger thrusting sewage down a clogged toilet. America is bad. America is evil. The America full of universities researching solutions to the ills you blame it for. While Chinese factories spew more poison and death into the world. But your blind hate knows no reason. Leni Reifenstahl's ghost smiles, and says "Cut."

George was a pirate, but he wasn't a very good pirate. His captain asked him how the crew felt, and George conducted a poll. "Your approval ratings are down," said George. "Maybe if we had a battle," said the captain. "That always boosts approval ratings for politicians." So, the captain set course for the nearest ship and they fought it. They won, but took heavy casualties. George polled the crew again. And the numbers were even lower. "But we won a battle!" said the captain. "Yes," said George. "But unlike the politicians, I polled the people who did the fighting."

George was a pirate, but he wasn't a very good pirate. When the crew raided a slave ship heading for the Americas, George insisted that they free the slaves. At first, the captain resisted the idea of letting a valuable cargo go, but in time George wore him down. "Okay, fine," said the captain. "But let's be realistic... we can't just release them in the middle of the ocean." "Then we'll teach them how to be pirates," said George happily. And George taught them everything he knew. It didn't take long for the slave ship to sink without a trace.

George was a pirate, but he wasn't a very good pirate. "What kind of pirate was he?" asks someone from the audience. The author thought about that for a minute. He'd established that George wasn't a very good pirate, so what did that make George? Average? Below-average? Awful? Horrible? Or did "very good" refer to his nature and character? If George wasn't very good, was he evil? The author hadn't meant to delve into ontology and the spiritual realm. "George is just George," he said. "Can I please continue?" The audience agreed, but the author had run out of words.

George was a pirate, but he wasn't a very good pirate Somewhere, he'd read about people hanging themselves to get more out of sexual pleasure. So, George tied himself by the ankles to the boom and let himself dangle. Then, he tried to lower his breeches. Which, him being upside-down, was kinda hard to do. After a few minutes, he felt a warm stickiness hit him in the face. "Blech," said George. "That wasn't enjoyable at all," The captain was tempted to say "That's because you're supposed to hang yourself from your neck." So, he did, and walked away smiling.