The 100 Word Stories Podcast

(For Andrew, the one I betrayed the most of all.)

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.

LIMBO

We’ve got stories by:

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

The next 100 word stories weekly challenge is on the topic of MEDIA…

TOM

A Well Define Relationship Part 61

El Cid’s mother hadn’t raised a fool, so he called out for his men to give up. Two of these men were in fact card carrying fools and made aggressive move at the good ladies of the gear guild. Twin pops reduced the number of bandits from 30 thieves to 28 thieves. Cid cried again this time invoking the universal word of surrender. “LIMBO.” In keeping with the rite of Limbo he and his comrades crawled on their bellies away to the right. Backing away the good ladies tossed the bandits mag-straints. None of their mother’s had raised fools either.

JOHN

The Journey
by John Musico

It started one day suddenly. Whenever I made eye contact with anyone; I couldn’t hold back an intense stare. Slowly, the stranger with fear in his eyes,
would change into me and then the lock of the stare would cease. I’d catch “my” reflection: I had become the stranger… again. I can barely remember what I looked like before this curse began; I’ve changed so many times.
One day, dumb luck crossed my path; the original me just standing there. That person of course didn’t recognize me. I eagerly locked eyes. Halleluiah I was back! The curse never returned again.

JEFFREY

How Low can You Go?
by Jeffrey Fischer

Johnny was as surprised as anyone to find himself at Simon’s beach party, doing the limbo. When Simon was in high school, Johnny had bullied him unmercifully, but he supposed that graduating changed everyone.

Johnny kept accepting drinks from Simon until Johnny was unsteady on his feet. It was his turn again, and to his surprise he noticed he was alone with Simon.

As he bent backward to try to slide under the pole, Johnny lost his balance, falling backward onto the sand. He tried to rise, but couldn’t move a muscle. “Don’t worry, that’s just the tranquilizer I put in your drinks,” Simon noted. He started packing up the effects of the party. “You’ll be just fine in around six hours. Too bad that the tide is coming in. I estimate the spot where you’re lying will be under water in about 45 minutes.”

Inhuman Resources
by Jeffrey Fischer

I wanted to hire a Research Analyst for the group, but my top candidate was blocked by a veteran who was manifestly less qualified. I called HR to see what could be done.

“You have to hire the veteran, because he takes precedence over all other candidates,” the HR woman told me.

“Okay, doesn’t it bother you that he appears to have lied on his resume, by saying he passed a statistics course when the course isn’t on his transcript and he denied ever taking the course when we interviewed him?”

“Well, we just have to take his word for it.”

“His word? Which time? When he wrote it or when he told us something different?”

“There’s nothing we can do for you.”

“So the superior candidate, who didn’t lie on her resume, is stuck in a bureaucratic limbo until the end of time?”

“That’s right. Anything else I can help you with today, Mr. Fischer?”

“I’m not sure I can take any more of that help.”

LIZZIE

The body was splattered all over the wide street, right in front of the town hall.

The Mayor scratched his head, looking up at the sky and down at the body. The police Chief did the same while trying to convince federal authorities to come over as quickly as possible. And everyone else just did nothing.

The truth is that the body had fallen from the sky, a rather unusual occurrence, one must admit. But the most bizarre aspect of this story was the fact that, ever since they closed the local airport, not a single plane flew over town.

RICHARD

#1 – George’s Story – Part 64: Alive

As luck – which had been more than generous up until now – would have it; it was the passenger door that faced the exit, through which George propelled himself.

And, it was locked.

Hearing the unmistakeable roar of the lion close at hand, George dropped to the ground, and with the flexibility of a champion limbo dancer, half-slid, half-shimmied himself under the vehicle, popped up on the other side and wrenched open the driver’s door.

Throwing himself into the Landrover, he slammed the door and collapsed behind the wheel, sweating, gasping, bruised, terrified and exhausted – but very much alive!

