Microdosing Fiction - 100mg of Antique
Write 100 words based on the word: ANTIQUE
Our prompt for today is ANTIQUE
Write a story in 100 words!
To join in on the challenge, leave a comment or restack the story with your own!
The dimly lit study felt so familiar, yet so alien—books everywhere, the creaking floor, even that dusty smell remained. But the strikingly empty chair behind the massive table made everything else feel wrong, out of place.
I couldn’t look that way, couldn't bear the sight of that typewriter just sitting there. It wasn't supposed to be still and silent. It was supposed to...
Click.
The sound that made this house a home echoed between the burgundy walls.
I blinked.
Clack.
The antique typewriter banged again. I ran towards the table. There were only two letters.
I… L…
“Dad?” I gasped.
The keys banged again.
I…L…U
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The Prompt Collector
She collects writing prompts like antique teacups,
each one demanding its tidy fifty words,
or seventy, or sometimes even a hundred—
precise little boxes meant to contain imagination
as if creativity could be measured in teaspoons of light.
.
At seventy-three, she has earned every right
to ignore such rules, having spent decades
perfecting the elegance of rebellion,
though she still catches herself counting words
until three a.m., old habits glowing like ember-memories.
.
The cloudless sky of 1966 remains
archived in her mind, when every poem
had to fit neatly into its assigned space,
like girls in classroom rows, learning
to walk the tightrope of others' expectations.
.
She remembers the miracle of that first critique—
a red-penned note from her teacher who said
her fifty-word piece had bloomed to sixty-three,
but showed promise, if only she could learn
to contain herself properly, like a good student should.
.
What that teacher never knew: how she treasured
that margin note like a secret victory,
for if someone demands you paint the sunrise
in exactly fifty strokes, they've missed the point
of sunrises entirely.
.
Now she arranges these borrowed words
on her desk as she might arrange wildflowers,
letting them spill over their prescribed boundaries,
each prompt becoming a door instead of a cage,
each word count a starting line rather than a fence.
.
Because at seventy-three, she finally understands:
true elegance isn't in meeting the measure
but in knowing precisely when to exceed it,
and how to do so with such unbound joy
that others mistake your rebellion for grace.
.
And somewhere, on Substack or in writing groups,
when young poets worry about their word counts,
she smiles, remembering that long-ago classroom,
and whispers to them through her own wild verses:
"Let your words run free—they know where they're going."
I am enjoying taking a few minutes everyday to write these. This is an awesome habit to get into. Thanks, Miguel.
Antique
“Stop, you fucking antique!”
The man looked at the young man yelling at him. Leaning on his cane, he saw the leather jacket, the chains, the boots. The attitude. His fingers squeezed the handle. Memories of times past when he sat on a low wall in his own jacket came back.
“Ya gotta pay the toll if ya want to go past.” The boy’s hand brandished a switchblade, swaying it back and forth.
The man smacked the wrist with his cane. The blade flew out of the hand.
“I am old. I don’t have time for this.” He continued on.