Month: May 2024

Week 612 of #ThursThreads was a success, and y’all never disappoint. Thank you to everyone who writes each week. You are why we’re still doing this. There will be no #ThursThreads next week as I’m visiting with family. If you’ve just found us, welcome to the crew! May you come back again and write more great flash. A thousand thanks to Silver James for judging this week. Follow Siobhan Muir on Bluesky or check out the #ThursThreads #flashfiction group on Facebook or the #ThursThreads Group on MeWe to keep up with news, etc. Entries: Bill Engleson  Cara Michaels David A. Ludwig  Patty Dump Miranda Gammella Mark A. Morris Siobhan Muir Silver says: Once again, you Threaders have made the judge’s job so very difficult! Such excellent tales this week and I wish I could just give everyone an honorable mention. All of you have written worthy tales and I thoroughly enjoyed each and every one of them. However, Siobhan is a stern mistress and she says only one honorable mention and one winner. So…. Honorable Mention Bill Engleson | Website Silver says: This easy-going tale uses excellent descriptions to set the stage. I’ve been on writers’ panels like this one so I totally get Gronsky. I also liked how the prompt was used–not quite the way one might consider utilizing this phrase. winner announcement Week 612 Winner Patty Dump Silver says: Talk about a cliffhanger! Which I hate but dang! This tale gives a real sense of character in few words while thrusting the reader into a story filled with tension, urgency, and both regret and a sense of duty. I truly want to know what happened to him! That last line is a killer! (No pun intended. Okay, maybe a tiny intention…LOL) He watched the clock, anxious to leave, but the call came in. To him, innocent lives mattered. By answering the call, he became responsible for them. His experience and skill forced his choice even though he’d promised Julie a celebratory dinner out tonight. Would she forgive him for doing just “one more” job before he walked away from his chosen profession? Maybe, if he survived. His supervisor pointed at the bomb’s clock. Only one minute remained. Damn! Wordlessly, Matt knew what had to be done. Even though the ticking bomb seemed to be laughing at him and his brain screamed for him to get away, his heart begged him to act. Forty-eight. He blinked to concentrate. All the wires were one color. Julie would be mad that he’d chosen the job over her – again. As his light examined the wires, he remembered tracing wires with his father every time a vehicle needed work. Forty-four. Choosing a random wire, he carefully followed it around several bomb elements to a neutral post. Thirty-three. He traced another wire to ground.. No time to send Julie a text. She would be mad – again. Twenty-one. He traced a third wire to a different ground. Did the bomb have more than one ignition switch or was this wire a red herring? Ten. Three wires remained. He knew the end was coming. Julie had given him a choice: her or the job. Five. He cut the line closest to his heart and prayed Julie would forgive him.~~~~~~~ Congratulations Two Time Winner Patty, and Honorable Mention Bill! Don’t forget to claim your badges and display them with pride. You certainly earned it! REMINDER: No #ThursThreads next week. Pass on the great news on Facebook, MeWe, Bluesky, Mastodon, shiny mirrors, Morse Code, and signal flags. Check out all the original tales HERE. Thanks for stopping by and happy reading! 🙂

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Week 611 of #ThursThreads was a success, and y’all never disappoint. Thank you to everyone who writes each week. You are why we’re still doing this. If you’ve just found us, welcome to the crew! May you come back again and write more great flash. A thousand thanks to Kelex for judging this week. Follow Siobhan Muir on Bluesky or check out the #ThursThreads #flashfiction group on Facebook or the #ThursThreads Group on MeWe to keep up with news, etc. Entries: Raven McAllen Bill Engleson Eric Martell Kelly Heinen Louisa Bacio Mark A. Morris Mark Ethridge David A. Ludwig Miranda Gammella Siobhan Muir Honorable Mentions Kelly Heinen | Website Kelex says: I’m very visual, and I enjoy writing that truly allows me to picture the scene in my mind’s eye and this did that well. Miranda Gammella | Website Kelex says: I liked the tension of this piece. winner announcement Week 611 Winner Mark A. Morris Kelex says: I like the emotion it evoked, a sense of loss, grieving before the person they cared for was even gone. The line about the wardrobe was particularly effective. Each day was one of their last together. A day of new experiences, seasoned with pain, the light in her eyes dimming as he watched. He knew the end was coming – he saw it in every move she made, her actions guarded and restrained – but he also wished they could last forever, knowing the alternative was too dark to comprehend. She was being whittled away, and soon nothing of her would remain. Just a wardrobe of empty clothes that still retained her scent. She was undisciplined and rash. Easily taken unawares. She had the naivety of a child and an addict’s needs. She’d always loved to live and to enjoy everything she owned. He’d always been a patient moderator, holding her feet to the ground, doing his best to prevent her from soaring away. They’d sometimes argued, rarely and without passion, not prepared to give the darkness their strength. There were too many problems in their lives already – they had no time to feed animosity and hate. She’d spent freely, not willing to wait for the next paycheck. ‘What does it matter when you need to pay; the reward is the same.’ He’d dug in his heels over that, explaining about compound interest and the money they’d owe. And how they ought to repay the whole debt as soon as they could. And she’d laughed, and he’d died a little, not knowing it meant nothing. Her life would be too short to worry about money ever again.~~~~~~~ Congratulations THIRTY-NINE TIME WINNER Mark, and Honorable Mentions Kelly and Miranda! Don’t forget to claim your badges and display them with pride. You certainly earned it! Pass on the great news on Facebook, MeWe, Bluesky, Mastodon, shiny mirrors, Morse Code, and signal flags. Check out all the original tales HERE. Thanks for stopping by and happy reading! 🙂

