Welcome back to the home of #ThursThreads. Wow. Year 11. Holy smokes! Y’all kept with me past a decade. I’m astounded.
Today is Thursday and that means it’s time to start flashing, like we have for the past 11 years. I had no idea when I started it would keep going! This is Week 595 of #ThursThreads, the challenge that ties tales together. Want to keep up each week? Check out the #ThursThreads #flashfiction group on Facebook and the Group on MeWe.
Need the rules? Read on.
Here’s how it works:
- The prompt is a line from the previous week’s winning tale.
- The prompt can appear ANYWHERE in your story and is included in your word count.
- The prompt must be used as is. It can be split, but no intervening words can be inserted or tenses changed.
Rules to the Game:
- This is a Flash Fiction challenge, which means your story must be a minimum of 100 words, maximum of 250.
- The story must be new writing, not a snippet from something published elsewhere with the prompt added.
- Incorporate the prompt anywhere into your story (included in your word count).
- Post your story in the comments section of this post
- Include your word count in the post (or be excluded from judging)
- Include your social media handle or email in the post (so we easily notify you)
- The challenge is open 7 AM to 8 PM Mountain Time
- The winner will be announced on Friday, depending on how early the judge gets up.
How it benefits you:
- You get a nifty cool badge to display on your blog or site (because we’re all about promotion – you know you are!)
- You get instant recognition of your writing prowess on this blog!
- Your writing colleagues shall announce and proclaim your greatness on Facebook, Bluesky, MeWe, and Mastodon, etc.
Our Judge for Week 595:
Dark fantasy author, archer, and horsewoman, Daelyn Morgana.
And now your #ThursThreads Challenge, tying tales together.
The Prompt:
“I do this for me.”
All stories written herein are the property (both intellectual and physical) of the authors. Comments do not represent the views of the host and the host reserves the right to remove any content. Now, away with you, Flash Fiction Fanatics, and show us your #ThursThreads. Good luck!
A Drive in the Country
He started early. That was impressive. Danny was easily impressed by the work habits of accountants. This accountant, anyway.
Even in the off season, if there was one, this accountant seemed to embrace the morning sunrise with open arms if this display was typical.
Not that he’d actually opened his arms.
He looked like he wanted to but being an accountant, he had a schedule.
The accountant exited his new house in Departure Bay at six.
A.M.
Danny was lucky to have gotten there that early.
He’d had an inkling that he’d better get a move on.
Anne had groaned, “Too early…much…” and then she’d fallen back to sleep.
He’d kissed her, whispered, “I do this for me and for your friend…” not that she’d heard him, not that it mattered for she knew that it was the nature of his work.
He’d dressed, made toast, chomped carefully driving down the road, not wanting to experience a pathetic death choking on butterless toast, headed through town, and then parked outside of the accountant’s house.
Danny wanted coffee but there was no time.
And then he and his quarry were on the road.
The accountant drove straight thru town, not stopping at his office which was a small surprise, onto the southern highway before turning off at the Cedar cutoff.
It was a beautiful morning.
Wherever the accountant was headed, Danny had no doubt that this was the break in the case he’d been waiting for.
250 WIP
@billmelaterplea
“You can’t do this.” Cecilia said.
“I do this for me. Sometimes you have to something even if it feels wrong because it’s really right. Standing up for others and yes, even for yourself is imperative.”
I spoke rapidly about how women should have a voice to that we weren’t there just to service men. I was shouted out to shut up and sit down. I knew it would be a hard sell for them you can’t change history in a few minutes, but I thought at least one would listen.
I could feel fire burning within me and then without me.
“Jack, calm down!” came a voice in my ear. “Concentrate and lower the people gently,”
I knew that gentle voice even in my red rage, I closed my eyes followed the instructions.
“Jacoba, I love you, I’m sorry I wasn’t there to protect you when this happened.”
They blindfolded me and bound me with silver chains…”
“It wasn’t your fault.”
“What did you do Malcom?”
“He’s dead.” Malcom whispered in my ear
I vowed this would never happen again to any woman. If they wouldn’t listen then I would force change. We aren’t a patriarchal society anymore, but they are all afraid of me, is that better? Only Malcom is not afraid. I wish I could wave a wand and make them all forget everything but equality. I close my eyes and it’s all changed, but so is Malcom, he doesn’t remember us; was it all worth it?
250 words
@SweetSheil
ROBOTS!
There were robots on every high street. Not the ones we’d expected, the ones who’d replace us in our jobs, but tall, fearsome, red-eyed, green metal ones who’d flown here from Mars. Nobody knew why they’d come here, not even our governments and their teams of high-browed scientists who’d been so quick to flee to their bunkers.
The world was completely different now, and everyone’s lives had had to change.
But that didn’t mean any of us had to like it.
