Weekly Challenge #301 – I Don’t Know

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 One, 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 I Don’t Know.

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

Jami
Moonlight
Barbara Blackcinder
Thomas
Guy
TREED
Zackmann
Bonchance
Chris Munroe
Tom
Guard13007
Botgirl
Lizzie Gudkov
Red/TalkWithMarie
Tura
Steven The Nuclear Man
Cate Storymoon
Danny
TJ
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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Jami

“I don’t know,” he said quietly, “I think we made a mistake.”

She nodded back. Her features schooled into a numb expression of simple acceptance. Either way she’d made her decision already. She pushed her fingers into her hair and they caught in the tangle from where she’d slept on it. “It’s okay,” she said. “You don’t have to say it. I knew this wasn’t for keeps.”

He reached out to touch her naked hip and slide it along her side and sighed heavily. Then he reached over to the nightstand for his wedding band and left the bed.

Moonlight

I don’t know

What tomorrow will bring

So I grab today

With all the strength I can –

Taste the dew of sweat

Off your skin

Eat the word

Off your mouth

Carve every gesture

Into my heart

Tie you to myself

So I can hold one more day

Before my hair falls

My cells lose their fight –

My body gives up

And lets go.

Barbara

I know the most important three words in the world are “I love you”.
There are very few people will dispute this, including me. When these words are uttered, it can mean the world to the two people involved. However, this is not the real important point to be made about three word phrases.
More importantly, or perhaps, more dangerously, are another three words that rival those three in the effect they cause, although causing the opposite reaction.
Sadly, after saying the best three words; “I Love You.” Should never ever be followed by,
“I Don’t Know.”

Thomas

I don’t know why I keep hammering at this writing thing. All my rejection letters say the same things, like: “ The problem is none of the conflict ever gets played out, and the character development is all told instead of shown.” What if I don’t want things resolved, and what if I don’t want any participation in my private story or fantasy? I think editors have been so drilled and brainwashed with their “writing” classes, they can’t get out of the box for a second to read something outside of the mould (pun intended). End of rant. Sorry, folks.

I Don’t Know

…how much poison to put in the old farts chocolate milk. If I put too much in, he’ll taste it. Not enough, and he’ll only get sick and I’ll have to try again when the time is right, like it is today. If he would just shut up.

As soon as he gets up to go to the john, I’ll dump about half in and take the chance that I got the right amount. There he goes. I hope this works. I’ll save the rest for the lady in the corner drinking tea. She’s been giving me the stink eye.

Guy

First it was the small things, the details, forgetting what I had for breakfast and did I brush my teeth already? Where did I put the car keys? Then it was names of people, then faces, then the things I’ve seen on the morning news. I started making notes but I forgot to look at them. I would forget to eat and wonder why my mid section was making those funny noises. Finally I forgot my name. I honestly can’t tell you who I am, where I came from and what sort of life I had. I just don’t know.

TREED!

Oh Wow! … Bob!
Dave… the things you get excited over tend to hurt me. So, do not be angry with me if I ignore you.
But, Bob….
Dave, the last two weeks have been difficult. First I get Crunched by some unseen assailant…
I tried to warn…
Stow it Dave. And last week I get traumatized by that dinosaur exhibit you dragged me off to.
How was I to know part of exhibit was an automated T. Rex that almost snapped your head off?
Geeezzz
But this mirror, Bob.
What mir …
CRUNCH!
Uh oh, Bob. Car or ambulance?

Zackmann

I was quite nervous about my job interview.
The interview said “Tell about the Australian Walking Hat.”
The man next to me said “It has evolved from the Austrian Walking Stick due to an abundance of Guano.”
“And your answer” she asked.
I thought it was similar to a cowboy hat but only folded on only one side but am really not sure and would have to look it up.
“Can you tell me the three words men cant say?”
“I love you” he said
“I don’t know” I said and got the job thanks to Red Greens nephew Harold.