#2 – Stopover

So much for the ‘holiday of a lifetime’ – we were into our fifth day at the airport with no sign of respite.

It all started when the plane was diverted – the poor flying conditions forced us to land at a remote outpost that few had ever heard of, and a mix-up with paperwork consigned us to the tin shack that served as a transit lounge.

Tempers were frayed, tears shed and everyone’s patience exhausted – eventually, with nothing else on the horizon, we’d all become resigned to our fate…

Left… in a God-forsaken airport, in a town called Limbo.

#3 – If at first…

The knock on the door was unexpected – Limbo Laggings peered through the window, surprised to see the imposing form of a wizard, stood on his doormat.

As the door swung open, the wizard had barely begun to speak when the hobbit tersely interrupted:

“Whatever it is, I’m not interested! No double-glazing, driveway resurfacing or window cleaning… and definitely, not interested in saving my soul! Now, if that’s all, I’ve breakfast waiting!”

And with that, the door slammed in the wizards’ face.

He sighed.

Arranging quests never used to be this difficult. Maybe he should give the dwarves a try?

MUNSI

Limbo

By Christopher Munroe

Every limbo boy and girl,

All around the limbo world,

Gonna do the limbo rock,

All around the limbo clock,

Jack be limbo, Jack be quick,

Jack go under limbo stick,

All around the limbo clock,

Hey, let’s do the limbo rock.

The song plays on its eternal loop, and I know there’ll be no rest, no escape, no moment of respite.

This is my purgatory. Punishment of sins insufficient for hell, but enough to leave me here, alone in the void, with not but one song for company…

Limbo lower now,

Limbo lower now,

How low can you go?

SERENDIPITY

Holiday fun and games are not – as you will no doubt surmise – amongst my favourite things.

Sunbathing, volleyball, alcohol-fuelled beach parties and skinny dipping are really not that high on my list of priorities – but, you know how it is – sometimes you’ve no choice other than to make an effort.

This time, it was limbo dancing at the poolside bar – my suggestion – and I was to go last.

My turn never came – perhaps it was something to do with the razor blades I embedded on the underside of the pole… and the broken glass shards, liberally scattered below it?

ZACKMANN

“What’s Limbo?” asked John.

“Didn’t George Carlin say that there is no purgatory there’s only heaven, hell, and limbo. There’s nothing in limbo because if there were it would no longer be limbo?” said Joe

“Yes, but he proved his ignorance of theology when he asked “Why didn’t God sum up the Bible in one or two sentences?’ When most people know that as ‘Treat other as you wish to be treated’ and ‘Have no other gods before me.’ “ replied John.

“I’m opening Google Maps. If we can’t figure out what limbo is maybe we can find where.”

DIONSYIUS

A Kind of Nothingness

Neither of them could remember how they got there.

At first, it was a place of perpetual happiness. Alone, they were nothing; together, everyone was a newly discovered friend. Somehow, wherever they went, laughter and good spirits were waiting there for them with companions who smiled on their blossoming love.

And then, everything changed — had already changed. When?

Erstwhile friends cast shadows in their looks. The laughter swirled around them, enclosing them, and all potential friends smiled rigidly through them, past them, beyond them, for someone else. When had it changed?

Now they were together alone. Waiting, though neither knew for what.

Storytime in Infant Limbo

There once was a wee jelly jar who dreamed of becoming a big jar filled with jelly.

The wee little jar went to his mother and said, Mother dear, when shall I become a full jelly jar?

Said his mother, I do not know, my child. Ask your father.

So the tiny jar went to his father, asking, Father dear, when shall I grow big and be filled with jelly, so that those who love sweet jelly shall come to me and be filled themselves, with my assistance?

The father looked with compassion on his wee jar and said, Never!

The 2000-Year-Old Baby

They encouraged dancing, always the dancing! Maybe you noticed, babies don’t dance! So the dancing was a failure.

