Let’s Write a Story!
Tuesday, May 06, 2008 at 07:54amTHE DEAL: We are going to write a story! I will kick things off with a few short sentences. Then everyone can take turns adding their own few short sentences. By the end of the day, we should have something interesting, and I will close out the story tomorrow with my own ending.
THE RULES: Be brief. Do not monopolize. Keep the spirit of the story in mind and build on it for the next person — don’t write your own unrelated stuff. Try to keep it relatively clean (safe for work). BE CREATIVE. Don’t be afraid to contribute. We are all equal here. DO NOT contribute if you haven’t read every single post before yours. HAVE FUN!
And here we go…
He was still draining the dregs of his pint of Guinness when he signaled the bartender for another. He slid some money across the bar and, with a sigh, unfolded the letter he’d been carrying around in his wallet for the past few weeks. Wearily, he once again began trying to decode the message. The note read…
Maggie on Tuesday, May 06, 2008 at 9:04 am
“Snurg. Floofle har berples, nix hennish purlisk!”
What could this possibly mean?
GeekBoy on Tuesday, May 06, 2008 at 10:14 am
It almost sounded Dutch. Or Swedish. But he’d already typed the words into Google a hundred times, and came up with nothing.
So why would his wife get a letter from somebody in a nonsense language? A letter in a man’s handwriting, which smelled like smoke.
But more importantly, why was he afraid to ask her?
Grey Rainbow on Tuesday, May 06, 2008 at 10:16 am
Ralph reached into his jacket breast pocket, sighed and took out his Little Orphan Annie Decoder ring and got to work. But not before…
Dave on Tuesday, May 06, 2008 at 10:48 am
…the bartender walked up, and glanced at the note. “Hey, where did you get that note?” he asked.
“That’s really not any of your business,” Ralph said.
“Whoa, buddy. Didn’t mean to insult you. I just haven’t seen old Norwegian since I went to school in Gjøvik.”
“You know how to read this?” Ralph asked, amazed at his luck. He handed the bartender the letter.
He read it and looked sadly at Ralph. “Oh, my friend….”
GeekBoy on Tuesday, May 06, 2008 at 12:52 pm
“What?” Ralph said, his heart heavy in his chest.
“Have you ever heard of the Vikings?” the bartender asked.
“As in the football team?” Ralph asked.
“No. As in, the dudes who worship Odin and pillage small towns.”
Dave on Tuesday, May 06, 2008 at 2:40 pm
“I guess so,” Ralph said.
“Well, the letter here says that the bearer of this letter shall feel the full wrath of Odin for wrongs done to his people by those from warmer climes. Technically, it reads ‘The ravens of Odin, Hugin and Munin, shall peck out the eyes of those from the sun realms who have done ill to the OdinChildren. And after the eyes, Hugin and Munin shall pluck the hairs out of the head of the one who bears this note. And they shall then use their imagination to further injure and humiliate the bearer until his shame is clear for all to see.”
“What the hell does that mean?” Ralph asked, part of him marveling at how complex and dence Old Norwegian seemed to be. “And gimme another Guinness.”
The bartender looked thoughtful as he poured another deep, dark beer. He sighed as he slid the beer to Ralph. “It’s not good,” he said…
Soosan on Tuesday, May 06, 2008 at 3:06 pm
“Also, we’re fresh out of Guinness”.
Ralph sighed. The thought of no more Guinness and the threat of Viking terror weighed heavily on his mind as he…
GeekBoy on Tuesday, May 06, 2008 at 4:13 pm
… felt an odd kind of rage well up inside of him. “No more Guinness?! NO MORE GUINNESS???” It was an ancient rage that smelled like burning corpses and rotting flesh and salty ocean air. He could feel a change coming on. The muscles of his body grew thicker, his arms longer, his hair flowed down his back and inexplicably out of his face. Ralph looked up at the mirror behind the bar and saw a bearded crazy-eyed stranger staring back at him.
“Holy snurg targ!” Ralph exclaimed. “I’m … I’m …”
“Yeah, that’s what I was about to tell you, dude,” the bartender said. “You’re a Viking.”
“But … but … how?” Ralph asked. “And why?”
Stephanie on Tuesday, May 06, 2008 at 5:43 pm
“I’ve heard of this happening,” said the bartender, wide-eyed, “but I thought it was just an urban myth!”
“Tell me what this ‘myth’ claims,” implored Viking Ralph.
“Well,” answers the bartender…”it supposedly begins with an unhappy marriage. The wife…she can…go see somebody…there’s a network of these ‘wisemen’. They have very strange powers.”
freakgirl on Wednesday, May 07, 2008 at 7:42 am
Instead of doing what vikings are supposed to do — pillage and burn the wise men’s village, Viking Ralph instead enrolled in an anger management course. His kinder, gentler take on the Viking lifestyle has started gaining traction in the Viking community. He currently runs outreach programs to build bridges between the government and the Viking community.
As for his wife? After some intense marriage counseling, they repaired the rift between them and even had a child together.