Shared Words: Volume One

By Shared Words

In this book you will find an eclectic collection of drabbles (100-word stories) from an even more eclectic collection of authors.

Each one is exactly 100 words (not including the title) and was written specifically for one of 50 illustrated prompts.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Shared Words
• Release date: Jun 1, 2014
• ISBN: 9781310054877

Shared Words

Shared Words is an eclectic group of authors who have been brought together by their love of the written word.

Book preview

Acknowledgments

Thanks to all of the authors, artists and proof-readers for their hard work and patience (and their families for putting up with them), while working on this book.

Special thanks to Scott Davis for creating and maintaining our website and for finally getting off his butt and finishing this thing, Mark Davis for settling numerous disputes by creating an official word counter, Joel Byers for having the original idea for this book and Deneen Ansley for starting the group that made it all possible.

Introduction

Drabble: A story of exactly 100 words in length (not including the title).

Each drabble in this book was written based on a specific prompt and is exactly 100 words long.

Drabbles marked † were also written as part of a Bonus Challenge, in which a specific set of ten randomly-selected challenge words had to be included in the text. A complete list of challenge words is included in the back of the book.

remember / remembrance

illustration by R. Eric Smith

Always

by Michael Bernier

Be it the brightest of days or darkest of nights, I will always remember.

Be it the heat of summer or cold of winter, I will always remember.

Be it whether you are near or very far away, I will always remember.

Be it the heights of your joy or depths of your sorrow, I will always remember.

Be it whether you are well or you are ill, I will always remember.

Be it today in your youth or tomorrow in your age, I will always remember.

Be it whether you remember me or forget me, I will always remember.

Days Gone By

by Mark Davis

As I sit here with tears in my eyes, I think of the days when I didn’t hurt all the time: a time when I could ride a bike, take walks in the woods, and do so many things that I took for granted.

The tears are now flowing freely, not from the pain in my body but from the pain in my heart, as I think of the things I want to do but can’t!

I know many people have it worse than I, and for them I feel sorry, but that still doesn’t make me feel any better.

Vicissitude

by Deneen Ansley

I say, I know what it’s like to be male, female, young, old—and in between. I have been incredibly sickly, heartily healthy, known exultant joy and crushing misery. Every cultural idiosyncrasy is intimately familiar. Here in this timelessness, I touch everything that ever has or ever will happen! How did I forget the overwhelmingness of death?

He says, It is the way. We all forget. Some are built to hold the knowing, and some for weaving the fabric of the knowing we hold.

I say, This knowing, I cannot bear! Grant me that merciful forgetting of being born again!

Love Poem to NYC — 11 September, 2011

by Julie Carriker

I have walked your streets

Lexington, Broadway, Greenwich…

So much touches me

On the island of Manhattan

Your essence lives in my dreams

If not in my current reality

I walk using Google

And write my New York fantasies

I am one of many

Entranced by this city

Millions of stories

Known and untold

Happily ever afters

And amazing triumphs

Losses hard to bear

And tearful endings

You remain an icon of these

Speaking to so many

Where dreams are made

If you can make it there…

On this day of remembrance and sorrow

You’re here in my heart, NYC

Auld Lang Syne

by Joel Byers

The Dark Overlord lounged upon his eldritch throne of thorns and bones and sighed. His minions bustled around him on their appointed duties, ceaseless and unstoppable, so he sighed again. Catching the hint, Dreekle looked up from his clipboard and asked, What is troubling you, my Lord?

Do you remember when we had real heroes who would storm my fortress and try to defeat me? he said sadly, crying a nostalgic tear.

Yes, Dreekle replied, you killed them all.

The Overlord sneered as Matt and Charlie were dragged and dropped in front of him.

Doesn’t seem worth it, he said.

This Do in Remembrance of Me?

by C. Scott Davis

What are they doing? Jesus asked.

Protesting the funeral of that fallen soldier, the Scribing Angel answered.

Why? What did he do to them?