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Week 608 of #ThursThreads was a success, and y’all never disappoint. Thank you to everyone who writes each week. You are why we’re still doing this. If you’ve just found us, welcome to the crew! May you come back again and write more great flash. A thousand thanks to Bill Engleson for judging this week. Follow Siobhan Muir on Bluesky or check out the #ThursThreads #flashfiction group on Facebook or the #ThursThreads Group on MeWe to keep up with news, etc. Entries: Bill Engleson  Eric Martell Mark A. Morris Mark Ethridge  Richard Gibney Sheilagh Lee Nellie Batz  David A. Ludwig  Miranda Gammella Kelly Heinen Siobhan Muir  Bill says: The last time I adjudicated Thursday Threads, almost three months to the day, I referenced one of Trump’s legal bugbears at the time (actually it’s still simmering) and said, amongst other things, “…witness courtroom shenanigans in Atlanta and New York. Atlanta in particular as the courtroom there has been front and centre all day, televised in all its weaving complexity.” Lo and behold, his bugbears continue to gnaw away. And I’m entranced. Why am I mentioning this? A reasonable question. While laptops are permitted in the Court, cell phones are verboten. The prompt this week, His cell phone vibrated, is particularly out of sync with this decree. I trust that it was okay for a visiting judge to play with that stickler of a real-time rule. Being me, I felt the urge to contribute a tale just for the heck of it. Totally imaginary, of course. Definitely not in the judicial mix. Some of us Judges know how to recuse ourselves. Honorable Mentions Eric Martell | Website Bill says: The calamity of total destruction, war, tornado, or some other cataclysmic event (it is unclear), is captured so profoundly, so summarily in Eric’s flash. This collage of remains spoke volumes. “I found food. I found bodies. Phones that called no one. Dead cars, dead homes, a dead world.” Grim stuff, to be sure, but the wearying devastation ends on a note of what I assume is domestic reunification. Of course, I guess that will be up to the narrator, Mavis… Kelly Heinen | Website Bill says: Death is always with us and is clearly a growth industry. This tale seems to target the nursing profession for reasons that buffaloed me. Nevertheless, the prank by one of the recently deceased was appreciated (and who doesn’t always need a shopping list?) The rushed reunion of spouses, apparently separated for some unspecified time, was a lovely touch. And obviously a theme others today have stitched in. But we should probably check with Mavis about that. winner announcement Week 610 Winner Richard Gibney Bill says: There are a couple of reasons why this story resonated with me. It has an elderly heroine, Judith Montgomery (though in retrospect I find myself hoping her middle name is Mavis) is a victim of urban crime and social decay, but she is also someone who seems able, at the end anyway, to find a wacky sort of humor in loss, though she is unfortunately unable to offer a wide toothy grin. A second reason is that the theme of false teeth has history with me and my family…jars of water on my Parents bedside table…an old story that still gives me the willies…so it’s a theme I have given some thought to. Although my denture delight was uncomfortable, I confess to enjoying (or liking, relishing, loving, appreciating, adoring) this slice of urban existence. It had bite. And truthfully, toothfully, I can envision roving gangs of felons branching out into new criminal endeavors after they read… “Shut your face, Granny. You want your teeth back? You need to pay the reward.” Judith Montgomery woke up just as she reached her stop, leapt up, and sprang for the doors as they hissed open. She bustled her way out of the carriage and onto the platform, and then realised that her teeth were missing. She saw a youth in the carriage window as the doors closed, holding up the set of dentures, clamping them shut as though they were on hinges, he and a group of half dozen friends laughing hysterically as the train departed. Then, his cell phone vibrated. His cell phone was in her coat pocket – she fished it out to stare at the small, GSM-style Nokia – a burner phone. What was it doing there? “H-hello?” she said, answering the call. “Hey Granny!” “I’m not your granny.” She struggled a little to articulate herself without her dentures. “Shut your face, Granny. You want your teeth back? You need to pay the reward.” In the background, she could hear the laughter from his friends, and beyond that, the clackety-clack of the train on the tracks that had lulled her into a false sense of security and a wonderful slumber. “The ransom?” she retorted. Then, she hung up. Where were young people’s ethics gone, she pondered, her face ashen as she contemplated the cost of teeth replacement. It was, she had to admit inwardly, a niche theft that had taken place. Then, she too had to chuckle. Ascending the steps out of the subway, gums exposed, she began to roar with laughter.~~~~~~~ Congratulations Two Time Winner Richard, and Honorable Mentions Eric and Kelly! Don’t forget to claim your badges and display them with pride. You certainly earned it! Pass on the great news on Facebook, MeWe, Bluesky, Mastodon, shiny mirrors, Morse Code, and signal flags. Check out all the original tales HERE. Thanks for stopping by and happy reading! 🙂

