Welcome back to the home of #ThursThreads for Week 711. Year Lucky 13! The last year of the cycle, the Moon Year. To those who keep coming back, I’m delighted to see you again!
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 Discord and the group on Facebook.
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 Bluesky, MeWe, Discord, and Mastodon, etc.
Our Judge for Week 711:
Bassett Hound Keeper, Editor, and Queer Romance author, Julia Talbot.
And now your #ThursThreads Challenge, tying tales together.
The Prompt:
“At least not at this level.”
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 in the Moon Year. Good luck!
Dark Days
I’d been hanging tough in a trash-littered alley for three hours. The noontime sun was squeaking through, the blistering heat pounding my brain like Buddy Rich was there soloing his famous West Side Story medley.
Leaning against the side wall of Jack’s Tricks of the Trade, I had a clear view of Sol Hempfield’s Grocery Store.
I admit it. I had fallen on hard times. Business was in the dumpster and no one wanted their garbage picked up.
Then a bright spot.
A ten-spot, you might say.
Yesterday, he popped into my doorway, all four feet whatever of him. Big glasses, skinny as a straw, saying, “Can I hire you?”
I was tempted to say, I don’t babysit, but I held fire. Irony is usually lost on children. I read that once. So I asked, “To do what?”
He got right down to business. “You know Sol Hempfield’s store?”
I nodded ,”Yeah. Sol’s dead, right?”
“New owners, “ the kid replied.
“News to me. So?”
“That’ s where I buy candy. All the kids in the neighbourhood do.”
“Good to know,” I muttered, getting bored.
“Everything’s smaller these days. Chocolate bars…jawbreakers, even. I want you to find out why. We’re getting robbed.”
I wanted to educate the kid, tell him that shrinkflation had hit every market but he offered me fifty bucks. I was desperate, never been there before, at least not at this level.
“I’m your man,” I said.
It’d be like taking candy from a baby.
250 Words
@billmelaterplea
@sterlings-son-2.bsky.social
Title: Others
“How far do we have to dig?” Bryan asked, nibbling his fingers while he watched his uncle with the spade.
The older man wiped the sweat from his brow, leaning a wiry arm against the handle. “Not too far now, son.”
“Will I get in trouble?” Bryan whispered. “I’m only eight.”
The old man wiped his brow a second time, chewing his words with the same attention he gave his bottom lip. A scratch at his jaw swiped sand and earth over his skin. “Where do we live, son?”
The boy swallowed. “In the glen.”
The old man motioned behind himself without turning his head, but he stuck out his thumb like a hitch hiker. “Do we get these in the glen?”
“No, sir, at least not at this level. In school, they say maybe one every decade.”
“Well, then,” the old man sighed, “No one saw, then it didn’t happen.”
The boy’s eyes were saucers, watching his uncle’s worn boot turning up the last pile of earth, then he held his guts in with both hands as the old man pulled the twin dead things by their long, snake-like appendages into the pit.
Bryan gazed down at them. They’d almost killed him, but he’d had his dagger. “Not saying, that’s a lie.”
The old man spit, and turned to hold Bryan’s eye. “The only lie is the one they tell us, son.”
“What’s that?”
His uncle shucked the first shovel of dirt over the creatures. “That we’re alone.”
248 words
@gorashade.bluesky.social
An old farm house I ‘d always wished was mine since I was a child went up for sale. I lost the bid ,soon the house went up for rent. The rent was outrageously low. I moved in fixing things up, cabinet doors, leaks in plumbing even lovingly restoring some furniture that was left behind. I was happy there and then the landlord gave me notice.
I began to hear the noises. At first, it was just some tapping, then sounds of running on the staircase at night. One night getting up to go to the bathroom, I saw a see-through little boy dressed in clothes from the turn of the century.
“We didn’t think you could see us, at least not at this level, on this plain,” he explained.
“My parents want to meet you,” he said gestured, as two adult figures appeared beside him.
“We’re so glad you’re here,” the woman stated, ”Stay, please.”
“I wish I could the place is owned by someone else and they want me to move.”
“You are family, related by blood,” the woman replied.
“That stupid upstart, again? Bring him here and we’ll get rid of him,” the man said.
I had the landlord come out and they moved objects around him. He was terrified. Noticing, I was not afraid, he asked me if I wanted to purchase the place. I nodded and that how I became the owner of a haunted farm house. where the ghosts make us one happy family.
250 words @sweetsheil.bsky.social