It was near dark when I approached the bridge. I had left the road a mile back as to be downwind and in the cover of the brush. Two days before I had wadded the river South of the bridge on my way to Jakes farm. Jake has some of the sweetest tomatoes and the crispiest red apples of anyone in the valley. Today, because of the heavy rain and the river being up, I would have to use the bridge. Couldn’t let the grub get wet. If I timed it right I would not have to pay the troll.
Author: R.
Laptop
When I got a high-power laptop from work, it could produce my podcast and run Second Life, so I didn’t need my personal laptop anymore.
It’s still got a year left in it, I figure. I could have sold it on eBay or trade it in for Amazon credit, but I decided to give it to someone who needed it.
The problem is, whenever I see them log on and off a few times in a row, I worry that the laptop is having issues.
I don’t want to be nosy about it.
I’ll just budget for another. And wait.
Weekly Challenge #472 – Troll
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
- Jeffrey
- Richard
- Serendipity
- Tom
- Kimi
- Zackmann
- Tura Brezoianu
- Lizzie
- Spate
- Norval Joe
- Anima
- Planet Z
What’s the next Weekly Challenge? Come to the website and subscribe to the feed to find out!
MUNSI
On Trolling
By Christopher Munroe
I’m on the internet a lot, and yes, I do like to argue. Sometimes things get heated, sometimes I find myself saying things I don’t mean.
What can I say? I have strong opinions on things, and sometimes I get bored. I find a Libertarian or an Anti-Vaxxer and go to town, not even bothering to make points, really, just irritating them for its own sake.
Not the noblest of hobbies, but it relaxes me.
Still, I wouldn’t consider myself a troll.
I mean, I do live under a bridge.
And I do eat children.
But no.
Not a troll…
JEFFREY
Across the Bridge
by Jeffrey Fischer
Steven slowed on the approach to the bridge, feeling the car shift into a lower gear. This was it – the place his travel agent warned about. “Don’t slow down,” she said. “Maintain your speed and you’ll be fine.”
Taking a deep breath, Steven took her words to heart. He gunned the engine and raced past the booths. Alarms began to clang, but Steven kept going.
“Piece of cake,” he later told her. “I didn’t even see it.”
“See what?”
“The troll you warned me about.”
“Steven, I told you to mind the *toll*, not *troll*.”
Troll
by Jeffrey Fischer
“He’s a troll.”
“Dear, I think they prefer to be known as ‘little people.'”
“Isn’t that just dwarves who like the term?”
“Hmm. Or do they now prefer ‘short-statured’? It’s so hard to keep up.”
“In any event, we need to keep moving if we want to be at grandma’s house by nightfall.”
“Let me handle this.” Martha left the car. “Yoo-hoo, Mr. Little Person! Would you step aside so we can drive on?”
The troll merely held out a hairy paw and continued to block the road. “Stanley, just pay the man.”
“I don’t see why I should have to pay a troll just to get across a public bridge.”
“STAN-ley!”
“Fine, if it makes you happy.” Stanley pointed the EZ Pass at the troll, who then smiled at the couple and waved them on.
Trolling
by Jeffrey Fischer
In Scandanavian folklore, Fairies sometimes exchange a human child for a troll. This creature is known as a changeling. Although adults often mistake the changeling for a real child, and parents often care for it as their own, other children can see the truth. No matter the pretty clothes, the carefully-done hair, or the smattering of social graces, we human children can spot a troll from a mile away. The ugliness goes straight to the core.
“Mom! Jeffrey’s being mean to me again.”
“Jeffrey, how many times have I told you not to troll your little sister?”
RICHARD
Trolling
The internet has much to answer for, if nothing else, it’s given us trolls a really bad name. Marginalised as drama lovers, timewasters and even downright evil, the internet is a stain upon our good name.
So, it’s time the record was set straight – no more of this troll nonsense, let’s call a spade a spade and give these idiots a name they really deserve… Tossers, jerks or morons is a good start; that way, us real trolls get on with the more traditional pursuits, like lurking under bridges.
But as for the internet… It really gets my goat!
SERENDIPITY
Those dratted goats think they have the better of me… Tramping across my bridge as if they own the place; showing no respect and thinking they’re so superior.
Whilst they play in the fields, feasting on fresh grass in the warm sunshine, I squat in the dark and the damp, dreaming of warm goat meat, and making my plans.
Those goats think they’re so clever, with their witty answers and sharp horns, but I intend to have the last laugh in the end, and then I will feast on their flesh.
For tonight, the darkness comes… And so do I.
TOM
Fa-la-la-la-la, la-la-la-la.
