The Brothers, the Tower and No Elephant

 Island of Lost Dreams

The brothers had a reputation that preceded them wherever they went. The day they decided to steal the gold statue of an elephant, they came up with a plan and managed to sneak inside the king's tower. The problem was, they couldn't find the damn elephant anywhere. They climbed all the way to the top in pitch black darkness. Exhausted, they sat down for a few seconds. No elephant, but the view was magnificent. They decided to watch the sunrise before resuming the search. Suddenly, evil laughter interrupted the dreamy moment. Watching the sunrise was lovely. Free flying was not.

100 Word Stories

Grab a Bag...

Cadenza

Grab a bag and fill it with stars, one by one. One star for each day you've made it. One star for each doubt you've overcome. One star for each moment of loneliness, for each step you've taken. Grab a bag and fill it with dreams, one by one. One dream for each tomorrow, for each smile, for each doubt you've left behind. And when you open that bag, you won't know which are the stars and which the dreams. While you carried them around, they talked and they smiled. They knew they would be free, as free as fireflies.

100 Word Stories

If Only I Had...

Pixel Dreams

If only I had a moment, one single moment...

I would close my eyes and listen to the languid swooshing of the old windmill.

I would be a seagull for a moment, one single moment, and feel the wind under my wings.

I would sway softly in a soothing flight of sheer weightlessness. I would be suspended in mid-air.

And I would forget everything. I would forget time. I would forget pain. I would forget the struggle.

I would just fly in a motionless sense of abandonment.

I would close my eyes and listen to that one single effortless moment.

100 Word Stories

Why Not?

Apassionata

“Why not the head first?” asked Paulie.

“That's not the way we do it,” replied the boss.

“Why not?”

“Because. Go grab the leg for me and shut up.”

Paulie crossed the yard, grabbed the leg from a bucket, and dragged it back.

“Here.” And he dumped the leg on the kitchen table.

“Hey. Remember the arm.”

The acid would do wonders, but last time he had to deal with an arm, it flipped in such an odd way he didn't sleep for a whole damn week.

“Why not the head...?”

“Paulie...”

100 Word Stories

Look Away, Please

Bridgetown

A crowd gathered near the collapsed bridge. The front part of the truck was stuck on one side of the bridge, the back on the other.

“Icy pavement?”

Heads shook.

“Where's the driver?”

They checked security cams, interviewed witnesses, searched the truck. Nothing.

“So, no one was driving the truck?”

Elsewhere, monitors showed live images from the accident.

A man adjusted the noose around the woman's neck.

“Let's get this tighter.”

She didn't last long.

The man smiled. Improving his obsolete technological skills opened up a whole new world of possibilities. They would never catch him.

100 Word Stories

(Pick Two: Corner, Tiger, Tie, Please, Encountered, Obsolete, Winter, Webcam)

Smartypants

Water Reserve

"Pathetic idea. This won't work. Plants need water," said the moody Professor.

However, Peter was determined.

He tweaked the genetic code for months. Then, he finally made it. The plant grew without the need for any assistance. People just had to place it in a large pot and leave it be.

Peter also programmed the plant to identify the Professor who is now, let's say, part of the said plant.

The downside of this story is that the plant is always in a bad mood, the roots throwing the soil out of the pot. Good thing, it's in slow motion.

100 Word Stories

Involved

Venexia

The café was busy.

From the street, it looked like they were moving in furniture. In fact, they were smuggling antiques.

When the fire destroyed the café, the police arrested two local thugs on an anonymous tip. They swore they hadn't done it.

From across the street, the owners of the restaurant observed the commotion with satisfaction.

Their business was safe again.

And no one had to be buried in the cellar, which was becoming very crowded.

The last thing they wanted was for the police to snoop around.

"And for us, it's back to the pots and pans, boys."

100 Word Stories

(My story wasn't published this week, because I forgot to send it over...
But do check everyone else's stories. They are very good.)

India

Tierra de Fuego

"Don't overdo it on the spices, OK?"

John had arrived recently from India and was adding all sorts of spices to his cooking spree, most of them turning his dishes into fire hazards.

His friends only fell for it... twice. Then they arranged for a rotation system to be put in place where each would be the weekly assigned victim.

John never suspected of the sudden busy agendas of his friends. He never even noticed how regularly each went over to his place for dinner and how they'd rotate, always in the same order, between them.

He was so enthusiastic about his new hobby that he had big plans to open a restaurant, to publish a cooking book, to get a Michelin star, to have his own TV show (the star coming up in the list before the TV show, for some reason; apparently he thought it would be easier to get the star than the TV show).

