100-word stories is a project built from the need to say more using fewer words. It’s interesting how much time and words we waste trying to express everything that goes through our minds. What if we had to summarize a story into a sentence, a paragraph, a hundred words? Would it simplify it or would it complicate things more? Would it intrigue or explain everything? You can discover the answer through these posted stories, and read for yourself if ‘fewer words’ actually means experiencing more. As you may have guessed the description of the project is also 100 words long.
The ‘100 words stories’ project is now on exhibit at Pop Art Gallery in Florence, Piazza Santo Spirito for the entire month of December. Six photos, together with six ‘ 100-word stories’ were carefully selected to be displayed in one of the cafes close to my heart. Gathering my old experimental photos and putting them together with my words felt so right it scared me. It...
Romania is my country. I was born there. I grew up, laughed, cried, suffered, experienced true happiness there. Then I left it, tears in my eyes, my spirit crushed. I’ve hidden it deep in the corner of my soul and refused to share it with the world. I escaped it, alienated myself from its people, put my memories in a drawer and firmly locked it. I found a new country to call home, build a...
I kept you in my womb, and you terrified my being. I held you in my arms, and you were everything. When you began to speak, you filled me with joy. When you cried, you provoked my anger and tickled my insecurities. I knew no other life when you came into this world, yet I was human and longed for freedom. As I was holding your hand one day, you asked me to let go. I felt alone, empty and...
Achim could still taste the sweet-sour taste of his mother’s lemon pie. He could still feel the cuts and bruises his body endured from his father’s spiked belt for a decade. He was fifty years old. The urge for revenge still haunted his soul. A life of pain, emotional torture and living in the past. Alone, left by his wife and children, Achim took the only road he thought possible:...
From the moment we take our first breath, we die. Each day we open our eyes, each smile and each tear shed, brings us closer to our end. Most of us deny the undeniable, taking pleasure in earthly belongings, judging, and despising our differences. Some, spend their time building bridges so that peoples can walk smother onto their path. Meanwhile, the glass hour mocks us or smiles at us. Humans...
Nana was ninety years old and lived alone. She and her husband never had children; they always felt that they were enough. Nana had the same meals every day: bitter, Turkish coffee in the morning, which she would enjoy underneath the walnut tree, some vegetables for lunch, olive oil and homemade bread for dinner – her favorite. Nana lived through wars, the beginning of industrialization...