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Week 609 of #ThursThreads was a success, and y’all never disappoint. Thank you to everyone who writes each week. You are why we’re still doing this. If you’ve just found us, welcome to the crew! May you come back again and write more great flash. A thousand thanks to David A. Ludwig for judging this week. Follow Siobhan Muir on Bluesky or check out the #ThursThreads #flashfiction group on Facebook or the #ThursThreads Group on MeWe to keep up with news, etc. Entries: Katheryn J. Avila A.J. Walker Bill Engleson  Sheilagh Lee Miranda Gammella Mark Ethridge  Alex Minns David A. Ludwig  Siobhan Muir  Cara Michaels Eric Martell Daelyn Morgana David says: I was really glad to see so many participants this week and have such a difficult time choosing a winner and honorable mentions. It was great to see how deeply some writers integrated the prompt into their stories, or creative they got in spinning it away from the missing person it started as. Honorable Mentions Cara Michaels | Website David says: I love inferences based on lack of evidence, so the well-timed “That is literally not how evidence works, jackass” made me laugh. I appreciated weaving the prompt into the analysis of the Jeep, rather than have it be about a person. Eric Martell | Website David says: I particularly liked the flow of this one, the way it meandered while building to the prompt as a climax, then settled back to meander again. It felt completely natural to me. Daelyn Morgana | Website David says: I appreciated having the “Twigger Warning” going into this one. I found it hauntingly powerful, relatable, and the prompt was the heart of the piece all the way through. winner announcement Week 609 Winner Miranda Gammella David says: Using the prompt as the pivot point for an intense tone shift really stuck with me. Details, like playing the melancholy music on a Steinway specifically, or shattering a decanter of Macallan, grounded the piece powerfully for me. I was completely immersed by the emotion of the scene all the way through. The missing body and appearance on the balcony culminate in a particularly enticing mystery. The preparations for her celebration of life continued around him. Calling it a celebration felt like a punch in the gut. He answered questions when they were posed to him robotically, barely remembering his responses as soon as he uttered them. Except when they asked about music. There would be no pre-recorded music played through speakers to fill the background noise. No, he would play one final time for his love. Alone again, he sat at his beloved Steinway and let the music flow through him as his hands swept up and down the keyboard. He played familiar songs, some of her favorites, then segued into something new but never to be heard again. The music discordant and melancholy echoing his emotions. His cell phone vibrated across the top of the piano, distracting him. He answered blindly, then stood abruptly, pushing the piano bench back with a screech. “What do you mean, she’s missing? How do you misplace a body!?” The answer he received infuriated him more. “That’s my wife you lost, you incompetent imbecile! Find her!” He threw his phone across the room, not caring that it broke on impact. Pent up full of fury, he roughly grabbed his bottle of whiskey. As he turned to the balcony, the decanter slipped from his fingers, shattering on the ground. The expensive Macallan whisky splashed over his shoes and pantlegs, but he paid it no mind. She was staring back at him from the other side of the balcony door.~~~~~~~ Congratulations Two Time Winner Miranda, and Honorable Mentions Cara, Eric, and Daelyn! Don’t forget to claim your badges and display them with pride. You certainly earned it! Pass on the great news on Facebook, MeWe, Bluesky, Mastodon, shiny mirrors, Morse Code, and signal flags. Check out all the original tales HERE. Thanks for stopping by and happy reading! 🙂

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