I was never interested in the dancing, I tell you that. But they wanted us busy. Why? Where were we going? Nowhere!

You know the dancing called “limbo dancing”? In the beginning that was big. So big! Nobody could do it!

The thing was here. All we could do was crawl under the thing! They said, No crawling! Dance! Lean over backwards! Always with the leaning! We don’t even stand up! We’re lucky to roll over!

They call it mild chastisement, the limbo dancing. I say it’s hell!

Life on the Outskirts of Hell

The people didn’t think they were fortunate because they were on the outskirts, but because they could see beyond. They could imagine crossing over. It was forbidden of course.

Little Timon often sat with his sister in the still dusk looking across the dusty river. Their parents had gone before either of the children could be baptised. They’d often heard discouraging tales of what happened to those who attempted the crossing, tales of death or worse.

A decision was impossible.

Years passed, they stayed, and Timon eventually grew accustomed to the pervasive stench of burning flesh — even their own.

PALADIN

All I have to do is to type ten digits. Three, three more, and then four. It’s the simplest thing and the most difficult thing. I’d rather be texting. Then I could just type it, revise it, send it, and then at least I could get on with my day while I wait for the reply. I go over the script in my head as I make my way past the area code. My pulse picks up speed as I carry on through the middle bit. I’m almost there. Only four digits left, then three, then two, and then one…

DANNY

The Centaur therapist named Jesus recently found himself cast into Limbo. He decided before he slipped off the edge into hell, he would try to put his therapist skills to good use. Noticing how all the other souls cast into Limbo were terribly depressed, Centaur Therapist Jesus had a brilliant idea. Lets teach them all how to Limbo. The lost souls from Trinidad were quick to place the bar as low as possible. Before long, those who died in Original Sin without being assigned to the Hell of the Damned emerged from death to life, and forgot they were Catholics.

CHELSEA

People say that there is nothing to fear but fear itself. I think there wrong, I think there is something out there that causes more fear than anything else.

It’s a moment, a moment that is gone in an instant. A moment of undefined nothingness.

It is the moment before you find out if you got the part, or before you see your fiancée at the end of the isle. It is the moment before you open the closet door, or walk into your bosses office for a meeting.

The only thing to fear is the limbo of not knowing.

NORVAL JOE

Ulnar Styoid, warrior chieftan of the Olecranon Process, scanned the data from his deep system sensors and shook his cylindrical head.
“Commander. I’m getting conflicting data from our advance scout units,” Liuetenant Commander Vas Deferens said, twisting his ear piece. “It appears there is a Limbo Sacral herniation on the mid-sagital plain.”
“The Mid-sagital?” Styloid asked. “Isn’t that the domain of the lumbar units?”
“Normally, Commander. We believe someone with Astrophysics experience pulled some strings and brought them from between dimensions. They’d been stuck there since galactic mitosis.”
Very well. Send Spheno Palatine to the orbital cavity for a look.

TURA

Limbo
——–
The dancer approached the impossibly low bar, only inches high. As the drumbeat swelled, he slowly leaned back until he was almost flattened against the ground, but still touching it only with his feet. He inched forwards with the beat, until his knees, if you could call them that, poked under the bar. Inch by inch he advanced until his hips passed through. Then in a single flowing movement, his whole upper body snaked under and he stood up to the cheers of his fellows.

Limbo dancing isn’t for humans any more. How can we compete with boneless alien lizardmen?

JULIE

Impossibly clear—

Painfully blue.

There was just too much sun.

Why did it have to end that way?

The perfect day, until it was not,

Until the world changed—

Irrevocably.

Humanity raining from the sky.

Into the earth, down to the

Bedrock of your lives.

13 years later I look at its bloody eye.

There is no sky 70 feet below ground,

To the place

Where we will always remember you.

I take my sandals off,

Root, into the frigid stone—

Small white hand—

Presses your tomb

All of you.

No day shall erase you

From the memory of time.