It’s not easy being the choir-master at Billy Goat Gruff Universality. With a mandate to offer higher education to the under severed Troll community it presents how you say it: many ongoing challenges. Not the least keeping our kids alive. We’ve been quite successful in our mixed choir preparations for the annual Christmas concert. The Trolls are particularly fond of Deck the Halls. They sing out with such gusto. The goats are glad for the distraction. “OLY please put Timmy down, and do wipe off that Grey Poupon. Once again from the top with feeling: “Troll the ancient Yule-tide carol.
Way pass Hello Kitty
They say popular fashion no matter how odd will return in 20 year cycles. And so it is now time for the third wave of Troll dolls. Frankly I never understood how the previous offerings got traction. I get Barbie, projection, emulation, and role modeling. Troll dolls ugly having a permanent bad hair day. OH ya there’s that creepy naked thing. I guess the human capacity for love is considerably deep, and in the face of female objectification that grinning plastic urchin is one big fuck you I’m not going to playing by the rules of an unrealistic male paradigm.
WALK AWAY
In my computer classes I spend a fair amount of time on etiquette. I warn my class against engaging in Flaming. We talk about Trolls. Not the ones who live under a bridge, though from the exchanges I have witness these folk may well have been raise under one. Sometimes it’s hard for older students to grasp the level of dysfunction that floats on the Internet. I wish I could use a bit more color to my lectures, like, shit disturbers hell bent to get you so pissed off you tell them to fuck off, point, game, set, match.
KIMI
“No, no , no, NO! I don’t want to go to to bed. Please!? I’ve been good all week. You owe me, you said you would make it up to me when you threw out my favorite t-shirt! You ruin everything! I try so hard, but for what? I don’t know why I did it, it just happened! Why don’t you trust me? What did I ever do to you? This is so unfair.” Hot tears seep from the squeezed shut eyes. Yawn. A blow into a tissue , then sleep. The fit cycle is complete.
ZACKMANN
“I can’t believe I’m in jail again.” Matt said to his cellmate.
“I’m surprised you didn’t come in and start screaming.” Said the troll in his cell.
“Well, it’s not like you a monster. What are you in for?” Said Matt.
“No one told me that in this country you can’t sue people for doing parodies of properties your clients own and the judge sent me here for wasting the court’s time”
“A copyright troll. I was wrong, you are a monster but the monster who can get us out of here since most of my stories involve a jailbreak.”
TURA
Troll
——–
He stood, flattened into a crevice in the rock. Others were hidden behind boulders, or concealed under a thin layer of sand and seaweed.
They waited.
Humans had learned how to deal with trolls. Trolls were stupid, and learned nothing.
It appeared at the cliff top, carrying a dead deer. It half slid, half climbed down the loose face.
Suddenly, they hurled their jagged rocks, then ran towards the stunned creature. They pounded it with more rocks, until it stopped moving.
Forty thousand years later, in the back of a collapsed cave, archaeologists would discover a specimen of Neanderthal man.
LIZZIE
Revenge is a Dish Best Served Cold
The Virtual Troll Convention was highly anticipated by the troll community. The sessions went quite well until a man stood up and started yelling incomprehensible sentences. The trolls were appalled. This was a serious event where they learned new tricks to annoy others in-world. Suddenly, a troll grabbed the man by the collar. “You are destroying our event.” The man calmly ignored the troll and started banning them all, one by one. “I always wanted to do this,” he said, an evil tone in his voice. In fact, he was the owner of the place and the trolls didn’t know!
SPATE
The Curse of the Troll
Gasoline fueled flames surround the Troll. No escape, except maybe the
window?
With clothes afire, skin beginning to bubble, he darts across the room,
desperately reaching for the window but finding it nailed shut.
Banging on the window, he curses: “To all who hear me, you will die as I
do!”
His executioners laugh and drive away. On the highway they’re in an
accident. Their vehicle catches fire. They are trapped inside and burn.
So it is true. Whoever hears this curse (now including you) dies banging on
a window while they burn.
even if it’s only in their imagination.
NORVAL JOE
Yeah. So I live under a bridge and threaten to eat goats. That’s no reason to call me one of those monsters. I like the taste of goat, and life below the bridge is nice. It’s out of the sun and there’s always fresh water.
I ran an extension cord from a light pole by the street and now I can even plug my laptop in, when I’m not harrassing goats. Day and night I can get onto facebook, twitter and public forums and start arguments with unsuspecting people.
They’re as stupid as goats.
Okay. Maybe I am a troll.
