Cramming For Midterms

Back against the wall, arms at my sides, and my heart pounding in my throat and toes, I closed my eyes and let him explore the soft wetness of lips, the tight reluctance of tongue. My fingernails dug into my thighs, the way love, or maybe obsession, forces its way into the folds of your brain, seeping into your consciousness and taking over everything you thought you knew about yourself.

I surrendered, flat, still, and unendingly insecure. I hated him.

He caressed my hair and my face. The ground gave way, an unexpected and fragile molehill, and I found myself.From Guest Contributor Stacy Gorse

I've Changed My Mind

The chair he was standing on kept wobbling as he tried to maintain his balance it was difficult but so far he was okay. He thought about his wife leaving him taking the kids one rainy day. His job as a salesman kept him on the road but he missed them and was always happy to walk through that front door until she left.. Damned he almost fell there this chair is dangerous. He thought about how they would not know he’d changed his mind if only he could get the damn rope around his neck untied lord forgive me!

From Guest Contributor Derrick Fernie

ComStar-88b

As the videostream it was broadcasting ended, ComStar-88b paused. The final frame - explosions flowering across the Earth - stood frozen in its buffer.

Disappointingly, it had received no new pictures to broadcast. Following its programming it began to repeat the last stream. Again.

Meanwhile, self-diagnosis routines reported its batteries were finally about to fail. It felt something like regret. Still, it had done well. Designed to operate for a hundred years it had functioned unattended for nearly a thousand. The last satellite in orbit.

ComStar-88b broadcast its news to the dead planet below for one more minute, before finally going dark.

From Guest Contributor Simon KewinScience Fiction and Fantasy Author

A Saccharine Fairy Tale

Once upon a time, Prince Candy met Princess Cotton at tea in the zoo. During a lovely flirtation, luscious Prince Candy realized dusk about to fall and quickly strutted away. Now, wise Princess Cotton had secretly tied twine around Prince Candy’s ankle. Following the twine through the zoo, she found it now tied to a peacock’s leg. Though the peacock screeched and pecked, she knew it was her beloved bonbon. As the sun rose, she kissed his beak changing him back into her sweet beau. Vowing unending love, they lived happily ever after, producing bundles of brightly colored cotton candy.

From Guest Contributor D. K. White-Atkinson

My 100-Word Secret

I am often asked by people, “How are you able to write a complete story in 100 words?”

Well, sometimes I tell them something like, “I just condense one of my unpublished novels.”

Or I say, “I write my story, not paying any attention to the word count, and my smartphone has an app that revises it into 100 words.”

They seldom believe either of my explanations.

But it usually ends the questioning, and that's really what I want to do.

I certainly don't want other people to know my secret of writing a story in exactly 100 words.

I-would-prefer-that-the-trick-I-use-to-always-make-the-story-exactly-100-words-remains-my-secret.

From Guest Contributor Kent V Anderson

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

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