
Weekly Challenge #924 – Pillows
01/07/24 • 12 min
LIZZIE
These pillows are good quality, she thought. The price was acceptable. So, she bought them. She placed them in her garden, dreaming of perfect soireés with her super elegant friends dressed in their pricey clothes, smiling fake smiles, dragging along bored little husbands with perfect bank accounts that they spent in perfectly useless facial creams. Argh! She hated them. The pillows. Good quality. Well... Would they endure something rougher, she wondered, something a bit more... But then she remembered her mother’s words “a clean conscience makes a soft pillow”. Perhaps she shouldn’t have wiped those perfect smiles off their faces.
RICHARD
My bed!
Pillows, magazines, computer keyboards and laptops. These are all perfectly acceptable surfaces to sleep on... If you’re a cat.
The general rule is to select a space that will be the most inconvenient and inappropriate for one’s owner, and occupy it in a manner that is so cute and adorable that only the most heartless of people would consider summary eviction.
Which clearly makes me a very bad person, if the resentful feline stare currently fixed on me is anything to go by.
I won’t be long, I promise.
And once I’ve typed this story, the keyboard is all yours.
SERENDIPIDY
I’ve never believed you can smother someone to death with a pillow.
Let’s face it, if pillows were that dangerous, they’d be covered in health warnings, and every time you went to bed you’d be in imminent danger of inadvertently committing accidental suicide!
They also don’t work for muffling gunshots to the head. I’ve tried it, and it makes no difference at all.
However, those polythene bags that new pillows come in are a different story altogether.
Capacious, easy to carry and dispose of, and totally airtight -fatal every time.
You end up with a lot of spare pillows though!
TOM
While sleeping not good to stop breathing.
I remember going into the Cpap Store. There was this deck top poster of a guy, 50ish, gray temples; faced forward wearing a knowing hint of a smile, and a full Monty mask. Think it was a ResMed AirFit F20. Lots of rigid plastic giving off a Bane/Hannibal vibe, that in fact lacked the high wattage personality of either. No one in the history of Cpaps didn’t look stupid to down right silly. To uses the damn thing, you have to value over this hurtle and embrace your going to look stupid. So, in that sprite I ware Air Pillows.
841 – 972
Angel of Death
Major Cristen Larson was mentally extremely flexible in abstract think. The product of A FEW Thousands of years of diligent breeding. Her Count Zero plan terrified the war college. The general consensus of the high council was this experiment had gone too far. They promptly locked the Major in a Virtual reality matrix. From within Larson hacked the central computer and collectively fried the entire council. Her matrix then knifed through the Emperor’s ice field to stand before the throne of Shadus the Five. “Very resourceful,” quipped the Emperor. This was how Major Cristen Larson became LT. Colonel Cristen Larson.
LISA
Outside
It’s a kitchen that he’s led Pippa into. Ceiling high sash windows reveal deep snow outside and she blinks against the brightness. He asks her what they need and ‘Freedom’ comes out as ‘Pillows’.
She doesn’t want to be their spokesperson. She stares past him; out of the window at the snow. Escape would be futile. It’s drifted, deep and seems to stretch forever. Something unspoken hangs between them and she fills the silence by repeating the word Pillows, then adds a ‘Please’.
She wants to get back to the basement, back to the others and away from his stares.
NORVAL JOE
Scowling, Sabrina crossed her arms like Linoliumanda’s presence was a personal affront.
They gathered around the sinkhole and stared at the jeep, sitting in the mud at the bottom. The oozy slime wasn’t as cushy as pillows but must have softened the jeep’s landing, as the Black Knights didn’t appear to be injured.
Linoliumanda continued to walk away.
“Linoliumanda,” Billbert called.
“Linoliumanda,” Buhmilda repeated.
“Linoliumanda?” Sabrina asked.
Linoliumanda turned and shouted, “Stop calling me that.”
Billbert scratched his head. “Why? That’s your name.”
She stomped her foot. “I know. But it’s too long. I wish people would call...
LIZZIE
These pillows are good quality, she thought. The price was acceptable. So, she bought them. She placed them in her garden, dreaming of perfect soireés with her super elegant friends dressed in their pricey clothes, smiling fake smiles, dragging along bored little husbands with perfect bank accounts that they spent in perfectly useless facial creams. Argh! She hated them. The pillows. Good quality. Well... Would they endure something rougher, she wondered, something a bit more... But then she remembered her mother’s words “a clean conscience makes a soft pillow”. Perhaps she shouldn’t have wiped those perfect smiles off their faces.
RICHARD
My bed!
Pillows, magazines, computer keyboards and laptops. These are all perfectly acceptable surfaces to sleep on... If you’re a cat.