PLANET Z

Sammy lived and breathed baseball.
Little League World Series.
High school All American.
College World Series.
Drafted first pick, and shot through the minors like a rocket.
A. Double A. Triple A.
And then, the call-up.
While warming up for his first start, his elbow came apart.
Nine surgeries and years of rehab never got it back.
Sammy blew through the signing bonus like a hurricane.
Tried scouting and coaching, but he never had a head for it.
Now he coaches the batting cages on a cruise ship, dancing limbo with old ladies at night.
How low can you go?

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 BOGGLE.

We’ve got stories by:

• John
• Jeffrey
• Richard
• Tom
• Tura Brezoianu
• Serendipity
• Munsi
• Zackmann
• Chelsea
• Lizzie
• Dionysis Clowes
• Rick
• Norval Joe
• Danny
• Planet Z

The next 100 word stories weekly challenge is on the topic of LIMBO…

JOHN MUSICO

Boogled Means Overwhelmed.
by John Musico

That’s Saturday mornings for me.
I can’t buffer it during the week.
The laundry hasn’t accrued to a full load yet, nor the dishes for the dishwasher. The trash bag isn’t yet full, nor the sediment in the pool for backwashing,
nor the dog poop pen for putting it in a plastic bag.
I wake every Saturday morning, make my errand list, and stare at it, stymied by its length; unachievable and thus destined to spill into Sunday. This leaves me with no weekend peace to recharge my batteries and face another grueling week at the office. Yeah, I’m boogled.

JEFFREY

A Random Walk Down Wall Street
By Jeffrey Fischer

John Bogle, founder and long-time Chairman of the investment firm Vanguard, was a staunch proponent of index investing. The logic is simple: because stock prices already incorporate all relevant information about the company’s expected future profits, there’s no gain in paying a fund manager to try to pick winners. Over time, he won’t be able to beat the market. Index funds are cheap to administer and deliver an average return, year in, year out.

Over time, Bogle’s vision continued to catch on. Eventually, every investor made a single investment choice: an index fund of the entire market. No one wanted to trade, because that merely meant exchanging one index for another. Wall Street collapsed. Investors lost everything.

Well, every investor but one. You see, despite his advice to his clients, John Bogle kept his salary under his mattress.

Closing the Deal
By Jeffrey Fischer

For their fourth date, Suzie invited Alan back to her place, to “play games.” Naturally, Alan agreed eagerly. He arrived at her apartment on time, freshly showed and shaved, with a bottle of wine and an expectant grin on his face. She escorted him into her main room, pointed at a shelf of board games, and said, “You’re the guest. Pick one.”

Okay, Alan said to himself, you can still salvage the evening. Find a game you know, play just badly enough to let her win several times, and suggest retiring to the bedroom as a consolation prize. What could possibly go wrong?

He quickly scanned the game choices. He had never heard of most of them. He had vaguely heard of Boggle, so he chose it.

As it turned out, Suzie had a tiny vocabulary and was terrible at identifying words in the grid. Alan won game after game, despite trying to lose, and Suzie was near tears. Finally, Alan could take no more and apologized for winning, explaining that he tried hard to lose but she was just hopeless.

This was not a good strategy, he reflected on the lonely walk back to his place.

RICHARD

#1 – George’s Story – Part 64: Wheels

George leaned against the sign, peering into the enclosure at the irate rhino, and as the realisation of just how narrow his escape had been hit him, his mind boggled.

His ordeal wasn’t yet over – somewhere outside, the hungry lion was stalking and George couldn’t stay hidden away forever.

Gingerly, he peered through the glass panel in the exit door, and his heart thumped: not more than a dozen paces from him stood a zoo landrover – and he could see the keys tantalisingly in the ignition.

He gathered his nerve, took several deep breaths, before exploding outwards through the door.

#2 – Dummy

Being brought up by ventriloquists has not made for an easy life.

