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 575 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 575:
Cat afficionado, Editor, and Mid Week Flash host, Miranda Kate.
Facebook | Twitter | Goodreads |
And now your #ThursThreads Challenge, tying tales together.
The Prompt:
“She recognized the man.”
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!
The Witness
We sat there, recorder running, late morning sun squirting in through the open curtains, street sounds down below, and a couple of blocks away, tourists fish boats heading out to get their quota of salmon. Maybe more salmon than allowed the way people were, about rules in the wild west.
Finally comfortable with having her voice recorded and pleased with how the practice tape had gone, Carol rambled about her memory of the previous summer, being dumped by her boyfriend in Vancouver, and rushing back home to the Island to stay with her parents, get rejigged, occasionally looking for a job, going to the beach, hooking up with old friends.
One day, she was sunning in the back yard, houses all around, voices everywhere, summer voices, someone singing down the block or maybe it was a radio, and in fact she remembered a couple of radios playing so when she heard “DON’T DO THAT…I WARNED YOU,” it stood out, angry and threatening. She thought it might be wise to go back in the house, get away from the burst of anger but curiosity got the best of her. She crept over to the back fence, looked out on the alley, saw a little boy and a man. At that moment, the man picked up the boy and hit him hard on the rear end. She recognized the man. Her parents neighbour. Ted something. “He hit him again. Hard. I yelled. He stopped.”
I turned the recorder off.
249 WIP
@billmelaterplea
So this was Clancy’s. The legendary pub. As Catholic school girls, they’d dreamed of coming here to meet the sexy—because they were off-limits—Southie boys. Southie boys were bad news. Hoodlums. Thugs. Criminals. Definitely forbidden fruit to proper young ladies. Kathleen glanced around the pub. Those Southie boys had grown into Southie men. Still sexy. Still bad news. Even happily-married Mary Pat was getting an eyeful. Kathleen sighed inwardly. She didn’t want to be here, especially with Nora and Rosie, both of whom had affairs with her husband before his mysterious demise.
Their waitress dropped off their drinks. Resigned to this ill-fated outing, she lifted her pint to her lips. Her hand froze midway when her gaze caught on a pair of warm brown eyes.
The man sat in a booth near the back. Dark hair. Chiseled jawline. Broad shoulders beneath the black T-shirt. She blinked, her heart suddenly pounding in her chest. She recognized the man. It was him! The man from the cemetery. The man who’d watched her after Tommy was put in the ground. Maybe not so ill-fated after all, she thought.
Fingers snapped in front of her face. “Kathleen, what the frick, girl?” Mary Pat snapped her fingers again. “You’ve gone pale as a sheet. Did you see a ghost or something?”
She shifted so she could see beyond Mary Pat. The man was gone. Had he ever been there? She fought sudden moisture in her eyes and focused on Mary Pat. “Or something.”
****
249 Moonstruck Mafia WIP words
@SilverJames_
Death looked better wearing a cloak. It disguised her lack of muscles and flesh; the accoutrements all but the most fashionable possessed as a matter of course. She could have stood in as a model on any catwalk, her loose-limbed gait giving her the inimitable swagger few could ever hope to match. She had appeared on premier magazine covers thousands of times, either credited as Maudlin Morte, Esme Ins or dozens of others, her racial ambiguity finding her work everywhere. There was nowhere she couldn’t be found if you kept your eyes open.
But avoiding her was almost impossible. She could locate anyone when it was their time.
Today, she was in Paris. She recognised the man selling crepes on the Champs Elysees, his harried look making him appear older than his passport would claim. His was a fresh face on a busy thoroughfare packed with foreign tourists, their noise and bustle drowning out any but the most direct and earnest conversations.
“Excuse me,” she said. Then she added, “S’il vous plait,” as an afterthought to sweeten her approach. She was charming on almost every occasion: well used to giving as much as she took away. She had a casual, practised demeanour and a smile few would ever forget.
