One day, the river was flowing.

The next, the river was covered with a sheet of ice.

I have never watched a river freeze.

So, when I heard that the forecast called for a deep freeze, I got bundled up and headed out to the river to watch.

The temperature dropped quickly, and I could see my breath through the scarf.

Snow falls, I can see white on the riverbanks… then dark shapes in the dark, shimmering water.

My eyes are heavy with the cold, but I still watch.

The shimmering water slows, until…

Until I have frozen to death.

I take this as a sign that The Wacky Adventures of Abraham Lincoln must return.

Stay tuned.

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The 100 word stories weekly challenge is where I post a topic and then you write and record a story based on that topic.

The next topic is Anything you want, Higgledy piggledy, Tree.

You have until midnight on Saturday February 13 to get me the following:

• The text of your story so I can post it on the site.

• If you have a blog, podcast, or other site that people can go to so they can learn more about your handiwork, the URL would be appreciated.

• What you would like the topic of Weekly Challenge #200 to be. Failure to send in a topic with your selection will mean that if you win, whoever is in second place will be considered for the topic, and so on.

• A recording of your story in .mp3 format. Please use your name as the filename if you can, okay? Makes it easier to produce the show quickly.

If you do not feel like recording a story for the podcast, well, go ahead and send the story in anyway. I'll include it in the show notes, but it won't be eligible for choosing the topic or winning the magnets.

Send the stories to isfullofcrap (at) gmail.com with the subject line of WEEKLY CHALLENGE 200 and then add a comment here saying you've sent it in. The subject line is pretty important because even GMail tosses things in the Spamfilter by accident.

Once all the stories are in, I'll assemble them into a single podcast collection for your enjoyment.

Good luck, and feel free to e-mail me with any questions you have.

Hear y'all in a week, and as always, keep it brief.

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Welcome to the Weekly Challenge Number One Hundred And Ninety-Eight, 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... was.... um...

It's Haggis!

The excellent theme music is by Guy David.

VOTING

Go ahead and listen to them and then vote for your favorites (multiple selections are allowed):

Taylor

Charlie the Gnome had been working hard all morning.

First he went to the market and traded what donuts he had for the
ingredients. Then back in his small cottage he had soaked and roasted
and chopped and mixed and stuffed the various items until he had
several plump round sausage. Finally, he put them in a pot of boiling
water. Their foul smell filled the cottage.

Charlie went outside. He looked lovingly at his ravaged donut orchard.
In a couple of hours her could hang the Haggis among the donut trees.
That should keep the Bugbears away, Charlie thought.

Steven

"Welcome to Haggis Anonymous. My name's Bob."

"Hi, Bob," the crowd said.

"It started with bridies and a utilikilt," Bob said. "Just a little
something at the Renfair. Then I tried blood pudding - and liked it."

Murmurs of sympathy came from the seated members.

"Before long, I wore tartan and piped bagpipe music into my office."
Bob paused. "I'm a dentist."

The others contemplated the combined horror.

"Then I ate haggis. Every meal. Snacks, even," Bob said. "I went
clean one year ago."

"How?" the new kid asked.

Bob smiled. "Eating the closest thing to haggis that isn't. Hotdogs."

Zachmann

Today we play our favorite game, "You taste it before we tell you what is in it". Remember when you thought Chocolate meat had chocolate in it? You might like this as much as balut. Smell the aroma. Tastes It. Does it tastes good? Are you sure you want to know what is in it? It is like sausage made of sheep with oatmeal and onions then cooked in the natural casing of a sheep's intestine. Now will you want haggis as often as you ask for Okonomiyaki, if there are any leftovers we can put it in Okonomiyaki.

Almo

Having no female heirs, James R. McTavish laid down in his will that a closely held family recipe for haggis would go to cousin Mavis. Mavis looked sheepish. "Haggis?" she asked. Jim Junior whispered in her ear. Mavis, a dyed-in-the-wool vegetarian made a horrible face. Much to everyone's surprise, Mavis took the recipe and opened a chain of Scottish restaurants. "I never thought she'd have the guts," said Jim, who invested much of the family fortune. Two months later, Mavis was on the lam, absconding with the money. "Certainly pulled the wool over my eyes," Jim lamented.

