Publisher: 100 Word Stories
Weekly Challenge: 1047
Topic: Railing
Submitted: May 17, 2026
Published: May 17, 2026
Participants: 8 total
Recommended Topic: Pardon Me
The couple leaned against the decorative railing of the Delta Queen, admiring the view of the natural vegetation along the shores of the Mississippi River.
Behind them, the steam-powered calliope organ was playing a joyful tune, echoing back from the valleys.
Their excitement was building, as they would be next to get a chance to learn how to play it, and be rewarded with a certificate.
Decades later, long after a divorce, their son would find an old framed photograph of the beautiful steam-powered paddle boat on her wall, showing that his mother still cherished that moment in time.
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
I was running very, very late on this week’s challenge #1047, “Railing.” I had an hour before I was needed at church to start setting up the microphones and other tech.
Originally, I started with a completely different story about the expansion and contraction of railroad rails, as there is often a trivia question about them in which a line could have a few miles added or removed due to heat.
Here is the original “raw” version of that draft.
The heavy railing measured a few inches longer than expected. Harvey wasn’t having none of it. He told the gang crew to take a day off and relax. The line would continue expanding once materials of the proper length came in. The big boss came that evening, measured it, and everything was fine. Shouting could be heard from a mile away. Harvey learned about heat and expansion. A full day’s wages was lost due to ignorance, and the line’s completion was extended by a day. Harvey would need to find a way to speed up the completion without extra men.
I felt it wasn’t “story” enough, and too technical, so I started over.
Two days ago, I went through a box of my mother’s things that I brought with me from Florida after she had passed away. I was hoping to find her Goofy phone from her bathroom for the Restoring the Signal project. I didn’t remember bringing it, but I thought I’d see if I had it.
I didn’t. But I had photos.
So Mom has been recently in my memory. I recalled seeing a photo of the Delta Queen hung up in her room over the door to her bathroom. It was actually a magazine page that was framed. As a child in the 80’s, I remembered it was such a big deal for my parents to go out to Mississippi. They chose the Delta Queen over the Mississippi Queen because there were fewer children and older adults on that boat. The two boats would travel up and down the Mississippi, sometimes racing each other, but my parents chose to go for a week rather than the whole trip. They brought back plenty of photos and certificates that said they had learned to play the calliope organ.
Going through moms things after she had passed was hard, but I saw flickers from my childhood past here and there. My parents divorced in the early 2000’s, but seeing the framed photo of something so pivotal from my childhood called out to me. My siblings and I had been vicariously on board, experiencing the event through their stories.
It’s been over 10 years since her passing, and about 30 years since I left home. It’s hard to process the past and overcome it. At least in fiction, I could picture my parents being happy together and write Mom as an energetic, happy participant, excited for what life had to offer.
