October, 2024 Archives
Oct
Death Of A Student
by thegooddoctor in 100 Words
The email arrives just after 7:30 am, and its subject line is blunt: “death of a student”
You read this slowly. Twice. Open the message. In two sentences, the Dean of Students tells you everything: She was killed in a car accident. They’re working to remove her from your roster.
You delete the message, drag it back out of the Deleted Items folder, read it again.
The news isn’t public yet. You can’t say anything in class.
Her seat is empty. You pass out the day’s reading assignment and have an extra copy, which you quietly drop in the trash.
From Guest Contributor Shane Borrowman
Oct
Truth
by thegooddoctor in 100 Words
When I awoke in the hospital, I knew the truth. The agonizing pain in my back, the nurses rushing me to the operating room, with the walls spinning around me. The doctor’s “everything will be okay, Katie.” But it isn’t.
I’m bleary eyed from the sedative, but I feel a hand in mine, my husband’s. I’m too weary and can’t speak, so I give his hand a squeeze, and he gently squeezes mine back. He speaks of his love for me and how he’ll never leave. Then the doctor comes in and he lets go.
“Will my wife walk again?”
From Guest Contributor Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher
Oct
Yesterday Once More
by thegooddoctor in 100 Words
Dr. Billows pressed Go on his time machine. Inside the vessel nothing happened. But through the window, everything in his lab stretched and distorted into a brilliant mixture of light and darkness, indicating he was tunneling into space time. His calculations had been correct, at least the first part.
As quickly as the journey began, it ended. After checking the console and confirming the date at his destination, he unsealed the hatch.
He emerged into his laboratory exactly one day earlier. Confronted with his past self, he told himself not to ask Dr. Morgan on a date later that night.
Oct
Runaround
by thegooddoctor in 100 Words
For his eighteenth birthday, Lathan got magical boots from Grandpa, so nobody could catch him up.
When cyclopes attacked the village, Lathan ran into a leafless forest, where witches boiled bones in cauldrons; so he fled to the Glass Mountain, opaque crystals everywhere, and their shimmering princess offered engagement; flushed in embarrassment, Lathan roved to a roadside tavern, mocked by goblins, and a bounty placed on his head. He circled around the empire for a month but eventually ended up at home.
As cyclopes growled, Lathan finally faced his worries, selling the boots for a rusty sword at the blacksmith.
From Guest Contributor Bettina Laszlo
Bettina writes fiction to convey what is beyond expression. Her work has appeared in NUNUM, Dragonfly educational programme, and is forthcoming at 101 Words. She lives in Budapest with her fiancé.
Oct
Two Ottos
by thegooddoctor in 100 Words
By the time he awoke that Saturday morning, Otto was exhausted. It was another night of running dreams – of being on a treadmill, getting no place fast. And, then, of the treadmill ratcheted up to greater and greater inclines.
How much more could he take?
Painfully, step after step, he stumbled into the kitchen. Were his feet blistered?
There, in the cage on the counter, was Little Otto, his hamster.
And on the ridiculous hamster wheel.
Little Otto’s legs moved faster and faster.
“Stop it.”
But Little Otto only sped up.
“At least wipe that damned smirk off your face.”
From Guest Contributor David Sydney