Collected Stories, Vol. 42

100-Word Stories (11-15) Presented Simply From Northeastern Pennsylvania

11.

I remember sitting at the bar next to an eight-foot-tall polar bear. He kept ordering me pints of dark, bitter, Russian stout. On account of having no opposable thumbs, he lapped something red and fruity, directly from a large bowl, between monologues about climate change, and the military-industrial complex. After my third pint, I started nodding and agreeing with a surprising number of his talking points. That’s when he asked me to be the best man at his wedding. I remember deciding to say yes, but before I can, I always wake up. So, Doctor, what does it all mean?

12.

The little boat rocked gently by the dock. Father had asked Filipe to secure it with two ropes after hauling in the day’s catch, but with father sick in bed, the thought had slipped Filipe’s mind, at the end of a hard day’s work.

At one-thirty-three in the morning, had anyone been around to note the time, the tide and the breeze, conspired to lift the little boat. Filipe’s simple loop of hemp rope slid up over the post.

Filipe’s father’s boat, carrying all of their tangled nets and wooden traps, floated away, no doubt searching for a more responsible boy.

13.

Edgar’s last words to Howard before he died were clear. Don’t be so goddamn pretentious.

That was in December, at the Christmas party. At the time, they’d been hovering over the punch bowl for forty-five minutes, talking about the final installment of Howard’s novel, serialized in four parts on his Substack page.

Edgar was his only paying customer, a mere courtesy to his favorite nephew, but up until that point, Howard genuinely believed that Edgar liked his writing.

It was June now. Edgar was dead, and Howard had been tasked with writing the obituary.

Howard’s revenge would be the stuff of legend.

14.

On the last night of his life, Samuel sat up late, a glass of something strong and smooth at his side, a wood fire blazing hot, crackling at his feet. It was not as if he knew for sure that he’d never witness another sunrise, but he had it on good authority, his own, that they meant to kill him sometime before morning, and as he’d nowhere left to run, he intended to his meet his fate in the comfortable embrace of sophisticated inebriation.

When the man with the gun let himself in through the unlocked door, Samuel offered him a drink.

15.

Peter took his lunches on top of the rollercoaster. It was one of those old, wooden behemoths, a marvel of early twentieth-century engineering. It didn’t make the bologna and yellow mustard on stale wonder bread his wife had brown-bagged for him any less disgusting, but the tallest tower, with its rusting rails and splintered lumber, had the best view of the abandoned amusement park. On an overcast day, when the light was just so, he could almost see the carousel spin again, smell the cotton candy, hear applause by the amphitheater—all the joys of eighty summers, long gone.

-Brian