"You'll set the country on fire," said one of his friends.

But he laughed the comment away and proceeded to strive in his intents. He didn't give up, not even after twenty people were taken to the hospital with severe gastrointestinal problems and burns in their mouths from a highly secret combination of obscure spices used in his restaurant.

The end result of this fiery adventure takes us, many decades later, back to India where our cook took refuge when he realized his secret combination of spices had been fine tuned into a highly toxic poison used by secret services all over the world in a silent, invisible and spicy war against one another.

Slack

LEA 20 Machinima Open Studio

“Dust everywhere.” Whenever the Duchess arrived at the hotel, she criticized everything. “Look at this.” And she slapped the velvet on the chairs.

Mr. Roberts, the manager, smiled and nodded, gently guiding her towards the elevator. Once she was safely tucked away inside the diabolic machine, as she called it, peace would return.

When the diabolic machine, no doubt highly offended, decided to take revenge, plummeting two floors down into the dust infested cellar, the Duchess went to the papers and vowed never to stay there again.

The hotel then became extremely successful. Dust can be such a lifesaver.

100 Word Stories

The Law Firm

Mystical Falls

Basking in the sun, a woman with pale complexion pulled a wide-brimmed hat over her pink nose.

Another woman, tanned, sat next to her on the sand. "There's nothing like having some time off," she ventured.

"I hate time off," replied the first one. "It's such a waste."

"Oh? Well, you are more than welcome to stay at the office with the junior staff, going through boring files while the rest of us enjoy these days away."

The pinkish woman sneered and looked away. She would definitely do that if it weren't for the fact that even on vacation everyone was adding points to their relative positions in the firm's ranks. The fake smiles, the pseudo-intellectual conversations about the latest opera performance everyone who mattered attended (including her of course), the overexcited and drunk husbands who, on pretenses that this was a firm's retreat only for partners (a blatant lie), got overenthusiastic, slipping the increasingly younger waitresses cards with the numbers of their hotel rooms.

It was no surprise that over the years no one ever tried to hit on her. She had a reputation of being aloof and arrogant. Besides, she would invariably take cover under her straw hat, the biggest one she could find, and sit by the water, watching them play their parts.

"Lucy, do you ever think that this is all so artificial, you know, like there's a script?"

The tanned woman looked at her and smiled. "Yep. We have accepted to play these roles until we reach the top. Then we can write our own scripts."

"But it's pathetic. Look at them," replied the pinkish woman.

"I know, Patty. It is. Well, look at it on the bright side. One day, we'll own our own firm and be our own bosses. In the meantime, we bask in the sun and watch."

"I'm not sure I'll wait that long," said Patty, starting to look rather reddish instead of pink.

"What are you going to do? Don't throw it all away, not now, after all this effort, please, Patty."

But Patty wouldn't have anything to do with slow patient methods. She stood up, went over to the water, sinking her feet in the sand, and threw her hat away.

"Do you want me to be obedient? Do you want me to play along? Do you want me to fuck my way up the ranks? Do you? Well, to the gents, fuck you. To the ladies, you're getting fucked for nothing; they'll never give you any of the top jobs. Did you know that? I bet you didn't."

By then, she had the undivided attention of all the partners who had been slumbering on low beach-chairs, the dying waves lazily slapping their feet.

"Check your emails, ladies, check your emails," and she walked away, back to the hotel, where she packed her bags and disappeared.

The email had a copy of an internal communication, delivered only to the male partners, where it was clearly stated that men would be given preference over women for any leading position in the firm. A list of reasons were given to justify this unjustifiable decision; women miss work more often, they get pregnant, they take maternity leaves, they have to take care of their children, of their families, of their elderly parents, their attention span is lower, because they tend to multitask, and they are always on the phone solving their family issues.

Needless is to say that this particular firm ceased to exist after it was hit with a storm of lawsuits by the female staff, Lucy included.

Patty went to India. She opened a law firm and she never again basked in the sun.

(This story was inspired by a real event involving a prestigious organization. It was not a law firm. The outcome, however, was far from the one in the story. The organization still exists.)

A Small Lump

Kronbelt

The abandoned barn was anything but abandoned. A nest of bees had been growing steadily since the demise of the said building.

At first, it was only a small lump on the wall, but after a few weeks, it had grown considerably. No one really paid much attention to the increase of the bee population in the area, so their numbers grew merrily.

It was inevitable for someone to be stung. First a child, then an adult, then many adults, a crowd of adults. Panic took over the town and within a few weeks it was clear that the sanitary services had to come up from the city to help solve the problem.

