Weekly Challenge #444 – Doom

Welcome to the 100 Word Stories podcast at oneadayuntilthedayidie.com.

This is Weekly Challenge, where I post a topic and then challenge you to come up with a 100 word story based on that topic: SKELETON

We’ve got stories by:

• Anima Zabaleta
• John
• Jeffrey
• Richard
• Lizzie
• Tom
• Lady Blue
• Serendipity
• Munsi
• Chelsea
• Spate
• Zackmann
• Dionysis Clowes
• Norval Joe
• Danny
• Tura Brezoianu
• Planet Z

The next 100 word stories weekly challenge is on the topic of X. Scroll up and click on Weekly Challenge to learn how to join us!

ANIMA

“Not to night, dear.”
Harrumph. Not married 18 months and already getting shut down. Headaches. Bad days at work. Arguments with family. Hurricanes on the horizon.
Dad gave me some advice when I first got married. I thought he was full of it.
“Every time you get some action your first year of marriage, put a bean in jar. Year 2, take a bean out every time you have sex. Hehehe, you will never run out”
I sure hope he’s wrong, ’cause right now I am looking at a hill of beans.
The opposite of “in the mood” is DOOM.

JOHN

Doom
by John Musico

So far up to the water’s surface; I know I won’t make it.
Now falling, falling, but no bottom in sight.
I will to move, and barely can, then, I can’t at all.
All senses mixed, blinding sound, deafening light.
Doom is upon me.
This place that reads abandon ye all hope.
That is the ultimate doom, hope lost, and so, any talents to spare me completely gone.
So, I start with mustering back my hope.
I just might make it to the surface…
I just might soon see the bottom of the pit.
I choose to fight, and live.

The Blanket of Doom Descends

Jim thought; “How will I drive after losing my leg? Hey, you’re supposed to drive that way! Okay, I drive home to my wife, oh yeah; she left me, and, took the house.
I’ll sleep at my office! No, I lost my job, and with it; the company car…
I’ll take a cab to a hotel” Jim opened his wallet: broke. Then Jim broke.
He held his arms out, threw his head back, wearily closed his eyes, and could muster hope no longer.
The clock of doom ticked louder and louder till deafening. Then, all went black, and Jim collapsed.

Doom Approacheth, a Nightmare

A moth caught in a web. That really must be a terrifying experience. The more the moth struggles, the more wrapped up in the web. In the meantime, the spider waits. When exhaustion overtakes the moth, the spider begins a slow approach towards the moth. The spider’s beak extends and fills with a paralyzing venom. Then the spider pounces and skewers the moth. The frenzy silences but not the muffled screams of the moth, paralyzed, but still alive. It matters not to the spider. The gangly spider
begins slowly sucking the blood from the moth as it’s belly swells visibly.

JEFFREY

How to Succeed in Business
by Jeffrey Fischer

“How many people do you need for the project?” Joanna’s boss asked her.

“At least four.”

“I’ll give you two. Have you thought about your budget?”

“Two hundred thousand, and six weeks.”

“Okay, you can have fifty grand. And I want everything wrapped up in a month.” Joanna shook her head and left her boss’s office. This project was doomed from the start.

Five weeks later, as the project came in over budget and incomplete, Joanna and her team were fired. Her boss collected a big bonus for reducing personnel costs. He thought that project succeeded admirably.

The Torture Chamber
by Jeffrey Fischer

I gripped the arms of the chair. Beads of sweat formed on my brow and trickled down my face. I had a sense of impending doom. Then the door opened. A man stood in the shadows, just outside my field of vision. My worst fears were realized when I heard the whine of a drill. I clenched the chair arms still tighter and vowed that I wouldn’t cry out in pain. They could get me into this chair, but they would never break me!

“Now, Mr. Fischer, this won’t hurt a bit,” said the man, the drill in his hand. The sadistic bastard, I thought. “It’s just a small cavity,” the dentist continued. “We’ll have you out of here in no time.”

“That’s great, Doctor, but don’t worry about me. I’m made of tough stuff,” I lied.

RICHARD

#1 – George’s Story – Part 75: Medical report

Subject: George Attwell

History: Car accident, concussion, coma, no lasting effects.

Scenario: Beta Four

Prognosis: Subject has shown some signs of improvement, however initial assessment indicates that he is unlikely to pull through and should be considered a borderline case. Possibly some merit in further monitoring of progress, however consensus of opinion is that subject is ultimately doomed and unlikely to survive. Progressive failure is anticipated.

Recommendation: Continue observation but intervention is not indicated if subject does not improve.

The single sheet report ended with a scrawled signature at the foot of the page, and a large red stamp: ‘FAILURE’

#2 – George’s Story – Part 76: What the hell does that mean?

George’s hands shook as he finished reading the report.

What sort of a hospital was this, and what the hell did they mean by ‘ultimately doomed’?

