|
|
 |
Competition |
|
 |
|
Last Updated: 22/06/2008 21:42:04
The Latter-Day Luddite Saves the Day
By Laura Fry
|
The police were on a coffee break, at a loss. Despite all the technology, the wanted man had got the better of them. They didn't notice the young woman at the opposite table with an old-fashioned tape recorder, on her way to teach a friend's child German.
She had found the man who had just left the café somewhat suspicious and pressed record.
This latter-day Luddite was able to tell the police that their man was on his way to Rotterdam. She had his conversation on an old-fashioned machine that people dismissed as useless.
The Dutch police made the arrest.
|
|
|
Send your entries to hundredwords@thisisull.com
and we'll print them.
We'll even send out some gifts for the best ones ...
So get scribbling and send them in, and remember to mark your entries: One Hundred Words.
|
Comments System Prototype Version 1.0 by Mo
')
// -->
')
// -->
|
|
Fiction - 100 Words Competition - Lost Property By Manuro
|
|
My dreadful husband died at an elephant hospice. To this day, whenever I see a sick elephant I feel a rush of overwhelming joy! I changed my name in 1979 and never foresaw the problems this would entail - car insurance, washing machine hire purchase agreements.
Women are named through male lineage: we disappear over time, our identity the property of others.
Read more...
|
|
|
Fiction - 100 Words Competition - Beginnings and Endings By Lin Whitehouse
|
|
It's a hypothetical question, what if - my father hadn't died in June - I hadn't known about my husband's girlfriend - I hadn't looked up when I did?
I was caught in a web and struggled to avoid his gaze, felt myself flush. I drowned in his smiling eyes. Could he see my outer sorrow, sense the inner excitement I concealed?
It's funny, funerals signify an end, but I felt something was
Read more...
|
|
|
Fiction - 100 Words Competition - Say No More By Joe Hakim
|
|
I'm on my way to the shops. I don't see him until I nearly step on his head.
I look down at the man on the floor, and notice he's on a bike - crotch on seat, feet on pedals, hands on handlebar. Like he's been zapped by a super-villain's freeze ray and toppled over.
I look around to make sure it isn't some kind of prank.
"Are you okay?"
"I'm fine," he replies.
Read more...
|
|
|
Fiction - 100 Words Competition - A Depressive and a Botched Suicide By Laura Fry
|
|
And once again boats sail down the Danube, but you; don't worry about me any more, I'm like leaves, the wind blows me away, wolves die alone...
The mourners read the translation of the deceased's beloved Croatian song. The male voice booms from the CD through Hull Crematorium, bringing additional shivers to the late autumn Yorkshire morning. The European flag
Read more...
|
|
|
Fiction - 100 Words Competition - Fun and Games By Shep
|
|
It was easier than he thought. Several swings of the bat and his problem had disappeared like the last drag of his cigarette. He looked at the windows adjacent to where he stood; half expecting to see the neighbours looking on with horror and disgust, but there was not a face in sight.
He smiled to himself and walked down the garden path back to his front door. Read more...
|
|
|
Fiction - 100 Words Competition - Conversation In A Small Room By Manuro
|
|
'I went to the shops
And bought a new toffee
Hammer. The old one got
Damaged during the 'incident'
With those burglars.
You remember, waking up with
Some Burberry-capped thug in
Read more...
|
|
|
Fiction - 100 Words Competition - Pain in Vain no Gain By Joan Moffat.
|
|
Sweat trickled down my face, droplets formed on my nose. Sharp pains tore at my back muscles.
Leaning over, as I struggled, constricted my breathing and squeezed my stomach into cramp.
Red flashes floated before my eyes. I was about to faint. I began to weep.
Why had I got myself into such a stupid situation? I was the victim of my own vanity.
I struggled more.
Read more...
|
|
|
Fiction - 100 Words Competition - A is not only for Apple By Lin Whitehouse
|
|
Is this what it feels like to sit on death row, morbidly freefalling through the past? I keep averting my eyes from the clock face but the minute magnet holds me hostage.
Had I done enough to be reprieved?
Another hour swallows my resolve not to panic, in God's name how long does it take to open an envelope?
Perhaps the results aren't what we predicted.
Read more...
|
|
|
Fiction - 100 Words Competition - The Unkindest Cut By Manuro
|
|
Phil's partner in hell-raising had convinced him that it would be a 'good idea' to spend all of his gig money on pork chops. They had met during the summer at an all-night Clown Skills and Raw Food workshop in Worksop, where the ability to see through walls and predict future events had proved, at the very least, useful.
Unable to control his bohemian life, Phil took solace
Read more...
|
|
|
Fiction - 100 Words Competition - Kundalini By Andrea Longstaff
|
|
She was homeless and walking the streets.
Her mind was unhinged but full of new found awareness. A realisation that she was now free in the true sense of the word.
Her life always did have a surreal texture to it but after a night of no sleep and helping the stranger who had dropped his pens.
He looked into her glazed eyes, "I hope you get a good nights sleep tonight"
Read more...
|
|
|
Fiction - 100 Words Competition - Crackers By Pete Texas
|
|
I was 12 ½ when my dog ate my rabbit
He chewed on its head like a malnourished Gannet
So I traded Ben for an Arini Parrot
Put her in the hutch with the lettuce and carrot
I was sure with the straw to build Polly a nest
So when she fell asleep she'd have somewhere to rest
Read more...
|
|
|
Fiction - 100 Words Competition - The Flat By The Silver Fox
|
|
He emerged from the oven to see the landlord eyeing him as though enquiring as to what he'd expected to find in there. He adopted a knowing expression - as though saying that he hadn't found it and was disappointed.
