Internet Freedom

“Worst case scenario,” solemnly begins my lawyer, looking up from his papers to fix me with his most sobering stare, “They will seize your computer, hard drives, thumb drives, charts, journals, everything.

“They will want the details of everything you have ever worked on, all your current work in progress, every project you plan to work on in the future.”

“I’ll go into hiding.”

“You can’t hide. They will track you down to the ends of the Internet. They want it all. They will scan everything inside your head.”

“I will cut off my head to stymie the Thought Police.”

From Guest Contributor Barry O'Farrell

Barry is an actor living in Brisbane, Australia. Barry's other stories can be found at Cyclamens & words, 50 Word Stories and of course here at A Story In 100 Words.

Basic Behavior

All I could say to my mother as she stood haggard over the sunken sink and washed the dishes; rattled the stainless steel pots trying to make some type of noise to fill up space that the silence had long held ransom was, “I don’t mean to be sad.” I gripped at the air as I said the words; tried to catch eloquence and understanding in my palms. I wanted to give her a better answer, a better reason. I wanted to appease. “I don’t mean to be sad,” again. Basic. All I could be…everything I could say. “I’m sorry.”

From Guest Contributor Endya Goliday

Endya is a fiction writer and playwright who resides in Saint Louis, Missouri.

Her Little Plum

The plum blossoms dance in the spring breeze like pink snowflakes across the yard.

A boy again, mother lifts me into the limbs to pick ripened fruit. “Be careful, my precious squirrel.”

“Ready, dear?” my wife asks.

“Yes,” my voice chafes. I inspect my dark suit, adjusting my tie in the window’s reflection. Wipe my face and rub wet fingers together.

“Your speech is in my purse.”

Words. An inadequate parting gift.

My mouth waters as mother sets down a steaming plum pie.

After her funeral, floodlights illuminate wreckage of the fallen tree. A brittle heart splinters. Sobs erupt anew.

From Guest Contributor Eric Schweitz

Second Date

Let me tell you about being single again and dating.

I meet remarkable women.

Non-smokers who chain smoke; social drinkers being borderline alcoholics.

When we talk on the phone, without exception, they’re all size 10-12. We arrange to meet.

The old joke goes, the women in our town are size 24, size 26, size 28, and then there are the big fat ones!

Seems to me it’s true.

They get offended when I say, “You deceived me,” and ask why I say so on our first date. I mean, why would anyone wait til the second date to speak up?

From Guest Contributor Barry O'Farrell

Barry is an actor living in Brisbane, Australia. Other stories by Barry have appeared in Cyclamens & Swords, 50-Word Stories, and of course here at A Story In 100 Words.

House Hunting

The realtor pushed the door open. “Will your wife be joining us?”

“Don’t worry about her. Does it have everything I asked for?”

“I believe it does.”

“Which way to the basement?”

She led him through the kitchen. “This is it.”

He flipped on the light and peered down into the dark dank hole. “Uh huh,” he said as he disappeared down the stairs. The realtor followed down behind him.

It was the worst sort of basement, dark corners, only one sliver of a window, musty, dead.

He toed the dirt floor and it gave way under his boot. “Sold.”

From Guest Contributor Darci McIntyre

What Patti Smith Gets Up To

"I saw Patti Smith in concert once. It was quite recently actually. I like to think that after the show she went to a late night beat poet meet where they gave beautiful spoken word renditions through the fug of cigarette smoke whilst drinking sour wine. Or she went to keep candlelight midnight vigil over an altar of Allen Ginsburg, a vigil unbroken by his devotees since his death in the 90’s. More realistically I think Ms. Smith went back to her hotel with her band and caught an early night, she was getting on a bit at the time."

From Guest Contributor George Aitch

Parking Lot Poet

I sit and think.

Of what, I'm not sure. As this mind has tendencies to wander. Wanting perfection, but tending to squander.As the ideas flow as dam water, next thing you know you're down the river. I gasp, adrenaline flows to capture the shore. Just to be able to hold to one original idea.

I sit and think.

In ways of harnessing this cursed gift, since frustration foreclosures many of them before they leave the pen. In a sense I'm the hopeless poet I so ironically created. The oxymoron of a poet's life sitting in a empty parking lot.

From Guest Contributor UInk Poetry

Capezio

Some of us are birthed rigid, leather left too long in the sun, so carefully struck dense beneath hands. Everyone and everything’s hands. Shaped into whatever it is we play at long before your shadow cooled me. You knit something soft overtop, fingers of catgut dancing like satin ribbon and for a time there is a concealing, something less than painful looming in the mirror. And though we both knew I would ravel and tear with so many seams under the strain of your weight, I knew the taste of skin on your throat, and we made the world spin.

Nick Christian is a poet and fiction writer who currently studies at the University of Missouri-St. Louis.

Introduction

I hate going to the Introduction Agency to get a date. There is a certain sense of shame and failure.

This time it’s for a skiing, long weekend my boss has arranged. I can’t attend another company weekend alone.

“My screen has a record of your preference,” says the receptionist. “You last used our personal services four months ago. Your good credit qualifies you for bronze level membership. Would you like to join?”

Tempted, I nod my head.

“We can introduce you to Amber, model looks, brunette, elegant. Amber will be fully recharged in about ninety minutes. Care to wait?”From Guest Contributor Barry O'Farrell

Barry is an actor living in Brisbane, Australia. Barry's other stories can be found at Cyclamens & Swords, 50 Word Stories, and here at A Story In 100 Words.

Ruby's Incontinence

“You’re such an asshole Chuck,” the back-braced senior citizen Ruby said as Chuck held the Stanford Medical Center elevator door open for her with one arm, balancing seven incontinence pads in his left.

Chuck smiled and pushed floor one.

“We’re parked in the basement you idiot.”

“I knew that, dear. I wanted to show you every floor so I’d get my money’s worth. $75,000 to fix a damned hernia.”

“You’d rather I be in pain, jerk?”

“Hmm… tough question.”

“Proves my point.”

“I love you enough to tolerate your usual grumpiness at the hospital.”

“Of course you do. You would.”

From Guest Contributor Jay Paul