Above Average Wear And Tear

Pete grabbed his lucky t-shirt from the back of the closet and threw it on.

"I'm ready."

"You are not wearing that."

"What? It's a classic."

"It's barely holding itself together. It must be 20 years old."

Pete was proud of his vintage Pearl Jam concert tee. Sure it may have seen better days, but the real ones would know. "25 actually. I got it when they played Bridge School in '99."

"You promised me you'd dress up tonight." Rebecca sighed, realizing it was a lost cause.

"Why are guys always more attached to their old clothes than their wives?"

Squabble

Up from clamor of Thanksgiving dinner, two voices drowned out the rest. Uncle Frank (Mom's brother) and Uncle Norm (Dad's brother), were at first pointedly not talking towards each other as they contradicted everything the other said. Then it was raised voices, direct, insistent, until they were shouting over everyone, ignoring their wives' pleas.

Then the fighting really began, first with silverware, then a carving knife versus a brass candlestick, then gunfire and light artillery. By this time, the two halves of the family had divided.

There would be no more Thanksgiving dinners until after the war was long over.

The Inescapable Muse

It was a perfect setting for a murder. The characters leapt to her mind’s eye: two brothers suavely lounging in the large padded oval back armchairs.

She pictured their wives, prim and dutifully attentive in the smaller twinned balloon backs.

Or perhaps she would mix it up to attract the increasing cohort of latter-day suffragettes and sympathizers who appeared to take umbrage at earlier novels.

Yes...she could almost see the dominant wife of one of the couples – American probably – claiming one of the larger chairs, her slightly effete husband relegated to the smaller.

But who would die?

Agatha scribbled.

From Guest Contributor Perry McDaid

The Exporter's Lament

In Export there is something heroic about earning foreign currency for my country. It makes up for jet lag, family absences, and living out of a suitcase.

Disembarking the flight home, I am thinking of freshly made meals and welcome home sex, not necessarily in that order.

I open the front door to enter a silent, empty house; furniture, fixtures and fittings gone.

On the kitchen bench the business card of a lawyer, specializing in Family Law.

My mind floods with stories told by fellow exporters, their helpless acute vulnerability, when their wives ran off with another man or woman.

From Guest Contributor Barry O'Farrell

Barry O'Farrell is an actor in Brisbane Australia, who worked in Export many years ago.

Other stories by Barry can be found at Cyclamens and Swords, 50 Word Stories and here at A Story In 100 Words.

The Conquering Heroes

Viking raiders would return from their numerous expeditions and invasions as conquering heroes and hope to receive a heroes' welcome. Instead, they were generally greeted with indifference bordering on disdain.

Their victims around the world thought of Vikings as the most fearsome warriors on Earth, but that wasn't true. The only reason they needed to sail to distant lands in search of plunder and wives was because they'd been alienated from their own communities. They were considered enfeebled outcasts.

The strongest Viking warriors in fact stayed home and forced their weaker counterparts to pay them tribute in food and gold.