Weekly Challenge #473 – A word that does not exist

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.

We’ve got stories by:

• Munsi
• Norval Joe
• Jeffrey
• Richard
• Deanne Charlton
• Tom
• Jerry
• Zackmann
• Serendipity
• Anima
• Lizzie
• Tura Brezoianu
• Planet Z

What’s the next Weekly Challenge? Come to the website and subscribe to the feed to find out!

MUNSI

Words Don’t Exist

By Christopher Munroe

I have no words.

I mean, obviously I have words, I talk constantly. The sound of my voice is among the most soothing things that I’ve found in this world and it’s something I come back to time and time again to fill the gaping void that exists at the center of my life.

Seriously: I love, love, LOVE listening to myself.

What I mean is, in this specific circumstance, no words exist to properly express the magnitude of what’s going on.

It’s utterly beyond comprehension. I can’t even begin to describe it…

So, yeah. This circumstance.

Am I right?

NORVAL JOE

I don’t know what Sumodat is. It’s my momma’s word, but it seemed to change meaning.
First time she used it was when I hid brussel sprouts in my pocket.
She said, “You like dem sprouts? Good. I’ll give you sumodat.” And made me eat the whole bowl.
Next was when she hit me with a wooden spoon and I laughed at her.
“You like dat? Good. I’ll give you sumodat.” She laughed until the spoon broke.
Last, she was dying from cancer and in terrible pain, and they gave her morphine.
She said, “Good. You can give me sumodat.”

JEFFREY

Djinn-Tonic <-- okay, you had me with this one
by Jeffrey Fischer

As I cleaned my father’s attic after his death, I spied a leather-bound book. As my hand glided across its weathered surface, I was astonished to see a creature appear.

“Bless you, for you have freed me from my imprisonment within those dusty bindings. I will grant you a Djinn-Tonic.”

“A what?”

“Djinn-Tonic. It’s my own name. I’m a Djinn, of course, and my boon to you is a tonic, so…” He spread his hands. “Look, you get a wish. Think of something and it will be so. Just be careful…Eh, what am I saying? You humans always blow it.”

I determined to keep my mind a blank until I knew what I wanted. All I could think of was the saying “Don’t think of an elephant.” Yep. I am now the proud owner of an elephant.

Zymoxic
by Jeffrey Fischer

“Zymoxics. That’s 30 points for the word, triple word score, plus 50 for using all my tiles. One hundred forty points. I win.” I placed the tiles so the “C” was abutting the blank being used as an “S” in “shoe.”

“Come off it. ‘zymoxics’ is not a real word.”

“Sure it is. See, the ‘zy’ prefix is from the Greek, meaning ferment, while ‘mox’ is the same root as ‘moxie,’ meaning courage. So zymoxcis are fermented drinks, like beer, that make you braver than otherwise.”

My friend bowed. “You win.”

I have a terrible vocabulary, but I started liking Scrabble much better when we stopped scoring by the rules and instead awarded points for the most creative whoppers told in making up definitions.

RICHARD

A word that doesn’t exist

I intended writing a story about a word that doesn’t exist – a creation of my own making, for which I could concoct fantastical meanings.

Then I realised I couldn’t write a story about a word that doesn’t exist, because the mere act of writing it down would defeat my own argument… such a word, no matter how contrived or meaningless, would then, nevertheless, exist. A quantumly physical type of word if you will, whereby the mere act of observation suffices to change its inherent nature.

Instead, I’ll imagine it exists… And I’ll imagine I’m writing an imaginary story about it.

DEANNE CHARLTON

STORY (A word that doesn’t exist)

The impact got my attention and we never remembered what we’d been talking about. Thomas’s face erupted red when the airbag broke his glasses. With no fatalities, he would joke for months, when unable to think of a word, “Hey, I have a head injury!”

Not I. An editor, I was unseated when I looked up, asked him, “How do you spell ‘anthrasam’?” He seemed bewildered. “You know, the substitute for ‘and’,” I insisted, drawing one in the air above my left shoulder. “It’s with all A’s, isn’t it?”

He replied gently, “You mean ‘ampersand’.”

My world, too, had wrecked.

TOM

Baby Girl

I come from a large Catholic family, thus a pile of Christian names for my sibs like Dennis and Chris. None of us had a nickname, except my sister Pat. My father, who had a habit of marking stuff up, called her Moogee Mogg. “That is not a word,” we’d say. Out came my father’s fountain pen, on to the paper he’d write in silver ink. “See it is a word.” “What does it mean,” we’d complain. “It means your sister.” We all laugh and say that’s silly. Years later I come to understand the whole universe is Moogee Mogg.

