one hundred word story #20

Doris the duck is butt-up in Reed Lake again. Margaret swims circles around her. “Damnit, D,” Margaret says, “this better be the last time you lose your motherfucking keys. I’m tired of you crashing in my nest. I’m so angry I could poop!” Doris doesn’t hear because she is underwater. But Doris didn’t lose her keys. Keys are not required to build nests—effort is. Doris doesn’t want to build nests when she could be underwater, where it’s crisp, dark, quiet. So quiet that she doesn’t hear Margaret’s final sigh, but sees her dreams drop like a small, dark mass.

One hundred word story #19

Danny never really tried at anything. He'd open his palms to the sky and let experiences rain down on him, wander through the streets following the whims of his stomach, take buses til the end of the line. One day on his travels he caught the tail of a paper airplane. “Follow me,” it read, and listed an address. It was further than he thought – beyond the city’s square, past the bus depot. Finally the numbers stopped. Danny waited. He got hungry. Buses passed. He closed his eyes, opened his palms. Nothing. He unfurled the airplane. “Gullible sonofabitch,” it read.

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 #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 #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.

one hundred word story #6

"You give me homework," he said, "and I give you homework. And that's how we do school." She dreamed big and assigned him the moon. "Too far, silly," he said. Fine, then: she assigned him the coral reef. "Too deep." All right, she said. Catch a Bengal tiger. “Too dangerous. Here, let me show you.” He gave her a notebook and a pencil and a seat under a willow tree. “Write what you want to learn,” he said. She mapped the night sky with imaginary constellations. “Write something real,” he growled. “Something real,” she wrote. He disappeared. She continued writing.

one hundred word story #5

Sam fed his reptiles on a rotating schedule. Every week, he bought bags of frozen mice from Savannah, the cute manager at the pet store. Norman, the ball python, ate on Fridays, and Hans, the tegu lizard, ate on Tuesdays, unless he was hibernating. Sam wanted desperately to ask Savannah out. Instead, he brought Norman and Hans into the shop. Savannah was feeding the gerbils and didn’t see them come in. It was Friday. Norman leaped. Savannah dodged. The gerbil disappeared. Sam never did get the courage. Norman, however, was happy. That winter, Sam hibernated; hoping to shed his skin.

one hundred word story #4

The last time Esther saw Frank was high school graduation. He had a ponytail and wore overzealous earrings. She was neither attractive nor ugly. One had a crush on the other and was quietly rejected. Twelve years later, she runs into him at the Post Office. He's wearing combat boots, camouflage from ankle to chin. She’s in a smart business suit. He doesn’t recognize her, cuts her place in line. “Frank?” She leans on her hip; a trick. He looks. Looks again. “Wow,” he says. “Hello, …?” “Hello indeed,” she murmurs, soaks that gaze in. Frank leaves without his package.

one hundred word story #3

Once upon a time there lived a critter named Pegasus who lived in Angelica's attic. Pegasus was actually a roof rat who tended to sneak through the tiles of Angelica's roof late at night and practice flying through the crawlspace between floors. Pegasus thought he had wings. Angelica went months believing she had a poltergeist in the house. She banged doors and lit candles, held a séance and tried to rid the house of spirits. Her energies only succeeded in further encouraging Pegasus, who flew through an open window and off the roof. Angelica was right: Poltergeists don’t like Ouija.

one hundred word story #2

Girl and Boy are driving home from somewhere sunny. The year is still new, their eyes tired. Girl at the wheel. The highway ascends steeply, trucks forging through the mountains like charging steer. The sun evaporates behind the horizon. And then the car is swirling through a tumbling mist of snow. Not flakes, not clumps, but tiny little ice crystals zoom in and around the hood, create little eddies on the road. The temperature gauge reads 31 degrees. Boy digs around under his seat, unearths a scarf and wraps it lovingly around her neck. The temperature in the car rises.