My Nana's Custard Tarts

Reflected by the low sun, her chair cast almost mechanical shadows.

Her milky waxy eyes somehow still sparkled.

She chuckled and a few chins flapped like defrosted chicken skin.

I sat pinned, and listened well.

So she told me about custard tarts.

"A good custard tart is rare you know, but you know when you have found one, the pastry is shorter than a long weekend, but as flaky as a veteran hippy! The filling, lovemaking of newlyweds, egg and vanilla, on velvet sheets of cream, complete with nutmeg confetti."

We both sat grinning at the crumbs on our plates.

From Guest Contributor Christoctopus

The Stand In

I’ve discovered a niche taking the place of other people, in particular performing those tasks they themselves prefer to avoid. This kind of specialty service requires seamlessly blending into any situation, as well as incredible forbearance. You are often the target of vitriolic abuse.

This was how I found myself last Saturday night at the city's most exclusive fine-dining establishment in the company of Veronica Roth. The meal was delightful. The trip to the emergency room after I told Ms. Roth that Mr. Deveraux had sent me to break up with her was just another of my career's many pitfalls.

Wedding Anniversary

I have gotten myself into trouble over the years, forgetting simple little things like Valentine’s Day, wedding anniversaries, and such. Yes, her birthday too but only sometimes.

This year will be different. I have loaded all the important dates into my iPad, which I left in the office last night by accident.

Nothing can distract me this morning; I am buying a dozen long-stemmed roses, a box of chocolates and a wedding anniversary card, on the way into work.

In the office, I double check my iPad.

Today is the anniversary of my first marriage. What to do now?

From Guest Contributor Barry O'Farrell

Barry is an actor who sometimes writes, living in Brisbane, Australia. Barry's stories appear in Cyclamens and Swords, The Flash Fiction Press, 101 Words, and of course here at A Story In 100 Words.

Growth

I like watching my nails grow. I eat enough proteins to create dead cells to convert into nails and hair. Every week, I trim my nails, and every two weeks, my hair. But they grow back with a vengeance each time. When I forgot to trim my nails once, my infant brother got a large scratch on his face. I forgot to cut my hair, and my mother had a nasty fall entangled in them. No one comes near me now, except to cut my nails and hair. I’m the keratin child demon everyone has learnt to be scared of.

From Guest Contributor Namitha Varma

Namitha is a media professional based in Bengaluru, India. She has publishing credits in over 25 literary journals including Sahitya Akademi’s journal Indian Literature, eFiction India, Gone Lawn, Postcard Poems and Prose, 101 Words, Microfiction Monday Magazine, and Cafe Dissensus Everyday. Her micropoem has been read out on NPR Radio as part of the National Poetry Month 2014, and her works feature in two anthologies. Read more on her blog or follow her on Twitter.

Eulogy for Lead

My grandfather liked to paint lead miniatures, redcoat British riflemen and coal-colored Zulu warriors with brilliant spears. He would wax poetic about square formations and Michael Caine, talk about each individual figure as though they led deeply introverted lives. On hot summer mornings I'd wake with my child's eyes and see: all those soldiers shifted from their positions, playing out an historical drama that only my grandfather knew. Grandfather survived the brutality of the Pacific Theater. Now he lays forever asleep, something inanimate, molded by ancestral pressures unknown, moved with care, another lead actor in some endless recursive performance.

From Guest Contributor John K. Webb

We're All Learning

Back to school shopping.

Jennifer wanted pens and whiteout. Stevie picked a package of pink hangers. One by one, items landed in the shopping cart. Mother pushed. Around the big superstore they went. Cart three-quarters filled when they finished.

“Don’t they need new clothes?” grandmother asked anxiously.

“They don’t sell clothes here,” mother answered.

Grandmother frowned. “You should have another colour. Pink is for girls.”

“But I like pink,” Stevie answered.

Mother asked “why not” and turned her face the other way.

Where was I? In the elevator with the family, hearing their conversation as it unfolded to the public.

From Guest Contributor Krystyna Fedosejevs

Krystyna writes poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction. Her work has been published at: Nailpolish Stories, 50-Word Stories, 100 word story, 101 Words, Boston Literary Magazine, From the Depths (Haunted Waters Press), ShortbreadStories, and Espresso stories.

Depression

The doctor was explaining how behavioral changes are just as likely to cure my depression as drugs.

“Has it occurred to you doctor, that I ought to be depressed, because I'm living a meaningless life?”

“Yes, but I wasn’t going to say it.” Then he saw I wasn’t joking.

“The truth is, I feel just about right for my situation,” I said.

“I don’t tell people how they ought to feel. If they come here, it’s because they think there’s something wrong.”

I didn’t reply.

“So you want me to increase your dosage then?”

It was easier to say yes.

From Guest Contributor Thomas Vicinanzo

Shipping Container

“A single nuclear device, including laptop computer, can fit inside a standard 20-foot shipping container. There are 1,250 shipping containers on a regular container ship. Now if you look at this photo what do you see?”

“In profile, a container ship, fully loaded.”

“Notice anything unusual? Take my magnifying glass. Let me help you. There are wires connecting every container.”

“Every container’s armed?”

“Triggered at the same time, and the ship can be anywhere in the world, we can blow the planet asunder.”

“What is it?’

“One of ours.”

“Yes, I understand but what is it?”

“Our doomsday machine.”

Barry O'Farrell is an actor living in Brisbane, Australia.

Barry's other stories appear in Cyclamens & Swords, 101 Words, 50-Word Stories, and of course here at A Story in 100 Words.

Whose Apartment?

I rent an apartment that's above a garage.

But there's a dog who has made a home for himself in the corner.

He's without a collar

and needs a bath.

I'm polite, so I don't say anything.

But he growls as if it's his apartment!

I explain; I'm paying the rent, so really it's my apartment, so he needs to accept reality.

He dismisses my argument.

I offer him food and he eats it.

I give him a bath and he goes along with it.

Finally, he licks my face in an apparent suggestion that we become roommates.

I accept.

From Guest Contributor Kent V Anderson

When Kent isn't writing stories, he is building robots.

Night

Floodlights dancing over the facade of D.C.'s skyline, lurid swirls of white illuminating lifeless constructs. Helicopters flitting, sound of thwift-thwift, fiery arcs followed by rifle's boom. Jamie clasped his fingers between chain link and watched. Behind him, scattered over a lightless tract of dirt, the naked dying, bleeding from eyes, cries of pain a muted keening of metal. Above: C.D.C. in masks and Hazmat suits, brandishing assault weapons. Washington was long dark—indeed, the entire country. Jamie gazed upwards. The milky way had manifested like fever dream, ephemeral and monolithic, a terrible Prince awaiting its prize's return to benign jungle.

From Guest Contributor John Webb

This is a repost of a story from 2014 that accidentally got deleted.