Broadly Excepted

I believe POETIC LICENSE is too broadly implemented. If I was making up the rules Poetic License would be limited to creating words for orphaned expressions. Take the colors silver and purple. Currently there aren’t any words in English which rhyme with either. This oversight would be address under my new improved rule.

Let’s start with the basics pilver and surple, a type of beer and the way to drink it. On to the intermediates Wilver and Zurple the movement of a cat on catnip. And last drilver and Thurple, the head teamster and his brakeman.

Have a Milver Lurple day.

My Word

I have a word that does not exist, but it should. It is a lovely word both in purpose and form. It is lilting on the tongue and parses through the air like a silver thread. It is cautionary and in the correct situation lends itself to a teachable moment. Not wholly foreign in structure, built from time honored parts. It may be viewed as presumptuous as Antidisestablishmentarianism, but I prefer to see it as precisional. I have written to the folks at Webster’s to add it to their lexicon, sadly deaf ears. Perhaps they too are suffering from Hypercriticality.

JERRY

The mob surged down the dirt road and up the hill. Their expression and the fire in their eyes was not now of friendship and love. Men, women, and children had picked up sticks and stones on the way from the town to Visitor Hill. To save himself all Sam had to do was say one word. The problem was, in Sam’s world, that the word did not exist. How can you say something that does not exist.

Sam looked up to the blue sky and heaven with his three eye stalks and wished for the return of the ship.

KORY

“Why did you get arrested?” the troll asked Matt.

“Verbal abuse of the Creative Commons Attribution NonComerial ShareAlike 4.0 International Licence”

“I hate that one.” Said the copyright troll.

Matt pointed toward third person in the cell then said “I’m surprised you didn’t eat him just to stop the snoring.”

“You’ve no evidence that my people still eat your people. Also they haven’t coined a term of what he did but it involves shouting “Vive La France!” every time he saw someone drinking a Mexican beer on May Fifth. I couldn’t eat someone who supports my current country’s military?”

SERENDIPITY

The verdict rang out in the hushed courtroom: “Guilty, on all counts”.

Before sentencing, the judge turned to address me with contempt in his voice:

“In all my years on the Bench, I have seldom had the misfortune to preside over a case such as yours. Your crimes are abhorrent in the extreme and lack any shred of humanity.

To torture, debase and murder so many, in such a callous manner, is beyond comprehension; yet what is far worse is that you are proud of your deeds.

‘Remorse’ it seems, is a word that for you, simply does not exist!

ANIMA

I came across this entry in Fodor’s Guide to Party Animals: Mumbolians.

Hmm.

Typically nocturnal, but can sometimes be found in the late afternoon of a big tailgate weekend…

Migrations occur in New Orleans between Mardi Gras and Jazzfest, and can be spotted in Las Vegas anytime.

Breeding Grounds: South Padre Island in the month of March

Distinguishing Characteristics: Chameleonic. Often appearing aware of their surroundings, until consuming one more sip of cocktail, or the pills kick in. Then they slide off bar stools and spout incomprehensible gibberish.

Early onset Mumbolianism is often seen at High School Graduation after-parties.

Interesting…

LIZZIE

That word doesn’t exist, Randy thought, suspecting Patrick, his neighbor, to be either under the influence or raving mad.

Raving mad was a good option, considering that Patrick decided to fill his garden with truck tires recently. When asked why he was doing that, Patrick replied it was for the aliens to land safely in his back yard. Randy laughed.

“But where did you hear that word?”

Patrick, the neighbor, replied, “From the aliens.”

Randy would remember this many years later. The mystery word meant hello and it would be the first word Randy had to learn after the invasion.

TURA

A word that doesn’t exist
——–
I was idling on a park bench when I saw the little green man. It was standing next to me and anxiously tugging my sleeve.

“It is most important that you [….],” it said.

“Er…” I answered smartly.

“You must [….] at once! Or the [….] will [….]!”, it said, jumping up and down with urgency.

“Your universal translator seems to be on the blink,” I said.

“[….]!!” it screamed again, and vanished.

Then I looked up and saw the alien invasion beginning. So I [….]ed, and the spaceships crumbled into dust. Either that, or the drugs were wearing off.

PLANET Z

When two goons in cheap, ill-fitting suits say that the boss wants a word with you, he doesn’t want a word with you.
You have only two choices:
As they’re taking you to the car, run; or run right then and there.
I got in the car.
It’s a nice car. Too nice for anyone to want to shoot anybody in it.
Which is why they took me out in the country.
Out in the middle of a cornfield.
The way the wind blew through the stalks, it was so beautiful.
I barely heard the gunshot, or felt the bullet.