George couldn’t imagine any doctor using such terminology, neither could he comprehend why an injury should be described as having ‘no lasting effects’, yet he was considered unlikely to survive. The more he discovered, the less sense any of it made.

And what was with the ‘failure’ stamp and the Beta Four thing?

George began ransacking the office, determined to get to the bottom of things, but to no avail.

The answer lay elsewhere.

LIZZIE

Doom was an unhappy robot that got tired of doing robot stuff and wanted to become human. The problem with that decision was the fact that Doom had no idea about how to be human. Doom tried crying. Doom tried smiling. Doom tried sneezing. Nothing worked. One day, Doom’s neighbor robot Calamity came over for tea. They engaged in a philosophical conversation about human beings and Calamity thought Doom’s ambition of becoming one was utterly horrendous, but Doom wouldn’t give up. Halloween was right around the corner and Doom would be a human, even if only for a few hours.

TOM

Rudy did not particularly care for first person shooters, but his friend Max love them. They play till their fingers bleed. Got world class good at the game. On their third deployment in county the friends saved their platoon from enemy cross fire. During the army’s interviews for the Congressional all the survivors said Rudy and Max keep chanting “DOOM DOOM DOOM, they did the impossible in a impossible situation. They buried them side by side at Arlington. By decree of the Senate, no cross, star, or crescent graced their stones. Just the carved icon of the video game Doom

BLUE

Dating Woos
by Fifty Shades of Blue

My Asian mother told me, “Don’t date until you’re 40. Don’t wear makeup until you graduate and have to look pretty to get a job, and don’t flirt with boys.”

“Why not?” I’d ask.

“Because you don’t want to destroy your life. You need to get a job and have a good future, first.”

“What is a good future, mom?”

“You’ll be a rich doctor, and make lots of money.”

When I dated my first guy at 16, my dad sat in a darkened room, with tears streaming from his eyes. “My daughter is doomed.”

I hid the nail polish.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Anatomy Lesson
by Blue Needs to Switch to Decaf

Class was doomed. It was stiflingly hot and humid; an open invitation for the afternoon drowsies.

So I pulled out the big gun. Literally.

“Class, this is a baculum.” Sleepy eyes widened with growing curiosity at the sight of the nearly 2-foot bone sitting at my desk. I declared proudly, “A penis bone.”

Suddenly, everyone woke up.

“Professor, what’s that in the middle? It has a joint?!”

“No. That was a compound fracture that calcified and healed over.” The males winced. “And in case you’re wondering, humans don’t have baculum.”

There was a universal sigh of relief.

“Thank goodness!”

SERENDIPITY

It seemed like a good idea – the exercise would do him good, and he’d maybe lose a few pounds too.

Then the fears set in… What if he slipped, propelled backwards by the machine, to crash headlong into the wall?

What if the motors jammed, catapulting him through the nearest window?

What if a short-circuit sent electricity coursing through his body, stopping his heart dead?

It no longer seemed a great idea.

But he stuck with it.

Knowing that every day, with every step, the treadmill propelled him inexorably, inevitably, at a stately one mile per hour, to his doom!

MUNSI

Doom

By Christopher Munroe

The most interesting character in comics, to my mind, would be Dr. Doom.

Specifically, the fact that Doom is his actual last name.

And, therefore, the last name of his parents. Parents who, in spite of the last name “Doom”, never once attempted to conquer the world and bend humanity to their horrible will.

That we know of.

Also Dr. Doom had an actual PHD, which is nice.

Dr. Strange was a surgeon.

Doc Sampson’s a psychiatrist.

Because Marvel, apparently, has the utmost respect for intellect and education.

Not that you could tell that from some of their recent storylines…

CHELSEA

Doom

In high school we had this truly awful intro computer class that was mandatory for all students. It was back in the era when every student didn’t have at least one computer at home, and that right there should tell you about how old I am.

This class started with how to turn on a computer to typing with proper finger positioning and posture to document formatting. Basically things any half intelligent sixteen-year-old could master with minimal effort in about a month. After that it became a race to get your hands on the program disk for Doom.

SPATE

Mostly True Tales from the Navy – 5
Fire Party

If I had joined the Navy seeking adventure, working nights on an aircraft
carrier certainly would have fit the bill. However, I hadn’t. But there I
was anyway, on the flight deck next to that fully loaded F4 with the engine
fire.

Hats off to those reckless sailors who hurtled towards the pending disaster;
the Air Ops Fire Party; all gung-ho and “can do” grit.

We nicknamed them “Doomers.”

Me? I was the peckerhead that dove into the catwalk, furthest I could get
from those sidewinder missiles and that full tank of JP5.

Call me “just wanting to stay alive.”

(Music: “Dad’s Getting’ Fuzzy” by Dutch Coleman and Red Whitehead / Creative
Commons Public Domain Mark 1.0)

ZACKMANN

“Now my doom is sealed. If I am damned anyway maybe I should just lie in the sun and end it all. I don’t want to have to kill to live or unlive, whatever.” lamented the recently turned vampyre.

