All of the giants came to his mountain castle to see which prince would be chosen as king.

Instead of choosing one, Stonebeard walked up to his favorite throwing boulder and said “Whoever can pull this boulder off of this sword will be king.”

And with a final rush of strength, he drove it on to the sword.

All of the giants tried, but none could remove it.

Angrily, one of the princes picked up the boulder and hurled it out the window with all his might.

Then he put on his father’s crown and laughed.

Stonebeard

Both of his hands felt the same, but his fellow scientists felt like he was going to beat the crap out of them.

“Sure, his research is in arthritis and how cracking his knuckles would affect its progression,” they said. “But does he have to always have a menacing leer on his face as he walks around the lab?”

Cracking

But his caretakers misheard him, and thought he’d said “Drink me!”

So, they put him in the bathtub, chopped him into pieces, and ran him through the blender, toasting their friend Picasso with every bloody glass of the liquefied artist.

His bones posed a serious problem, since they were too difficult for the kitchen blender to pulverize, no matter how small they cut them up with the woodshed axe.

One of them suggested melting them with acid.

“How are we going to drink the acid?”

They tried anyway.

(Nobody drank to them.)

The Pitcher

This is Weekly Challenge Number Three Hundred and Two, where I post a topic and then challenge you to come up with a 100 word story based on that topic.

The topic this week was A.

And we've got stories by a lot of people:

Thomas
Tura
Botgirl
Lizzie Gudkov
Bonchance
Guy
Tom
TREED
Chris Munroe
Taralyn/a>
Zackmann
Cate Storymoon
RedGoddess/TalkWithMarie
Steven The Nuclear Man
Chris the Nuclear Kid
Cliff
Norval Joe
TJ
Planet Z

And if you want to spam your social networks with this episode, use the Share buttons at the end of the post.

The more people see this on Google Plus, Facebook, and Twitter - the more explaining you'll have to do with your loved ones, coworkers, and parole officers.

Thomas

Young Miss Nancy had begun her private organ and music lessons. Her teacher, a strict Polish woman from a Eastern European Academy, assigned the first note for Nancy to master. It was middle A, and Nancy had to perfect it before proceeding to the next note. The finger had to be held and curled just right as she struck the key, over and over. A hundred times, a thousand, a million. Nancy’s finger ached, and her mother, in the next room, was trembling. The canary already took its own life, and the cat squeezed out the back window to freedom.

A

Matthew and Frances lived in an A frame on the edge of the old forest. They built it themselves, and now they were both up on scaffolding hanging the lights and finishing up the ceiling. They liked the house, having lived in V frames when they lived on the Texas panhandle. V frames were uncomfortable, as everything ended up at the bottom at the intersection of the walls. The house was cluttered and difficult to navigate in. Matthew had gone to the most avant garde schools in Canada and Connecticut, but had finally learned something about design and utility.

Tura

I used to work for the Oxford English Dictionary. I got the very first word to define. It's not just the indefinite article, it has seventy-one distinguishable uses, spread over twelve centuries. "A-gnostic", "a-new", "a-bed", "a-rise", "a-down-a-down-day"...

You know how, if you say word over and over, the sense goes out of it? After year of research, condensed into four pages, I couldn't bear seeing it.

When I retired, they gave me present, old book, "The Perfection of Wisdom In One Letter". You know what that letter is? "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!"

So I emigrated to Russia. They don't have word for it.

Botgirl

Jane909 had always felt different from her sisters. Although biologically indistinguishable, the singular nature of her identity was as plain to her as the nose on her perfectly symetrical face, Despite state-of-the-art genetics and intensive social engineering, a visceral sense of uniqueness blossomed through her eighteen years of life.

Today, she finally had enough.

Jane909 looked over the sea of identical faces and began her valedictorian speech.

"I am more than just a Jane," she said. "And so are you."

The angry mob of clones pulled her from the podium and carried her to the recycling vat.

Lizzie

“Let’s see. A map, a flashlight, some matches. Ah, a plastic bag, just in case. Also a notepad and a pen. What else?” she paused and looked around the room for clues.

“Clothes, perhaps?” he asked intrigued. It did seem like the logical thing to take while going camping.

“Nah, we are not going to stay long, are we?” She continued to fuss about, opening and closing drawers.

“We need some food”, he added.

“Oh! I know!” she said over enthusiastically, “We need a serpent!”

And she ran out of the room and vanished into thin air.

“A what?!”

Bonchance

Jack and the boys headed to Vegas. Jack was up then down, by the third day he broke even. “Well boys this was
awesome but I got to get back to the wife. The last conversation he had flashed through his mind. He was going out
for ice cream. Midnight, shoes in hand the lights came on. He heard, “Where”s the ice cream?” She said, you have 3
options,
A: find a lawyer
B:...
He slipped his shoes on, picked up his 35 year old single malt scotch he was saving, opened the door saying “I’ll
go with option A.”