ANIMA
A Modern Love Story
Jack and Dianne relaxed on the couch, surrounded by the comfortable chaos that was their life. Toys were strewn about, and Katie had only just gone to bed..
What’s this? she asked, as Jack placed a jewelers box in her hand.
Just a little something to commemorate the day you fell in love with me.
Huh?, our anniversary is not for another 6 months.
No, silly. It was 5 years ago that we met in that college bar. You thought I was funny.
That’s not how I remember it…
You called me ‘droll’.
You jackass, I called you a troll…
PLANET Z
Buffaloes were hunted to extinction.
All the buffalo meat in your buffalo burgers is actually bison.
The same thing happened with trolls. Man hunted trolls to extinction.
The troll meat in your troll stew is actually ogre.
Ogre meat is actually healthier than regular cow meat.
It’s leaner and hardier, so it doesn’t need all those antibiotics.
As for the taste, well, that’s another story.
It tastes absolutely revolting.
But when was the last time you saw a cow down in the Deadly Swamp of Grondor?
After 2 weeks of iron rations, you’ll eat just about anything.
More troll stew?
Handstamp
Dante wrote that the gates of Hell are inscribed with: “Abandon all hope all ye who enter here.”
It used to be only in Italian, but now it’s in dozens of languages.
But that’s all on the outside of the gates.
The inside reads: “You will need to get your hand stamped for re-entry on same day fare.”
People entering Hell sometimes see that and wonder if it’s possible to leave Hell because of that.
“Can I get my hand stamped?” these people ask.
The Devil laughs at these fools. “Didn’t you read the first sign?”
Then he laughs more.
Sally
Ted always dated women named Sally.
“I got ‘Sally’ tattooed on my arm when I was in the Navy,” he told me. “It was easier dating just women named Sally than to get it removed.”
He’d gotten married recently.
“Congratulations, I said. “Finally found the right Sally?”
“Hell no,” he said. “But you know how people convert religions to get married?”
She changed her name to Sally?
Well. Almost. “Her middle name was Sally,” said Ted, “but you know how love is?”
I sure do.
I rubbed the spot where the Ted tattoo had been and tried not to cry.
GMO
My girlfriend is a vegetarian who won’t eat genetically-modified food.
“You get more information from a mattress tag about what goes into it than you do from a Monsanto food label,” she said.
So, the next time she came over for dinner, I cooked up my mattress.
And it was much better than any of the tofu or bean curd crap she cooked for me.
“That was delicious,” she said. “What was in that?”
I handed her the mattress tag.
Sure, it was hard fitting it in the oven, but it was harder finding a wine that went with it.
Trees
I needed some foliage in my office to liven things up, but there’s no way I’d get sunlight back in this corner, nor would I remember to water the plants.
So, I bought a set of artificial trees and plants, and I arranged them around my desk and bookshelves.
A stuffed woodpecker had built a nest in the tree while I was away at lunch.
“Very funny guys,” I said.
The next day, the flowers had been ravaged by a stuffed bunny rabbit, and stuffed beavers had chewed down the trees to make a dam by the copier.
Fucking bastards.
Kick Me Starter
We’d had problems raising funds for our charity project, so we hired a consultant to help us.
The consultant told us about social media and all kinds of new ways to raise money.
They also found a charitable foundation that would match all of our funds raised dollar-for-dollar.
After weeks for heavy marketing, the fundraising campaign rolled out and we didn’t just meet our goals, but surpassed them.
The celebration didn’t last long, because the consultant vanished with all the money.
Then the foundation matched him dollar for dollar: they embezzled the exact same amount.
Next time, we’ll stick with Kickstarter.
Love Gone Wrong
Everywhere, I see bumperstickers that say JESUS LOVES YOU.
Shit.
Yeah, Jesus and I had a thing back in the day.
It got weird. And then creepy.
I told him to take a hike.
He was all like “FINE!”, but he started following me everywhere, showing up everywhere I went.
Coincidence, my ass.
Then he killed my fish. Turned the water in the aquarium to wine.
I called the cops, but they told me to change the lock.
After that, Jesus threatened to kill himself.
I said “Go ahead.”
And he did.
But the asshole came back three days later.
Anchor by Anima
Ten and two, ten and two, and… release…
The line flies through the air, gracefully arcing under the tree branches. The fly lands, floating lightly on top as it should. A quick mend of the line, and I wait.
The cut under the bank is still. Too damn still. I know there is a big trout in there. I have been stalking him for the last 40 minutes. No caddis, no nymphs, no copper ants, nothing is appealing to this freshwater monster.
Yet again, I drag the anchor, setting the boat in motion, in search of a more gullible fish.