one hundred word story #18

Here's your job, she says mightily: you are my assistant. I'm here to assist, you say. You write down everything she says, often before she thinks to say it. You make to-do lists and start checking things off. You assign other people jobs. You give them chairs to sit in. In time, they quit. That's okay, you say, I'm here to assist. She asks you to rewrite the to-do list. And then, one night, you look around the office and realize no one else is there. She has left you a list. “To fix,” it says. “your life.” You quit.

one hundred word story #17

Janie convinced Tammy to break into her own house while their babysitter was glued to Beverly Hills 90210. “Let’s try on your new tutu,” Janie said. But all the doors were locked. Then Janie noticed the apple tree leaning against the upstairs balcony. “You like to climb, right?” she winked.

Tammy hiked up her culottes and scaled the tree. The door on the balcony was also locked. “Now what?” Tammy asked. Janie froze. That afternoon, when Tammy’s mother got home, she found her daughter curled up on the balcony, surrounded by apple cores. Janie never did get her own tutu.

one hundred word story #16

It's the impeccability of spring that wakes you up, shakes you from your knees to your fingertips. It's the green greenness of new lawn, the deep-throated ribbits of the pond frogs, the surprise frost on a shining morn. Before you thought the world was just one way or another. Now you see it as rainbow before the sun hits it: unrealized, crisp but not clear. That’s what makes you love: the imprecision, the halt stop halt between words. Without the unpredictability of spring there would be no stories, no characters, no conflict. Shed those layers, will you, and go outside.

one hundred word story #15

First he lost his wife. Then he lost his girlfriend. Then his mother. He gave himself time. He gave the world permission to do its worst, thinking it already had. Then, recovering amidst a sea of sympathy cards, the news came: heart surgery. "In another world," he thought, "the skies would open. The rain would fall on me. In this one, I breed rain." He bought a Lotto ticket on his way in. He kept his headphones on. The next morning, the sun focused its rays on his loudly thumping chest. Something he’d never felt before. It felt so good.

one hundred word story #14

"A day is just a day is just a day," she said over coffee. "Valentine's Day is for Hallmark and hypoglycemics." He made her pinky swear that it was true, that she was true, that she was his, and he was hers. "Oh, get off it," she said. "I hate pronouns,” dismissing him with the flick of a wrist.

That night over cocktails, he slipped her a card.

“To you and you,” the card read. “And to me and me. And if I’m lucky, to you and me.”

“Now we’re talking,” she said, lifting her pinky. “Bring on the candy.”

one hundred word story #13

He loved her, she loved him, and there was no conflict in the world. The weather was always warm, not hot, and when it did rain, the water hit only the thirstiest plants. They worked hard. Their children were healthy and strong. But they didn’t know that Earth had begun to spin off its axis, and every day, their lives were altered in small, significant ways. It started with a drop of rain on his head and ended with their youngest sprouting wings and jumping off the roof. At least they were happy to see that the plants were unharmed.

one hundred word story #12

Janie stopped by the Career Fair hoping to pick up a career. It was easier than she thought. First there was the aptitude test, which narrowed her down to either flower-arranging or graveyard digging. Then she got to meet professional flower arrangers and gravediggers. There were some pirates, too, and badminton delegates from the United Kingdom. Don't worry, Janie, they all said, just work hard and the right opportunity will come to you. You might even end up arranging flowers above graves! She left with a packet of seeds and a shovel, thinking, America is indeed the land of opportunity.

one hundred word story # 11

Whatever you do, he says, don't think about the cliff. So we're up there and all I can think about is the cliff. And then he's all, you can think about the cliff, but don't think about the fall. I've got the rope around me tight, he says too tight, but is there such a thing? From above the world looks so nicely constructed. The order is clear. He's singing and then suddenly he's not. The wind is strong. I mess up; I remember the fall. The rope loosens. That world looks mean. Hang on, he yells. I hang on.

one hundred word story #10

The fog is oppressive. Jill and Jack decide to hike up above it. As they climb, they feel the yellowness of sunlight touching first their special hats, then their shoulders, then their lower backs. Spring is close. By the time they make it to the ridge, everything they know about the world has changed. They see lives moving to and fro from above, dismiss the fog as it snarls beneath. And when the wind threatens to knock them loose, they hold tight to each other and their crowns. No one tumbles. Instead, the sky gives in and offers the sun.

one hundred word story #9

There's this feeling you get when discrete parts of your body fail to communicate with your mind. Or maybe that's not it. Maybe discrete parts of your body communicate with your mind, but your body speaks only Portuguese and your mind, Spanish. Maybe it is that your mind never gets around to checking its messages. Sometimes your body finds other ways to talk back. Maybe your hand casually slaps your face. Maybe your feet seek out and find every last crack in the sidewalk. It’s a passive aggressive exercise, but then you think, maybe that’s what keeps you alive. Portuguese.

one hundred word story #8

Peter’s people were counting on him to deliver them to safety. From his distant perch he could see them straining through the bars of their invisible jail. The threats were dangerous and persistent: it was not without sacrifice that he crossed behind enemy lines, hurtled through unsafe territory, dodging vicious attacks. Even as Peter was savoring the delicious taste of victory, of liberation just beyond his reach, his compatriots were getting tagged mercilessly. Yet he emerged victorious, not only with his flag, but with his teammates, holding hands on the walk back across the grass, all before recess was over.

one hundred word story #7

You’re not officially a grad student until you use the word operationalize, a teacher told me once. You’ve got to operationalize the vibrato of staccato piano, and then juxtapose its imperialistic theory of absolute insanity, and you must do it in twenty pages. Just when you think you’re done, you must stand before a jury of people whose job it is to judge you. Because masochism is a requirement for this degree, along with an innate desire to reinvent the aesthetic we will perpetually quiz you on. Good luck, pawn, he said. And then he patted me on the back.