Guy David

She was the first letter in the alphabet and she knew it. A quick look from her was enough to melt most of the alphabet away. People became speechless as she walked by, viciously robbed of their speech. She had the upper hand in debate, leaving every other letter far behind. She was a countenance, a word and a world on her own. She stood on a strong foundation and no one could collapse her. A coma was just a pause for her and no semicolon could keep her away. It was only at the full stop that she stopped.

Tom

Professor Hughes had a propensity for hand out ‘A’s. Others in the department would gently remember the old man that ‘A’ was awarded for work exemplary. This was not the professor modus operandi. He held firm to the principle that merely showing up constituted half the distance to successes. Add to this a willingness to prevail in the face of repeated failure a student was guaranteed an ‘A’. Dispute this vaulting sub-rosa of liberal mindness some underclassmen hell bent on a road to ruin did indeed earn their ‘F’s. The most famous being the cheerleader from Texas GW Bush.

TREED!

I DON’T KNOW!
Dave.
I just don’t know, Bob. Or… I forgot. I don’t remember… I don’t know.
Dave.
No, Bob. I know I should remember... but Bob, I don’t.
Dave.
Bob, don’t try to shame me into remembering.
Dave.
It won’t work, Bob. You can not intimidate or cajole me into saying anything, whether I remember or not.
Dave.
Stop it, Bob. It isn’t working.
Dave.
Ok, so I do remember. But, Bob, you don’t want to know. You know how you get.
Dave.
Ok, ok, I made an “A” on that psych test you made a “C” on.

Munsi

Plan A is to come up with something completely new. Something that’ll shed new light on the human condition.

I’ll use my words and the perspective of my life experiences to craft a piece of work filled with relatable characters in realistic situations addressing concerns that effect us every day.

In doing so, I’ll change the way we see ourselves, and hopefully put how we treat one another into better perspective.

Plan B is a hodgepodge of dated pop-culture references and nonsequiters designed to invoke nostalgia as I gently mock already familiar targets…

We’ll see which film gets funding first.

Taralyn

(No text sent)

Zackmann

This is Matt Jarbo, KZOM Radio. You know how dogs like to drink fluids from cars although most those fluids could kill them, well the undead seem to have the same thirst. Remember how we at Kzom Radio said they would likely be frozen still in a Canadian winter. We now know that zombies thirst not only for blood but alcohol and antifreeze. Never thought I would say this but the good the news is it will be negative forty tonight. So bundle up before going out tonight and don’t forget the baseball bats because even antifreeze will freezes tonight.

Cate

440

Wilewski hated me. Why? Eight years past squeaks and lousy embouchers of fourth graders, wind ensemble, both first chair! Now, taunts every day. Two tiers behind me, Paul's snide whispers, throaty chuckles with trumpet pals. Ugly, as only adolescent males can dispose.

Dad said, "Not the saxophone. Everyone wants a sax." I was naive, nine with perfect pitch and I never wanted to be any band director's pet.

"Hey, Bar-thu-le-eeeee! What's the difference between an oboe and an onion?" On cue the room hushed.

"Nobody cries when you chop up an O-boe!"

On cue, the baton. "An "A" please, Donna."

TalkMarie/ RedGoddess

It was a normal end of the week school day for Amanda, a straight A honor roll senior. She's been dreading first period AP Biology all morning. She wanted a break from all the exams, track meets, student body meetings and dealing with principal Pooh's snarky remarks. As she walked up the stairs past the security officers at the main entrance with metal detectors, she noticed the chains on the side exit door were unlocked. She suddenly had an escape plan after homeroom, "prison break" style, back in her bed, with a pint of strawberry ice cream, playing her guitar.

Steven

I noticed the tear when I took off the cleansuit. Only a few millimeters wide, but that's a vast chasm for a virus.

"Come on," I told myself while removing the boots. I put the cleansuit in the incinerator. "The samples were all contained. The suit's just a redundancy." I just snagged some blisterpacks of antivirals.

My fever hit 100 by the freeway. Hallucinations - and the wreck - occurred at 103 degrees. Over 23 people have already touched me. Rate of contact transmission with gloves is 95%. The fatality rate is 85%.

I am the alpha of humanity's omega.

Chris

“Henry come here!” I shouted up stairs.

“What do you want now Joey!” he shouted back.

“You want a dollar?”

“Ya!”

“Then say the letter a!”

“What I can't say that letter!”

“Why not?”

“Well I was walking to my friends house and this asked if I had two dollars and I said I have a dollar and she asked if she could have it to buy some food and I said no so she left but, the next day I could not say the letter a!”

“So how are you saying it now?”

“Because I made the story up.”

Cliff

Perfect Paper the website was called. It claimed to search the internet for material for your term paper, tailored to your professor.
It promised an A. It cost fifty bucks. I was desperate.

Three weeks later, I got an anonymous email with my paper.

