November / December 100 word Anonymous Challenge 2024

[elvet]

This is the thread for the stories. You may enter as many stories as you like.
DO NOT POST YOUR OWN STORIES IN THIS THREAD.
Send your entries via private message (also known as conversation) to @elvet
I (elvet) will be accepting entries between Thursday November 7 and Saturday December 7 at 23:59:59 GMT. I will then post a poll, and voting will continue for at least 5 days.
Note that the poll will be by entry title only, since the author will be unknown. So please come up with some interesting titles to identify your story.
MAKE SURE WHAT YOU SEND ME IS YOUR FINAL VERSION. I cannot guarantee that I will l check in within the 1 hour we have for an edit. To make it fair for everyone, the story I get is the one that is posted.

TOPIC: TIME
GENRE: OPEN (anything goes)
​

The discussion thread is here
PLEASE DO NOT COMMENT WITH 'LIKE' ON THE INDIVIDUAL STORIES.

 

[elvet]

Time's Passage and Wisdom.

The old clock ticked, each second a grain of sand falling in the hourglass of existence. Time, a relentless river, carried Amelia's memories: childhood laughter, the thrill of first love, the ache of loss. Now, wrinkles etched her face like lines on a weathered map, each marking a journey through time. Yet, as she gazed at the setting sun, a timeless beauty, she realised that time wasn't just a thief, but a giver – of moments, experiences, and the wisdom they brought.

 

[elvet]

Man with a Future
Nobel Prize winner and renowned scientific genius Dr. Hirsch waited in his cryochamber nervously. Humanity was losing intelligence due to a chemical spill and it was the President's bright idea to freeze Hirsch. Perhaps a time-faring society could help him, and he could understand. He was frozen instantly.

Millennia later, Hirsch thawed under a machine. Large eyes regarded him. In a state between sleep and wokeness, he listened but could not understand.

"What a primitive brain," said the posthuman senior scientist in a future English.
"But now we can study our great ancestors objectively," said her underling.
"To the cage."

 

[elvet]

11:11
November 11, 2014 11:11 P.M.
Last year, I'd wished to be incredibly wealthy. The fortune kept me happy for a while, but I changed. I lost friends due to my arrogance. I lost the love of my life. My self-confidence was gone, and seemed meaningless anyway.
So now I wish I'd never made that wish, that I was never rich.
Flash.
I look around. I see signs of a very Spartan existence. Everything looks cheap. I don't remember what I wished for, but I think I know what I'll wish for next year. I'm going to wish to be rich.

 

[elvet]

Only Time Will Tell

The Communications Techs waited for the signal from the exploration team deep within the nebula. Seconds, minutes, hours passed. Not by the passing thought of or the ticking of a clock, it just did. Time passed as they waited and gazed at the towering mass of glowing gases before them.

But their focus was on a single dark cloud within the nebula, where their team was when their signal was received.

The techs did their task as a new radio signal was sent back out, deep within the dark cloud, wondering if the new star would bring forth life.

 

[elvet]

The Time Allowed
​

Time flows not in the counting of seconds or events, but as a stream of ebbs and flows in our lives. Like the waters of a river, without breaking, without stopping, the events of our lives do go.

But when we are called, and our time here stops, we are to reconcile our lives, and some do so. Yet, others cannot account for their time lost, though they see the time they were allowed.

They cared only about the moments of themselves, not about the others they affected or missed, only about themselves. So then went their time.

 

[elvet]

Time Must Have a Stop

Seconds scuttle around the throne of Chronos, legs clattering on the floor, antennae wriggling with silent messages. Lithe Minutes crawl on his sleeves and shoulders, round eyes ever alert. Hours flap their wings gracefully and soar over his head. Grassy Days sway in the wind, oaken Years stand tall, the great granite Centuries dream their eternal dreams.

The god stands, scattering his minions. He strokes his long gray beard in sorrowful meditation as he walks, scythe in hands, through marble corridors filled with sundials, sandglasses, clepsydrae, mechanical toys with humming crystals. One by one he shatters them with his blade.

 

[elvet]

Time Tossed Thanksgiving Threnody

The table tittled at the ghostly globble-obble, but when the turkey’s drumstick flexed, laughter ceased. Mom gasped, her fork clattering. The turkey uncooked itself beneath dad’s nose, crisp caramels turning limp and pale as steam sucked into flesh. A faint heartbeat thrummed through the room, a telltale, lub-dub reminder that time was behaving like grandpa’s stories—spinning every which way with zero regard for propriety.

"Is it... breathing?" mom whispered, inching her chair back.

“Time machine’s acting up again,” Grandma, unruffled, apologized. She hefted the recorked wine bottle. “Vegetarian Thanksgiving’s the worst. Stay dead, fowl creature.”

 

[elvet]

The Swinging of the Pendulum

I returned from my day trip back in time, only to find myself returning a day ahead from when I left; what I thought was the present. A day lost.

So, I went back a century, only to return a century forward from what I thought was or should have been the present. Now I lost a century of history including my family, friends and the memories of what would have been my past.

I abandoned my time machine and managed to live in my new present reality, a stranger in and strange land. Where did the time go?

 

[elvet]

Time Traveller in Victorian London.

The air crackled, the familiar jolt sending Elias reeling. He stumbled onto cobblestones, the stench of horse manure replacing the sterile scent of the lab. Gas lamps flickered, casting long shadows on the unfamiliar street.