Him personally? Nothing. They just believe that his country is too tolerant of people that they consider to be sinners.

Jesus watched silently for several minutes, then noticed one of the protester’s signs. "Wait… Are they doing this in my name?"

They claim that they are acting on your behalf.

Jesus read the sign again. But I don’t hate anyone! I thought I was very clear on that point. Were they even paying attention at all?

Remember

by Sue Bowers

"Of course we’d keep coming back to Earth after we die, in one form or another. We’ve been here before, and we’ll be here again. It’s all a big learning experience."

Learning experience.

He stared thoughtfully out across the pond for a moment, before taking one last drag and flicking the cherry from the cigarette’s tip. The amber moon was almost full now, drawing him in. It felt too good to go back inside.

What were you last time? Turning towards his companion, his expression one of friendly skepticism commingled with sincere curiosity. What did you learn?

I don’t remember.

Little Things

by Kirsten Ireland

Her red scarf hung from the banister. I’d walked by without touching it. In the past, because it annoyed me, because it wasn’t where it belonged, I would have grabbed it as I ascended.

It occurred to me then, that it’s the little things, like a scarf, sock, or bracelet that force you to remember, to face the fact that someone is gone. The mind seems to ready itself for the larger things, but will melt down over the small and unexpected. A photograph, for instance, doesn’t quite knock you down like finding one of her socks under the bed.

windfall

illustration by Deneen Ansley

Win: Fall

by Sue Bowers

Who’d have thought miserable underemployment would push me to do something so crazy…and lead to the best experience of my life? Yet there I was: finally in Colorado, with everything I ever wanted—paradoxically, what most would consider ‘almost nothing’. I was houseless…but oh, no, not homeless. I had NEVER been more Home.

Wrapped only in the night sky, my husky, two previously-abandoned cats, and I left our tent on that warm autumn night. There were no leashes, no fences; no bribes or coercions. Only friendship held us together, at cliff’s edge, smiling at the blazing yellow moon.

The Cruelest of Pranks

by Mark Davis

Jim always bought a lottery ticket and kept it at his work station. This week was no exception. While Jim was on break, someone copied the numbers from his ticket, called a local lottery dealer, and struck up a deal. When Jim called to find out the winning numbers, the dealer read out the number from Jim’s ticket.

The plan went off without a hitch. Jim was so sure that he had won, he quit his job and bought a round of food and drink for all of his friends, later to find out it was all a cruel prank!

Wind Fell

by Julie Carriker

We all dream of it happening to us—that unexpected windfall when we get the thing we’ve badly wanted, yet was out of reach. Some of us, with especially Pollyanna attitudes, almost expect it… we, (well, I), can almost SEE and FEEL the longed-for occurrence.

But far too often it doesn’t work that way, and we’re forced to just keep wanting, to become depressed, to wonder why our dreams are repeatedly squashed like a bug on a windshield.

That’s how it hit me this time—like a small creature flattened against some hard surface. No windfall… instead the wind fell.

The Luckiest Girl in all of Kansas

by C. Scott Davis

As she looked across the devastated landscape, Dorothy couldn’t understand why her aunt and uncle kept acting as if they’d won the lottery, instead of losing everything they owned.

Aunt Em kept saying that the important thing was that they were all okay. If they’d closed the storm doors any sooner, or if she’d come home just a minute later, Dorothy would’ve had nowhere else to go but the doomed farmhouse, and she would’ve ended up… who-knows-where, probably scattered across the countryside with the rest of their possessions.

Still, if she was so lucky, why did she feel strangely homesick?

Windfall

by Deneen Ansley

Choose any method of death, but past-life regressionists say that Windfall is the most dramatically enlightening. Experiencing the feeling of flight, letting go of your fear—these are all part of that pieces souls need to progress to the next level, the salesman says.

The excited couple titters. What do you think, Honey? The companion package?

***

What are you up to now? the Christ appears atop the outcropping of rock. You know full well that there’s only one life. These people are not coming back.

