Weekly Challenge #428 – Sausage

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.

The topic this week was SAUSAGE.

We’ve got stories by:

• John
• Jeffrey
• Richard
• Tura Brezoianu
• Lizzie
• Serendipity
• Munsi
• Julie
• Dionysis Clowes
• Chelsea
• Tom
• Spate
• Norval Joe
• Planet Z

The next 100 word stories weekly challenge is on the topic of PUBLIC.

JOHN

Sausage
by John Musico

Mince organs, bathe them in blood, saturate with salt and stuff into a length of intestines, and viola: sausage.
Carnivores must have been eager to create this monstrous medley as it dates back to ancient Greek and Roman history. Virtually every country has their version of this little beasty. The word came from the French which came from the Latin word for salt.
It’s mankind’s self-destruct tool.
If the cholesterol doesn’t totally occlude your arteries resulting in a coronary; the salt will skyrocket your blood pressure and stroke you out. Likely your final words will be; “It was the sausage”.

JEFFREY

Fine Grind
by Jeffrey Fischer

“Do you want to see how the sausage is made?” Yvonne said to Corey, her summer intern. Corey nodded enthusiastically: she was pursuing a career in politics and wanted nothing more than to see how an independent agency worked.

“Take a look at the people around the table. That woman is lining up her lobbying job so she can cash in on her government expertise. The guy over there is checking his Blackberry for baseball scores. Those two guys whispering are deciding which interns to hit on, and the guy at the end of the table is literally an imbecile.”

Corey saw the man drool on a writing pad. “It’s good to see the agency hire the mentally challenged to make them feel useful.”

“Actually, he’s the guy who makes decisions.”

How It’s Made
by Jeffrey Fischer

Frank grasped the hors d’oeuvres in one meaty hand and examined it from all angles. The pastry firmly surrounded the cocktail sausage, save for the tiny, puckered ends that stuck out.

“What’s so fascinating?” asked Larry.

“The humble Pig in a Blanket. It’s the perfect party food: tasty, compact, with a way to hold it so as to not make your hands greasy.”

Larry shrugged. “Okay, so what?”

“Have you ever wondered how they poke that little sausage into the pastry without the whole thing crumbling?”

“Just eat it, Frank.”

RICHARD

#1 – George’s Story – Part 61: Rhinoceros

George had little time to consider how wrong he’d been concerning his new stablemate. By the time he’d recovered his senses, the snuffling had turned to an angry snort and the rhinoceros had advanced from the shadows sufficiently for George to be quite sure he wasn’t simply dealing with an alarmed rabbit!

Having never researched how one should deal with an enraged rhino, he did the next best thing – he screamed at the top of his voice.

The rhino charged.

George knew when it was done with him, he’d be mincemeat… or, more likely, sausage meat… probably a fine pate!

#2 – Rite of Passage

It’s pretty much a modern rite of passage, now the days of wrestling lions, hunting wild beasts and taking extended expeditions into the wilderness are no longer established practice for graduating from boyhood to being a man.

Instead, we have the modern-day equivalent.

A young man, stood before a smoking pyre – clad in the holy vestment of plastic apron, (humorously decorated with a print of a curvaceous woman in frilly underwear), wielding his weapon of choice.

Upon which is borne the sign of manhood…

A solitary sausage, barbecued beyond recognition; pink, cold and riddled with salmonella in the middle.

#3 – Day Out

It was the sausages’ day out – Mr Frankfurter carefully counted the chipolatas in his care as they left the bus and watched their stubby little bodies as they played in the sunshine.

“Careful kids!”, he shouted as they ran about, “Stay out of the sun!”

One of the cheekier sausages answered him back, with a smirk on his sausagey face: “I’d rather be hot, than a chilli dog, any day!”

Frankfurter smiled and called his charges back – “OK kids”, he said with a twinkle in his eye, “It’s time to go to the zoo! Who wants to feed the animals?”

#4 – Just when you thought it was safe…

It was a dark and stormy night – the wind rattled the windows with a sound like dead men’s bones; the rain lashed against the pane, running like dilute blood, staining the glass where it touched.

The writer, hunched over his keyboard, shivered, tapping out the words he never wished to see again, the keys clicking, ticking out the seconds to the moment he knew must inevitably come.

Almost with a mind of their own, he watched his fingers type the dreaded and fatal words…

Too late.

He read the words he had written in horror:

‘The wiener dogs had returned!

TURA

When I was a lad, when we slaughtered livestock, after the skinning and butchering we’d boil the remains and stuff them into the animal’s own intestines. Then they’d hang in the hayloft, so we’d always have meat through the winter, and there’s many as didn’t.