A passing carriage spattered mud on his trousers. "Curse it!" he muttered, checking his pockets for the chronometer.

1888 London. Jack the Ripper's playground. Elias grinned. This was going to be interesting.

 

[elvet]

The Passing of Time

What is the passing of time? For my wife and I it was every moment of our life together. The good times, bad times and boring everyday events. But especially, our yearly tradition of gardening. Funny thing is, over the years we saw how it slowly changed before we realized that we had changed along with it!

Now, with her passing, I enjoy sitting outside and watching nature flow by throughout the year, while our children and grandchildren spend their time on social media, video games and the latest in ‘Life Hacks’.

There’s no hack for life, or time.

 

[elvet]

Collection Time

I stood in the cold and bleak street.
The wind howled as I hunched in misery and self incrimination, how could I have been so wrong?

I’d been so certain yesterday that it was going to happen this morning, but now I could see that not one of my neighbours had believed the same.

Why hadn’t I asked one of them? Why hadn’t one of them told me?

I stifled a whimper and pushed my overladen wheelie bin back up my path, I’d missed it, the all important first bin collection after Christmas, what was I meant to do now?

 

[elvet]

Time Travel to a Dying Earth.

The chronometer ticked down to zero. A wave of nausea and vertigo swept over Maya as the time machine materialised a billion years in the future. Stepping out, she gasped. Earth was unrecognisable. Gone were the lush forests and vibrant oceans, replaced by a parched, red wasteland. The sun, a swollen crimson giant, filled most of the sky. Strange, spindly plants with iridescent leaves dotted the landscape. A lone, reptilian creature with shimmering scales slithered past. Maya felt a pang of loneliness. Was this the end of Earth's story?

 

[elvet]

Doing Time

The princess lay dejectedly, incarcerated within a cell. The revolt against her tyrannical father was faltering, many having sacrificed their lives in the cause of freedom.

And now she awaited her fate. Would her life be spared? Did she really want to live in an atmosphere of fear and oppression? And yet... there was still hope.

The sound of the cell door opening brought her to her senses. Raising herself on one elbow, she greeted with disdain the gaoler come to take her to her fate, "Aren't you a little short for a stormtrooper?"

 

[elvet]

The Erratic Philosopher

During my travels abroad I met a fellow philosopher who lectured the existence of multiple timelines besides our own. We were lounging in one of the many alcoves of a National Library, discussing the Relentlessness of Time, when he mentioned alternative realities.
I confessed my skepticism.
“Reality,” he stressed, “has a propensity to split into separate realities at every historically crucial event it encounters.”
“Historically crucial? Such as?”
He then gestured at the millions of books surrounding us. “Truly, you do not know how... privileged your timeline is with Alexandria’s Library surviving.”
Really, the man made no sense whatsoever.

 

[elvet]

The husband of Outer Space Inventor Flabola Hanobanobbel

The husband of Outer Space Inventor Flabola Hanobanobbel was bored.

‘You drove us out here to look at a Black Hole!’, he grumbled.

‘‘You’ve no interest in my inventions. You’d happily see them fail. The information I gather here will help me make a time machine.’

‘If it’s a time machine then why don’t you use it to go back and invent it two weeks ago?, so we could go to the beach at Andromeda instead of this.’

‘Fine. I will, if it stops you whinging.’

‘Looks like your machine didn’t work.’

‘And we both know whose fault that was.’

 

[elvet]

Mirror
Reverse time travel should have been an illuminating experience.
Except that there was no illumination because the photons were being sucked off the surface of the world and away to the sun.
Also electric current was travelling back along the wires to the power station, where it was turned into coal, to be shipped back underground. There, to be neatly reassembled, into solid ground, by miners.
The miners gradually got younger and settled back into their resurrected mothers wombs as rivers pulled fresh water from the sea
I liked this new order better than ours because nothing ever died.

 

[elvet]

Just a Little More Time

“Give me more time, I beg you!”

“Sorry, your two minutes are almost up. So, what’s your answer then?”

“I truly can’t give you my answer without more time, please?”

“Very well, I’ll give you an extra minute… Well?”

“I’m thinking”

“It’s a simple question with only one right answer. What’s your answer?”

“I’m still thinking.”

“You’re running out of time again.”

“Okay! It’s a dog.”

“Nope.”

“Is it a horse?”

“Still wrong.”

“A camel!”

“Wrong again and you’re out of time. It’s a table.”

“A table? I think it’s time for you to take some drawing lessons!”

 

[elvet]

The Clockmaker's Paradox.

The old clockmaker, Elias, was renowned for his intricate timepieces. His latest creation, however, was his masterpiece - a clock that could stop time itself. With a sly grin, he froze the world, indulging in his newfound omnipotence. Yet, as he reveled in the stillness, a chilling realization dawned: he had forgotten to wind the clock that held him outside of time's grip.

 

[elvet]

The efficient history of Juptarian Viscount Eldernon Goldenballs


Efficiency Viscount Eldernon Goldenballs addressed the Jupitarian royal court:

‘It is inefficient repetition for us to try to make Jupiter great again. For the best times are always in the past. I can now reveal that I sent the wizard Obleron back in time. So he can freeze existence at the exact moment of Jupitarian greatness. And make this planet eternally great’, he announced,’

‘If that is true Eldernon, then why am I stuck here listening to you wittering on?’ asked the King.

‘Because Obleron won't know which moment was greatest before the future is over your Highness’, explained Eldernon.