The bees were resilient though. No poison, spraying, destroying the hive made them disappear.

As a matter of fact, some of the local residents showed evidence of disturbing mutations. They tended to linger a lot longer around the flowerbeds in the public parks, they felt strangely attracted to that barn and all of them made involuntary humming noises.

The situation was so catastrophic that the whole town was put under a strict, and useless, quarantine.

It took them about a year, but when they finally controlled the epidemic all over the country, it was extremely difficult to set the original bees and the mutated humans apart, except for the oversized dimensions of the latter, of course.

Nocturnal

Kronbelt

The hammer struck again and again. Over the rhythmic cadence, the cry of an eagle announced dinner time. The bird flew in wide circles over Mr. Trent's property around 7pm sharp. That's when he came out and threw big chunks of meat in the air for the eagle to catch. When satisfied, the eagle flew away to return the next day.

Where Mr. Trent got the meat was a complete mystery to his neighbor Peter. Mr. Trent had no cattle, no poultry, he never left his property, where he lived with his wife, and no one ever dropped by.

One day, as Peter heard the hammer strike once again, right before 7pm, he ventured next door. He jumped over the wooden fence easily and walked as silently as he could towards the barn where the hammering sound came from.

He slid close to the walls, only to see Mr. Trent hitting a few frozen chunks of meat to separate them. He drew closer. Mr. Trent hammered and hammered.

Much to Peter's horror, one of the bits got separated and hit the ground. It was a hand.

And that was the last thing Peter saw.

"Elyse, please, again?" Mr. Trent complained. "We have no room left."

Mrs. Trent, a nocturnal woman taken to unusual habits, smiled.

"I just couldn't resist, dear. Normally, I have to ride so far away and carry them here. This one was so... handy!"

Pages

Il Nido

The man flipped the pages hastily, almost thunderously.

The eBook reader had trouble keeping up and was about to refuse to continue any farther when the man's phone rang.

"Yes? Oh, forget it. It's too much trouble as it is. I need it translated, but if this is the way you people work, never mind. I'll find someone else." And he hung up.

The cup of coffee lay unstirred, no sugar. His morning routine was irremediably torn to pieces. People at the tables around him took cautious glances at his terrible humor, uttering no word whatsoever. They were afraid to trigger a storm of even worse proportions.

"Right," he mumbled to himself, turning the eBook reader off and throwing it on the table where it hung in a precarious balance on the perilous precipice leading to a certain death, or at least irreparable injuries.

The phone rang again. He checked it to see who was calling. 

Sheer evil, the woman sitting at the table in the corner would later tell the police. The smirk on his face resembled nothing she had ever seen.

"You, again? What an incompetent bunch of retards," he barked. "How difficult is it to translate a damn note? At this pace, I'll have time to learn the language and translate it myself. No, no, don't even dare, you hear, don't even dare!" And he hung up, violently, throwing the phone onto the table. It made a cracking noise, not at all promising a long life. The man had forgotten about that paper lost in a dark pocket of some lost jacket. Coming across it just a few days ago, he tried to have it translated, to no avail.

When the man stood up and pulled his gun out, and said "If this is the way you want it", some people screamed, others stood up in an mimetic motion opposite to what the survival instinct would dictate. A well-seasoned mother of two only had time to cover the eyes of her child before the man pushed the gun against his throat and pulled the trigger.

Witnesses were heard, distant family members were tracked, no friends were found. In his phone, one phone number, the one of an office which offered translation services. The owners were interviewed, the potential translators testified. All agreed on one thing, the document the man wanted translated was nothing more than the proof of his crimes, written down on a piece of paper, many years ago, by a fortune teller he came across in one of his frequent travels throughout the country.

The serial killer who refused to get caught had been discovered after years of nationwide efforts made by the police.

The piece of paper was translated, 20 murders, 1 with a hammer, 1 with an electric saw, 1 by strangulation, 5 with a rope, and 12 with a fire weapon, showing some experimentation, and finally a growing detachment, one a year, making the investigation of these killings especially difficult for the authorities. 

As to the reason why the man decided to commit suicide, the last call he received was a threat; they'd take the list to the police. That sealed the man's fate.

Far away, in a distant town, the fortune teller opened a dark wooden box lost in a forgotten shelf. Inside was a folded paper she threw into the fireplace as quickly as she could. 

She remembered that day; she remembered that man. She remembered having written a list of horrific crimes she gave to the man, who laughed, dismissing her predictions with a wave of his hand. 

