Welcome back to the home of Weird, Wild, & Wicked Tales. Today is Thursday and that means it’s time to start flashing. We’re at the beginning of our ninth year of weekly prompts. It’s amazing we’ve gone this long! This is Week 438 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 Twitter handle or email in the post (so we don’t have to look for 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, Twitter, MeWe, and Google Plus, etc.
Our Judge for Week 438:
Dead Thing Specialist, Mining Geologist, and Original Book Boyfriend, George Varhalmi.
Facebook |
And now your #ThursThreads Challenge, tying tales together.
The Prompt:
“Exactly what I said.”
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!
Death is for the Rest of Your Life
I don’t get fired often. Sometimes I quit a case. Especially if a client’s lied to me. I don’t mind lies, necessarily. I lie all the time. I could be President. Don’t know if I’d be able to get up in the middle of the night to tweet, however.
But a case, like a country, needs trust.
Truth.
I called Effie Finecastle. She took my call. “Why’d you sack me?” I asked, not really expecting a whole lot. But Effie was a weaver. Meticulous. Had a compulsion to finish a piece of work. Me! I was her piece of work.
“Irv called. Crying! Said, he loved me. What could I say? I said, you’re forgiven.”
I’ll send you my bill, I told her and disconnected.
I then called Irv Finecastle.
“You really wanna hire me?” I asked.
“Not me. Mona. She’s a wreck. Doesn’t believe the cops will do much to find who killed her mother.”
“There are other dicks for hire.”
“Exactly what I said but she checked you out. Word is you’re on the up and up.”
“Except when I’m sleeping,” I murmured.
“Pardon?”
“Nothing. Forget it. I’m game but I need to meet her.”
“Mona?”
“Right, Irv. My client.”
She lives at the Regal Arms. Penthouse.”
“High-end…”
“Yeah. Here’s the number.”
I wrote it down, dialed Mona.
Come now, she said.
In fifteen minutes, I was elevating skyward.
I had a funny feeling the case would only get screwier.
250 WIP
@billmelaterplea
Jack hitched a hip on a desk, watching the wall monitor. Louie glanced at the camera in the interrogation room, rolled his eyes. He couldn’t blame his deputy. Their witness was…talkative.
“So,” Louie said, “you explained you weren’t interested.”
“Exactly! What I said to that big jerk is that if he didn’t leave us alone then I’d get angry. And he just laughed. I mean, I was serious and everything. Like, I put my hands on my hips and glowered.” She pushed back from the table, stood and demonstrated. “I practice my expressions and my glower is a good one. I’m going to be an actress when I graduate. I do summer stock now and I’m making lots of contacts and that asshat just laughed at me. Called me a little girl and wanted to know why I thought he’d be interested in a baby when he could have a real woman. That’s when I got really mad and I said to him—”
“Yes,” Louie cut her off. “You’ve told me already. What happened then?”
“Well, d’uh. He left.”
“He just got up and walked out the door?”
“Yes. No.” Her brow furrowed as she considered. “He was watching this woman. She was like…old.”
“Old? Like forty?”
“That’s ancient. She was like…thirty. Ish. He followed her out. I mean, why? Gabby and I were right there and he wasn’t interested in us at all!” She pouted.
Jack had heard enough. Time to hunt. His wolf agreed.
****
249 #NaNo #WIP words
@SilverJames_
“Yeah, Jake, you heard me right. That’s exactly what I said. I’m not leaking this bogus story to the press.”
I hung up the phone, but Jake immediately texted me. “Look, Dani, the party wants this story out there. That’s what they’re paying us for.”
Jake and I were political operatives. We were hired during campaigns for the purpose of vetting the candidates. Digging up the dirt, where there was dirt—and there usually was—so the party could avoid embarrassment, or disaster, by having supported the wrong guy, or woman.
I was really getting pissed now. With Jake, who was not only my partner, but my ex. With the party bosses, who expected us to smear a decent young Congressman, one with a promising political future. And most of all with myself, for abandoning my ethics once too often.