The general rule is to select a space that will be the most inconvenient and inappropriate for one’s owner, and occupy it in a manner that is so cute and adorable that only the most heartless of people would consider summary eviction.
Which clearly makes me a very bad person, if the resentful feline stare currently fixed on me is anything to go by.
I won’t be long, I promise.
And once I’ve typed this story, the keyboard is all yours.
SERENDIPIDY
I’ve never believed you can smother someone to death with a pillow.
Let’s face it, if pillows were that dangerous, they’d be covered in health warnings, and every time you went to bed you’d be in imminent danger of inadvertently committing accidental suicide!
They also don’t work for muffling gunshots to the head. I’ve tried it, and it makes no difference at all.
However, those polythene bags that new pillows come in are a different story altogether.
Capacious, easy to carry and dispose of, and totally airtight -fatal every time.
You end up with a lot of spare pillows though!
TOM
While sleeping not good to stop breathing.
I remember going into the Cpap Store. There was this deck top poster of a guy, 50ish, gray temples; faced forward wearing a knowing hint of a smile, and a full Monty mask. Think it was a ResMed AirFit F20. Lots of rigid plastic giving off a Bane/Hannibal vibe, that in fact lacked the high wattage personality of either. No one in the history of Cpaps didn’t look stupid to down right silly. To uses the damn thing, you have to value over this hurtle and embrace your going to look stupid. So, in that sprite I ware Air Pillows.
841 – 972
Angel of Death
Major Cristen Larson was mentally extremely flexible in abstract think. The product of A FEW Thousands of years of diligent breeding. Her Count Zero plan terrified the war college. The general consensus of the high council was this experiment had gone too far. They promptly locked the Major in a Virtual reality matrix. From within Larson hacked the central computer and collectively fried the entire council. Her matrix then knifed through the Emperor’s ice field to stand before the throne of Shadus the Five. “Very resourceful,” quipped the Emperor. This was how Major Cristen Larson became LT. Colonel Cristen Larson.
LISA
Outside
It’s a kitchen that he’s led Pippa into. Ceiling high sash windows reveal deep snow outside and she blinks against the brightness. He asks her what they need and ‘Freedom’ comes out as ‘Pillows’.
She doesn’t want to be their spokesperson. She stares past him; out of the window at the snow. Escape would be futile. It’s drifted, deep and seems to stretch forever. Something unspoken hangs between them and she fills the silence by repeating the word Pillows, then adds a ‘Please’.
She wants to get back to the basement, back to the others and away from his stares.
NORVAL JOE
Scowling, Sabrina crossed her arms like Linoliumanda’s presence was a personal affront.
They gathered around the sinkhole and stared at the jeep, sitting in the mud at the bottom. The oozy slime wasn’t as cushy as pillows but must have softened the jeep’s landing, as the Black Knights didn’t appear to be injured.
Linoliumanda continued to walk away.
“Linoliumanda,” Billbert called.
“Linoliumanda,” Buhmilda repeated.
“Linoliumanda?” Sabrina asked.
Linoliumanda turned and shouted, “Stop calling me that.”
Billbert scratched his head. “Why? That’s your name.”
She stomped her foot. “I know. But it’s too long. I wish people would call...
Previous Episode

Cake is the painkiller
The nurse asked if I needed painkillers, I didn’t need any, so I said no.
But I should have asked for some cake.
Because, seriously, I wouldn’t mind a slice of cake.
And it doesn’t have to be a big slice.
A small one would do.
I really just want that first fork of it, taste it, feel it.
Everything after that is just gastronomic dry humping and pushing rope.
That’s how the senses work, you know.
Too much of something, and you desensitize to it.
If anyone that worked with feeling dumb after every stupid injury I cause myself.
Next Episode

Mayor Danny
Danny is the mayor.
It’s not a big town, but he’s not a big guy.
Maybe five foot one, five foot two with those boots he wears.
But he’s got big ideas for the town, big plans.
Which is why Tania is running for mayor against him.
Tania wants to keep things the same.
“I want everything to stay the same,” she says at the debate.
“Well, what about the mayor?” says Danny. “If you become mayor, that’ll change.”
Tania thinks about it a bit, then steps away from the podium.
Danny wins.
Sure, the guy talks big, but never delivers.
If you like this episode you’ll love
Episode Comments
Generate a badge
Get a badge for your website that links back to this episode
<a href="https://goodpods.com/podcasts/the-100-word-stories-podcast-41328/weekly-challenge-924-pillows-41337978"> <img src="https://storage.googleapis.com/goodpods-images-bucket/badges/generic-badge-1.svg" alt="listen to weekly challenge #924 – pillows on goodpods" style="width: 225px" /> </a>
Copy