Sometimes the scraps wouldn’t fill the intestines, so we’d mix in some oatmeal. One year, the crops and livestock were all poor, so when one of the old folks was sick and wasn’t going to make it, there was only one thing to do.

That’s why you shouldn’t watch sausages being made. Or the law.

LIZZIE

The Neuroscience teacher was considered quite the genius. However, he lacked the most basic speaking skills.

“This sausage-shaped thing is called myelin,” said the teacher pointing at a diagram of a neuron. “When it’s gone… bzzzt.”

One day, as he prepared to start the class, someone screamed BZZZZZZZZZZZZT from the back row. All students erupted in hysterical laughter.

The teacher slowly walked towards his desk, pulled a button-shaped thing from inside a drawer and hovered a finger over it.

From that day onwards, before sitting down, the whole class would anxiously examine their chairs while the Neuroscience teacher snickered, waiting.

SERENDIPITY

Sausage… what a topic!

And there’s you thinking it’s the perfect excuse for me to conjure a tale of slicing and dicing, cutting and chopping: the exquisite horror of human forcemeat, squeezed slowly into skins torn from their own entrails.

Perhaps you thought I’d evoke the sickening fear of biting into a hotdog, only to choke on your own severed finger, artfully seasoned with sauce and mustard?

Or maybe you thought I’d tell of the sausage factory… the place where we all go when we die – recycling in its most nauseous form.

And, of course, your thinking is absolutely right!

MUNSI

Are you coming to Sausage Fest?

It’s going to be terrific, I go every year. Chefs from Germany, Austria and Belgium are flying in, plying their wares, offering samples and discussing sausage-making techniques, it’s fun for the whole family.

Also: My favorite Journey cover band, the Any Way You Want Its, will be playing. They do Journey songs in the style of your choosing, it’s a hell of a show.

Any way you slice it, this will be one huge sausage party. So come one come all, to Sausage Fest!

I just hope there are more girls there this year…

JULIE

The Falling Man

A private moment,

Falling, a thousand feet–

His last breath.

Taking in clean air,

Finally free from the acrid smoke.

Grace, stillness–

Perfect quiet,

Burn alive, or go quickly.

You were executed,

And made the choice

For your death.

A remarkable act of censorship,

No one wanted to speak of the falling man—

I pick at this scab,

Open this wound—

Oh falling man,

Searching for air–

Soul damned by suicide.

“I’m not going to jump–

I’m going to come home to you.”

Oh falling man–

We will not airbrush you from this day.

Not you,

Nor the 200 others.

DIONYSIUS

How Sausage Grew

At first, Sausage was a simpleton.

Spirit told him in a dream: You are too simple! Do you enjoy being so dull and tasteless?

No, said Sausage, drooping visibly in his dream, and Spirit told him to go forth and plump himself up with wisdom.

From that day Sausage went to all corners of the world so that he might be plump.

Wherever Sausage went, people stuffed him with everything that might come into their heads, salted him with their tears, and, because he was open and indiscriminate, recommended him to their friends.

That is how Sausage grew tasty.

Hegel’s Lecture on Sausage (1827)

In the diversity of nature we find sausage merely in the abstract, sausage in itself. In this mere existence, the Concept appears to rest in its diversity, the Concept has not come systematically to itself in and for sausage.

The negation of this negation, in which a casing is nothing but an intestine, liver rests as a particular individual’s organ, becomes, as negation, the passing over into [ceasing-to-be of] the coming-to-be of Spirit.

This coming-to-be as Spirit, is therefore also a casing-to-be, the Concept sausage comes into its infinite truth, as a concrete universal sausage — which we eat!

Sausage aufgehoben — Now it is time for lunch!

The 2014 100-Word Symposium on the Reconstructed 1827 Lecture on Sausage

Attributed to Hegel

Metzger’s discovery of Hegel’s lecture notes on “sausage” is a big deal. The organizers are grateful. Listen.

Me first! Hegel’s sausage-based ontology —

Thought thinks a thought of sausage but the sausage-thought is a second thought that thinks sausage as thought.

Time is a sausage not that we eat, but that eats us. The eating becomes for us a recollection.

Unconscious sausage is German nationalism!

Wrong! Wrong! Wrong! Inferential links among sausages —

HEGEL’S IDEALISM INCORPORATES SAUSAGE AS A MASTER CODE!

I say Sausage is the Big Other.

Begriff ist Gott! Spirit ist Gott! Sausage isst Gott!

Onto-theo-epistemo-semiological-false-inferential-post-structural-unconscious-metaphysical-teleological-idealism!