Not this time, I silently vowed to myself.
I texted Jake back. “The dossier on Tom Alvarez is a fraud, Jake, and you know it. It’s a bunch of crap. He’s a decent guy and a good Congressman. This will destroy him. Not only his political career, but his entire reputation.”
I waited for his reply. I didn’t wait long. “It’s done, Dani. The party bosses want someone else. They need to derail Alvarez’s campaign. I just leaked the story to the Post myself.”
Catherine Ducourau
@cathducourau
224 Words
Amaya paced up and down the corridor.
“Ms. Moncayo.”
Amaya looked up and there was Detective Miranda walking towards her. Handsome she thought, but it was a fleeting thought as he reached her, and said, “We have a suspect in custody.”
“Who?”
“Well, I can’t say, but he was found in possession of your sister’s jewelry and phone.”
She stared at his brown eyes and waited for more information.
“Would you like some coffee, tea…”
“I would like my sister’s killer in handcuffs.”
He nodded and motioned for her to follow him. They entered a small room with a long table and two chairs and sat down.
“Tell me Ms. Moncayo, when was the last time you spoke with your sister.”
“Well, probably the morning of her murder.”
He nodded, “what did she say to you? Did she sound different to you?”
“No, we were supposed to have dinner that day because she had received a promotion, so, if anything she sounded excited.”
“I see and who is Chuy Rivera?”
Her blood drained from her face; she could feel it.
“He … he…”
“Your boyfriend?” his tone accusatory.
She stood, “Never, that man stalked me and when I lived in Ohio. I had to leave an extremely lucrative job because he would not give up. But he was never my boyfriend and I’ll tell you exactly, what I said to the detective in Ohio, he is a killer not a stalker.”
She could see, he thought she killed her sister.
Word count 250
twitter: @chattmor
“Poor people have no one to blame for their life than themselves.”
Exactly what I said.
“Gay people are an abomination.”
Exactly what I said.
“It’s every man’s right to have sex with any woman he wants, whenever he wants.”
Exactly what I said.
“Children getting murdered in school is just the price we all have to pay for freedom.”
Exactly what I said.
“Being wealthy is just a sign that God loves me more.”
Exactly what I said.
“I don’t have to treat someone like a person if I don’t want to.”
Exactly what I said.
“It’s my right to destroy the environment if I want – the end of the world is coming soon anyway.”
Exactly what I said.
“I shouldn’t have to interact with anyone I don’t want to, ever.”
Exactly what I said.
“Avoiding paying my taxes is what smart people do – only idiots support their government.”
Exactly what I said.
“God just loves white people more.”
Exactly what I said.
“We have a Manifest Destiny to seize any land we want.”
Exactly what I said.
“The white people’s burden is to civilize the rest of the world.”
Exactly what I said.
“The death penalty is the ultimate form of justice.”
Exactly what I said.
“The weak should die so the strong can prosper.”
Exactly what I said.
“For what shall it profit a man, if he gain the whole world, and suffer the loss of his soul?”
Exactly what…hey, I actually did say that one!
249 words
@drmag00
She slipped into the water with a soft hiss as the heat enclosed her body and I swallowed a moan. When I agreed to help Matsuko, I hadn’t expected her to be more than an interesting companion who’d entertain me for a while. And Lord Ignius knew she was extremely entertaining. But I also hadn’t expected to be sexually attracted to her lovely body and direct honest ways.
I stood transfixed as she leaned back and dunked her head to rinse her hair, her breasts popping up before her face broke the surface. Everything about her was elegance and grace, and I wanted to feel her body against mine. Without clothes. Preferably with erotic interactions.
As she began to scrub her hair with the soap cake, I cleared my throat and tried to find coherent words.
“Would you like some help with that?”
She raised her eyebrows. “You want to help me wash my hair?”