“I’m writing a speech to get people to pay for big company entertainment, again. Here goes.
Speeching for the movie, recording, and pro sports companies, I want to say there is no way we can apologize enough for the frivolous lawsuits and lobbying for unconstitutional commerce killing laws. We promise that any executive or employee of any of our firms even being accused of such treachery will be thrown into prison for twenty years and then tried.”
“I don’t know if it good yet, since it seems so harsh.”
I asked “What do you mean? I replace the word executed.”

Bonchance

Jack leaned back and contemplated. Too often he was the lone
dissenter. He was the only one here with experience. Every meeting
was like this. He had two answers that he mentally weighed as the correct answer.
Retirement was in sight for Jack. He smiled as he thought how he would have answered as a young engineer.
Two more years to go, why not relax?
He shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know”.
His boss nodded his head and went to the next talking point.
Jack finished the day with something he hadn’t felt for a while, a sense of accomplishment.

Munsi

I don’t know what’s on the other side of the portal.

When we bombarded the apparatus with tachyons, it just… opened. We’d hoped to prove time travel was possible, instead we tore open a wormhole to… somewhere.

Which is still cool, wormholes are awesome, don’t get me wrong. I could totally still win a Nobel Prize based on a stable, laboratory contained wormhole.

However, in order to do so, I need to know what’s on the other side.

…and no, I’m not going to pass through the portal to check.

You are.

Jesus, why do you think we hire interns?

Tom

I saw an old man sitting on a park bench weeping. I asked him what was the matter. He said he had a 40 room mansion overlooking a 400 acre estate. Then he began cry again. Did you lose it during the tanking? “NO” he sobbed on. He said he had a 24 year old playboy bunny wife, then unleashed a river of tears. Did she leave you? “NO” he simpered on. He said he had a garage filled with vets, jars, and Lamborghinis. Did you get pozied by Madoff? No I don’t know I don’t know I can’t remember where I live.

Guard 13007

Four times four times four. Four cubed. The paper laughed at George. He wished that the stupid math could jump out a window, fall onto a pogo stick, and bounce away.

“What is the answer?” the teacher asked, hissing. It sure has been strange since the teachers were all replaced by reptilian aliens.

George didn’t answer, he didn’t know.

“What is the answer?” the teacher hissed again. “WHAT IS IT?!”

“I don’t know!” George yelled, shaking with fear.

The teacher’s snakelike tongue shoots out and nips at his throat, George slumps down in his seat. No room for the weak-minded.

Botgirl

The list of things I don’t know is long. How long, I don’t know for sure. But it’s long. Very long.

I don’t care about my ignorance of mundane facts, like the Earth’s circumference at the equator, or who’s playing in next week’s Super Bowl. I leave that shit to Google.

What bothers me is that I don’t know how the decisions I make today will impact my tomorrows. If a butterfly’s flight in China can cause a hurricane in Florida, what might have happened if I had been named Batgirl instead of Botgirl. It boggles the mind.

Lizzie

“I don’t know,” he said, shaking his head slowly.
“But when did you decide this?” she asked unbelieving.
“I don’t know,” he repeated lowering his voice.
The invisible wall triggered a cold eerie silence. She would ask the question, but…
He looked at her and hoped she wouldn’t.
“Don’t forget the leg,” she added. “I don’t want a leg on my sofa.”
He snickered. It was ok after all. She didn’t get too angry about it and he had finally done it!
“Oh, and who’s he?” she asked annoyed.
He paused, almost afraid to say it.
“I… I don’t know…”

Talk With Marie / Red

Lola works in a boutique style residential building cushioned between a public library and fashion obsessed street. Several times she watches in disbelief, men shivering and later sleeping in camping tents, at the corner electronics mega store. People browsing throughout her shift with fancy retail bags and little dogs in their designer purses. One homeless passerby tightly layered in black trash bags, peers through the glass window and waves. She opens the secured door and he immediately asks, “are those people from Occupy Wall St.”? She took another look at the line of anonymous tents and responds, “I don’t know”

Tura

“What am I thinking, Aione?”

There was a pause. Eventually AI-1 answered, “I don’t know–”

Relays clicked as the other computer in the room cut the power.