"Minimalism and its effects on literature". On the second page was a single letter. A.

I spent the next two days scraping together an acceptable paper to turn in. I got a C.

Andrew showed me his paper.

"Positivism in modern academics". Inside was one word. “Yes.”

He got an A.

NORVAL JOE

The eclectic company crept slowly through the dark. Their bare feet were soundless on the cold stone floor of the natural cavern, their boots removed and carried in their packs.
Spleen, a half-goblin and the only one who could see in the dark, lead the way, a rope tied around his waist. The rest of the group clung to the rope with Elbownor, the elf, at the rear.
A sound, like a rock dropping into water, sounded far off in the darkness to their left.
Owen knew, this far below the surface, it was unlikely to be something so simple.

TJ

A candy wrapper
A set of 1969 World Book encyclopedias
A jar with no label with gray liquid inside
A dry husk of something that might once have been a sandwich
A largely undifferentiated pile of laundry, groceries and garage sale
finds
A mass of unmotivated flies barely scatter as you approach
A cloud of dust rises as I step wrong and one of the piles shifts...
A quadrupedal skeleton is revealed.
Still, as granny leads the way, picking through piles of clutter in the
living room, I think I hear something upstairs... and I wonder how alone
we are...

Planet Z

Growing up in Ohio, my friend Paul had a cool A frame playhouse in his back yard.

It was infested with bees and wasps, but his dad would smoke them out now and then.

He’d draw comic books back there with superhero characters he come up with.

Then I found out he’d been tracing them from real comic books.

Did we have a falling out over that? Or something else.

His brothers? His sister? His faith?

I don’t remember. It’s been over thirty years.

I Google him… and then close the window.

Best to leave some things in the past.

Weekly Challenge #302 - A

The 100 word stories weekly challenge is where I post a topic to http://podcasting.isfullofcrap.com and then you write and record a story based on that topic.

The topic of the next Weekly Challenge is Tunnel.

Want to give it a shot? Send an email to isfullofcrap (at) gmail.com with the subject of WEEKLY CHALLENGE and the following:

The text of your 100 word story on the topic.
Your site's URL, if you have a site and aren't ashamed to share it.
A topic for the next Weekly Challenge
And, if you can, a recording of your story (and any shameless plugs) in MP3 format

Need an example of a shameless plug? Well, you can listen to this podcast on Stitcher Radio by searching for "100 word stories" or going to the podcast's website and clicking on the Stitcher Radio icon. Try it anywhere: on a boat. On a train. Or with some dude who won't eat green food. Stitcher Radio, for when you're on the go and just can't stop to sync.

See? That was easy.

Oh, and everything's due by Saturday at midnight or so.

If you can't or don't feel like recording your story, well, go ahead and send the text of the story in anyway. I'll have someone record it for you.

Good luck, and as always, keep it brief.

The topic of the next weekly challenge is "Tunnel"

The townspeople did their best to gather up what they could, despite the wretched conditions they were living under, not much food, no electricity, no clean water.

The National Guard pitched in, volunteers from around the state.

It took a week to get basic services back, weeks to get the rebuilding effort going.

The next year, you could hardly tell there’d been a storm or flood. It was back to the way it was.

So when the next storm came…

Building The Next Disaster

It was rejected, and they were confronted with security officers, cattle-prods and whips.

"What is the meaning of this?" said the lead researcher.

"Shut up and get into the cages!" said an officer, cracking his whip.

Several days later, in the middle of a social grooming and bark-chewing rest period, the scientists learned that their proposal had been misread by the grant foundation, and they were being taught how to be chimpanzees.

Nobody spoke up, because it was fun.

And the mealworm treats were delicious.

Teacher

Isn't that the truth?

Once the cameras are off and the reporters go home, we break down and fold up the houses, rolling them back into the abandoned coal mines.

The streets are disassembled, the signs and lampposts packed away, and the robot citizens marched into the storage facilities by the few actual humans.

Close the freeway off-ramp, and... done.

Race you to the cryogenic chambers!

Punxsutawney

He got his name from his father, who had also been named Crazy Horse, but gave his name to his son.

Some legends say Crazy Horse stole his father’s name, but all he ever did was rifle under his cot and look at his porn collection.

Oh, and Crazy Horse’s horse wasn’t crazy. He was a rather well-adjusted horse, a good mount.

His name was “No, I’m Not Crazy, But This Crazy Motherfucker Riding Me Is, So Cut Me Some Slack, Dude.”
Any questions?

Crazy Horse

I made this rule based on the assumption that the more a company spends on label design, the less they have left over for quality parts, ingredients, manufacturing, or anything else related to the actual product.

Good products don't need eye-catching gimmicks or advertising to get you to buy them. You can sell them in a brown paper wrapper if you wanted to.

I wrote a book about this.

Okay, so it has an orgy of blood, sex, and explosions on the cover.

Hey, gotta sell it, right?

Fancy Labels