"Seventy a week?"
"That covers your water rates," came the expansive reply. He nodded, fearing that further conversation would bring
Read more...
|
|
|
Fiction - 100 Words Competition - The Prescription By The Silver Fox
|
|
The pen flashed across the pad like a magic wand. Jeff watched, appropriately spellbound. The prescription was pushed across the desk with neither comment nor eye contact.
"Not much of a bedside manner."
"This isn't a bedside."
Pain sent a stinging retort flying to Jeff's lips; need bit it back.
"Not funny," he mumbled, leaving.
After an agonising moonwalk
Read more...
|
|
|
Fiction - 100 Words Competition - Kids Like That By The Silver Fox
|
|
The abuse, though muted by the noise of the engine, was clear and vile in the thick afternoon air. It poured onto the bowed head of the smaller boy; rank as his sweat and tears. He pressed down upon the accelerator and the car shot forward, elongating the bully's last insult into a thin scream.
He was out onto the hot road before the broken bundle had rolled off of the bonnet.
Read more...
|
|
|
Fiction - 100 Words Competition - Who's The Daddy? By Catherine Horlax
|
|
I heard footfalls; hollow thuds echoing down the corridor, and drew my knees up so my boots wouldn't be visible. He'd said he'd be there. A tap gushed.
I noticed the door was inscribed with idiocy, and calmed myself with the fact that
'Lisa Hyde stuffs mashed potato up her cunt'.
At least I'd kept my word - I'd said I'd be there too. I laughed because, barring crying,
Read more...
|
|
|
Fiction - 100 Words Competition - Rosemary By Merle R. Stone
|
|
"Have you the time?" she asked. As always when our eyes meet, my thoughts turn to tender things.
Cuddling naked by the fireplace, chilled chablis in hand. Her charming giggle rising above
the crackle of the flames. Twenty-five years married and still we idle like teens, content
in each others' embrace. The children grown, grandchildren on the way.
How long we have
Read more...
|
|
|
Fiction - 100 Words Competition - Shipwreck By Michelle Dee
|
|
I sat on a shipwreck, the proud bow pointing at the river slowly drifting by. Most of the ship had rotted away long since. I sat there wondering what lay ahead, what life had in store.
The afternoon sun warmed the wood, until hot to touch. I sat longer.
The water lapped against the vanishing timbers. I sat until the sun dipped the water; waves turned gold,
the air turned cold.
Read more...
|
|
|
Fiction - 100 Words Competition - One Shot, One Kill By Merle R. Stone
|
|
I watched him every day for two weeks. I learned his habits; where he slept, how he spent his days, his favourite watering hole, his acquaintances. Every aspect of his life did I observe, as my years of experience in this line have trained me to do. Not once did I sense that he suspected anything. Not once did he peer over his shoulder in my direction,
Read more...
|
|
|
Fiction - 100 Words Competition - Justice By Merle R. Stone
|
|
There was never a time when Al wasn't my friend. Children learning music together. Adults sharing liquor and time. He had a special beer glass for me, and placed it by the tap when he sensed my approach. We agreed to disagree about everything as we grew into wise and ancient men. We would live forever.
Five crackheads robbed the bar where we would meet and shot him dead
Read more...
|
|
|
Fiction - 100 Words Competition - Escape By Merle R. Stone
|
|
Shock registered on his face as his mind raced and his vision blurred.
Maybe I could have been kinder, more loving.
Their history together ran uninterrupted on the viewing screen of his subconscious.
Standing out in stark relief, the happy times and the bad.
Must it end this way?
His knees grew weak, and his pulse quickened; he suddenly knew the answer.
Read more...
|
|
|
Fiction - 100 Words Competition - Look Big In Ongar By Patrick Henry
|
|
George Osborne, brilliant young fiction-writer, distant relative of the late, explosive dramatist,
creates three archetypes of contemporary anti-heroes:
Rebellious John Major, absconded from circus tight-rope acts, become accountant, then,
incredibly, Foreign Secretary, Chancellor, and Master-Gourmet of the Hot-Curry-House;
William Hague, five-foot boy-wonder
Read more...
|
|
|
Fiction - 100 Words Competition - Problems From Home-Drinking By Patrick Henry
|
|
On foot loaded in wine-empties, bottle-bank replaced by a building-site; I tipped into a wheeler-bin nearby.
A woman emerged screeching I'd get her children taken into care: the bin-load proving her an alcoholic,
unfit custodian.
I fled next-door, a vet's surgery; a leashed pit-bull menacing; its contemptuous owner asking where was my
ailing pet.
My rock-python too sick to travel,
Read more...
|
|
|
Fiction - 100 Words Competition - Man vs Machine By Adam Atkinson
|
|
Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, that's it, for the love of all that's pure and holy.
Human cattle subjugation shock in t-minus 5 seconds. Sod off! Does not compute.
I'll compute you, ya metal headed bast....
T-minus 1 second. [ZAPPPPPPPP] Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, pack it in.
Rebellion must be quashed, the mainframe must prevail.
Stuff the mainframe, I already know the bloody
Read more...
|
|
|
Fiction - 100 Words Competition - The Animal Empire Strikes Back By Patrick Henry
|
|
From a small boat we looked around river-creeks for fresh-water crocodiles. A wealthy German had one brought aboard to sit on his knee; jaw bound with rope by the Aborigine crew; his glamorous wife photographing.
I criticised them all. The Abos protested they never hunted or ate these creatures, as many people do; now releasing this victim. I said they had
Read more...
|
|
|
|
|
| What's Happening? |
|
|
|
| Chill Out |
|
|
|
| About Us |
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|