The 100 Word Stories Podcast

When I go for my walks, it’s always amusing to see lawn sprinkler systems and irrigation running when it’s raining. I know it wastes water and its ecologically unsound, but it’s still amusing. I mean it used to be you had to run hoses and sprinklers around and turn them on manually at times. Then there were buried pipes and sprinkler heads that would pop up. And now you have systems that detect if it’s raining or talk to a weather bureau for forecast. As I approach my house, I see my sprinklers are on in the rain. Stupid Internet.

A tornado wiped Hamilton off of the map. The handful of survivors thanked God for sparing them. Little did they know it had been God that had killed their community. The mayor of the adjoining town Bowden regularly conducted animal and human sacrifices to convince God to spare his city. And God would send his wrath to Hamilton. However, the humans and animals the mayor would sacrifice had come from Hamilton, and as the survivors abandoned the runs, another storm was brewing. Nobody wanted to volunteer for a ritual sacrifice. By the time they drew lots, the tornadoes were coming.

The next topic is Roger

RICHARD

Noir

SERENDIPIDY

No speeches, no reception, no wedding breakfast, no party. No church either, just a farmhouse kitchen.

TOM

Glass half empty

Timmy was a motivational speaker. The corporate hire to blunt the shock of firing, oh so happily. Cuss management is chicken shit. Timmy had a number of standard speeches. His favorite was: The empty cup speech. He poured water in to ceramic. “At this moment in your life make a choice on how the see the cup.” Said Timmy placing the cup in front of Susan from accounting. “I see a glass half broken,” said the 60-year-old woman. Timmy in cloud of confusion gave the room, a corporate smile, that was went Sue picked up, broke it on his head

NORVAL JOE

When Patrick sat, Billbert’s mother said, “Listen. Now is not the time for speeches. CPS is coming in three hours, and we still have the kitchen to clean up, and the front yard.”

Patrick shifted as if getting up to leave.

“No, Patrick,” she said. “I need you here to answer their questions, to make it clear that Sabrina was treated terribly in her Foster Care placement.”

Patrick folded his arms. “That’s going to get me in trouble, too.”

She nodded. “That may be, and you certainly deserve what you get. But I can help things go smoothly for you.”

PLANET Z

I was watching a documentary and found it strange that the presenter was referring to an American aircraft carrier with the pronoun She, yet all of those aircraft carriers are named after men.. It’s long-standing naval tradition to refer to boats with female pronouns. However, the Department of war directives say that chips should be referred to with the neutral pronoun it. this is not to dismiss or integrate the gender claims of the historical figures. These ships are named after. I mean, do we really know what happened behind closed doors with Abraham Lincoln and his wife’s clothes?

Agent 12 accidentally tripped an alarm. The office he was in was surrounded and there was no exit. He didn’t have anything useful in the office that could be use as a weapon to fight his way out. His orders were blunt? Do not be captured alive. He took out a pill from my pocket and looked at it. Then he put it in his mouth and put down on it. He’d heard that the poison would taste like almonds, but it taste like watermelon. Then he wondered. And felt bad for the kid he’d given some candy to.

Insurance auditor checked the statistics of Highway 10 and noticed a dramatic increase in the number of accident claims. He drove down to Highway 10 and didn’t notice anything unusual. No construction, no dangerous on ramps or off ramps. So he turned around and was coming home when he noticed a billboard with one of those codes you scan with your phone on it so he did and promptly got into an accident. When he came to in the emergency room, he picked up his phone. Through the cracked screen, saw the code was for his insurance company’s website.

50 years ago, Hamilton Gotha appeared as Blitzkrieg on the German version of the American gladiators television series. Just like his American counterpart, when he wasn’t on camera, he was soaking in ice baths and shooting up with steroids and painkillers. He knocked out a lot of contestants, and put several in the hospital. When he killed a contestant on the Thunderball game, the series was suspended and Hamilton was arrested. The charges were reduced to unintentional manslaughter. He was released and put on probation. These days, he runs a bar in Berlin and cuts off, overly intoxicated customers quickly.

There’s this movie that’s out from a famous director that’s supposed to be really epic and powerful and amazing on giant screens. And there is a big screen in the resort town across the bridge. However, they say that the sound mixing is bad and muddy and my hearing isn’t so great. And there’s some really goofy casting that are politically motivated. However, reviewers on both sides of the political spectrum say it is a spectacle. One that you have to see on the big screen. But it’s three hours long, and I’d have to go to the bathroom twice.

When I work for a company, sometimes they send out marketing swag. Little worthless trinkets that have the company logo on them. When I leave a company, I tend to throw these away. Unless they’re really useful, like an Eddie Bauer travel cooler that was really nice, but it had the company name on the side. I don’t want to be reminded of this company every time I use it.. I tried to cover up the logo, but in the end, I gave the cooler away to a friend.. let them associate the cooler with me so it’s good memories

You know who lives at 10 Downing Street, but do you know who lives at 11 Downing Street?

The next topic is PICK TWO

RICHARD

The Word

SERENDIPIDY

The detective was one of those ‘no nonsense’ types. Methodical, organised and rather intolerant.

LIZZIE

Many years later, he went back up the hill. The tire swings were still there. He swayed his legs back and forth as they had done. Why did it have to happen? Why? The cold night embraced him, cuddling him in its arms. He started to cry. Why can’t I go back and undo everything? In the distance, he heard a train. Their train. The train that would take them away one day. The train that had killed her… At sunrise, he dried his tears and finally summoned the courage to take the train. For you. For us, he shouted.

TOM

Sugar Babies

In the beginning there was sugar. Lots of sugar. River, Mountains, a great desert of sugar. The people put sugar in all the foods they ate. God sat back figure if everyone was happy, he would just go an holiday. While god come up with real cool stuff, like sugar. I would take the blackest heart of the monkey people to come up with Multi Global Corporations. It took sometime but, in the end, they controlled all the sugar on the planet. Life became sad. When god back for holiday he saw how unhappy everyone was so he invented chipotle.

NORVAL JOE

With the light of understanding beginning to shine in Patrick’s eyes, he glanced at the door.

Mandi, who’s perception was greater than what Sabrina gave her credit for, shouted, “Billbert. Stop him.”

He couldn’t disobey and lunged for Patrick as he dashed for the door. Though the boy was twice Billbert’s size, the strength of Mandi’s ring more than compensated and the two tumbled to the floor.

“Thanks Mandi. I’ll take it from here,” Mrs. Weinerheimer said, and turned to Patrick. “Have a seat, dear. We need to talk.”

Patrick got up, brushed himself off, and obediently sat down.

PLANET Z

Randy was a pretty strange guy. Long greasy hair and backwards, baseball cap. Tall man, making biscuits at the chicken shack. He’d start every batch with quoting the Bible in the beginning. But it go in strange directions with his narrative as he mixed in the buttermilk and needed the dough, rolled it out, cut out the biscuits and put them on the tray and slid them in the oven. He’d speak of dark shadows and strange tentacles from space and weird ceremonies to summon them to ravage the planet. But goddamn, his biscuits were the best I’ve ever tasted.