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BS: Mudcat challenge: 100 word story exactly
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Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat challenge: 100 word story exactly From: Jack the Sailor Date: 10 Aug 01 - 12:55 AM I've decided to double up on this challenge. You will recognize the topic from Song Challenge 63. Now, passing the stratosphere, I, Steve Bennett, am piloting the first English spacecraft in space The Naysayers, with their foolish talk of wind tunnels, said I would blow up on launch. My home made hydrogen rocket ignited flawlessly and smoothly burned for the required twenty seconds. They call themselves Engineers! I reach the top of my arc and experience a glorious moment of weightlessness. I am out of oxygen. I am not concerned. Hurtling towards the Earth at four hundred miles an hour, I only need to hold out for a few seconds. But how do I decelerate?
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Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat challenge: 100 word story exactly From: Helen Date: 09 Aug 01 - 11:30 PM Lying there, fantasising again, playing it out like a movie in my head. I had it planned to the finest detail, getting revenge on that bullying sociopath, my former boss. Kidnap him, get him into the van and then to a disused warehouse. Tie him up and hang him by his ankles from the rafters. Then - this bit always makes me smile - shoot him in the throat, because his voice is his weapon, and let the b*****d bleed to death. Slow and painful. Aah, sweet revenge! I woke to the sound of a rope, creaking on a rafter. ***** [Got you all worried now, haven't I?] Helen |
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Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat challenge: 100 word story exactly From: Amos Date: 09 Aug 01 - 11:02 PM She worked to keep up; Mother didn't notice. Outing to the Park!! This wasn't fun! Mother sailed on, graceful, facing the world as a queen might. Her shorter legs pumping to follow, she saw people notice, felt embarrassed. And she had to go!! The feeling in her insides!! She whimpered pitifully--her mother moved on, undeterred. She could not hold back . Desperate, dropping down, she squatted, let go. The grass tickled her ankles, her rear end. Full of life, she tore ahead, catching up to her sisters,. They reached the pond. She plunged in, first of all the goslings. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat challenge: 100 word story exactly From: Helen Date: 09 Aug 01 - 10:36 PM These stories are fantastic!! All righty, you guys. I'm going to really start your synapses firing. Here's the link to my first-ever challenge - hope you didn't want to do anything else today, like work, or anything.
http://www.mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=8671&messages=66
And Helen
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Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat challenge: 100 word story exactly From: katlaughing Date: 09 Aug 01 - 07:32 PM Slight change: Before the thought of fear had really taken shape, should read Before the thought of fear had really taken hold...:-) This is so much fun, really well done, everyone!! thanks, Helen. KT, I'm there! Love it, just beautiful! kat |
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Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat challenge: 100 word story exactly From: KT Date: 09 Aug 01 - 07:27 PM These are fabulous!! I am in awe! KT
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Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat challenge: 100 word story exactly From: Jeri Date: 09 Aug 01 - 06:55 PM Amos, it may just be that the synapses are firing more rapidly because it's TOO DAMNED HOT HERE!!! (By the way, that was a true "story." It happened one night at the Fox Hollow Festival. I still remember it, because with the moonlight and the way people moved, it really could have been a faerie ring.) I had an old Schwinn bycicle instead of a red wagon. I think I might have once lived in guest's "another town." These are all wonderful! |
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Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat challenge: 100 word story exactly From: katlaughing Date: 09 Aug 01 - 06:33 PM I whirled, delighting in the freefall. It made no difference if I opened my eyes, darkness was everywhere and nowhere. Out of time, out of space. Slowly, then more rapidly, I felt myself breaking apart, in an orderly fashion, each component, each molecule dividing, parting company. Even after so many times, I still felt a slight lurch and a gripping in what a few seconds ago had been my solar plexus. Before the thought of fear had really taken shape, I gracefully and instantly coalesced back into my shape, back aboard the Enterprise. Beaming up was ever so much fun. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat challenge: 100 word story exactly From: Amos Date: 09 Aug 01 - 05:52 PM Man, this is a first class crop, I'll say! Jeri, you been hiding your light under a bushel, huh? Pretending to be a geek? Huh? A |
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Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat challenge: 100 word story exactly From: Jeri Date: 09 Aug 01 - 05:26 PM The moon lit the night green grass, and the trees made walls of dark secrets. I listened to joy-filled music. I watched as dancers twirled and skipped, their feet hardly seeming to leave tracks in the dew. Slowly moving apart, they joined hands and circled. Although there was no plan, no direction, every move seemed choreographed. I walked away before the sun rose, before the cool mystery of night turned to the clarity of day. I wanted to remember the magic, for magic was what it had seemed, and imagination thrives in the shadow-dark places of our hearts. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat challenge: 100 word story exactly From: GUEST Date: 09 Aug 01 - 05:20 PM Another town. Different people... same story. How many layers would be peeled back this time before being chased off? Again. Only as far as "Hi, how are you" "Not bad, and yourself"? Maybe, "Please come to the dance on Saturday... Melissa's the one to get to know. She'll get you hooked up with the right people". Or maybe "Tell us about yourself. We want to know your deepest darkest most heartrending secrets. We won't tell anyone. We're troubled and bored and we need to hear about your misery. But you mustn't be happy. Because then we'll have to kill you." |