“Who are they to question whether I do this for me or not?” Emilie was making a cake using dried ingredients from our cache. She’d sieved all the powders into a self-heating bowl, and had added chilly water, stirring the mush until it broke up into smaller lumps and then congealed again, forming a dough.
It was hardly ‘The Great American Baking Show,’ but she was doing as well as she could.
“Everything’s a compromise now,” I said, torn between regretting the use of our rations and the prospect of eating food again.
Lying in state like an ancient Pharoh in a stasis pod was no way to survive, asleep but still afraid the robot’s trackers would detect the energy use of the coffins we hid inside each night, knowing our body heat would be even more detectable in the chill between the suns.
“Because the last thing we’d want would be a handshake from a bounty-hunting droid, making Paul Hollywood look like a limp-wristed Kindergarten school teacher.”
250 words including title – twothirdzrasta.blogspot.com
To Dance, Perchance to Dream
“I want to. But I…”
“Do this for me. Close your eyes.” She slid her hands over my eyes, her cool skin on my sweaty, feverish face. Her breath tingled on the back of my neck. I got goosebumps in spite of the fear.
“You’re not here, my love, not in this wonderful body, not in this spectacular and tortured mind.” Her lips pressed against me where the slope of my neck passed into my shirt. “We’re floating in nothingness, you and I. Our inner essences, absent experience, absent form, absent thought.”
She moved in front of me, taking my hands in hers. I kept my eyes closed. I had to.
“We’re moving around each other, circling, spinning, because that’s what’s in our nature to do.” She started to turn us and I followed, imagining that nothingness as best as I could.
The soft strum of a guitar began, and I tensed. “We don’t have to obey the music. It flows through us, and we only take what we want.”
Her hands slid up to my neck and her body swayed against me, drawing mine with hers. For a moment, I was fully in her reality, existing but not thinking, letting her take control of my body.
But then I stumbled, and I came back to myself. Panic rushed through me like molten steel, and I froze, stammering an apology
Her lips found mine. “Shhh,” she whispered. “You cannot do this wrong.”
I closed my eyes, and we began again.
250 words (excluding title)
@drmag00.bsky.social
Kulastri ended up with a long, soft rose-colored tunic over brown under shirt and pants, a thick scarf she could pull over her head, and oxblood red sash with tassels to tie around her waist over her sword belt. While most of the women in town didn’t carry a sword, she wouldn’t leave it behind. She folded up her black costume and stuffed it into a shoulder pack as she paid for her new clothes.
“Wow, lookin’ good, Kulastri.” Zorrick whistled in appreciation from where he leaned against the closest building.
She dipped her chin and shot him a dry look, but didn’t say anything until they were well away from the stalls.
“I’ve never seen you dress so feminine.” He gave her an appreciative once-over. “How come you never dressed that nicely for me?”
She snorted. “I did dress nicely for you. I was in your court most of the time—it was a requirement. But you were too busy being the Prince of Banarah and I was too busy saving your ass.” She shot him a smirk. “Besides, I was always too busy to do many casual days. Right now, I do this for me to be incognito among the residents, although I still might be too well dressed.”
She wasn’t wrong. The dichotomy between the wealthy strolling through the marketplace with servants and attendants, and the poor either begging at the edges or pickpocketing who they could painted an even more dire picture than she’d feared.
249 ineligible #LOTN words
@siobhanmuir on Bluesky
Tenko found the raised, rocky alcove as imposing as any council platform. Worse, the doubting voice in her head wouldn’t stop second guessing her choice to stand, rather than kneel. That choice was made. And Lieutenant Sora had followed her lead.
“You are powerful. For mortals. But your bravado grows tiresome.”
Ensconced in her underground alcove, the Wood Witch’s tone was cold and devoid of any of the curiosity from the last time Tenko heard it. She should have kneeled.
“As I said before, there is a way for elfkind to live in harmony with the forest and you.” Only by walling her doubts off to loop in isolation was Tenko able to stand, let alone speak. “Your desire to safeguard the wood is admirable. We can work with you to expand while minimizing the impact on the forest.”
The air grew heavier around the elegant immortal. Were the tree roots around the cavern moving?
“The wood is my implement and my power. I don’t do this for the wood. I do this for me!”
The Witch opened the floor beneath Tenko and Sora with a clawing motion, revealing the mists of Naraka below. Tenko signaled Arashiko with one hand. With the other, she traced the character for ‘floor’ beneath herself and Sora.
It wasn’t as good as if Tenko had used the brush, but it was enough for her and Sora to push off from and dive to the sides as Arashiko’s arrows flew as from a dozen bows.
250 Tale of Tenko words
@davidaludwig.bsky.social
#ThursThreads is now closed. Thanks to everyone who wrote this week and I hope to catch you next week.