Weekly Challenge #307 – Fingers

Welcome to the 100 Word Stories podcast at podcasting.isfullofcrap.com. I’m your host, Laurence Simon.

This is Weekly Challenge Number Three Hundred and Seven, where I post a topic and then challenge you to come up with a 100 word story based on that topic.

The topic this week was Fingers.

And we’ve got stories by a lot of people:

Bonchance
Tura
Taralyn
Buttermilk
Lizzie Gudkov
InertialVoom
Chris Munroe
Zackmann
Guy
Tom
Chris the Nuclear Kid
Cliff
Steven The Nuclear Man
Red Goddess/TalkMarie
Danny Dwyer
Norval Joe
Planet Z

And if you want to spam your social networks with this episode, use the Share buttons at the end of the post.

The more people see this on Google Plus, Facebook, and Twitter – the more explaining you’ll have to do with your loved ones, coworkers, and parole officers.

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Bonchance

Lucky Haskins was an amiable person who always had a good word to say about a mate.
There isn’t a soul who knows him that doesn’t smile when someone mentions his name.

Lucky has done a lot of time in the joint. He built up a phenomenal list of friends in law enforcement agencies to
compliment his contacts on the other side of the law. Lucky never had a bit of good luck even before the accident,
back when he was known as Fingers Haskins.

No one was surprised when Lucky decided to give up trying to be a thief.

Tura

You know how, if you repeat a word over and over, the meaning drains away? And if you stare at a faint star, it disappears? My girlfriend was into Zen meditation. She stared at her self until it dissolved.

Afterwards, I stared at my fingers a lot. Where do they end and the palm begins? If they’re made of atoms, do they really exist? Isn’t it all just emptiness?

So how could I have strangled a non-existent person with non-existent fingers? The jury didn’t buy that, so here I am, staring at four walls all day. Staring until they disappear.

Taralyn

Fingers, little extensions from your hand, but when do you feel them? For me, it is when it is freezing outside and I have to go out and scrape my windows before my drive to work. While scrapping I start to feel them, but oddly enough it isn’t till I’m done and back in the warm car that they just ache, and I’m sooo aware of them it hurts. I can literally feel the bone piercing up through my flesh, I almost want to cut them off in that moment it hurts so much, but then they warm up, ahhhh.

Buttermilk

16 ladyfingers,
strong brewed coffee, room temperature. Maple syrup, cream cheese, soft. Sour cream, frozen whipped topping, thawed, unsweetened cocoa powder, for dusting, and 16 ladyfingers. They’re the pivotal main ingredient. Damn, where am I going to find 16 ladyfingers at this late hour? Even if I could find one lady to take them from, that would only be ten fingers. And I wanted to double the recipe, so now we’re up to four ladies’ fingers. She said she really wanted Tiramisu for dessert, but I just don’t see how i can possibly manage it now without all those fingers.

Lizzie

His fingers typed fast. The keyboard was steaming. The processor was going as quickly as it could. He was relentless. Clic clic clic. He had to write 5000 words within the next 7 minutes and he was running out of time. “The police found a strange object….” clic clic clic “… for no good reason, the neighbors…” clic clic clic “… thus creating a huge misunderstanding…” and he typed furiously. Suddenly, the phone rang. A shot. Puzzled he looked at his wet shirt. Blood… Clic… 5000 words deleted, clic. One journalist down. The cursor blinked alone on the white page.

Inertial Voom

Loving Hands

He was an old black man who had lived in the Congo during King Leopold II of Belgium’s reign. He opposed the government, and he knew what they would do to him. I watched him eat, deftly quiet, with the clicking of metal fingers.

He was lucky, he had friends who rushed him to a hospital in another country, while bandaging his wounds. I did not need to ask him if he needed any help. He seemed so capable, and he had a hearty laugh. I did find it awkward shaking his metal fingers on his prosthetic hand.

Munsi

It’s an old expression, but a true one: Feed a cold, starve a finger.

That’s not right.

If you have a cold, feed yourself finger food. If you have no fingers, you’ll starve.

Feed yourself cold fingers when you’re feverish?

Wait, I’ll figure it out, just give me a minute!

Chop off your fingers and leave them out ‘til they get cold?

That’s not it either.

This isn’t going well, I admit that.

Still, you knew I wasn’t a doctor when you asked me for advice about your cold.

Now: Let’s start cutting off fingers and see where it leads!