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Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat challenge: 100 word story exactly From: Amos Date: 09 Aug 01 - 04:51 PM Hey -- ya wanna come over for dinner??? I'll buy, you cook. Jeez, I'm like drooling here! |
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Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat challenge: 100 word story exactly From: GUEST,Aimee Quinteux Date: 09 Aug 01 - 04:42 PM Stiff spaghetti stuffed into a pot. Softened by boiling water into languid, tender ropes. Tomatoey, juicy red sauce simmered to a high heat. Bubbles rising to the surface explode and splatter. Crusty, chewy bread, slathered with a creamy butter. Sweet, smooth wine. Two pairs of lips – slurping and sucking. Nibbling. Draining the wine from full goblets – until the last, lingering sweetness is savored. The once clear glasses now smudged. Crisp napkins of snow white linen crumpled and stained with wine, sauce, and lipstick. Glistening plates now smeared with remnants of food devoured. Lips smacking. Soft sibilant sounds of sighing satisfaction. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat challenge: 100 word story exactly From: Goody2Shz Date: 09 Aug 01 - 04:34 PM My hat goes off to Helen for starting this thread. Lots of really good stuff here. I can't decide which one I like best! |
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Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat challenge: 100 word story exactly From: Clinton Hammond Date: 09 Aug 01 - 04:26 PM No no no... dang... sorry to mislead folks... That story isn't mine... It's a Neil Gaiman X-mas card... I though I put that at the bottom... I'm not creative enough to write anything half as good as what's in this thread! Just wanted to share my favorite 100 word story with the group... |
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Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat challenge: 100 word story exactly From: Amos Date: 09 Aug 01 - 04:18 PM Wow, Clinton!! Ho.!!! |
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Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat challenge: 100 word story exactly From: MMario Date: 09 Aug 01 - 02:53 PM Bravo Clinton! Dark, very dark! |
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Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat challenge: 100 word story exactly From: Lonesome EJ Date: 09 Aug 01 - 02:48 PM That's hilarious Clinton. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat challenge: 100 word story exactly From: Clinton Hammond Date: 09 Aug 01 - 02:45 PM Nicholas was older than sin, and his beard could grow no whiter. He wanted to die. The dwarfish natives of the Arctic caverns did not speak his language, but conversed in their own, twittering tongue, conducted incomprehensible rituals, when they were not actually working in the factories. Once ever year they forced him, sobbing and protesting, into Endless Night. During the journey he would stand near every child in the world, leave one of the dwarves' invisible gifts by its bedside. The children slept, frozen into time. He envied Prometheus, and Loki, Sisyphus and Judas. His punishment was harsher. Ho. Ho. Ho.
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Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat challenge: 100 word story exactly From: Lonesome EJ Date: 09 Aug 01 - 02:43 PM The Kid was seventeen, and the oversized Colt on his hip rode in new leather. Red was dealing Stud and down $25 in the game. Red stared at the pair of deuces and said "go on home". He sipped whiskey and looked at the Kid and thought "I was his age when I shot my first man. But I was scared. This one ain't." Red coughed and snapped his pistol out of the coat pocket. A scarlet dime-sized hole appeared in the Kid's chest as he fell. Red placed a gold coin on the tablecloth. "Raise ya dollar" he said. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat challenge: 100 word story exactly From: Amos Date: 09 Aug 01 - 02:35 PM On our summer island, my father was often away. He strove in the world, I played, mindless. He lived a rhythm I could not hear. Long after he retired from Fortune, and spent longer on our island, I, full-grown, visited, and still wondered about how his mind turned. On the porch, reading his sophisticated journals, 79 years old, wincing (from a rib cracked by many martinis and a misplaced staircase) he swore at his patient spouse, blaming the place. "Don't know about you. But I am not coming back here!". I remembered when we buried him that fall, crying. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat challenge: 100 word story exactly From: Amos Date: 09 Aug 01 - 02:17 PM Guest: a masterpiece! These are all so fine!!! |
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Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat challenge: 100 word story exactly From: MMario Date: 09 Aug 01 - 02:00 PM Huzzah! well done guest! |
