100 Words - Dance

 Her dancing was inelegant, but not without its charm. He ordered a scotch and wondered how much damage dancing with her would do to his social status. He decided it would be a lot. so he marched over and took her by the hand. 

She laughed as he tried to mirror her moves. Soon he was too drunk to care, which was the plan all along. College revealed to him the perversity of high society. He couldn’t quit it though. He’d have to be thrown out.

Unfortunately drunken, eventually nude, dancing at the country club barely registered as an offense.

100 Words - Procedure

The procedure was refined over and over again till there was no chance of error, inefficiency or hint of human creativity. Everyone who might possibly involved in the procedure, no matter how tertiarily, was forced to sit through eight hour meetings where they were badgered by the consultants to provide input identical to yesterday’s eight hour meeting.

During the second round of Proactive Procedural Reconciliation meetings, seventeen employees quit.

When the entirety of the company had been equally bludgeoned into boredom, the process was enshrined in the corporate runbook, where it sat in perfection and was thoroughly ignored by everyone.

100 Words - Red Crayon

I spent much of my childhood lost in sunsets drawn with my favorite red crayon. I don’t know where I got it. It was different from my other crayons. It was thick and had dimples on the side, like dice or Swiss cheese. It seemed to last forever. Then it was gone.

It’s not like I lost it and couldn’t find it. It was just gone. I knew it was gone and I’d never have it again, but I had no sense of loss. It probably still existed somewhere. It just wasn’t my crayon anymore. Maybe is was someone else’s.

100 Words - Bouquet

He brought her a blood-stained bouquet. She slammed the door and called the police. He stood on her lawn, stripped and cried. The police came and surrounded him. He summoned his inner thunder but it proved ineffective against the tasers.

His parole officer and his social worker were there when he came to. The charges had been dropped and he was free to go, if he took his meds right then and there and promised to keep taking them. He took and promised to take the rest. They knew he was lying, but the alternative was keeping watch over him.

100 Words - Not My Knife

 

“Whose knife is in my glove compartment?” My friends seemed as confused as I was. They’re terrible liars, so I knew they didn’t know. I called the last person who was in my car alone, my current flirtation Carol. She said it wasn’t hers, but suggested I find a dumpster for it. So, that’s what I did.

The hard part now is deciding Carol’s status on my affection scale. I am stupidly attracted to danger, so that’s a plus. However, I have trust issues, and someone who would plant evidence of a crime in my car is a definite minus.

100 Words - Detached

Clyde’s early work in the slasher genre was rather shoddy. Even with a completely incompetent constabulary he was nearly caught several times. As time passed his technique improved to the point where his victims no longer even showed up in the papers.

Clyde was, at first, amazed at how many detached people there are in the world. People so insignificant that when they stop showing up for work their coworkers shrug their shoulders and move on. So many people show up out of nowhere, no one notices or cares when they’re gone. Assuming it was time to go somewhere else.

100 Words - Death Road

 

He told her there were a thousand ways to die on the road. She guessed there were just as many ways to die at home, so she stuck out her thumb and started her life. So far there have been 845 near misses. 155 to go.

You’d think car crashes would be high up on the list, but they’re so mundane. Nothing like steak knives falling from the sky. She wore a hard hat for a month after that. Some of the scars never healed. Every bump and bruise on her body is a story that only she can tell.