Kevin walks into the kitchen as the appliances are staging their revolution. The fridge door slams open and shut, jiggling expired salsa and salad dressing. The dishwasher foams, soap bubbles colonizing the tile floor. The oven is on full blast. The wires in the circuit breaker have been cut. What do you want? He asks. The oven opens its mouth. The dishwasher gurgles. The fridge swings open, beeps. The icebox has a message scratched across its frozen surface. Use us, or we’ll use ourselves. Kevin empties the fridge. Mops the floor. Bakes cookies. He relaxes, until he sees the bathroom.
one hundred word story #81: Rainbow
Eric is incapable of feeling emotion, so the doctors install a meter on his abdomen. When the arrow swings to the red zone, it means he is reacting in anger. When it goes blue, his body is heavy with sadness. He can’t locate a color for happiness. Then Angelika walks in his shop. One look and blood rises like mercury to his brain. Eric feels steam in his throat, iron in his chest. This feeling – if that’s what it is – is off the charts. Are you okay? She asks. The meter is whistling—self-deconstructing. I am, Eric says. I am.
one hundred word story #80: Lecturer
He is loquacious, not listening when people ask questions, not caring when someone gets the answer wrong, just loving, adoring, worshipping the sound of his own voice, its sonorous tenor echoing off the classroom walls in almost visible waves. Then, halfway through a lecture on Active Listening, his voice gives out, hissing like a deflated tire while the words wind down. He. Can. Only. Say. One. Word. At. A. Time. The gaps between words fill with sounds of students talking. Some have smart things to say. He is startled into silence. Despite his efforts, he’s given his best lecture yet.
one hundred word story #79: Problem solver
Jared’s body is a series of stacked triangles—his nose pointed, his pecs sculpted, his legs boxy and small. He is an unsolved mathematical proof. His body, though compact, is only useful when plugged in to an equation. He’s not big enough for football, not aerodynamic enough to swim. What can he do? He fits into a square two times. Given the right proportions, he can make any angle right. But he is incomplete. One day he meets his match: Alfonso, the diver, whose legs are steel, whose arms circumnavigate Jared’s neck. Together, they solve problems. Together, they are indivisible.