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Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat challenge: 100 word story exactly From: GUEST Date: 09 Aug 01 - 01:47 PM Nice paper trail you left: the history of abuse, the testimony of isolation; horror stories you told me that you said I didn't know the half of. Time enough now to doubt them all, and even as you were coaxing "I love yous" from my lips, not once did 'betrayal' cross my mind as I pulled the trigger. Now that is true love. You deserve an Oscar, you were the best I ever will see. Have to go now - the exercise yard is open and I owe Spider a pack of smokes for the pen and paper to write this.... |
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Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat challenge: 100 word story exactly From: MMario Date: 09 Aug 01 - 12:38 PM It was a dull , boring and lifeless thread of a day, devoid of any excitement until suddenly an anonymous guest posted. Virtually at once bright and scorching flames appeared, roaring fiercely, eating at the very timbers that supported the roadbed over the waters. Vicious and ugly, trolls lumbered past and over the bridge, clubs in hand as they sought out their defenseless prey. In the waters of the creek, quivering mudcats hid themselves amongst the shadows reliving past experiences. They knew this was reality and there would be no Billy goats Gruff to defeat or scare off the trolls. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat challenge: 100 word story exactly From: KT Date: 09 Aug 01 - 12:03 PM Expansive gray stillness reigns from water to sky. Silence, save the occasional cry of a lone eagle, magnifies the solitude. Suddenly, a distant spout erupts. First one, then another.... another.....On it goes until the first dorsal fin appears, followed by the sleek, shiny back...... and the magnificent tail slipping gracefully below the surface. Five giant companions follow. Then again.... silence. One minute passes. Two. Two and a half. Suddenly, the tranquillity is broken by six massive heads emerging simultaneously, in a synchronized display of joy and power, enormous jaws wide open to reveal the prize....a mouthful of herring!
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Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat challenge: 100 word story exactly From: Goody2Shz Date: 09 Aug 01 - 09:38 AM Each day passes. Slowly and deliberately. I've lost track. What day is it? Sunday? Friday? Maybe Wednesday. I remember the accident. The crunching and twisting of the metal. The piercing pain. Then, the sweet bliss of nothingness. In an instant life as I knew it changed. I am cloaked in darkness with the maddening constant whir of my brain as my sole companion. I can hear the sounds of the machinery helping me breath. Keeping my heart beating. I scream for release. But, only in my mind. I am in a coma. Only I can hear the misery I speak. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat challenge: 100 word story exactly From: GUEST,Aimee Quinteux Date: 09 Aug 01 - 09:13 AM Turning, I catch sight of the red wagon, paint flaking to reveal a dull grey metal skeleton. It lingers dusty in the garage, black handle crooked - skewed as a broken bone. Memories assail. Cracked concrete sidewalks. Crunching colorful leaves. Tracks through dewy grass. The warmth of the sun upon metal. Warmth seeping into small wriggling bodies at play. Laughing with abandon. Now I contemplate its demise. It is devoid of the muscle of play, the blood of life. It is a carcass bleached clean of flesh. Useful only in its ability to conjure vestiges of a once joyous existence. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat challenge: 100 word story exactly From: Peter T. Date: 09 Aug 01 - 07:43 AM They say I have a hundred words, my beloved Maria, and only those: they stand waiting. They have hated all my words, and those of others, all who write the truth, because they know they cannot kill such words, such simple things that nevertheless move from mouth to mouth, whisper to whisper, and that will not be stilled. 38 words to go, and I have not said how much I have always loved you, from the first moment to the last, and how no words will ever be enough, beloved, O I am yours, and at the moment of death |
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Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat challenge: 100 word story exactly From: Patrish(inactive) Date: 09 Aug 01 - 07:09 AM Did you ever see that polar bear, the one who paced. Backwards and forwards, forwards and back. A domestic engineer does it all the time, doing time……….backwards and forwards, forwards and back. Till even that becomes too predicable. At least playing patience you might win. Hours hang heavy, heavy leaden slow…….apathy – the thrill of the moment - passes., without being noticed. Nothing. And again, nothing. No one rang, no one called. Fantastic boredom – hysterical. Till you actually have to acknowledge it to yourself by speaking out loud, to no one in particular and say, "Oh GOD I'm so bored" |
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Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat challenge: 100 word story exactly From: Ebbie Date: 09 Aug 01 - 02:11 AM Rick, if you have a pc and Windows, go to Tools on the menu bar and scroll down to Word Count... Done whispering- please continue. Ebbie |
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Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat challenge: 100 word story exactly From: katlaughing Date: 08 Aug 01 - 11:54 PM (You brat!**BG**) |
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Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat challenge: 100 word story exactly From: SINSULL Date: 08 Aug 01 - 11:23 PM Not a true story. Not a true story. Nah Nah Nah Nah... |