Katharina

The handcuffs felt cold against her wrists - almost like a new bracelet. She figured they must be real ones, even though she wasn’t able to see anything through the blindfold. There was a sweet, chocolatey smell in the air - she soon found out why when the sauce dripped onto her chest. His tongue was soft on her skin, then she felt his finger on her lips. When she opened her mouth, she felt his weight shift, as if he wanted to feed her.

The very second the smell reached her nose, she shouted out loud…

“Haggis??? ARE YOU CRAZY!”

Anima

"You are trying my patience Jack, first with "getting back to your cultural roots" and now this "localvore" eating.

"Sorry, luv, but, ain’t they cute?"

"Yes, spring lambs are adorable, but soon they mature into summer sheep, then they’re winter mutton. Where are you going to keep ‘em? In the dog kennel?

Jack glances towards the spare bedroom - "You haven’t used the eliptical in a bit..."

No! Absolutely not. No way am I going to pretend our three story walk up is a croft on the moors just so you can make haggis for Burns Night next January, Jack Shay.

Mick

"Shush, Jamie, ye'll scare them awa'," said Auld Tam.

"But uncle, the haggis..." insisted Jamie.

"Hold yer weesht, boy. Dinnae frighten them!"

"Uncle Tam, you wanted to know when the delivery came," said the boy,
hauling a clear plastic bag full of intestines onto the table. Tam
gave the boy a deep scowl and pointed to the door.

Jamie's shoulders drooped as he walked off. "Shall I put the oatmeal
and sheeps' stomachs for the haggis through here too?" he asked.

Tam abandoned his story and buried his head in his hands as the
tartan-clad crowd of tourists fled, green-faced and retching.

JRadimus

Have you ever wondered where those disgusting cultural delicacies came from? Well, I’m gonna tell you anyway:

Every culture hates or fears foreigners, and each developed a way to intimidate them. Drinking games didn’t last long. It became a contest of edible one-up-man’s-ship, a culinary arms race, a game of gastronomic chicken. But you won’t recognize any chicken on that battlefield. The Britons have Blood Pudding. Hispanics have Menudo. Southerners have Chitlins. The Scots entered the war with Haggis. Koreans have Kimchi. The world didn’t know what to do when the Chinese brought animal penises. An immediate armistice was demanded.

TJ

It's untested! You mustn't!

Chocolatier Charlie Bucket's fanciful R&D department was at a loss for fresh ideas. So he dipped into that tired old "golden ticket" well once more, summoning children to the chocolate factory.

The winners were as hopeless as ever. Among them, Scots McTavish grabbed a hunk of red glop on a counter and ate it. In theory, you ate it and tasted whatever you most wanted to.

"Mmm ... mother's haggis," he began, and then stopped as he became encased in a sac. In reality, everyone tasted haggis. Because they became haggis. The oompah-loompahs rolled him away.

Norval Joe

Robert sat at the table and glared irritably across the food at his parents. "I hate Haggis," he said. His mother looked surprised and asked, "Why do you say that, Robert?" "I don't know," he said, shaking his head. " I mean, who cares if Harry, Hermoine, and Ron love him so much. He's stupid and irrisponsible. I don't see why Dumbledorf keeps him around." "Dear, the character in the Harry Potter books is Hagrid. Haggis is a traditional scottish dish made from sheep guts, onions and oatmeal." "Oh. Well then. Compared to that, Hagrid's not such a bad guy."

Planet Z

I won an all-expenses paid trip to Scotland.

I saw the castles, the moors... the whole works.

I even ate haggis.

I found it delicious.

After I cleared my third plate, I asked the waiter what kind of animal a haggis is.

“It's a fierce and vicious animal,” he said. “They use the guts for food and the skins and bones for bagpipes.”

“Hunt?” I asked.

I love to hunt.

So, I'm out on the moors, shotgun in one hand and pair a metal spoons in the other, smacking them against my leg.

SHHHH! What was that?

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Sister Hexx warns me that the cheese can be dangerous.

Lord, was she ever so right.

I opened the refrigerator door and reached for the cheese.

I had a cheese knife.

The cheese had a gun.

You know, my doctor had said that cheese was bad for me, but who listens to their doctor?

He said the same with red meat.