Hahaha! Wonderful. Thanks. All about sausage. Lunchtime!

Kooken Came to Town

The only thing Kooken remembered from his first trip to town was Lola. She was walking, strutting indiscriminately to attract more discriminating men.

Until then, Kooken had focused exclusively on raising pigs and chickens with his father and six brothers. His experience with women consisted of the excellent sausage made by his equally simple mother.

His none-too-subtle middle brother told him that he could win a woman like Lola only with a gift of sausage.

Lola laughed at his simple gift, of course. But the sausage was indeed excellent, and few knew that she kept the anonymous giver in her heart as long as she lived.

Three-Little-Pig-Agains Wake

haggis around smoking a summer Sundae.

Mama: wurst brats! No do chorizo! Pigs, fly out mein ‘ouse!

Merguez! dit Frank en fort, Slim Jim de tofu, Sage Paddy.

A wolf was casing the Phrik! says he, Three fine pigs in blanket! Yam naem! Cumin choucru garni?

Boudin? sagt Frank. Note harbin chin! Y torun torunska homama.

Banger banger. Saltus, blood? Plastic?

Plastic? says Paddy gravy. Note harbin chin! Y torun torunska homama.

Thin knack knack.

Baloney! says Slim. Note harbin chin! Did ye bock me mortadella, tube snake?

Salamit’s been good to know ya: Meetvursti!

Sucuk! Smoked, weenie!

Doi! Red hot dog pudding. Wolf!

Y Slim Jim grinnded homama, where

CHELSEA

In high school I had a super cheesy science teacher. He taught us about chemical bonding by describing elements as dating couples. He explained the downsides of over eating by telling us that we should leave the extra hot dog in the fridge till we could have a conversation with it because that would be healthier.

Now, well into my thirties, every-time I see a hot dog the same thing goes through my head, “Hello, Mr. Sausage. I’m glad I didn’t eat you. Now you can be my best friend”, then I eat the hot dog. Is that wrong.

TOM

A Well Defined Relationship Part 57

It has been said the making of laws is like the making of sausages—the
less you know about the process the more you respect the result. Same can
surely be said for the act not the art of war fair. Dino Mod emptied both
his pistols into the backs of the 12 bandits, then hit the ground just as
Timmy and the Doctor where within spitting distance of El Cid. From the
hard left Smith and Banister charged into the cloud of dust. The plan was
working, right up to the clack of lighting, and the sudden down pour.

sausage

I grew up in the most sausage intense city on the planet. In Chicago there
are entire shops dedicated to ground stuffed tubes of meat. And we’re not
just talking German here, there’s this Puerto Rican bat sausage that will
burn the hair off your chest. A Basque pork that smells in the mouth, for
a mere $50 a pound, when you can get it. Of course there is the other end
of spectrum, Oscar Mayer, the worst, bratwurst, liverwurst, and weißwurst.
And the of wiener death don’t get me started. As a kid live on Hebrew
National hot dogs.

SPATE

Hash – Part 17

They strapped him onto the stainless steel table; inserted two IV’s and
started the drip.

Davidson smiled, closed his eyes and quietly died.

Warden sighed.

The cons stood at the front of their cells silent. and naked.

Tiffany fought tears. She had won the bet but lost the closest thing to a
friend she ever had.

She fit him into the cadaver pouch, pausing to position his hands to show
two middle fingers before zipping the plastic shut.

“Fuck you world!”

Maybe Davidson’s life was a hash but now stuffed into that body bag he more
closely resembled a sausage.

NORVAL JOE

Old and grey
as the winter’s day, and cold
like death’s embrace.
I gather ’round
the dandy lion down of
youth’s memories lost,
blown on summer’s breeze and
buried in the hoary frost.
In the steel grey sky
The geese now fly, headed south.
To warmer climbs much more sublime than suited to my aged bones.
And sausage dogs,
The sausage dogs that pitch and role
and dig in holes in search of rats,
They lift my soul.
My heavy soul
Which in me quakes and
And whines at all my weary aches
Takes cheer at last with sausage dogs.

PLANET Z

All these mothers and kids, coming across the border.
Dying in the desert. Kept as slaves by coyotes.
The lucky ones throw themselves on the mercy of the border patrol.
Food. Diapers. Beds. Medicine.
All in short supply.
Politicians, activists. Nobody doing a damn thing.
So, we offered a solution.
We set up rescue stations along the border. Took ’em all in.
A place to stay. Plenty to eat. Get them back to healthy.
And then, down to the processing plant.
Harvest the organs, grind the rest up into sausage or fertilizer.
Corn. Potatoes. Wheat.
Food for the next batch.