Thunder Shook The Bibelots

Ralph hated thunderstorms. Tonight's had him cowering in his father's study. Each crack of thunder shook the shelves, rattling his father's war memorials and the family bibelots, and left him cringing abjectly in the corner.

When the storms came, Ralph would rarely understand the reason. His father would have to explain, with varying degrees of patience, that hadn't cleaned his room or had embarrassed him in front of strangers or hadn't done a good job of listening.

But tonight, he knew exactly why the storm had come. His bloody hands and his father's limp body told the story in full.

Scuppered

Captain Fletcher of her Majesty's Royal Navy gallantly stood before the tribunal. If he was aware that he faced court-martial, whipping, and possibly even death, he showed no sign of it in his stoic demeanor.

This was, of course, not his first appearance before the tribunal. In fact, it was the seventh time that he had scuppered one of his vessels, and his commanding officers rightly wondered about his abilities to captain, though they eventually acquitted him.

Years later, it was learned that the true reason for his constant failures was that he just really enjoyed using the word scuppered.

The Hubris Of A Goat Leads To A Tragic End

So it happened that one day Goat and Giraffe were walking down a path together when they came to a mountain. A sign said that at the summit there was a magical treasure. Both Goat and Giraffe very much wanted to find this treasure.

"Alas," cried Giraffe, "I could never climb a mountain like this. My legs are too long."

"I will find this treasure and bring it down to you." And so Goat climbed proudly to the summit.

Unfortunately, once there, Goat discovered that the treasure was at the top of a tree. He cried bitterly at the irony.

Criminal Intent

Since the passing of the criminal intent bill, it is now up to the judicial system to not only weigh the guilt or innocence of any defendant brought up on charges, but also his or her intent. The reasoning behind the new regulation being that what really constitutes a crime is the purpose of the perpetrator, not the outcome. A person who intends to kill someone but fails is more culpable than someone who accidentally kills someone due to carelessness.

Meanwhile, inside the private chambers of law offices and courtrooms around the country, groups of extremely high-paid lawyers are laughing.

The Cuteness Of Kittens

The town of Kircastle had a problem with kittens, in the same way Egypt was plagued by locusts to the point where they covered the ground and entered every house.

The townspeople feared the profusion of kittens. Some suggested they set fire to the town and start again elsewhere. Others wanted to eat the kittens, seeing as they had managed to consume every scrap of edible fare within several square miles.

But eventually, the cuteness of the kittens won out. They decided to live with all the adorable kittens the best they could, even if it meant their ultimate destruction.

A Hollywood Story

Gordon flipped through the damning evidence of a conspiracy at the highest levels and deliberated his next move.

The studio had hired him as an archivist, not a conscience. But he imagined his son's reaction if he ever learned Gordon had helped conceal the truth. Hollywood had purposefully been making inferior movies for decades, knowing that if filmgoers were provided with quality films, they'd become enlightened and no longer seek out the comfort of movies.

Gordon eventually returned the files. After reflecting upon his extremely large salary, he decided his son would want him to keep his damn mouth shut.

Hannah

I'm in a hurry so this story needs to be fast, because in the twenty-three years I've worked as a city bus driver, I've never been late, not counting of course the day my wife went into labor, but this morning as I was leaving the station a little girl was standing in front of the bus--I figured she was probably ten years old, and that would have been how old...well you can't expect me to talk about that--forcing me to slam on the brakes and I was certain I'd run her over but when I hurried round to the front she was unharmed, though she was crying pretty hard and said that she was lost and needed my help so I followed her across the street to the city park, down a path I can't remember ever having seen before into a place that was dark with ancient trees and cold and I was starting to get worried but she said this was the way home and she couldn't get there by herself, so I took her by the hand and we walked together and even though she said she'd never been here before she was the one leading me through the darkness until we finally came to a warm, bright clearing where she stopped and said goodbye and I didn't want to leave but she said that I had to go back and drive the bus and finally she told me her name was Hannah and that's when I understood and today was the first day I've cried in ten years and now that I think about it I don't really mind if for once I'm late to work.

Here's another one sentence story. Enjoy!

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.