“As your psychologist, I am not sure if I should in your situation tell you that suicide is wrong or if it’s suicide when you are already dead but as someone who has read Bram Stoker’s Dracula, I will tell you that sitting in the sun may be as effective in killing yourself as slitting your wrist with an electric razor.”

DIO

Pitching Doom

He stopped. One spoke. Let’s cut to the chase, Mr. Doom — Angel? I hope you don’t mind, Angel. An-gel? An-gel, we’re not seeing a market for anything this bleak at this time.

Total annihilation is passé, even, said the second.

Do you really need the ending? What if everyone isn’t really dead? The universe survives somehow? Basically, we need someone alive at the end, or our audience walks out thinking, What am I doing here? That’s depressing. Technically they should be dead.

And it kills the word-of-mouth. No momentum.

On the other hand, I see a big opportunity here for the spoof. Our customers think, Everything’s ridiculous!

Win-win!

The Three-Legged Stool

Hegel’s ist kein philosophy of doom! But why not, mein Gott, you want to kill yourself!

When Hegel was just a little tiny boy in Stuttgart, he had a little red three-legged stool.

“Stool” ist kein “stuhl”! Ein melkschemel. Mit drei “stuhlbein”! Ha!

Mein Hut er hat drei ecke!

This little melkschemel discovered Hegel the dialectic, look. Forget Trinity. Mein Gott, Hegel liked sitting more than church.

Also ein leg fell off the stool! And what happened to Hegel, the little tiny boy Hegel, already with the big thoughts?

Naturlich, he hurt his bottom! The light from heaven came from that stool!

Second Thoughts

It sent shockwaves through the realms when Dr. Doom was shown to have plagiarised significant parts of his dissertation.

Many of us had come to accept Doom’s word as fact when it came to endings.
Yes, he had given us a new context. Yes, he made us see fire and ice in entirely new ways. No one had ever suggested such an anguished and protracted end before.

Yet …

No one can deny that the overall result has been a loss of faith in all bad endings. I think Doom himself ended up somewhere on the West Coast with a prescription for pot.

Doomsdays

In the first days after the recognition of the approaching end, there was widespread and highly vocal, often tear-filled, debate. All that became irrelevant. Our own end is beyond us.

This quality of contradiction pervades everything now.

The orgiastic laughter one heard occasionally in those first days was a last scream of pain. The insect hovering erratically in the narrow mote-filled light is clearly the angel of death. The gangs of killers who roam the streets, hoping to snuff out whatever life they find, are angels of mercy.

To dare to go out is to accept the fatefully ambiguous peace of death.

NORVAL JOE

The more Superconductor loomed over him, the more Weiner Dog Man felt his free will slipping away. He knew he would quickly cave in to the supervillain’s doom.
Dergle thought back on his most recent Tae Bo lessons but there was nothing in the exercise program that he could use to extricate himself from this situation.
He dropped to his hands and knees and bared his teeth. “I will channel the powers of the wiener dog.”
Garbage man’s mouth dropped open while Superconductor closed his eyes and laughed.
He didn’t see Long John Silver sprint toward his master and leap.

TURA

Doom
——–
“Doom” is an inauspicious name for a doctor, even if not spelled that way, but young Thomas Duhm had a medical vocation, and at last became “Dr. Duhm”. When introducing himself, he always added, with a flicker of a smile, “but not spelled that way.”

He once went on an exchange visit of six months to Japan. The administration required him to obtain a seal bearing his name in Japanese characters. When he received it from the chop shop, the design seemed unusually complex, so he asked a Japanese friend to read it. It said “Tomasso Duumu Batsunotto Superrudo Zattowae.”
——–

DANNY

Weekly Challenge 444: Doom!

Planet of the Grapes! Suddenly, all the grapes became sentient. “Were DOOMed!” said all of the assholes on FOX news, who were suddenly aware how juicier, and therefore far superior the grapes were. Humanity was not convinced, and ironically defeated the grapes by confronting them with the smell the of corpse of Coleman Francis combined with the legend of Ronald Reagan, then throwing them in a Juiceman Juicer. Then Joan Quigley died, which disturbed all the French grapes, who realized they couldn’t restore the damage done to humanity by being emulsified with Coleman Francis’ corpse. Then, Zig Zuglar lived. Doomed!

PLANET Z

The first-person shooter craze began with Wolfenstein 3D.
It was an adaptation of the original Castle Wolfenstein game.
You fought your way through Nazis, eventually killing MechaHitler.
Then came Doom, where you fought monstrous demons from Hell on Mars.
I’m not sure how the demons got there. I never read the instructions.
From what I could tell, scientists opened up a teleporter gate to Hell on Mars or something.
Which is totally ludicrous.
I mean, the teleporter gate we’re developing here in the lab is completely safe.
No demons are going to come pouring out of this thing, Mein Fuhrer.