Welcome back to the home of #ThursThreads for Week 626. Year 12! What a fantastic testament to the writing community. Y’all rock!
Today is Thursday and that means it’s time to start flashing on #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 US.
- 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 626:
Computer IT master, flashfiction writer, and human, Mark Ethridge.
And now your #ThursThreads Challenge, tying tales together.
The Prompt:
“It wasn’t like that.”
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!
OK, this is ridiculous…here is a revision of the revision. Sorry for my edit issues. I ma see a counsellor about it…
The Gospel of Gossip
“Word about the breakup spread the way it always does. You can’t stop gossip. You know that. I mean, gossip becomes gospel to certain types…like the sort we have around here…so if you can’t stop it, maybe you…you have to salt it with a bit of…”
“Manipulation?”
“Yeah. Infuse it with…a few alternative facts. Juice it up. Fool’s gold gossip.”
“That’s what you did?”
“Yeah…but it wasn’t like that to begin with. I gave it some time to die down. No one wants their…their personal peccadilloes bandied about. Would you?”
“We’re not talking about me, fella. You’re the one on the hot seat.”
“But you’re sister started it all…”
“Can you prove that? I don’t think you can.”
“Maybe I can. Maybe I can’t. Maybe I stepped out of bounds and messed around a bit. The way of the world. But she’s the one who took a hissy fit, made a big to-do about a normal male prerogative…”
“PEROGATIVE? Are you out of your mind? It was cheating on your wife…Perogative, my ass. And why you thought lying about HER stepping out with someone was an honourable thing to do is beyond me.”
“Well, as they say, what’s good for the gander is good for the goose…or is it the other way around? Who cares, and besides, it’s not like I said she was eating the neighbour’s dog…like you know who is saying…”
“Surprised you didn’t.”
“Wouldn’t work. Most people know she’s a vegan.”
“Good point.”
finally the real goods 250 Words or bust
@billmelaterplea
“Go back to your people. You at least have them. Leave me to my work.”
“But my vision—”
“Your vision said you’d find someone here. Congratulations, you found me.” Teyanhu tossed their head as they folded back over onto their forelimbs with their tail toward me. “Now you can go home knowing you did the Life Mother’s bidding.”
Without another word, they faded into the waving grasses and disappeared, silent despite their size.
Seeing them for the first time had damn near knocked me of the boulder. I’d only caught a vague glimpse of something large moving through the grasses, but when they came fully into view, it was like my dreams and visions had stepped into reality.
Too bad the reality is one of anger and despair.
I felt it in my chest as if it was my own hurt. Teyanhu’s pain was as plain to see as if they wore a sign for all to read. They deserved better. The invaders had taken so much, and they saw me as just another invader to capitalize on their distress.
But it wasn’t like that. I was here for them. I wanted to know more, to help, to change things. I wasn’t going back to my village until I’d done that. Hellwinds, I wasn’t planning to go back at all, but that meant I had to win companionship of Teyanhu. They were the one I was meant to find and help. I’d be damned before I quit the mission.
250 ineligible #WIP words
@siobhanmuir.bsky.social
I found them outside the club on Madison around 9:00.
“Where to first?”
All three pointed at the one in the middle — including the one in the middle. Two said, “Meg’s.”
Afterward, “Debbie’s.”
Neons reflected three post-prime showgirls’s faces in the mirror Yes, I notice faces, just not every pothole.
“Careful, Robby. Hands at 10 and 2, eyes on the road.”
Robby. Not Bobby nor Robert.
I found her sitting in the front seat after I helped Debbie in. I opened the rear door.
“They ask us to keep riders here, Miss,” I said to the back of her head, hair totally darkest brown. Like if she dyed it in her sink.
“Take me home, Robby. You know the way. Reminds me of the last time we sat like this.”
“As I recall, it wasn’t like that.” For 68 she looked good. But my eyes are 68, too.
“Marion Avenue still?”
“Yes, Robby. Daddy left it to me.”
Turning onto Marion, I saw the white colonnades of Daddy’s other pride and joy. I eased behind an old BMW in the driveway. Rusty bumper, exhaust hanging on a twist of wire.
“Would you like to come in, Robby?”
My phone chimed. Rider ten blocks away in my old neighborhood. Near where JJ slashed me when we were 15.
“Sorry.” Tapped my breast. “But, you know how to reach us,” I said, backing toward my car.
Better to present my chest to the memory of a knifing than my back.
250 Try again words
Maura knelt beside Ronan, fighting panic. She heard men approaching. Good guys? Probably not. Ronan was still breathing. Maybe she could lead them away, lose them, and circle back here. Did she have a choice?
“You sure you hit the guy?” The voice was low and dubious.
“I shot ’im. Saw ’im take the hit. He’s dead.” The guy was bragging.
“We gotta find the girl then get outta here.”
“Nobody around here will call the cops.”
They were close enough she could smell their sweat. The time had come—it was now or never. Like a startled rabbit, she jumped up, knocked over a trash can, and sprinted down the street, away from Ronan. A gun went off behind her and she almost face-planted on the broken concrete. The men argued as they chased after her.