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Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat challenge: 100 word story exactly From: Max Date: 08 Aug 01 - 11:22 PM "Well Max, now that you've changed the world, what would you say it was that brought you to this point?" I would say that the cranberry is quite nice. Good for the mind, spirit and body. My theory states that… that the human race, really has always been flying through space. And the answers are flying there too, setting there, right in front of you. Just like the Christians say, and the Buddhists and Hindus and the Muslims, an the Sufis and the Jewish folk too. Or maybe they're all full of shit, Six Billion people just can't figure it. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat challenge: 100 word story exactly From: Philibuster Date: 08 Aug 01 - 11:16 PM Softly, she sleeps. Lying on the linoleum floor, lost in her near lifelessness. Soon, she is sezied by a man nearly twice her size. He strangles her neck and slams his hand into her stomach, she screams. He delights. Her screams twist into sounds she didn't know she could make, keeping time with the beat of his fist in her belly. He lays her down on the floor, and she returns to her lifelessness, to be silent and lost again and again, to only speak when beaten and choked. Such is the fate of my ancient nineteen hundred vintage Martin. ((So it's a little morbid...)) |
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Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat challenge: 100 word story exactly From: khandu Date: 08 Aug 01 - 10:50 PM A FEW DAYS BEFORE THANKSGIVING "You will not do this" Harvey shouted as he tried to wrestle the rifle from Ross. "Oh,yes,and you will not stop me!" Harvey gave Ross a surprise punch to his throat and Ross went down. Harvey quickly picked up the rifle and smiled. "No,you will not do it. I will not allow it." Ross struggled for his breath as he looked up at Harvey. "Okay,you win. You have beaten me. I won't do it. . So go ahead. you do it. But, damn you, Oswald,if you miss, Lyndon's gonna be pissed! khandu |
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Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat challenge: 100 word story exactly From: Amos Date: 08 Aug 01 - 10:46 PM Awww, kat.... Loverly! |
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Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat challenge: 100 word story exactly From: katlaughing Date: 08 Aug 01 - 10:45 PM (aside: Bastards! Poor Topsy!)Silently, unbidden he joined her on the bed, brushing softly against her back, coming round to whisper in her ear, making promises. Promises of never parting; lying in a green meadow; soft winds lightly scented with roses; and the soothing splash of a rill. A summer's day spent together in eternity. Turning, she stroked him, languidly, murmuring lovesongs in his ear. He gazed at her with sea green eyes. His low voice carressed her in return, filling her with warmth, contentment, undying love. As soon as he'd purred her to sleep he began his nightly bathing ritual: right paw first... |
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Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat challenge: 100 word story exactly From: SINSULL Date: 08 Aug 01 - 10:31 PM Truth is stranger than fiction. An elephant named Topsy at Dreamland Park in Coney Island did kill a spectator who fed her a lit cigarette. To boost ticket sales, her owners planned to hang her for murder but were stopped by an animal rights group. Instead they rigged up a metal plate with electrodes, chained her to it,and sold tickets to the poor animal's public electrocution. Her trainer stood by in tears refusing to help control Topsy when she would not climb on the plate. The elephant burned, as did the park not long afterwards. An elephant never forgets. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat challenge: 100 word story exactly From: Amos Date: 08 Aug 01 - 10:25 PM Wow, Jen!! Pachydermus Centilixicus Historium Magnificatus!! Love, A. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat challenge: 100 word story exactly From: Rick Fielding Date: 08 Aug 01 - 10:11 PM Wow Jen Ellen. Thanks. Is there any way the computer can count the words, or do we just have to keep checking? Rick |
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Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat challenge: 100 word story exactly From: JenEllen Date: 08 Aug 01 - 10:07 PM Okay, a story for the stick in the mud then....*bg* She did not know that walking into the ring that night would be her death sentence. Swaying to the music of the calliope, she danced. When the stranger held the treat for her, she took it into her mouth. The lit end of the cigar burned her most tender flesh. Inside, pale and soft, she was hurting. She grabbed the stranger in her trunk and threw him to the ground in her pained fury. She hardly remembered the incident, elephants are supposed to remember everything, as they fed her the cyanide laced carrots and took her for her last walk. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat challenge: 100 word story exactly From: Peter T. Date: 08 Aug 01 - 09:53 PM A Book Report on Peter Rabbit (1,2,3,4,5,6...)!!(song from "You're A Good Man Charlie Brown", exactly 100 word book report). yours, Peter T. |
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Subject: Mudcat challenge: 100 word story exactly From: Helen Date: 08 Aug 01 - 09:44 PM Okay, the next Mudcat Challenge is here. Your mission, should you choose to accept, is to write a complete short story which is exactly 100 words long - no more and no less. It has to be a proper story with everything you want to express in those 100 words. When I was working in the library we had a book of these from a British Sunday Telegraph competition. I saw one of the stories as a short film on tv a few years later. Very clever. And very economical use of words to convey the complexity of the story. (Note: the above paragraphs are exactly 100 words.) Your mission starts.....NOW! Helen |
