On Wednesday, I published a new literary game on the Hive platform. I do this once a week, and the Hive community has been enjoying them. Today, I want to publish a story I pulled together from the ten found words, phrases, and sentences I’m asking game participants to use. If you want to see the game rules and guidelines, you can check them right here. Maybe you’d like to play your own version of the game.
Because this week’s literary game has participants taking words, phrases, and sentences from each of the ten published literary games posts thus far, the first step is to identify those found items. Here’s my list:
Now, for the story.
Let me tell you how last Monday's community bingo game came to a satisfying ending.
It started like it always does—cheap coffee, folding chairs that pinch your thighs, and Grandma hiding forbidden peanut brittle in her bra. The Oakview Community Hall smelled like varnish and old secrets, and that night the prize money was rumored to have doubled.
“They’re gonna increase the amount of the prize,” Grandma whispered, cracking the brittle with a wink. “Wouldn't that be crafty?”
Now, Grandma didn’t play for fun. She played like it was war. With six daubers lined up like grenades and lipstick battle red, her eyes scanned the cards with a focus that would’ve made a hawk nervous.
By the third round, Ethel was two spots from blackout and flaunting it like a pinup girl in a swimming pool. “It’s entirely up to you,” she said smugly, patting her good-luck troll, stuff with one-dollar bills. “But some of us were born winners.”
Grandma narrowed her eyes. “You keep talkin’ like that, Ethel, and I’m gonna bring out the weapon.”
Now, everyone assumed she meant her tongue, which was sharper than a ginsu knife dipped in vinegar. But when Ethel called a false bingo two rounds later, Grandma reached into her purse, pulled out a bright orange water pistol, and blasted Ethel right between the eyes. The room gasped.
“That’s assault!” Ethel shrieked, hair curling at the temples.
“This is completely optional,” Grandma said, waving the pistol in the air like a flag. “But if you call bingo before you’ve got it, you should expect a squirt.”
Of course, chaos ensued. Chairs toppled. Coffee spilled. At some point, someone shouted “Cornfield rules!”. That was an inside joke referencing the legendary bingo melee of 1992 when the game was moved outdoors due to a power outage and several eager players were found hiding in corn stalks with counterfeit cards. But that then. This was now.
To restore order, the moderator—a pale man named Ralph with an unusually precise mustache—called an emergency intermission. While the seniors muttered and reapplied ointments, Ralph huddled with the event committee.
“This bingo game,” he said solemnly, “is on the verge of collapse. We’re on a roller coaster ride of chaos. We need something big. Something with… unique meaning.”
Muriel from table nine raised her hand. “What if we gave Grandma the final draw? Let her spin the cage.”
Everyone agreed this was either genius or disaster, but since they were old and time was short, they rolled with it.
Grandma approached the bingo cage like it owed her money. She gave it one hard spin and shouted, “B-12!”
Gasps all around.
Silence.
Then came the slow, trembling voice of Doris, who hadn’t spoken a full sentence since her gallbladder removal in 2004. “Bingo,” she whispered.
Everyone turned.
Doris—silent Doris—had a full card. And what’s more, no one could believe it. She had a legitimate bingo.
Cheers erupted. Grandma stood tall, nodded once, and said, “And that’s how you end a game.”
But before Doris could collect the prize money (a whopping 4 smackaroos and a coupon for half-off dentures), Ethel shrieked again.
“She cheated! That’s my card!”
It was true. The card bore Ethel’s lucky dauber smudge—a faint impression shaped like her husband, who had left her for a traveling magician.
“What in tarnation—” Grandma began, but Doris interrupted.
“I switched cards,” she said, clear as daylight. “Ethel’s been winning too much. I figured she needed humbling.”
There was silence, then laughter. Even Ethel chuckled. A short, grudging bark of respect. “Wouldn’t that be crafty?” she muttered.
The moderator declared the win valid on account of “spiritual justice,” and the prize was split. Grandma demanded her water pistol be filled with chamomile tea for next week’s game “to keep things civilized.”
As we filed out into the night, Grandma tugged on my sleeve. “You learn something tonight?”
I nodded. “Never trust a woman with a squirt gun in her purse?”
She grinned. “Close.” Then grinned even bigger. “Always play the long game.”
A week later, I found out what she meant. Turns out Grandma had been feeding Doris stories for weeks. “You’re sharp,” she’d told her. “You just need a little push. Play Ethel’s card sometime, see how it feels.”
And Doris, lonely and eager, had done just that.
Grandma, of course, had slipped Ethel a decoy card she’d planted herself—one filled with numbers that would never be called. A “cold card,” she called it.
“Let me tell you how last Monday’s community bingo game came to a satisfying ending,” Grandma said again the next day at lunch, this time over pecan pie.
“You rigged it,” I said, eyes wide.
She shrugged. “It’s entirely up to you how you interpret things.”
“Isn’t that cheating?”
She patted my hand. “Justice, dear. Like a spoonful of sugar, it goes down easy if you don’t questions.”
And that’s how last Monday’s bingo game went down, in a golden nutshell.
Interested in playing in the literary games? Join us on Hive. Be sure to check out this week’s literary game.
Image from ChatGPT. This post was first published at Substack.