“American?” It was a statement, as much as a question, but it was also the last thing he’d say. He’d never see the motorcycle that swerved suddenly to avoid the police car, although he’d hear the siren and turn that way.
250 words – twothirdzrasta.blogspot.com
No idea what to write. I haven’t written any stories of any kind in at least three months. I have no idea what to do with the prompt. “She recognized the man.” But you know someone could do a story about a photograph. “They handed her the photograph. She looked at it. There was a man in the picture. She recognized the man.”
Yeah. Someone could do something like that. Or maybe it’s a sporting event, and she sees someone out of the corner of her eye, looks closer, and recognizes the man she is looking at. Or something like that.
“I saw that man on the news last night!” Now his picture’s everywhere, on all the news stations, all over the internet. That guy. You know. The one whose plane crashed and burned and killed everyone on it. See? She recognized the man, again.
I could just give up, go to the kitchen, wash the dishes, play around downstairs for a few minutes, and watch the news. And there it is again. The big wanted poster on the TV, and the voice saying, “If you recognize this man, please call the tip line.” She recognized the man, so she called the tip line. “I haven’t seen him in years.”
I could just fold up to the depression, and go rack out in the hall, on my little mat, with my music playing in my ears, and say, I’ve had enough for one day!”
That’s probably my best idea yet.
250 words
@mysoulstears
“The hills along the northern coast are our target. A defensible overland route from our valley would change everything.”
Tenko organized her thoughts aloud. Mana knew her well enough to pretend she was vocalizing for his benefit.
“How long do you think it will take to cross Tigers’ Forest?”
“Ideally, we’ll find a route taking no more than a month. The time to find that route is the problem.”
Both friends sighed, wishing they’d indulged Tenko’s father’s weird obsession with camping more when they were little. The streets were overcrowded, but one more corner and the city gate would be in sight. In the hubbub, neither heard the scrabble on the awning overhead before a wild-haired archer vaulted dramatically down into their path—somehow hitting an open space in the sea of elves.
“You guys are going into the Tigers’ Forest!?” Her ebon eyes shone eagerly.
Tenko’s mouth hung unresponsively open. Mana cleared his throat and smiled.
“Why, yes—”
“Can I come too?!”
Tenko managed to close her mouth and nod subtly.
“Another bow would be a great comfort,” Mana elaborated.
“Yes! Adventure!”
The mystery girl, no older than the friends, pumped her fist enthusiastically.
“And what about a sword?”
Tenko turned toward the voice she recognized. The man behind them cut an imposing figure in full lamellar armor with two swords at his hip and a bow across his back. The general’s son.
“Of course, my lord,” Tenko bowed.
They just might be able to do this.
249 Tale of Tenko words
@DavidALudwig
Using her hands, one pushing from the seat and the other pulling against the door frame, Triss lurched to her feet.
Thank goodness the weather’s nice.
“Nice” meant it wasn’t snowing or blowing gale force winds, and the parking lot between the door of the grocery and her car was relatively free of ice. She checked that she had her purse and keys then locked the car and waddled into the store.
I’m like a turtle with my shell on the front.
She selected a cart and headed for the canned veggies. She’d recently craved pickled beets and when she found a can, they tasted like ambrosia to her.
My kid is weird if they want pickles of any kind.
She browsed for a few more items along with the milk and eggs needed to survive as a pregnant lady with a girlfriend who had strict dietary ideas. Triss shook her head with a smile. Briana cared enough to make sure she was well.
Which is more than Danny ever did.
She rounded the corner near the produce and spotted a couple of men standing near the deli, talking to each other. Her heart stuttered and she tried to casually turn her cart around, heading back the way she’d come.
Shit. Oh, shit, oh shit, oh shit.
She recognized the man in the puffy black jacket, typing something into his phone, and her blood ran cold as she tried to catch her breath.
How did he find me?
248 ineligible #WIP words
@SiobhanMuir
“Mogul is on the move” Agent Jack Carter whispered in his earbud mic.