Zackmann

“I wish I ate before we started cleaning this building.” said Sara
“I will buy you some lunch after we are done cleaning,” replied Jan the lead housekeeper.
“Look this box has lady fingers written on it, I think they will not mind if I only take one.”
Jan said “I read in the newspaper that Mulligan Smith and Thomas Blackhall get packages here at Skinner Co so don’t even touch that box.”
Sara opened the box and said “I feel sick” then held up a mason jar.
Jan said “What do you know, this box’s label says Lady’s fingers ”

Guy David

“How many fingers do you see?” the doctor asked. “What?” I asked, still dazed. “six” I added. “Close enough” the doctor cheerfully announced “now take off your coat”. I wasn’t wearing my coat and I quickly pointed it out to him. “That’s odd” he said, “here, have another drink” which was strange since I didn’t have a first one yet. Even stranger was that I didn’t recall getting there at all. “How did I get here” I asked. “Never mind that” he answered getting his big plastic hammer, “let’s see what happens after I bang this on your other head”.

Tom

A tuff tale to tell
She was so tiny. I could nearly wrap my fingers around her. She vibrated as I held her. Somehow this six week old cat had been flung into the middle of the road. The Vet told us the kitten had major nerve damage in the shoulder. She suggested removing the leg. We opted out for hope. The leg never recovered it remain curled up at her side. As cats grew up on our property they learn how to sit with their paw curl up. Even cats who hate Emur lifted their paw. She was my cat for 18 years.

Chris the Nuclear Kid

There was a time when darkness didn’t cover the earth. Then there came there came a mystical stone called the Gladiator. Many Platonians, a race of Goblins, Would have given anything to get their fingers on the Gladiator. The power of the Gadiator was more powerful than any thing any one had ever dreamed of. However, like most powerful things, it had an Achilles Heel. Anyone with possession of the stone could do anything including destroying worlds. Long ago the very first receiver used the stone and used for evil. And now, darkness covers the planets to this very day.

Uncle Monster

At thirteen, I lost my left pinky mowing the lawn. Yeah, it hurt like hell but I got my first robot finger.

Then an index finger got chomped by a horse. They’re right. Never look.
I lost two fingers to the blade of a band saw in shop class. A pinky got caught in the door of a Ford. A cheap pawn shop ring cost me my left ring finger.
The last two I lost in Vegas. Don’t ask.

Then I lost my job.

Yesterday, the prosthetics got repossessed. So, who’s got two thumbs and not much else? This guy!

Steven the Nuclear Man

“They don’t sound like twigs,” I say, snapping its pinkie. “don’t you agree?”

The sociopath screams, and for a moment I think I made a mistake. But it’s charming and superficial – one of them. No conscience. No empathy. No remorse.

“Brian,” it shrieks, “let me -”

I silence it with a smack to the mouth.

“They say,” I tell it as I apply the brand, sizzling flesh, “torturing a person can make you a sociopath. Without empathy. Without feelings.”

I lean close as the light goes out of its eyes. “So tell me, when do the emotions leave?”

RodGoddess/talkwithmarie

Lola hated her bony alien-like fingers. At age 11, she broke two of them, playing hide and seek in her parent’s basement.The pain was unbearable and she had stitches to prove it. Till this day she can still see the fading scars. She had hoped to accomplish more with them than the usual daily tasks. Every time she hears her favorite musicians perform on stage, she wishes she could play the guitar like Tukso, Shannon or Mic. She longs to wiggle those fingers on a piano like Alicia Keys or John Legend but her fingers are just scarred childhood memories.

Danny Dwyer

“Fingers.”

Only 10 years old, I was “playing” with a blender, when I dropped the middle portion of the blender lid into the running blender. In a panic, I reached into the blender to pull out the plastic piece. My left index finger now was hanging on my body by just a small flap of skin. Dad rushed me to the hospital to have my finger sown back on, while my mom was returning from the airport with my Aunt Ruth, only to find my blood dripping from the kitchen ceiling. Aunt Ruth’s new nickname for me from that point on was “Fingers.”

Norval Joe

Owen whined at the wizardess, “Why do I have to be in charge?”
A smile of pained patience wrinkled Shareeka’s unblemished brow.
“Because you are to be king,” she said. “And it’s your queen who is captive.”
“I know,” Owen grumbled and counted on his fingers, “But, we have Traveller, the ranger to guide us. Findert, the dwarf from the mines of Grool. We have Elbowner, a royal elf, and Spleen. Well, no. A half goblin wouldn’t do. But what about you?”
“Me,” the wizardess laughed. “No. The others in the party know me too well to accept my leadership.”

Planet Z

I have a horrible case of the hiccups.

I’ve tried every remedy I know:

A spoonful of sugar to disrupt the swallow mechanism
Breathing into a paper bag to reset blood gases
And even one I saw in an online trivia site: sticking my finger up my asshole

Yes, the finger trick actually works. Because you can’t swallow while you shit. It’s a disruptive neural signal.

A friend of mine suggested a spoonful of peanut butter.

I tried it, and it worked, but It’s a lot messier than sticking just my finger up there.

And a waste of peanut butter.