Today’s 100 Words theme:
It’s a celebration!
My entry:
How do you celebrate saving the world? Especially when almost nobody knows you’ve done it, and most of the ones remaining who do aren’t exactly jumping for joy?
For Chrys and me, it meant a drink at Buttons, in a small booth towards the back. Doubles, no less. Canadian for me, something green for Chrys.
Chrys smiled, raised a toast before sipping. “Well, you did it.”
“We did it,” I corrected. “We’re in this together. That’s what it says on the door.”
“To us, then.”
“Who’s like us? Damned few, and they’re all dead,” I quoted.
“But we still live.”
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100 Words theme:
Your life has a soundtrack
My entry:
A lot of things changed in the war. Some of that was okay. Some of it made me lonely, nostalgia for a past that was not only gone, but couldn’t even be visited any more.
Music was one thing. I used to love Glenn Miller, listening to him on the radio whenever I knew he’d be playing or leading a band. Some folks, they like Goodman better, but Miller was the guy for me.
He died in the war. Plane went down into the Channel flying back from a concert for the troops. I never listened to “Chatanooga Choo-Choo” again.
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100 Word Topic:
It’s sunrise.
My entry:
“This isn’t gonna work,” I said.
“We’ll see soon enough, monster.”
“I’m not a goddamned vampire!”
“So you say.” He took a deep breath, looked off to the east across the rooftops. The sun would rise over the Oakland Hills soon enough.
I twisted against the cross-festooned ropes. He hadn’t taken any chances on the knots. “You’re gonna look pretty silly when I don’t burst into flames.”
Bixby turned. “You’ve defied the crosses. You may well know how to defy the purifying sun.” He held up a wooden stake and a hammer. “We’ll see if you pass the third test.”
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Today’s 100 Words subject:
All I want is SLEEP!
My entry:
“Then go to sleep,” I said. I knew it wouldn’t be that simple. It never was.
“When I sleep, nightmares come.”
I shrugged. “We all saw a lot of stuff in the service. It sticks with you.”
“No, I don’t mean I have nightmares. I mean nightmares come here. They come to life.”
I cocked my head. Shell shock. Maybe. Probably.
“I don’t have a wife any more.”
Not surprising. “She left you?”
“No, don’t you understand? They took her. The nightmares. They stole my wife.”
His next words finally gave me a chill. “And I have a daughter –”
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Today’s 100 Word Story:
Why didn’t I make a backup??
My entry:
“So, Mr. Donne.”
“So, Herr Doktor.”
“You came alone?”
“As we agreed. No other people. Just you and me.”
“As to that.” He clapped. A very large figure stepped from the shadows.
“Oath-breaking, Doc? The White Dragon’ll never deal with you now.”
“Strictly speaking, this is not a person.” Volkart smiled. “I built it myself.”
I could see now it was some sort of construct, cobbled together from a dozen different corpses. A galvanized, mindless bodyguard. Swell.
He clapped again. It advanced on me. “If you were a better sorcerer, Mr. Donne, you would have made your own backup, too.”
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100 Words:
Run for cover!
100 Words:
Roger saw the windshield shatter before the sound of the gunshot reached them. He highly respected his wife’s speed, but his reflexes were honed in the war, his reaction was nearly without thought. “Cover!” he shouted, tackling Chrys down to the gravelly dirt of the road, behind the car.
“Ow,” glared Chrys.
“Blame them for getting your dress dirty, not me,” Roger said. Another window shattered, followed by another crack. “Sniper rifle, big caliber,” he commented, head cocked. “Not US Army. Not Krauts, either.”
“Why,” asked Chrys, “would ghosts use guns?”
“Better yet, how are we going avoid becoming ghosts ourselves?”
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100 Words:
What was in that drink?
My entry:
“Have a drink, Mr. Donne.”
Roger smiled. ”No thianks. I know the trick. Food and drink in Fairyland makes for a long stay.”
Uncle Chu chuckled. ”Don’t be silly, my boy. That’s for your European fae. Sip, sup, and be enslaved forever. Very uncivilized. I promise you, my people practice no such tricks.” He nodded to the glass. ”Please, drink.”
Chrys wouldn’t like it if he hacked off her favorite uncle. He nodded and tossed back the glass.
Seconds later, Roger slid off the chair, gasping, limbs leaden. ”My people,” Uncle Chu continued, standing over him now, ”prefer to poison their enemies outright.”
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100 Words:
Tired, torn, or trendy.
My entry:
Roger took the wrap off Chrys’ shoulders, then felt her stiffen. He looked up, followed her gaze.
The denizens of the ballroom were anything but fashionable. Their clothing was ragged, in tatters. Their hair was dirty and knotted. Their cheeks were sunken and they shuffled listlessly across the polished wooden floor.
“I see why Mrs Patterson was concerned about her son,” Chrys said.
“These guys look like DPs, or camp refugees, not the ‘leading fashion lights of San Francisco,’” Roger muttered.
“But there’s Alanna St John over there. She’s a top model. And there’s the Mayor, too. Roger, what the hell’s going on here?”
“Let’s find out.”
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100 Words:
…weld, meld, or spelled…
My entry:
The first crone spoke. ”Let them be bound together, metals alloyed, melted, fused, bound by their substance for all time.”
The second crone spoke. ”Let them be blurred, combined, made one out of two, made sole out of few, bound in mind for all time.”
The third crone spoke. ”Let them be hemmed in, contained in arcane, drawn so tightly they are bound in soul for all time.”
Roger leaned his head back to Chrys’s ear. ”You know, in the right circumstances, this could actually be romantic.”
She snorted. ”Yeah, without ropes and if it were a blessing, not a curse.”
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100 Words:
I spy, with my little eye, something that is red…
My entry:
“Should it be doing that?”
“Doing what?” Her eyes and attention were still on the scroll in her hands.
“Glowing like that.”
“Maybe. What color?”
“Red.”
Chrys said a word that she’d once slapped me for using, and swung around to stare at the statue. ”No, it should not.”
“We need to leave?”
“Yes.”
“Got any doors not blocked by rubble?”
She nodded at the graven foo-dog, glowing like the coals of a fire, though he could feel no heat. ”That will deal knocking a hole in the wall when it’s unleashed. Unfortunately, we won’t be in a position to use it.”
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