“10-4…over.” said Carter’s colleague, Ann Jones, from the command post in the Secret Service bungalow.
It was unusual for Mogul to leave his cottage after dinner, but minutes earlier, Muse had pulled into the entrance of the sprawling New Jersey resort in her black, heavily tinted SUV, with her own security detail close behind.
Ann Jones watched Mogul on the CCTV monitor, clamber up the pathway to the Manor House. She recognized the man, easily identifying his body tics and forward leaning posture.
“Mogul’s taking his own sweet time…should be in the manor in 3 minutes” said Jones, informing the agents covering the manor.
“Roger that…over” Jack said in response.
Muse and her lawyer were visiting Mogul for a meeting in the private dining room of the resort. This sort of meeting was becoming more routine as Mogul’s criminal activities came under increasing scrutiny, so Mogul would be off the radar for at least an hour.
Special Agent Jones grew restless waiting for an update from Jack Carter and was startled when his voice broke the silence. “Mogul’s heading home…time to tuck him in.” Carter reported.
Agent Jones turned to the monitor, watching Mogul’s lumpish form ease down the walkway. She took an extreme close-up shot of Mogul’s face, printed out the digital photo, grabbed it and shouted into her mic “Code Bravo, Bravo…repeat Code Bravo! That is not Mogul…repeat. that is not Mogul…Mogul has gone rogue!”
Word count: 250
@taforu on Twitter aka X
“I will ask one more time. How did you know the deceased?”
Miranda wrung her hands together beneath the table, heart beating out of her chest. She squared her shoulders up. “I told you. I don’t know him. The other woman, she recognized the man. She killed him.”
“Right, the mysterious woman who shows up on no camera.” The detective leaned back in his chair, chewing on the end of his pen.
“She does exist. I am not making her up! You don’t belie-“ She stopped as the door of the interrogation room
opened and another woman came in. Her next breath caught in her throat and her eyes widened. “You…”
Detective Owens glanced toward the woman, pointing, as she shut the door. “Her?”
Miranda didn’t even hear him. Her eyes were glued to the newcomer. The Glock on her hip, the detective badge hanging from a chain around her neck. All polished and professional looking, but those eyes… She’d never forget those shocking hazel eyes.
Soulless.
Eyes that locked with hers, resulting in a quirk of the woman’s lips, as if to say, “go ahead, say something. I dare you.” A chill raced down her spine.
“Lady, quit wasting our time.” Detective Owens banged on the table and Miranda jumped. Had he still been speaking?
The woman detective spoke up, “Poor thing looks like she’s seen a ghost. Maybe she needs a break.”
A ghost indeed. The new detective was the killer.
~*~*~*~*~*~
243 words
@DaelynMorgana (Blog: https://dmorgana.wordpress.com)
Things to Come
She moved between the shadows in her dreams. Her breath cold against her skin told her it was not a dream, but a promotion, of the nightmare about to strike. It was up to her to stop it. Life as a medium was never easy.
She got up, knowing sleep was out of the question, Even preparing breakfast, she knew something very dark was coming to her home—she had to be prepared.
Her day at the diner seemed normal enough but as the hours passed, she knew time was running out. As evening came, and she started closing out the register, the bell on the door chimed as someone entered taking a seat at the counter.
“We’re closing,” she warned turning to greet him. She recognized the man from her dream and understood the source of her unease. This was not a good man, and while every instinct told her to run, she knew she needed help.
“Can I get you something to drink?”
“Water, and a cup of coffee.”
The smile he gave her was nowhere near as friendly as he seemed to think it was.
She nodded. She knew what would happen if she involved the police, but she had help that was better equipped to deal with this kind of threat.
When she served him, his smile melted into a snarl. “They’re going to die.”
His voice sent shivers down her spine, but her reaction had the same effect on him.
“No. They’re already dead.”
248 words, not including title
@mishmhem
#ThursThreads is now CLOSED. Thanks to everyone who wrote this week and I hope to catch you next week.