100 Words Archives - Tom Flanders World

100 Words – No Excuses

“I have no time for your excuses. I want the money and I want it now. So shut up, pay up or it’s the sledgehammer to the balls again.”

He paid up. They always do.

I am slowly winning the battle over the voices in my head. Their screaming has been subdued to a mere whisper. A gentle melody telling me to do terrible things.

Doing the things the voices tell me to do eases the pain, but it always comes back. I think that if I can silence the voices I will silence the pain. What do you think?

#100words

Tags: excuses | Comments (0) | Author: Tom | Published: May 25, 2019

100 Words – The saddle

She knew all the big horse words like dressage, cadence and farrier. I was an idiot who had no business being in a saddle. It was only my basest desires that brought me to the trail that day, hanging on for dear life atop a beast trying to throw me off with every step.

Somehow my screaming failed to clue her in to my distress. I became aware of this when she yelled, “Hey, lets run this part!” She kicked her heels and her horse took off and my horse followed.

The ground slammed into my face. Gravity won again.

Tags: saddle | Comments (0) | Author: Tom | Published: May 11, 2019

100 Words – Wounds

Barely awake, I lay in the bloody mud. My wounds ooze unexpected colors. The field is full of the dead, enemy and comrade alike. I alone am still alive.

The battle was fierce and futile. People died on and for an empty field. Mothers and lovers will weep. The wolves and vultures are already disposing of the remains.

Our God and their God look down and pity us as they share a somber drink in some heavenly tavern. No glory for the fools below.

Years from now the schoolbooks will label this my greatest victory. The schoolbooks will be wrong.

#100words

Tags: wounds | Comments (0) | Author: Tom | Published: May 4, 2019

100 Words – Vivid Police

When Alexander gets truly stressed he suffers from vivid hallucinations of police surrounding him. They are there one second, gone the next. The first time this happened was his first semester of college. It started a week before finals and got worse every day. After the last final he got puke in the street drunk, and that was the end of the phantom cops.

His therapist tells him that when he sees the cops he needs to take the blue pill. She thinks that’s funny. Alexander sticks with her because she’s the only shrink he’s found that’s smarter than him.

#100words

Tags: police,vivid | Comments (0) | Author: Tom | Published: April 13, 2019

100 Words – Witness

I came to witness the second coming of Truman Capote. All I got was a bunch of tourists puking their green drinks on cobbled streets. Old buildings gutted of their souls and cheapness. No longer the refuge of poets and madmen. They have fled for the fringes where visitors need not witness their divine ugliness.

The saddest part of all was realizing that I was also just a tourist. A voyeuristic dilettante climbing onto the shoulders of giants. Seeking approval from the ghosts of my heroes who care not for the living. Just the suffering of those doomed to follow.

#100words

Tags: truman capote,witness | Comments (0) | Author: Tom | Published: April 6, 2019

Older posts