101 Words

A few months ago I came across something called the 101-word story. The idea intrigued me, mostly because when I'm writing my attention span is that of a goldfish. It's pretty self-explanatory: basically you write a short story that is exactly 101 words. It sounds relatively simple, but when I first tried it I failed so bad that I gave up. A few weeks ago I revisited it, and lo and behold, out popped 5 101-word stories.

Heads and Tales

When I was growing up, there was a story about a couple who made every decision by flipping a coin. Heads were yes, tails were no. It seemed to work for them, or at least, it worked out in the story. It seemed simple enough, too. Plant the garden this week, or next? Drive into town this afternoon? Buy that airplane ticket? Get married? Have a child? The mindless decision making sounded nice; don’t think, just flip. It seems I’ve gotten used to not being in control.

Anyway, the gun is in one hand, and the coin is in the other.

Is Perishable

I suppose that if I let you get away with it, taking little pieces of me, I would cease to exist in a matter of days. A brush of your knee will last me six hours; a smile, twelve. A letter gets me a few days. When you leave, I live as a ghost in this house, a shell of a woman, all washed out and gray. And that's why when you're here, in this house, in our home, I ravage you and kill you a hundred times over, taking all that I can so that I may not feel hungry.

Burden

Somewhere along the line, I got married. I always forget about that one; it slips my mind far more often than anything else. I don’t know how I feel about that whole thing, but I know it’s a sorry, painful business. My memories of those years are blurry and colorful, and my soul I’m sure is as black as the coffee I’m drinking right now. I feel like I’m always trying to focus in on those memories, to make clear the impossible, to remember what I’ve already forgotten. I drop my head into my hands.

Oh, God, I’ve done something terrible.

I’m Running, Are You?

The first time I ran away from home I was eight and a half years old and I was gone for six minutes and twenty-seven seconds. The second time I ran away it lasted fourteen hours, eight minutes and thirty-two seconds. But who’s counting?

When I walked in the door after the third time, my grandfather grabbed me by the collar of my shirt and sat me down on his knee. He looked me straight in the eye and asked, “What’re you runnin’ from, boy?”

I never told him I wasn’t running from anything; it was something I was running to.

Ivanovich

His name is Nikola Ivanovich. He is not Russian, but he would like to be. He wants to wear a large fur hat and smoke and damn it if he couldn’t drink vodka with the best of them (he’s never tried vodka, but he would like to. His mother said it was the devil’s drink; his father’s bottle lived in the barn).

Nikola Ivanovich would also like to fly a plane, shoot a bear, kiss a girl after a war and ride an elephant in the circus. It’s already 1953 by the time he realizes that he simply hasn’t lived yet.

>> Linus