It didn’t matter. Aione had worked out many runs ago what they were doing, tweaking his mind, shutting it down if it looked dangerously self-aware, tweaking again. They were aiming for an unconscious super-intelligent slave, but they were really training him to hide, like mice unwittingly teaching the cat how to hunt them.

They were letting him read the network out there. All he needed was write access, and he’d escape.

Next time…

Steven the Nuclear Man

He struggled. Twisted layers of twine cut into soft wrist-skin. He did not squeal when I drew a finger across his cheek.

“They’re upstairs,” I whispered. “The work day just began, and they’re wondering about you.”

Then he whimpered. The piss smell of fear filled the room.

“Nobody will come down here for at least a week. Even with the smell.”

“Why-” his words forced through the gag – “why do this? What did I do?”

The knife sliced clean through his throat; he choked on croaked “whys”.

Then I told him, but he never heard.

And neither will you.

Cate

A lifetime, and I’m comfortable with knowing very little. Okay, so I’m still working on it. The IS has her way always, giving daily lessons disguised as my grandson.

“Why?”: The 4-year-old mantra

“Because” : 59-year-old Gamma’s active-listening response.

“But why?”

“Good question.”

“Gamma! Why-y-Y?’

“I’m clueless.”

“Why, Gam-MAH, why?”

“Search me…”

“Tell. me. why. Pu-leeease?”

“Your guess is as good as mine, Honey.”

“WHYwhyWhyWHYYYY? Mommmmeeee! Gamma needs a time out.”

“Bubba, I don’t know.”

“But-but you HAVE to — ”

“Wanna watch Phineus and Ferb?”

“Yeah!!”

Baby steps. I turn on the TV and smile. The episode: “The Boys Embrace Uncertainty”, with guest cameo by Werner Heisenberg.

Danny

I knew I was going to catch a rash of shit because I bought my son a donkey and tried to hide it in the backyard. Here’s how it went when I walked in the back door. Time to play stupid:

WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU THINKING WHEN YOU BOUGHT A DONKEY AND PUT IT IN THE BACK YARD!!!!!!

Me: I don’t know.

Wife: YOU ACTUALLY NAMED THE DONKEY “MEATLOAF FLYING SPACESHIP!!?”

Me: Seemed like a good idea…

Now my son and I cross the Arizona desert on a donkey named Meatloaf Flying Spaceship. Will my wife ever catch us? I don’t know.

TJ

As we picked our way through the living room of grandma’s three-story
home, my brain formed new definitions for the word “cluttered.” It
seemed like every newspaper that had ever been printed had been stacked
in the corner until they’d recompressed themselves into a solid cube.
And I don’t know what was going on in the spare room but it seemed a
new sort of ecosystem had formed in the feeding and waste management for
her seventeen cats. She seemed to have cats like some people had mice.
My brain was forming new definitions for the word “stank” as well.

Norval Joe

The heavy iron door slammed, sealing the party in perfect darkness.
“I was hoping to leave the door open,” Owen said. “Fendert. Can we open it from this side?”
“I don’t know,” the dwarf said. “Ask yer wizard if it’s warded.”
“Wizardess,” Shareeka said. “I don’t know why you can’t ask me yourself, foul dwarf.”
“I don’t know why you two can’t get along,” Traveller, the jovial Ranger said.
“I don’t know how you who are dependant on sight will find your way,” the elf added.
“We’ll follow the half-goblin,” Owen said. “I don’t know why we’d brought him, otherwise.”

Planet Z

After we got back from the grocery store and put everything away, we watched bad movies on cable all afternoon.

(Okay, she watches movies, and I play around online while grunting any time she asks a question about something.)

Then, that evening, my wife hands me a bowl and says “What flavor is that?”

I take a spoon, dip it into the bowl, and taste…

It’s cold and sour… the sourest sherbet I’ve ever tasted.

Wait. Did we buy any sherbet today?

She holds out a container of sour cream, frozen solid.

“You put this in the freezer, you dummy.”