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The 100 Word Stories Podcast
The 100 Word Stories Podcast episodes
- Weekly Challenge #1037 – Dear everyone
- Lewie
- Lisa
- Lizzie
- Richard
- Tom
- Serendipidy
- Norval Joe
- Planet Z
The next topic is The noisiest place in the universe.
LEWIE
Dear Everyone,
Except for the guy in the back, in the yellow shirt.
Being of sound body and mind, I hereby declare that you are all immorally dressed. Nobody will receive anything of mine. Except maybe Francis. I haven’t decided yet. I leave it up to the guy in the yellow shirt.
Everyone looked. Nobody was present.
“Wasn’t Uncle Joe colorblind?” Francis asked.
“No.”
“Nancy has a yellow coat!”
“It specifically said, ‘Shirt… and guy.`”
“What’s that even mean?”
A courier stepped in with a package.
He wore an almost yellow shirt.
It was probably the lighting.
“Is Francis here?”
LISA
The Letter
“Dear Everyone.” The letter began.“By the time you read this I’ll be gone.” For an eight year old he sure was dramatic Isuspected Chat GPT had helped.We shifted uncomfortably and caught each others eyes. The Mother was inconsolable. The father still hadn’t answered our Calls.“Don’t try and find me.”We’d asked if there’d been any arguments, whether he was happy at school. The usual questions but with no explanatory answers.Then, in he sauntered with a ‘Whaaaaaaat?”His mother held the letter out asking what it was.“My homework? To write a serious letter. He smirked.RICHARD
A girl’s best friend
This wasn’t going well.We were shopping for an engagement ring, and she was thinking money was no object, whereas I was very much of the opinion that we were on a strict budget, not that I was prepared to tell her that.“How about one of these” she said, pointing to some large diamonds.I looked. They were all so dear, every one of them, without exception.“Aren’t they a bit ostentatious?” I suggested, “Wouldn’t you prefer something less vulgar… understated, yet elegant, just like me?” I smiled.“Don’t you mean, cheap and tacky, just like you!” She retorted.LIZZIE
“Dear Everyone, I…” And that was it. The letter was never completed. The police tried to figure it out. Everyone? Who? What statement would follow that lonely “I”? And where was the author of the letter? The police searched the house. They searched around the house. They canvassed the entire neighborhood. They opened emergency phone lines. The tips were worthless. After a month, the police gave up. A year later, a neighbor received a letter saying “I remember now.” No sender address, no fingerprints, no DNA, no clues. Just that one line, written in the unmistakable handwriting of his neighbor.
SERENDIPIDY
Dear everyone,
This is my manifesto.Now you know something bad is coming. Any time somebody writes something headed, ‘My Manifesto’, it’s always a very bad thing.You can almost visualise I’m sat alone in front of my computer, surrounded by loaded automatic weapons, combat knives and a stack of home-made pipe bombs.You’re already making assumptions about my childhood and how I was bullied at school.It’s all going to turn out very badly, and basically, you saw it coming.Coming to think of it, I can’t be bothered writing a manifesto. You already know what it contains.NORVAL JOE
“It’s a long story,” Billbert mumbled. “I’ll let Mandi explain.”
After Linoliamanda had told her story, Sabrina scowled and stepped toward her. Sabrina raised her hand as if to slap Mandi. Instead, she swiped the magnifying glass from Mandi’s hand.
Sabrina looked through the glass at the items on the table. All the arcane objects disappeared, except for two; the locket and a small diary.
“Hmm,” Sabrina grunted and picked up the diary.
She opened it and began to read, “Dear everyone, or at least, those who are left. You have journeyed this far and now you must move on.”
TOM
Mea Culpa
Dear Everyone:
It is with deep sadness I stand before you as the chief architect of this morning’s disaster. I could easily make the case the times justified the action, but someone most fall on the sword. I have drawn that lot. While history may be kinder than you all with pitch forks and the tastes of blood on your lips let me beg one last request. Safe passage for my family to the green zone. May you know a brighter day.
Secretary Dem Orton Thorwell
The letter was pinned to his suit as he turned slowly in the wind.