However, what she most vividly recalled was what she wrote on a second paper; the man would die too, at his own hands. She never told him that, hoping not to interfere with fate. 

When she heard the news on TV, she was finally able to have a good night's sleep. 

(This text is a wink at "The Mysterious Card" by Cleveland Moffet)

Endings

Wintermoon

Up the stairs into a new time. It'll be difficult, it'll be difficult, I mutter. I know it well. I have climbed many of those stairs, slowly and steadily. I may stumble often, I know I will, as I always do. Sometimes, it will be my fault. Other times, well... But I keep looking at each step and climbing those stairs. I never give up. It's not in me to give up. I would've done it a long time ago, I suppose. But I didn't. And now, I keep looking up and moving forward, from one ending to another beginning.

100 Word Stories

The Writer

Il Nido

The writer shuffled and reshuffled the pile of papers on his desk. The sudden urgency in organizing the organized desk was directly proportionate to the growing lack of inspiration. The white screen showed no text whatsoever and his demeanor shifted between utter helplessness and violent indignation.

If he could, he'd steal someone's work, although he would never admit to even remotely considering doing it.

The writer turned to his computer to browse writing sites for new ideas. After several hours, he tripped over a shadow writer offering an unpublished manuscript in a writing forum. He called the man and set up a meeting.

The manuscript was surprisingly fresh and it had it needed to be a worldwide success. The writer took it under his name without changing anything but a few typos. The shadow man took his money, an extravagant million dollars, and disappeared.

When the book was published, a scandal broke out. The manuscript turned out to be an exact translation of a book recently published by an obscure unknown Portuguese writer.

No one ever heard of the uninspired writer again or of the shadow.

The Portuguese became famous worldwide, understandably.

And one could undoubtedly say that this was the best paid translation in the history of publishing.

The Line

Salt Water

Right across the horizon of two-floor houses and palm trees, the promising blue line stretched as far as the eye could see. Every now and then, the uniformity of that blue vastness was scratched. The seagulls stormed the neighborhood with their impatient shrieks, impatiently looking for impatient babies to feed them impatiently. This was in sharp contrast with the quiet horizon, a line between sea and sky filled with promises of past and future, the present suspended from that blue line. If it were a postcard, no one would believe it to be exactly like that. But it was indeed a blue vastness interrupted only by a white line of seagulls on their way out to sea to fish impatiently, bringing back a line of fish, a line of seashells, or a line of hope.

The Wedding Was Just a Dance Away

Hattusa City

The dancers shuffled their feet on the rough surface of the dance floor. They were tired. They were grumpy. The sweat scratched their backs mercilessly. They still had a few hours to go until they could get the final prize, a trip to an exotic destination. Joana and her fiancé Mitchell decided to participate in the dance marathon organized by the local tourism agency.

The final bill for the wedding was way over their budget, and no money was left for the honeymoon. The common love for dancing made them think it would be easy to win.

They were young. They were fit. The first few days went by quickly with only a few muscle aches and cramps.

When they got to the last day, things started collapsing. Joana's back was killing her and Mitchell complained about having to hold her body weight in his arms. Mitchell's feet were so heavy he kept stepping on Joana's toes.

By the end of the night, only half an hour to the finish line, they had an argument, a deadly argument. They stopped dancing. They screamed at the top of their lungs. The juries hushed them down, but how could they threaten to disqualify them if they had already disqualified themselves when they stopped dancing?

Joana threw the water bottle at Mitchell and, when Mitchell dodged it, it flew all the way to the table of the head jury, smacking him right on the face and causing great agitation.

The wedding was called off and an annoying couple, the pristine Rogers, won the competition.

If you're about to get married, the advice of this narrator, irony aside... or not, is to enter a dance competition.

Oh, and just for your information, the pristine Rogers got a divorce 2 months after the competition. So, there.

What do YOU want for Christmas?

Nighthaven

I want to look at the gently rippling water and believe tomorrow will be a better day. I want to be quiet and strong. I want to close my eyes and have peace inside, instead of the constant turmoil I have now. I want to believe that all the “thens” and all the “nows” are just bits and pieces of a bigger picture, and that these pieces will eventually find their rightful places. I want to smile and reach out and take a deep breath to finally find myself. I want to be a lion in a pool of quietness.
100 Word Stories

Real Plot

Asalia House

The detective story promised to be intriguing. Page after page, John followed the highly enlightened investigator and his mellow side-kick.

