Motel - 100 words

Carla opened the motel room curtain. Her car was there. It looked like it was still in one piece. Just as she set her mind to remembering how she got home from the bar there came a voice from the bathroom. A singing voice. A woman's voice.

Carla sat on the still-made bed and tried to assemble her thoughts and feelings. She wasn't alone. She's never been not alone. She's never blacked out before. Always in control. Never drank too much. What went wrong?

The bathroom door opened and a startled maid stepped out. "Oh sorry, did I wake you?"

Waiting - 100 words

Dreaming of thunder. Wanting for power. Sitting in the corner booth of the corner bar sipping a beer. Waiting for a beautiful young woman to buy me a tequila. So far, no luck.

Drunken philosophers mumble their wisdom into half-empty glasses and half-full bottles. Temporary truths are shared. The secrets of life hang always just one more shot away from understanding.

The beer bottle is empty. The rain pours down the greasy window. The booth is sweating. One more beer? Tequila? What drink will keep me dry as I walk home with a broken umbrella? Yes, just one more beer.

Headlights - 100 words

Headlights in the mirror. Who could it be? Anybody, literally anybody.

Well, anybody with a driver's license. Or maybe they don't have a license. Total outlaw scenario. Screw society. Steal a car and hunt down your next victim on the lonely highway. Find some sucker on a lonely late-night journey. Run him off the road. No witnesses. Take his miserable life. Steal his soul and sell it to the highest bidder.

The headlights turn onto a side road. The mirror is empty again. I find myself missing my psychotic road demon. I hope he's OK.

Next rest area twenty-seven miles.

Smiley Watson - 100 words

Smiley Watson picks up the ringing phone. "Al, I can't talk now." Smiley says, glancing at the three thugs standing over him.

Smiley listens.

"I did look into it. There's nothing there."

Smiley listens.

"Because I'm just a stringer. I'm not a detective like Alexander Pope with a fancy office on top of the Landry building. If there's no story, there's no story." Smiley hangs up.

The center thug puts two hundred dollar bills on the desk and the three of them leave.

Smiley takes the bills thinking that spending a couple weeks in Springfield might be a good idea.

Fruit and Memory - 100 Words

The field is full of fruit. It's picking time. Fred wires the big speakers in the trees so the workers can listen to their music. The accordions remind him of the polkas he learned back in dancing school. Dusty Thursday nights where he learned which girls you could touch and where.

It wasn't till he was in his 20's that he learned that his gropings were not a secret to his parents and that this was their goal. Apparently they were worried that their poetry-loving little boy was headed down the wrong sexual path. Fred Smiles. They were so wrong.

100 Words- Roman Numerals

Norman started normal. Gwen did not. Roman numerals were the undoing of them both. Norman by way of a mistake at a Superbowl party where he mistook an L for an I and was the subject of so much ridicule that he never chanced speaking out loud again. Gwen on the other hand was traumatized by a misaligned sun dial.

They met one day at a support group for unsupportable neuroses. They found each other among the folding metal chairs and Styrofoam cups and lived silently ever after in a cute little house with no clocks or periodic sporting events.

Quiet - 100 words

Sunset over the fishing boats. Where have all the sea lions gone? It's so quiet you can hear the sheets slapping the masts in the breeze. No seagulls. No otters. A distant fog horn. No fog here.

The fishermen pack their things away weary and uneasy. They don't talk much and seem guilty when they do. The beauty of the quiet had been broken. They have sinned.

The sun is now down. The men gone. The breeze has retired for the night. Even the ocean is unsettlingly still. As if the world has ground to gentle halt. Time to sleep.