PLANET Z
They pulled Sally‘s body out of the river. In her pocket was a note that said dear everyone, but after that, it was an illegible smear. The coroner said suicide, case closed. The next day, three more bodies pulled from the river. The same note in their pocket, dear everyone. On the third day a dozen bodies. the corner noticed that it was the same handwriting on the notes. Was it a cult? A serial killer? Police watched the river, but never caught anyone. this morning, they pulled 100 bodies out of the river, and there’s still more out there.
13 min - Keep turning left until you’re right
They say hateful things, The Hateful.
They hate anything that they don’t agree with.“You disagree with us?” they say. “Then we hate you.”And anyone who disagrees with that, they call haters.They claim the right to hate whomever they want to.And if you call the Hateful haters, well, then you’re a hater, too.They will hate your employer until they take away your job.They will hate your bank until they take away your money,They will hate your family until they leave you.Until… they realize they are haters. And stop.Then, they become the hated.2 min - The dictator
When the occupying Army caught the dictator, we announced it to the press.
And the press cheered.People took to the streets and cheered, firing their guns in the air.Tearing down posters and pulling down statues.Burning police stations and army bases.Destroying all of the books in libraries and schools.Looting stores and banks.It was absolute chaos.The interim governor asked the dictator for advice.“Sound like a you problem, not a me problem,” were his last words.His supporters in the prison rioted, and they took over the prison.Finding his body, hanging in his cell.2 min - Dee
It’s been a long time since Dee died.
Her kidneys failed, and she’d been on dialysis, but needed a transplant.Her family didn’t match, but her brother was a match for someone, and that someone’s brother was a match for her.So, they arranged an exchange, and the surgeries were a success.Except, her body rejected her kidney.I was also a match, but she died before anything could be arranged.A few years later, I came down with kidney stones.And those are really painful.A pain worse than death?Probably not, but it helps me sleep at night.2 min - The days
So, it’s May.
Mother’s Day came and went…My father’s birthday coming soon…Then father’s day… and my mother’s birthday.Last year, they were making their moves to trap and exploit me.This year, they’re dead.All I wanted was to forgive them for everything they did.But they tricked me… they manipulated my emotions.They fucking used me.I still have twitches and a bit of PTSD from it all.But in the end… it will be okay.And if I am condemned to Hell for what I did to protect myself, well, I’m sure I’ll see them there.2 min - Clouds with character
I like to go down to the beach at the bay every now and then just stand there, listening to the water on the shore. When it’s a nice sunny day with a few clouds, I can just stand out there and feel the sun on my skin. But I think I like it better when it’s cloudy and raining because of all the deeper blues and grays and shapes of the clouds, there’s a lot more character to them and watching them slowly roll across is relaxing. I shake the sand off of my shoes and drive back home.
2 min - Wash
There’s a few car washes in town and two of them are with the same chain that uses a subscription model, and sometimes the wash is broken at one, and the vacuums are broken at the other, so I get washed up at the first and drive to the other and then do my shopping and come home. Not that I drive much but this gets me out and about sometimes I pick up a cheeseburger on the way home, small drink and some fries. Oh it’s for my wife, not me. I don’t need to be eating that stuff.
2 min - Weekly Challenge #1036 – Twist
- Lewie
- Lisa
- Lizzie
- Richard
- Tom
- Serendipidy
- Norval Joe
- Planet Z
The next topic is Dear everyone
RICHARD
Twist
I hate how the world has become so dumbed-down. When did the human race descend to the level where everything has to be explained to them?Have we really become so stupid we need instructions to complete even the simplest of tasks?Please hold the hand rail’, ‘Push to exit’, ‘Twist to open’… I mean, come on, are we really that thick?Then I watch the news, scroll through social media and find myself coming to the conclusion that, just maybe, we are.Only the message we need isn’t ‘Twist to open’, it’s ‘Wake up and smell the coffee!’LISA
A Need for Something Sweet
Neptune was angry. He pummelled the pier until the wood weakened and split. The end of the pier snapped into the water; the waves could lap at the shop then. Licking the windows trying to taste what was beneath. The weight of the water behind the waves splintered the glass and it gave way. The shop had been selling traditional sweets since the pier was built. Sweets that no one under thirty had even heard of never mind tried. Aniseed Balls and Candy Twist. A jar of bonbons bobbed in the sea then crashed against a rock. Neptune was calmed.LIZZIE
Write the story of your life, they said. It’ll be a success. And she wrote the story. It wasn’t fine and it wasn’t a success. Why? Because the story had one character. She was the main and only character. Her story wasn’t that interesting, she thought. Born to a family of crazy people. Small town, crazy school. Moved to the big city and got a fancy job that paid well. Then, she decided to write her story. The intrusive thoughts took over and she was done. The moment she jumped off the bridge, she thought “I’m crazy enough to fly”.