Learning to speak certainly isn’t simple, even at the best of times, but when you have to struggle with the tortured consonants and strangled sibilants of a verbally-challenged voice thrower, things become horribly complex: verbs vacillate, clauses collapse and sentences stutter.

It’s taken me years to get to grips with simple, everyday speech, and even now sometimes I struggle. There are few things more embarrassing than going to a bar and hearing yourself ordering a ‘boggle of beer’ – and that is why I only ever drink pints!

#3 – Quest

The Boggle, bemused, stared up at the imposing figure of the wizard filling his doorway.

“You want me to go on a quest, involving magical rings, orcs and a large dragon?”

“That’s about the gist of it”, replied the wizard.

“Well”, replied the Boggle, “I’m flattered, but it’s breakfast time – and, to be honest, I’m not really the sort for heroism and dragons, so I think I’ll decline your generous offer.”

The wizard sighed as the door closed in his face – that was the fourteenth Boggle to turn him down… maybe he should have tried the Hobbits first, after all.

TOM

A Well Define Relationship Part 60

After about 15 minutes each of our heroes had perfected a different offensive stance. Timmy weaved, Smith rolled, Dino crept, the Doc flopped, and Sparky spieled. Not to be out maneuvered the bandits developed an array of animal count movements. The crane, the wiener dog, the otter, the tree frog the three leg cat, and the Star-nosed mole. The ballet in the bog had disintegrated into a Double Zero Sum game. El Cid had gained a momentary upper hand over the doctor. Mrs. Parsons laid her rail gun to his temple. The bandit slowly raised open hands skyward. “Game Over.”

TURA

Boggle
——–
I was born in Edinburgh, where the buses are red. One day, when I was very young, the family received a picture postcard from a relative in Aberdeen. The picture showed a stretch of countryside. In which there was a road. On which there was a bus.

The bus was blue.

I boggled at this IMPOSSIBLE object. How could a BUS be BLUE? It was like looking at a square circle.

But of course, a bus is whatever colour the bus company has it painted.

I wonder, what other merely parochial customs am I still mistaking for laws of nature?

SERENDIPITY

Boggle Marsh is an evil place – they say those who enter it, return changed forever… if they return at all!

Unwary travellers would be wise to stay away… stay safe… stay alive.

What lies within?

They say that at its heart dwells a great evil: feeding on the souls of the lost – its power will rend you asunder, and those who perish in the Marshes’ murky depths never truly die, but spend an eternity in suffering.

So much for legends… All I ask is that you stay the hell away from my little cottage, at the heart of Boggle Marsh.

MUNSI

Boggle

By Chris Munroe

Certain situations defy description, defy comprehension. They’re said to boggle the mind.

But can only the mind be boggled? Can a circumstance boggle the body?

Can a sufficiently uncoordinated person, forced into some sort of physical feat, find himself so out of his depth, so beyond his skill set that physicality itself reels at the immensity of what he’s been charged with doing?

Can he find himself in a position, be it sport or stunt or herculean trial, that defies description, defies comprehension? One that boggles the body?

What do you think of THAT notion?

How’s your mind?

Boggled?

Good…

ZACKMANN

I’m confused about the application of technology on the English language even our United States corruption of it. Not long ago I could not figure out how to conjugate the word “Fax”. Now with ebooks, emusic, and software, I don’t know the best way to say “spend money for permission to use something for as long as it is convenient for the company that sold the licence to you.” It seems improper to say you buy digital content since that would imply ownership, buy a licence to use is clunky, rent or lease seems to imply set dates. I’m boggled.

CHELSEA

Now
Won
Sent
Tweets
Bootie
Townee … Good one
Bowed … Yes!
Newest
Newness… Why didn’t I see that
Woodies … Are you kidding me?

What are you doing? He asked

Playing boggle! She answered. Testees! Woohoo!

Who are you playing against? He returned, looking over her shoulder.

Myself she answers flatly, and that bitch is besting me…. Bones!