“I would drain the whole of Wandalup Bay to feel the silk of your hair against my skin.”
She blinked. “What?”
I couldn’t remember exactly what I said, but I wasn’t about to repeat it.
“Yes, I’ll help you wash your hair.”
“Oh, okay, then.” She extended the soap cake to me as I pulled one of the chairs over to the tub. “Please be thorough but gentle. My hair is very thick.”
I wet my hands in the bathwater, careful not to brush her skin, but my gaze had no such restrictions.
248 ineligible #TeamRPG words
@SiobhanMuir
Jacob pushed the knife through the joint and the leg fell apart. They would eat well tonight. He slipped the blade across the sinew and dropped both halves in the pan. The meat spat when it hit the hot fat, showering him with an angry exhalation.
“And so, we called it a day,” he said, lifting the slabs of meat and turning them over. “We said our goodbyes and agreed to part friends. She seemed a little strange; you know how people can be. They have expectations… make plans… forget that other people have needs too.”
Thomas nodded. “She should have paid more attention. Not been so wrapped up in herself. The clues were all there. You’re an open book if people just look beyond themselves.”
“That’s exactly what I said. She was insensible at the time. She’d mixed her drinks and I’d offered to give her a ride home. She rejected me the first time but later, when she began to feel ill, she changed her mind. I love it when I can be the white knight, do the honourable thing. It gives me a warm glow, deep inside.”
“And that’s all she said, I suppose. Story’s end. Fade to final credits. You and her as an item, no more. If only you’d been more compatible it could have so different. It’s such a loss for you both.”
Jacob sighed. It was such a disappointment. “But at least you got to share a final meal with her.”
248 words ~ twothirdsrasta.blogspot.com
Every day I go to work putting up with men who steal my ideas passing then off as their own and every year I get passed over for promotions that go to men. I’ve been told speak up and tell them they’re my ideas; but it never changes anything. I should be in a senior management position; but this firm is run by misogynist men. I thought I had a shot last week when the boss appointed his daughter, Melody but that was a pipe dream.
Melody was ornamental obeying the men around her. I’d feel sorry for her but that would take too much energy. Here I am today taking back what should have been mine. I put forth ideas that would take the company into the 22nd century and beyond.
“Exactly what I said, yesterday,” claimed Collin the white fifty years old, yes man.
“Shut-up, Collin. I gave the company the idea and I’m talking,” I insisted.
They ignored me as usual Collin took the idea and tried to run with it but this time; he didn’t have all the information not one of them did. I resigned and took my ideas to their competitor. I’m the Chief Technology Officer at my new company and they value my input there are no interruptions by stupid old men just blessed approval for valued ideas. My old boss begged me to come back I laughed in his face. I value myself too much, to put my self in that position.
250 words
@SweetSheil
Even in darkness, it was a wonder the dwarf and the cat girl made it over the brine battered rocks undetected. Any break from their current cover risked exposure to the scathing searchlights topping the fortified wall. Though they were still right against the surf, Olivar Brackenbeard could barely hear the waves over his own panicked heartbeat in his ears. The summer night sea off Centre was quite pleasant with the day’s heat still lingering in the air, but no one would believe the two had made their way to Navy Rock on an innocent pleasure swim.
“I be telling ye, it can’t be done!” Olivar growled at his companion. “The Great Navy guards their secrets jealously; there’ll be a hundred guards alert, even at this hour!”
“Aye,” Caitlin Nicole Kinnery agreed, tail twitching in the shadows and shining feline eyes fixed on a culvert in the base of the wall. “We can get in that way, but we’ll be overwhelmed afore we can blink. Unless all the rats and gulls rise up at once to give us a distraction.”
“Exactly! What?”
“I said ye need to call the critters to help us.”
Olivar drug a meaty hand over his weary face.
“Do ye think I be some brinking miracle worker?”
Cat watched him a moment before matter-of-factly observing.
“Ye convinced the turtles to swim us out here.”
