Night falls over Crater Lake, that blue gully with its mouth open to the heavens. The man and woman approach the summit as the rain drops like marbles. The campgrounds are full, as are the chalets; there aren't any hotel rooms this close to the crater's rim. What if we could make it to the island? She says. It’s probably vacant. When he doesn’t answer, she puts the car in reverse, aims for the rim’s biggest lip. Floor it, he says. Rain steers them down, down. The sky has never been more vacant. They push the stars aside. They land.
one hundred word story #41: Dear Mark Yudof,
Georgia interned twenty hours a week at the archeology lab. She worked nights at the local grocer’s, bagging her professors’ organic almond butter and grass-fed beef. She crammed through sixteen units every quarter, her desk dirtied with coffee mugs, grounds decaying as she poured cup after cup. College meant sacrifice. Learning, a privilege. One night, while restocking cans of kidney beans, the news came: tuition had doubled. Georgia considered the beans. If each bean were worth a penny, how many more would she need to complete her degree? Or were they useless either way? That night, Georgia sacrificed the beans.
one hundred word story #40: Just a dog
He's just a dog, you say, as you take him off the leash. We watch that tail raised high like a flag as he disappears into tall grass. He’s just a dog, but he’s all I got. You have me, I say. You are quiet. The grasses flinch. All we can see is the occasional brown flare that is his tail. That’s the thing, you say. The dog has disappeared. You shout yourself hoarse. I shout too. You’re not shouting loud enough, you say. I shout louder. The dog trots back and still you shout. I disappear into tall grass.
one hundred word story #39: Empty nest
A mother of twelve, Gertrude never went anywhere alone. The furthest she could go was the end of the bus line, but even then, one of the twelve often hopped aboard. Sometimes it was Charles, a failed mime, or Joanna, a butcher with forever bloodied hands. Scarlet, who organized strikes in the harbor, occasionally dragged sailors back to their two-room apartment. Gertrude recognized their look: unmoored, captive, as she was, by the wants of so many others. One day she followed the sailor back to sea. She lingered at the port, inhaling the salt, counted to twelve, and hopped aboard.
one hundred word story #38: Reminders
There are days when the universe imposes its limits. There are days when the numbers overwhelm, when the beeps at my side are bullies, when things hurt again. After ten years it should be implacable; the skin should be thick enough. But when it gets this thick, every intrusion pierces the surface, digs a little too deep. And on these days the best thing to do is sit very still and listen. Let the universe clatter with other voices, other numbers, other sorrows. When I get up, the skin, it sloughs off, leaving the hurt behind for some other day.
one hundred story #37: Imperfect
It's all so gorgeous, the grass perking up as the sun peeks over the horizon, that first brush of light across your cheeks quenching a thirst you didn't know you had. It's too much, the perfection of a morning when songbirds and antelope and jackrabbits are all out there, alive, lungs lurching and legs loping. Even though you're still here, she isn't. The worst part is that first morning after she’s gone, your eyes are heavy with her, the air parched. This need, it makes you thirsty. And still the sun, the songbirds, the antelope, the jackrabbits, are not enough.
one hundred word story #36: Social Network
Name: Gracie Johnson. Age: 22. Studies at: Western Career College. Major: Undeclared. Interested in: Men. Relationship Status: It’s Complicated – with Marisa McGee. Sex: Yes, please. Lives in: Phoenix, AZ. From: Schenectady, NY. Favorite Movies: Twilight, The Shining. Employer: Forever 21. Religious Views: Spiritual. Political Views: Pastafarian. Favorite Quotations: “All morons hate it when you call them a moron.” –J.D. Salinger, Catcher in the Rye. “I am literally horny with fear.” – Sue Sylvester, Glee. About Gracie: I like cherry vanilla Coke and potbellied pigs. I have a dog named Freud (the u was accidental). I feel like I know you already.
one hundred word story #35: So nice
You don’t mind, do you? She asks, her fork hovering over my cake. Mind if I get a ride home? She asks, mouth full. My date walks by. Hey hot stuff! She shouts. Wanna dance? He glances my way. That cool? She says, not really asking. I mind their coats and wallets. When the song ends, she gestures for my chair. Bad knee, she says. You’re so nice, she says. Isn’t she nice? It isn’t until we’ve carried her up the steps to her apartment, until her door has shut behind her, that I remember her wallet. She won’t mind.
one hundred word story #34: Party Line
The unmarried woman on the block began fielding mysterious calls from a Frenchman. The party line crackled to attention. When their conversations swerved out of English, the ladies listening in assumed the worst—no one else on the block spoke French. The ladies cut each other off, some in English, some in Yiddish, sometimes saying the same thing, sometimes not. And then: a thin, restrained question. “What is my life to you—a party?” The line went silent for a full minute, quiet enough to hear glasses clinking. And then: French, less plaintive this time, followed by a gentle click.
one hundred story #32: Superwoman
This morning, while running through frost, my toe clipped the curb and I flew. I remembered my last fall—the unnatural way my wrist flung toward my heart. The way dead cells collected underneath the plaster cast. I remembered all the trips and falls, scabs and scrapes. Today I soared: arms outstretched like warnings, head cocked like a trigger. When I hit the concrete there was no thud, no smack, no break. I sat in my bruises, the sidewalk cold with morning. My muscles had been trained; instincts rewritten. I considered the rooftops, the sky, then took my running start.
one hundred word story #31: Like
one hundred word story #30: Jack-o'-lantern
Cassie puts the pumpkins next to her door, their smiles broken with missing teeth. When the witches and werewolves and Harry Potters knock on her door, Cassie’s bowl is empty. The astronauts and Wonder Women pout, refuse her boxed raisins and green apples. Hours later, her driveway is draped in toilet paper. The next morning she spots Milky Way wrappers littered around the pumpkins, their faces buttery. How could you, she starts, stops. Notices the peony looks peaked, the ground parched. Compost, she says, but when she reaches for them, the pumpkins bare their new teeth, whispering “Trick or treat.”