The 100 Word Stories Podcast

Back in the day, Pops played for state. The thing is, he can’t tell you which state. And it turns out there’s more than just state universities and colleges. Lots of places end in state. He can’t even tell you what he played. He just knows he got knocked around a lot, ran a bunch, hit a few things with something. Probably his head, he jokes, and then stares off in the distance like he does. We called around and se...

The school had lots of tennis courts, but Edgar didn’t like tennis. There were two full-size gyms, but Edgar wasn’t in a basketball either. There was a running track around an immaculately kept football field with a huge scoreboard, but Edgar didn’t do either. The two swimming pools had no appeal, and multiple baseball on softball diamonds weren’t of interest. The varsity, junior, varsity, and practice socce...

It’s kinda hard to compete in soap box racing when you live in a flat village. No hills, not even a high road or overpass. The kids of Doris, Indiana went to the next town over to try out their vehicles on Carson Street. It didn’t have much of an incline, and it was not quite long enough for regulation. And it ended in Parson McPherson‘s driveway. He put up a bunch of hay bales in front of his garage for the kids ...

Darwin runs the outpost in the pipeline sector. He jokingly calls the tavern, the best beer in town. He brews his own out back, and it’s pretty bad. And he makes the absolute worst pizza to go with it. I mean, the dough and the sauce and cheese it makes you nostalgic for that horrible sheet pizza they made in the cafeteria at school. If you don’t like it, he says, he points out the door. The next town is more than a wee...

Back in my day, when we held the town lottery, we didn’t use foam rubber rocks to throw at the sacrifice for the harvest symbolically. We used real rocks. Actual people got sacrificed and killed. None of this dodgeball crap where the kids are laughing and the sacrifice gets up and the mayor hands them a basket of cookies or a new toaster. There was real blood. There was real fear. And the crops, they came in much better and b...

Every day, Dan showed up at the shelter with his daughter Sarah. She’d pick out a black cat, name it Lucky, and take it home. She was so happy, petting and feeding Lucky. While she slept, Dan drove Lucky to the shelter, where Dan would show up with Sarah to pick out Lucky again. A new volunteer asked about this, the shelter coordinator said look at the girl’s head, it wasn’t quite right. Her hair covered… s...

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The next topic is Midnight

RICHARD

Trapped
I was well and truly trapped. She stood between me and the door, with my only escape route into the bedroom, and there was no way I was going in there.
A noise from the front door distracted me, the sound of a key in the lock.
Oh, that’ll be my husband’ she said brightly.
Your husband!’ I excla...

Woodbury high school has a tradition where the most hated kid in school is loaded into a cannon, which is rolled out to the middle of the field during homecoming, and the Cannon is fired. Voting takes place that week and the candidates are kidnaped from class Friday morning homeroom. The winner, or you can call them a loser, is revealed at the game, sometimes the kids try to run and hide, but the county sheriff keeps an eye on them...

The headlines shouted Dylan goes electric. The next day, they shouted Orbison goes nuclear. After that, Pat Boone went steam powered. Bob Denver, he went solar powered, you know, because he was all about the environment. Gene Simmons went wind powered for a while, but he couldn’t make any music on calm days. Musicians around the world embraced alternative energies. Geothermal, wave, action, capture, hydraulic piston, powered ...