Publisher: 100 Word Stories
Weekly Challenge: 1034
Topic: Experiment
Submitted: February 14, 2026
Published: February 15, 2026
Participants: 8 total
Recommended Topic: –
Harry had a spear.
It had a minty smell.
He thought he was being funny,
humming music
as if he were in the Olympics.
He stuck his finger
in the mint flavored wind
and looked at a big red X
in the distance.
“…and the crowd looks on in anticipation,”
he announced.
He held up the spear
and ran.
He held his hand back
and threw it
at the target.
“DEAD CENTER!
…and the crowd goes wild over the X Spear mint!”
he exclaimed.
He danced with joy,
jumping up and down,
donning a medal
made of yarn and tin.
About the 100 Word Stories Weekly Challenge
About the 100 Word Stories Weekly Challenge
100 Word Stories
…And, as always, keep it brief!
The 100 Word Stories Weekly Challenge was (and still is) hosted by Laurence Simon—better known in Second Life as Crap Mariner—who built a wonderfully strange, tight-knit community around storytelling discipline.
Originally, he started a daily random theme on ScriberOptics via 100words on May 13, 2005, based on a photo, using a combination of everyone’s submitted words rather than posting a single topic. He would write short 100-word stories featuring recurring characters, such as Abraham Lincoln and the Mustard Man.
In June 2005, he then spun the stories into their own subdomain from his personal blog at podcasting.isfullofcrap.com, featuring multiple authors and guest entries. Rather than daily challenges, he settled for weekly challenges, which were due on April 21, 2006, for the topic “Bunnies!” It was published on April 22, 2006. He continued each week posting a topic and invited people to write a story of 100 or [sic]Less Nessman 2.0 words long. Most participants went for exactly 100. It was a form of microfiction—a subset of flash fiction—where the limitation wasn’t restrictive but creatively freeing. Within those 100 words, stories could be funny, heartfelt, surreal, absurd, reflective, or unexpectedly powerful.
Laurence encouraged contributors not just to write but to perform. He always invited people to record themselves reading their stories and send in the audio so their voices could be part of the experience. If someone didn’t—or couldn’t—he gladly read their story for them. Sometimes he even used software to alter his voice, adding character variety, humor, or dramatic flair, so every episode felt like a small production rather than just a reading.
The project chose to respond to the creative emptiness of podcasts at the time not with cynicism, but with creativity. Laurence filled the internet with humor, storytelling, discipline, and imagination. Eventually, the project continued under his broader creative umbrella, “One A Day Until I Die,” where he continues to celebrate the joy of storytelling in all its weird and wonderful forms.
Episodes usually feature everyone’s submissions together in one podcast, and listeners vote on their favorites. The weekly winner not only gets bragging rights but also the honor of choosing the next topic—meaning the community itself shaped what came next. Many participants came from overlapping creative spaces: writers, musicians, podcasters, and especially people in Second Life, where the challenge became something of a shared cultural experience. It wasn’t just a writing exercise; it was friendship, collaboration, creative play, and a small but meaningful part of internet history.
I even had the chance to meet Laurence once at the Second Life Community Convention, where he was handing out refrigerator magnets promoting the podcast — including one I still have today on my fridge. It’s a little artifact from a wonderfully weird, wonderfully human creative era.
This project mattered. It still does.
Paper/Wood Floor Theme from an old version of 100 Word Stories Circa 2009
Behind the Story
This story was written for the Experiment weekly challenge.
When I saw the prompt, I immediately decided to turn it on its head. Instead of writing about an experiment, I made the experiment the story itself — by misinterpreting the word and breaking it apart.
“X.”
“Spear.”
“Mint.”
Loosely combined, they become experiment.
That wordplay became the structure.
From there, I got stuck on one detail: should the spear be mint-colored… or mint-scented?
I chose scent.
In my mind, the “spear” was actually an old toothbrush — which explains the minty smell — although I never say that explicitly in the story. I like that the object stays ambiguous. It lets the absurdity stand on its own.
But behind the absurdity is something very specific.
In my imagination, this is me as a kid in White Marsh, standing outside the garage with its white cinderblock walls. There was a blemish on one wall — just a mark — and in my head, it became a big red X.
I would throw the toothbrush at it.
In reality, it would bounce off the wall and fall to the ground.
In my imagination, it was a perfect throw.
The crowd roared.
The medal was awarded.
Victory was declared.
Kids are extraordinary at manufacturing entire worlds out of almost nothing. A garage becomes an arena. A stain becomes a target. A toothbrush becomes Olympic equipment.
The story may read as absurd, but it’s rooted in something very ordinary: making your own fun when there isn’t much around.
And in that way, maybe the real experiment wasn’t wordplay at all.
It was imagination.