“Idiot. You coulda killed one of us.”
“It wasn’t like that,” the braggart whined. “I thought it was him.”
“You said he was dead. Get the girl then we’ll come back and finish off the Irishman.”
Maura kept running. These men were after her, not Ronan. It was her fault that he was lying unconscious and bleeding. The lines between black and white blurred. Again.
She turned a corner and realized her mistake. A dead end. With no time to escape, she backed into a corner and tried to make herself disappear.
“C’mon out, girlie,” one said.
Then the other screamed as a gigantic silver beast took him down. Ronan. Rescuing her again.
****
250 Moonstruck Mafia WIP words
Silver James
https://www.facebook.com/AuthorSilverJames/
“Were you trying to kill me?” the driver screamed.
“It wasn’t like that.”
“You deliberately ran into me! This is going to make me late for my interview.”
Meredith didn’t heed him. Instead, she ran around her car.
The man followed, grasping her arm. “You can’t run from the scene of an accident.”
“I’m not.” Meredith pulled her arm free and knelt to the child who was sitting beside the road.
“What the hell? It’s a child. I’m calling for help.”
She turned to the man. “They’re on the way.”
He stared at her badge. “Chief Gibbs?”
Meredith nodded.
He backed up. “I’m Matt Somberg.”
She nodded and turned to the child. “It’s going to be okay. I promise.”
The boy lifted his tear-stained face and pointed down the bank toward the interstate highway. “Pup-Pup hurt.”
“We’ll help Pup-Pup. What’s your name?”
“Gabriel.”
Matt interrupted. “I’ll go look for Pup-Pup.”
She nodded. “Gabriel, why are you alone?”
“Bad man hit Pup-Pup. She hurt.”
The first patrol car arrived.
“Chief? Were you hit?”
“I pulled out so the driver wouldn’t accidentally hit Gabriel here. The boy’s injured dog is down by the interstate. Get pictures of everything.”
She heard a shout. “I found Pup-Pup. His foreleg is broken.”
Another police vehicle pulled up.
“Officer Hill, call Dispatch and request a state officer. Then complete the accident report. First, give my card to Detective Somberg,” she pointed to the man carrying the dog, “and tell him we’ll need to reschedule his interview.”
Word count and email/social media handle, Patricia?
I pointed at the sign above the bathroom door. “Men Only – This Means You!” it read, blocky black font on a white background. A custodian was adding a second below it. “Whites Only,” this one said.
“It wasn’t like that when I was your age, Jacob.” Some days it didn’t seem like all that long since I’d been his age, riding around with my mothers in their electric car as we drove to the polls to vote for the woman with ancestors from two continents who was elected President on a third.
“What wasn’t, Pop-pop?” The kid had never known anything different, of course. Nor should he have. The history I remembered wasn’t taught in schools, not the private schools the rich kids went to and sure as hell not the Job Training Center Jacob had attended starting at age three.
I looked at the signs again and thought of the Riots of ‘24 and the Second Civil war, then the Second Constitutional Convention in ‘37. I saw the eyes of the custodian track to me when I spoke, and I thought of the New Pledge. I thought of how 13 becomes 61, but how 61 forgets 13. I thought of my mothers in their unmarked graves. I thought of rough beasts and grandfathers and grandsons.
“Nothing,” I finally said. “Just my back acting up.”
“Okay, Pop-pop.”
We turned towards home, but I couldn’t resist a look back at the signs.
“Say, Jacob. You guys learn about poetry in school?”
250 words
@drmag00
Why did Johnny remember comic books that couldn’t have happened? He could perfectly picture pages that didn’t make sense, covers with impossible dates, and inside looks at superheroes’ personal lives that they would never have agreed to sharing. Details he couldn’t have imagined; it wasn’t like that in his head.
The only possibility was that he had actually seen the comics. Somewhere. They might be elaborate hoaxes, but they must exist. Just not in his collection. He hadn’t been good about saving issues when he was a kid.
“So, are we done?”
Flora Granger interrupted Johnny’s train of thought. He couldn’t be certain she wasn’t in on it. But having a superhero along was useful for the places he wanted to check. His friends weren’t capable of a coverup on this scale.
“Actually, I want to check here now.”
“A… random house?”
Flora’s pause suggested she might know where they were. The home address of Jian, the world’s greatest hero, wasn’t common knowledge, but Johnny recognized it from one of the more recent comics he couldn’t account for.
He ran up the steps and knocked before he lost his nerve. As Flora joined Johnny, a weary, ragged man in a hoodie opened the door. Holy fuck! Mesmer was real? Johnny glanced at Flora out of the corner of his eye. No reaction. She didn’t know who this was?
The voice in Johnny’s head ran a chill down his spine.
Why do you know who I am?
246 PRUDENT words
@davidaludwig.bsky.social
#ThursThreads is now CLOSED. Thanks to everyone who wrote this week and I hope to catch you next week.