Week 624 of #ThursThreads, 12th Anniversary was a sweet reminder of just how amazing y’all are. Can you believe we’ve been doing this for over a decade? Boggles the mind. 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 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.
Silver says: TWELVE YEARS! Wow. Happy Anniversary, Threaders! I’m honored that Siobhan asked me to judge this anniversary version of Thursday Threads. First, congrats to all who participated this week, and who have throughout the years. I’m always thrilled by the amount of talent in this group. Now, for today’s winners. My instructions are to choose a Winner and two Honorable Mentions and I’m supposed to award them “Best of Genre.” Thing is, you’d think we were coming up on Halloween or something. Almost all of the tales had a sprinkle of paranormal/horror/supernatural elements. So, instead of genre, here’s some made-up Best of awards… 
Here we go… *pretend drumroll*
Entries:
- Bill Engleson
- Eric Martell
- Kelly Heinen
- Sheilagh Lee
- Louisa Bacio
- Miranda Gammella
- David A. Ludwig
- Siobhan Muir
- Daniel Swensen
Honorable Mention: Best Tale with Scared Goats
Bill Engleson | Website
Silver says: Not so horrific horror or maybe a dash of paranormal or supernatural because ghosts and/or aliens. I get where the goats are coming from and I’m with them! Well written and well done, Bill.
Honorable Mention: Best Tale with Shotgun Totin’ Rednecks
Daniel Swensen | Website
Silver says: I would read this book, if it was one. I both laughed and commiserated with the two protagonists. Happy huntin’, fellas!
winner announcement
Week 624 Winner
Silver says: Best Tale with a Literary Spin on Relationships goes to Eric Martell. Wow. That was a wonderful and tightly written bit of relationship confessional. I felt for your narrator, Eric. Plus, the twist at the end? Yeah, I didn’t see that one coming and it ended this tale perfectly.
“Shock Loading”
In theatre, when a piece of scenery comes loose so that it falls freely until being suddenly stopped by a cable, we say that the system has been shock-loaded. Shock-loading isn’t supposed to happen, of course, but sometimes the things we want to happen the least do anyway. A good operator will replace each part of a system that’s been shock-loaded because visual inspection cannot tell whether some element has suffered microscopic fractures during the intense and rapid deformation and reformation of the shock load, so that the next time, the element might not deform, it might break.
After the affair, I tried to keep the damage I did to our relationship to the ordinary kind. The kind that can be repaired with communication and listening and atonement. Forget to change the laundry. Burn the steaks on the grill. Get drunk during our daughter’s ballet recital.
I made that last one up to her by getting sober and staying that way for six months. I did the laundry. Cooked dinner. Kept my job. Avoided the shock loads.
One of the things they learned that causes chronic traumatic encephalopathy, otherwise known as CTE, in football players, is the damage done by repeated sub-concussive hits. It’s not always the big blow that does the unfixable damage. It’s the damage from the smaller ones, hidden, waiting.
If you’d have asked me what the last straw would have been, I’d never have guessed the way I folded towels.
But I heard the system break.
~~~~~~~
Congratulations THIRTY-ONE TIME WINNER Eric, and Honorable Mentions Bill and Daniel! Don’t forget to claim your badges and display them with pride. You certainly earned it!
Please contact Siobhan Muir at muir.siobhan@gmail.com for your giftcard of choice.
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! 🙂