Just upping my score, the Devil replies.

SPLAT!

Eleven billion, three hundred thousand and two….

Manna

by Joel Byers

Grab the nets! Sherry yelled at her sister. The Noreaster is starting to blow! Tracy ran to the shed and grabbed the heavy silken nets and dragged them toward her bigger sister as fast as she could. The weight of the nets taxed her muscles, but with Sherry’s help and height, they were able to get them strung between the trees in the increasing wind.

How many do you think we’ll catch this year? Tracy asked excitedly.

Enough to pay for school, Sherry replied as she scanned the Northern sky.

And with that, the first of the fairies floated by.

Windfall

by Kirsten Ireland

Michael had just lifted his pen from the check made out to his former housekeeper, (an attempt at keeping her from going to the authorities after discovering cocaine hidden beneath the false bottom of his underwear drawer) when his wife Maria stormed into his office. Michael, I’m leaving for Cancun tomorrow with Luis. My lawyer will stop by with the divorce papers sometime this week. Oh, and your uncle Leo called this morning demanding the fifteen thousand dollars he lost on investment tips from you. Michael closed his eyes and wept at the memory of his life before the windfall.

out of time

illustration by Mark Davis

Out Of Time

by Julie Carriker

Apart from all the rest of them,

Alone amid the throng

No matter how much I’ve tried to fit in

Always left on the outside,

My nose against the glass

Dreamt of ponytails and bobby-socks,

Or tie-dyed minis and go-go boots

Being one of the screaming girls

Watching Frank Sinatra,

Maybe even the Beatles

Wishing I’d been born sooner

Back in the ‘good old days’

Yearning for a life that isn’t mine

One only read about

Or seen in old movies

Why have I always felt this way?

Out of step, out of sync,

Out of place,

Out of time…

Godseye View

by C. Scott Davis

The Universe is spread out before me, a 4-D tapestry of space and time.

In this unchanging cosmos, the stars are massive worms with tiny tails and bloated heads, encircled by twisted coils of rock and gas. There is no sound here, no motion. Everything is frozen in silence. Nothing is born and nothing dies. Even the most ephemeral moment persists as a speck of eternity.

From the earliest nanoseconds of the big bang to the final instant of time itself, even the microscopic blip that makes up all of human history, everything is preserved here forever in static splendour.

Spicy Baked Chicken

by Mark Davis

Now it is time to bring out our guest. Let’s hear it for Chef Gerard! the talk show host says, as he motions to his guest.

The crowd claps and cheers.

So, what are you going to prepare for us today?

Spicy baked chicken, Chef Gerard responds, as he begins cooking.

A pinch of this and a touch of that, the chef continues.

Soon he pauses, and whispers something into the host’s ear.

…

I’m sorry, the host says to the audience, but we are unable to finish showing you this recipe. It looks like we have run out of thyme!

False Idols†

by Sue Bowers

All these years of studying behaviour and analysing mistakes—but at long last, I have a plan!

I shall create…the Museum Out of Time.

Within its walls, perhaps I can foster a degree of understanding for what went wrong. So many still have a tendency to idolise the warrior civilisation of the past!

I’ll assemble reconstructions, photographic data and digital diaries; tag each with the story (and fate) of its source. I will paint a realistic background of their existence. On this tour, the viewer will get a feel for the New Millennium Human life, as it REALLY was.

Science Minute

by Kirsten Ireland

Dr. Sparks, welcome to the show. We’re very excited to have you.

I’m happy to be here.

So, can you explain to us this groundbreaking research you and your team have released?

To put it simply, we have discovered the truth about the afterlife. It all has to do with the basic wave nature of our particles. There are different frequencies but we are only familiar with the lower frequencies making up our matter. What this means is that when we die, we-

I’m sorry Dr. Sparks, but that’s all the time we have. Thanks again for joining us today.

Now Announcing

by Joel Byers

It’s too late, Iphitus, Hebe said as