I look out the window, a slab of red meat behind the wheel of a Buick, circling the block.

The dent in the hood, the cracked windshield.

I was lucky, yes, but one day my luck will run out.

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I see a trail of mini-donuts leading into the woods.

They wind through the trees until they trail into a cave.

At first, I thought it was a trap set by a bear to lure people to their doom.

Then, I saw a caveman come out of the cave, picking up and devouring the donuts.

I follow the trail of donuts out of the woods, and it ends in Spain.

What the Spanish want with him, I'm not sure.

Thoroughly confused, I head to the donuts shop, where I am captured with a butterfly net and dragged into the back.

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The chief of the Yil-Doi tribe lays on his buckskin stretcher, facing the stars with lifeless eyes.

His son takes his badge of office, a bag made of woven strings of brightly-colored beads, and places it on his belt.

"I am the new chief now," he says. "You warned me that I would cry at your passing into the darkness, father, but I have not."

He is immediately grabbed by two braves.

They place tweezers of antler bone into his nose, pluck out three hairs, and place them in the holy bag.

Tears and snot ran down his aching face.

Yes, I made it to Drabblecast.

Four and a half years of daily practice writing the things helped, I guess.

Thanks to Norm Sherman, Luke Coddington, and the crew for passing over all the excellent and awesome stories they get to scrape my submission off of the bottom of the barrel.

And thanks to all of you, the mad menagerie of Weekly Challengers and addicted listeners. This achievement would not have been possible without your encouragement and raising of the bar each and every week.

Now who's going to be the next one there? Still gots me some Amazon gift certificate moneys to give away, you know.

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Dr. O'Grady had been seeing the patient for a decade, treating his chronic foot fungus as best as he could.

He never cured it, but it never progressed beyond those two toes, so that was something, right?

The coroner quietly ushered him into the morgue.

"He was your patient, so I thought it best that you see him," he whispered.

"Why are we whispering?" asked O'Grady.

The coroner pulled up the sheet to reveal a roughly human-shaped glob of deep red fungus.

"I'm not sure he... it is dead," said the coroner. "And I don't want to wake it up."

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The groundhog pokes its nose out from its hole.

It sniffs the air and smells death, millions of times over.

Burning ash in all directions.

Was it an asteroid?
Was it a nuclear war?

To the groundhog, it doesn't know. Or care.

It doesn't matter whether it sees its shadow or if there will be six more weeks of winter.

There will be plenty to forage on when the burning storm dies down. Plenty of water in cracked pipes and cisterns to drink.

Unless there are survivors.

Then, it will be hunted.

It goes back into its hole to hide.

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The ugly red clots are in my handkerchief, spelling out a message I can't quite understand yet.

Three months? Four months?

I wad it up, toss it in the sink, and light another cigarette.

No point in quitting now. The clots tell me that clear enough.

Back when they were green or yellow or white, I could read the future.

If I spit them up in your hand, they'd tell your future.

Money. Love. Fame.

I knew it all. And they were always right.

Now, they're red, and they tell my future.

As much of one there is, I guess.

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The 100 word stories weekly challenge is where I post a topic and then you write and record a story based on that topic.

The next topic is Haggis.

You have until midnight on Saturday February 6 to get me the following:

• The text of your story so I can post it on the site.

• If you have a blog, podcast, or other site that people can go to so they can learn more about your handiwork, the URL would be appreciated.

• What you would like the topic of Weekly Challenge #199 to be. Failure to send in a topic with your selection will mean that if you win, whoever is in second place will be considered for the topic, and so on.

• A recording of your story in .mp3 format. Please use your name as the filename if you can, okay? Makes it easier to produce the show quickly.

If you do not feel like recording a story for the podcast, well, go ahead and send the story in anyway. I'll include it in the show notes, but it won't be eligible for choosing the topic or winning the magnets.

Send the stories to isfullofcrap (at) gmail.com with the subject line of WEEKLY CHALLENGE 198 and then add a comment here saying you've sent it in. The subject line is pretty important because even GMail tosses things in the Spamfilter by accident.

Once all the stories are in, I'll assemble them into a single podcast collection for your enjoyment.

Good luck, and feel free to e-mail me with any questions you have.

Hear y'all in a week, and as always, keep it brief.

Download episode