Okay…. He replied, slowly backing away. I’ll just leave you too it.

He backed over to where his son was standing.

What’s going on dad? The boy asked

Your mother is playing competitive boggle against herself again. He answered, let’s go out for pizza.

LIZZIE

“I need spine surgery.” Tessa’s work colleague John always found a way out of work. “I have a brain tumor!”

As a matter of fact, he claimed to be a good friend of most of the medical staff at the hospital.

One day, Tessa accidentally… on purpose… made him trip in the corridor at the office. John grumbled all the way to the hospital.

A boggled Tessa wheeled him through the corridors. “No one is acknowledging you…”

“Ungrateful people… I practically paid for the whole new surgery wing,” replied John.

Tessa sighed deeply, thinking to herself “some things never change”.

DIONYSIUS

Boggled to Death

When Joey was picked up he didn’t know what it was for.

A guy who said he was a lawyer told Joey it was capital murder. Did he know what that meant?

He had to sit in the trial. Joey couldn’t get what all the bits and tidbits were to put together. Lots of talking. Did he understand.

Funny it made him think of a thing they showed him one time called Boggle. When they told him to stand up. That word. Letters that made words they said. Some people had to be quiet.

Some media picked up the story that he smiled when he was sentenced. Unrepentant.

Psych Boggled

The sign said, Fort nesT old A vice Ps chic. It wasn’t a good start.

Inside, there was a smell of stale cookies.

Daisy and I confessed to the Ps chic that we couldn’t decide if we should get pregnant.

She pulled out a standard Boggle game and asked for twenty dollars. Who was I to question Parker Brothers? Monopoly money wasn’t accepted.

I found, yes, yessir, yessiree, and uhhuh. Si no good.

No doesn’t have three letters, I pointed out.

Still she found nope and hellno. Nein. Non. And uhuh.

Do you have a Magic 8-Ball, Ps? I asked.

The Ps chic said, Don’t count on it.

RICK

Understanding a woman’s mind is a tall order!
First one must comprehend that whatever they are thinking, is generally trumped by what they are feeling.
The innermost workings of their minds are typically revolving around ways of
expressing those feelings, and having them validated.
Don’t get me wrong … I’m no misogynist!!!
Without women … men wouldn’t even know that feelings are things …
much less that they are important things!

They are the Yin to our Yang!
They bring balance to the universe!
They make our species relevant …

That said …

If not for sex … there would be a bounty on their heads!!!

NORVAL JOE

Mike and Mary spread their blanket on the beach, ready for romance under the stars.
Mike excused himself to pee behind the sand dunes.
When he returned Mary thought he seemed confused. He spoke strangely and said they should sit in the car.
When Mike returned to the blanket, he thought Mary seemed confused. She said they should go down to the breakers.
When Mary’s dad found the car she was in the back seat, naked to the waist and asleep. They found Mike on the beach, naked, wrapped in kelp.
The couple had fallen victim to the dune boggles.

DANNY

I recently heard the quote “If we do not feel happy with what we already have, what makes us believe we would be happy with more?” What boggles my mind is I truly believe I would be happier with less. Honestly, I don’t want to have to mow a lawn once a week, I don’t want to have to make crippling monthly car loan payments for an overpriced Mercedes to impress neighbors and co-workers who I never talk to because they are complete and utter douche bags. Why is it boggling your minds that I’m finally standing up and stating the truth?

PLANET Z

You know those pharmaceutical commercials and the long lists of side effects they read?

There was one drug that didn’t have any side effects at all.

No dizziness.
No stomach pains.
No rectal bleeding.
No side effects at all.

My mind was completely boggled.

Which made me wonder if that was a side effect. To have your mind boggle when you hear that the drug has no side effects.

I called the FDA, but nobody picked up the phone. Or answered their email.

Boggled minds!

It spread until nobody could do anything.

All for some goddamed prescription vaginal freshness cream.