Olivar harumphed gruffly but couldn’t deny a spark of pride at that feat.
241 Cat’s The Pajamas words
@DavidALudwig
But Wait, I have a Better Idea
I tensed as the patrol got closer to our position. It was only a matter of time before they found us.
“If we split up, they can’t catch all of us,” I whispered
“That’s a stupid idea. They might not catch us all, but they could easily just shoot us. What are you thinking?”
I shook my head and nodded towards the shadows. Then smirked at David and sighed. “I don’t see you coming up with anything helpful.”
“Give me a minute,” David answered as he watched the patrol. “It’s not like we have that many choices.”
Billy slipped into the shadows with Kent as Dave and I continued to discuss our options. The soldiers were closer now, almost in hearing range.
David shook his head.
“What are you thinking?” I asked with a resigned sigh.
“I say, if we split up, they can’t catch all of us…”
“That is literally exactly what I said a minute ago,” I growled. “And you said it was a stupid idea.”
“It was then,” Dave answered.
“What’s the difference now?” I asked as the patrol moved in.
“Now, they’re in hearing range.” He said raising his hands. As we stood, there was the soft sound of suppressed fire and two tranq darts were protruding from each man’s neck.
“And they make easier targets,” Billy commented as we dragged the now unconscious men into our hiding place.
“And now we have uniforms,” Dave said with a smile.
Sometimes, I hate my teammates.
248 words (not including title)
@mishmhem
Christ this spirit is stubborn. I get it, it’s more fun to be alive than dead, but it’s time to enjoy the afterlife. And if I have my way, it’s going to happen in three seconds.
Or not.
“God damn you!”
“I am NOT touching this one!” God says, as a black light flashes in the sky. “I’ve been after this guy for a century and if I can’t catch him, you can’t either. And if you do, he is NOT welcome in Heaven!”
“Crabby much?”
“You will be too here in a moment,” he says.
Ignoring him, I beg my horse to fly as fast as she can. If we don’t catch this spirit tonight, they can regenerate again as soon as this current body dies. And a spirit will do anything to regenerate.
“I’m giving Destiny a boost,” God says.
I suck in a breath as Destiny’s hooves pound the air and her wings whump as we zip down the street, small town Iowa blissfully unaware of the magic going on. The spirit bolts down Main Street, and I close the gap.
“Go!” God says.
I swing my scythe and the soul disconnects from the body. A six-foot-tall man with brown hair stands before me, wearing a colonial military uniform. He aims a musket at me.
“I can incinerate you,” I tell him and the weapon drops.
I shove him through a door to the afterlife. God sends a rainbow across the sky. I need a drink.
@Aightball
249 words
Avril crossed her arms over her chest and clenched her jaw. Of all the mothers in the world, why did she have to be born to one who was such an unreasonable jerk? She gave a sideways glance at the woman standing three feet from her, the woman who had given her life, the woman who was trying to ruin her life.
“I don’t know why you have to turn everything into a battle.” Her mom pinched the bridge of her nose, and her voice took on a pleading tone. “This was supposed to be a nice weekend getaway, and I really don’t want to spend it arguing.”
Avril’s posture softened as she decided to take a different approach. “I’m sorry, mom. I just don’t understand. You always said a woman’s word is her bond.”
Her mom tilted her head to the side. “What does that have to do with anything?”
“Well, last month, you asked me if all my friends jumped off a bridge would I jump too. I said yes, and you said you’d let me jump. Those were your exact words.”
“That is not exactly what I said,” she muttered through clenched teeth.
“It is exactly what you said.” Avril gave a cocky half smile.
“Fine. Give me the damn waiver.” Her mother held out her hand. “Why did I have to book our girls’ weekend at the New River Gorge on Bride Day?”
237 words
kilecarr77@gmail.com
I just realized that should say Bridge Day and not Bride day….
#ThursThreads Week 438 is now CLOSED. Thanks to everyone who wrote this week and I hope to catch you next week.