Poe Would Attribute His Carelessness To The Weight Of His Guilt Pressing In On Him

He begins the search casually, with a measure of optimism, fully expecting it won't be difficult to find, but with every crossed-out possibility his equanimity lessens, as he goes from pocket to pocket in all his jackets, even jackets that haven't been worn in years just to be sure, and finally to the pockets of his man-purse--the one she always mocked him for--until he's all out of pockets, and then it's to his Range Rover, where he looks methodically from back to front so that he's really beginning to panic because all he finds are stale fries and dog hair and a few drops of blood, which are all attributable to her and he needs to clean up soon, but there'll be no point in cleaning if he can't find it, and now he begins retracing every stop of the last six hours, first to the ATM that is supposed to be his alibi, but there's nothing in the parking lot, and then to the dumpster in the industrial park that was a really stupid place to put her bag but it's too late now, and in any case, it isn't there either and now he's driving to the waterfront and he's nervous because it seems like those headlights in the rearview mirror are following him despite his driving so slow and steady because it would be really bad if he gets pulled over when he hasn't washed the blood and he's still wearing the same clothes and the car is speeding up and its lights are flashing and oh my God it's the cops, so he thinks about speeding up too but that never works and he best play it cool and he's just about to ask what seems to be the problem officer when the cop demands to know why there's a handgun on the top of his car.

Today's story is a deviation from the 100 word format. Instead, as you probably already noticed, this is a one sentence story, a concept first introduced to me by Matthew Bennardo. It turns out they are quite addictive, and the thrill comes in trying to make them as long as possible before they collapse in upon themselves, much like a house of cards (I was going to say a game of Jenga, but the analogy doesn't really work.

King Netzahualcoyotl

When the last known jaguar died in the San Jose Zoo, it was believed that people would be safe from now on. And for the next decade, not one mysterious case of kidnapping or decortication was reported anywhere in the region.

Sloane Davidson, professor of ancient lore, warned anyone who would listen the jaguars were still among them. When the killings began, she was the first. Friends and colleagues revealed themselves as jaguars in disguise. The time had come for revenge.

Not many humans survived the uprising. Those who did became slaves. Thus the rule of King Netzahualcoyotl had begun.

End Of Dr. Palmer

Dr. Palmer, geneticist, realized one day that of all the animals, no one had yet thought to sequence a dog's genome. He therefore gathered his team and immediately set to work.

Dr. Palmer quickly discovered there was something wrong with dog DNA. They didn't have any. Every dog he tested was composed of completely foreign protein sequences. Palmer concluded they had been planted here by an alien civilization to observe Earthlings.

End of Dr. Palmer.

Several years later, Dr. Robinson, geneticist, realized one morning that none of his colleagues in the field had ever bothered to sequence the dog's genome.

Light Finds A Way

In the urban underbelly of the city, an entire population of unfortunates spent their entire lives in the blackness of the sewers. For generations, they'd had nothing but rats and each other for food, until Earl began cultivating rows and rows of crops in the light-deprived tunnels, where not even electricity reached. He made himself into the richest man in the world, yet no surface dwellers had ever heard of him.

When asked how he grew food without light, Earl claimed his crops were nourished on the clarity of his conviction. In reality, he was smuggling sunlight from above ground.

Stephen

One day, as he was looking through old photographs, Dave noticed a little boy in many of the photos who looked a lot like him, only a couple years younger. He was even in the family portraits.

As he flipped through, memories floated back of an imaginary friend named Stephen. Dave remembered him as a constant companion. His parents had always been kind enough to humor him. But sometime around his twelfth birthday, his parents had informed him that Stephen had been run over by a car.

It seemed strange an imaginary friend could show up in photos like that.

A Stone's Throw

For eons, stones have found their existence tedious at best, cursed by their lack of mobility and sensory organs. Why have a soul if they were doomed to suffer without ever experiencing anything but their own actuality? Their only solace was that they had been blessed with two nemeses, wind and water, against whom they could battle relentlessly.

It all changed when rocks became a unit of measurement. They found themselves hurled hither and thither whenever someone needed to estimate something's proximity.

Of course rocks had no way of understanding the change. Still, at least they have a purpose now.

Miniature Dragons

Before science invented the microscope, there was a popular theory that supposed illness and disease were the result of miniature dragons that attacked our immune systems. People believed the only way to defeat them was to equip an army of miniature knights to combat these miniscule, invisible dragons.

The king called for volunteers. They would join a mating program modeled by the dog breeders who created the miniature schnauzer. Over the course of several generations, they would sire knights tiny enough to fight the dragons.

Eventually it was discovered that germs, not dragons, were making people sick.

Sometimes science sucks.

The Never-Ending Date

Barbara and Steve began their first date in the firehouse deli. They both thought it quaint. It didn't take long for them to realize things were going extremely well. After their movie, as he walked Barbara back to her house, Steve suggested they continue the date tomorrow.

"I'll meet you in the morning and it will be part of the same date." Barbara found the idea charming.

When Steve proposed three years later, Barbara asked if that would mean the end of their first date. Steve said no.

"Why would I stop the best thing that's ever happened to me."

The Glue

Victor Coolidge often referred to himself as the glue that held the city together (the joke being the reason he was so obese was that a city of one billion people needed a lot of glue). In the end, he was the snag that lead to the city coming apart at the seams.

When he told his media friends that Georgi was the infant predator, they seized on the story. A manhunt began. Top-levels began dying in the vents. The riots spread to the sewers and the ground levels.

Georgi became the eye of the hurricane that finally destroyed Colossopolis.

Part 5

This is the treatment for a sci-fi novella. I think it's definitely worthy of more than the 100-word treatment. Let me know what you think!

Victor Coolidge

The larger an election, the greater the opportunity for corruption. In the largest city in the solar system, people assume it's easy to manufacture tens of millions of votes. For this reason, no one believed that Victor Coolidge, mayor of Colossolopolis, was duly elected. But his grip on power hardened over the years and seemed unlikely to end in anyone's natural lifespan.

But when Coolidge was discovered eating infant flesh in the vents, the news spread through the city at light speed.

Not many people believed Coolidge could overcome the scandal, but he knew all he needed was a scapegoat.

Part Four