The problem was when John's dog, in an unacceptable attitude of contempt, decided to rip the book to pieces and wrap things up by peeing on the ruins of the mystery plot.

John was horrified. How could he now find out who the killer of the prestigious banker was? And why was the crime committed? Was it for his fortune? Or was it a crime of passion, considering his wife had found out he was entertaining a voluptuous woman on Thursdays afternoon in their downtown apartment.

The dog sat next to its work of art, huffing and puffing, perfectly content with the final result; the art of destroying the written text was excruciatingly tiring, apparently.

In an incomprehensible frenzy, so the dog thought, John started to rummage through the torn pages to find a sentence, a lost paragraph, anything that would tell him who did it.

John then decided to flatten the pages and pile them up, skimming through the text, until he found one page almost intact. At the bottom, the following sentence jumped out of the page "Mr. Downey looked at the gate, and like a blood hound, he scanned the area, left and right, sniffing the air and kneeling down to place an ear to the ground, suddenly saying "Beware of the Dog".

There was no dog in the story, but the cryptic remark was the answer to the well established culpability of John's dog and the crime committed.

It turned out that the Dog was a hitman hired by the banker's wife.

How the detective sniffed the air and immediately knew who the culprit was, was a mystery to John. But then again, as many say, fiction is nothing but a pack of well fabricated lies, fun lies, but lies nevertheless!

The true certainty in John's life was the fact that he definitely had to take his detective-killer dog out for a walk… and… well, other things.

Relevant Indiscretion

Kats Beach

"Those two are a couple," the man whispered to his wife, rolling his eyes.

The said couple, both in their mid-40s, held hands across the table and exchanged sweet promises of eternal love while waiting for their food. 

The restaurant was packed and no one paid attention to anyone else, but to the ones populating their own tables. Families of six, families of four, and families of all sizes, colors and shapes, probably of all religions or none at all, filled the air with the enthusiastic thrill and shrill of vacation time. The hustle and bustle of dinner provided the perfect cover for an indiscreet conversation.

"Who?" asked the wife, turning around.

"Annie, please, don't!"

Annie, a stout woman of stubborn demeanor, paid no attention to her husband and turned around to check the said couple.

"Oh, my. They are men, Larry!"

By then, despite the cacophony in the air, the guys knew that they were the center of attention of the middle-aged couple, whose almost pathetic surprise turned into a juvenile embarrassment when the guys waved and said hello.

"Why don't you join us," invited one of them, gently tapping the empty chair next to him.

Annie, who was dying to show the gay couple the right path in life, stood up and waved an enthusiastic acceptance, much to the horror of her husband.

"Come on," she said. Larry agreed sheepishly, knowing that it was useless to contradict his wife, a lesson learned the hard way over the course of a few decades, three children, several dogs and a mother-in-law.

"Hello there! My name is Annie and this is my husband, Larry," she said, stressing the word husband.

"Oh, hi! My name is Peter and this is my husband, Tony," said Peter amused, stressing the word husband too. "It seems we both have husbands!"

Annie settled in her chair, trying to find a comfortable position from where she could throw her unending knowledge at the gay couple.

"So I see, so I see," she said, finding consolation in repetition. "But you're not really married, are you,?"

The guys smiled.

Larry violently chewed the nail of his thumb, regretting the lapse of attention on his part when he fatally decided to make the irrelevant comment that triggered this unexpected situation.

"Yes, we are! Married, papers signed and all."

"You should get yourselves some nice women instead," ventured Annie.

"And you should get yourself a nice woman too. No demerit to Larry, of course!" said Peter.

"My husband is only joking, of course," added Tony, when Annie opened her mouth to start a diatribe about right and wrong.

The conversation progressed as irrationally as it had started. The food came to the shared table and it was utterly delicious. They chatted throughout the rest of the evening. The guys lived in the same town as Annie and Larry. They shared how they met, how they fell in love, and their long life plans for adopting a child or even two as a celebration of this relationship of several decades.

After all, it was not much different than his own with Annie, minus the three children, the dogs and the mother-in-law, thought Larry.

Each in a different way, Annie talking and Larry listening, both realized that there was no right way or wrong way.

The night ended with Annie making heartfelt promises to become the godmother of the guys' kids for life and beyond and Larry their generous though silent godfather.

After dinner, phone numbers were exchanged and the two couples parted ways.

A lot had changed in the universe. What was once a certainty was now nothing more than a distant, incoherent, idiotic notion.

"I'll invite them over for lunch next weekend," said Annie.

Larry smiled. The irrelevant comment had proven to be, though accidentally, quite relevant after all.