100-words - Pulp.Net

SAMPLE 100 WORD STORIES

LAUGHING by Dan Rhodes
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My girlfriend died laughing at one of my funny faces. Her friends were kind, and told me I shouldn’t feel guilty; that she would have wanted to die that way. They weren’t there as her musical laughter turned to chokes, grunts and her death rattle. When I stopped grieving I found a beautiful new girl to love. She died laughing at a joke I made about her feet. The next one passed away similarly. My last girlfriend didn’t die. She left me. She said we never had any fun together. That she wanted a man with a sense of humour.

From ‘Anthropology and other stories’, a collection of 101 x 101-word stories (Fourth Estate / Canongate).
www.danrhodes.co.uk

ROARING WATER BAY by Lane Ashfeldt
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Auntie Rose was the vintage of the oldest penny buried in the garden. 1892. She wore her hair in a white bun. She made bread and scones, she planted hyacinths and forsythia, she scolded and comforted, clucked and sweetened. In her late nineties she went ‘home’ on a visit. Within weeks she was dead and buried in the cramped family grave, as if the very land had killed her. Only then did I learn of her lost child, the ‘sin’ that made her leave, and understand why she would say, defiant: They can scatter my ashes over Roaring Water Bay.

www.ashfeldt.com
First published at www.the-phone-book-com

LORDS TAVERN by Paul Ewen
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Lords Tavern backs directly onto Lords Cricket Ground, and if you clamber onto the roof, you’ll find lots of weathered cricket balls, courtesy of solid oak and powerful, swinging arms. I made a useful start with a Bloody Mary, and after calling for a new one, I joined some of the ground staff who were admiring the smooth floorboards throughout the bar. The barman looked somewhat incensed as I began rubbing the crotch of my white trousers with my glass of Bloody Mary, and when I was eventually dismissed from the premises, I stomped off like a dejected cartoon duck.

Paul Ewen is the author of the short fiction collection ‘London Pub Reviews’, some of which were extracted in New Writing 15. www.londonpubreviews.co.uk

A TALE OF TWO BABIES by Charlotte Cory
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He said: ‘It’s you I love. You, you and only you. I see it now, I’ve made a terrible mistake. I want us to try again. I want to make it work this time.’ She smiled. Then he added: ‘The thing is, though, I want to go on seeing her. At least I don’t want to but I will need to.’ She stared at him in astonishment. ‘You’re not serious?’ she laughed. ‘You are planning to have us both?’ ‘The trouble is,’ he confided miserably, ‘she’s pregnant.’ ‘Why, so am I,’ said his ex- girlfriend. ‘Luckily, though, it’s not your baby.’

Charlotte Cory’s novels are published by Faber. www.charlottecory.com
First published at www.the-phone-book-com

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