LEWIE
Oliver Twist’s parents were out of town,
vacationing.He hosted a party
full of energy and music.There was someone in the other room
playing a game of Twister,shouting, “Left hand Blue!”His friend Ernő kept to himself,
sitting in a large armchair,twisting a Rubik’s Cube,and Timmy tested Tibetan tongue twisters.Chubby Checker started singing the twist.
Outside, a twister formed — the ultimate plot twist.The television died.Henry screamed.His mother scolded him for twisting her TV rules.
He blamed his twisted sister’s
twisted sense of humor.“But it is the theme, isn’t it?” she chuckled.
SERENDIPIDY
Why does the twist always have to come at the end?
Why not the beginning? (The butler did it! There: I saved you a long read).Or perhaps the middle? I think that would be a real twist… You’d never have seen that coming.But no, we always pin it to the end, often the last chapter, maybe even the very last page.So predictable, so dependable, so very boring.So, I’m not going to do it.You’re coming to the end.And, there is no twist.Really. I mean it.And you still got to the last line anyway.TOM
Like we did last summer
If you weren’t an Aruther Murray prodigy, social dancing was problematic. Spent time at many a Polish wedding hugging the wall. Then as if a gift directly from the gods came: The Twist. A dance that remained in my skill-set deep into the 80s. The trick is to look exponentially cooler is lower till your knee are nearly scrapping the dance floor. By 1993 I had all but lost this skill, but then who among us could have competed against the like of Uma Thurman in Pulp Fiction. And that Italian kid. Wonder if she can still cut a rug.
NORVAL JOE
Mandi shoved the magnifying glass into the pocket of the baggy cat pajamas borrowed from Mrs. Weinerheimer and followed Billbert down the stairs. Standing by the kitchen table, covered with other arcane devices, Billbert said, “Okay. Let her out.”
Mandi twisted the handle of the glass in her pocket back and forth, hesitating. Her bottom lip quivered. “Do I have to? She’s so mean to me.”
“Show Sabrina you’re better than that,” Billbert suggested. “That you’re kind.”
She pulled the magnifying glass from her pocket and looked into it.
Sabrina appeared and frowned. “Why are you guys staring at me?”
PLANET Z
Cindy woke up, sitting in a chair.
She tried to get up, but she was tied to the chair.She looked around, some kind of dark basement.A door opened, a man came down the stairs.It was the singer, Chubby Checker.And he was grinning.“Do you want to twist again,” he said. “Like we did last summer?”“No,” moaned Cindy. “Not again.”She remembered the bruises. The pain.The shame.Checker wagged his finger.“Come on, baby,” he said. “Just like this.”Then he held out his hands, reached over to Cindy, and…Cindy passed out from screaming.12 min - Funeral for a funeral
A member of Hamas died in a Lebanese village.
His stash of weapons and explosives exploded.So, they held a funeral for him.A riot broke out, and three people died at the funeral.At each of their funerals, three more people died.For a total of nine.And then at their funerals, twenty-seven.Funeral after funeral, riot after riot, explosion after explosion.Until they suddenly stopped.There was nobody left to riot.There were no more stashes of weapons to explode.And there was nobody left to attend a funeral.Finally, peace was achieved.(People still blamed the Jews.)2 min - Family not friends
Why did I forsake my father? Why did I forsake my mother?
When it’s friends that you love like family, they matter.And I will do everything I can for them.But when it’s family that aren’t your friends, they don’t matter.It takes a lot of self-control and power to overcome the guilt they abuse you with.Yes, you owe them your life and your education.But they don’t own you.And anything they did for you was to help you make a success of yourself.Exploiting that, after years of neglect or distance, will make nothing but failure.2 min
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