Welcome back to the home of #ThursThreads for Week 602.
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
- 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 602:
Scottish Word Slinger, Dauntless romance author, and #ThursThreads host, Siobhan Muir.
Facebook | Bluesky | Patreon | Eden Books |
And now your #ThursThreads Challenge, tying tales together.
The Prompt:
“It’s been an eye-opener.”
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!
Revelations
“What would you like to know?” Bea Sutherland asked.
He thought, everything. I want to know everything.
But he answered, “What are you willing to tell me?”
That seemed a fair question. And the truth of it was undeniable. People generally only told you what they cared to share. Once in a while other things might slip out, hidden meanings between the words that were spoken. And even then, the listener would have to be able to parse the wheat from the chaff.
As Danny thought that thought, he laughed inside, a silent morsel of humour. He had found himself more and more using farm metaphors to highlight his task of extracting urban secrets. Urban and small city secrets.
It’s been an eye-opener he had to admit. He’d never been much of a farm kid, bouncing back as he had after his mother died a few short months after he’d popped out, ricochetting between his grandparent’s town home and his old man’s scrub farm. More than scrub when he was sober but mostly a losing proposition.
Beets! Wheat! Him!
He could have been a lost proposition.
Finally, it had been settled, and he mostly stayed with his dead mother’s parents.
Yes, he had his secrets and rarely if ever wanted to share them. Yet here he was, seeking to pluck small and larger truths from this woman who’d lived a fascinating yet likely painful life.
Her head nodded. “Maybe it is time…” she said.
He was ready to listen.
250 WIP
@billmelaterplea
I’m hoping you’ll say it’s been an eye-opener when I’m done explaining how secrets work; but I’m sure you probably won’t because no matter what I say you won’t remember it in the end.
I am a holder of secrets (not those secrets that people just blurt out instantly), but the secrets that people keep long term. You thought they were the ones who heroically, stoically kept long term secrets which could change small worlds and big ones. The secrets of parentage, or state secrets, and espionage, or perhaps industry secrets It doesn’t help that those darn DNA sites are now revealing those secrets. How would they like to have holes in their bodies for days as more secrets are revealed! I’m not keeping those secrets anymore, let my brethren do that. Ha-ha, you thought I was one of a kind, really? We survive as long as there are secrets to hold and mankind..
I can tell you the biggest secret of all, because you won’t remember. later. The beings who populated this world tired of all the drama destroyed Atlantis, putting you back civilization to the Stone Age.
Ha-Ha you want to text this conversation to every website; everyone you know but you can’t because as of now you don’t remember. What were we talking about? Right the state of the world. People have to be a little nicer and kinder to one another and share the resources. You don’t agree? You are all doomed to forget. Nice knowing you!!
250 words
@SweetSheil
Against enemies both foreign and domestic.
These are definitely foreign. Or maybe they’re domestic and I’m foreign.
Either way, she hoped she made it out alive.
“Thank you for helping me.” Mahalia gave her an uncertain look. “When I first saw you, I thought you were a gorgon, but now I see you’re not. What are you?”
“Again, with everyone worrying about species.” Roxanne shook her head. “It doesn’t really matter, does it?”
Mahalia frowned. “No, I suppose not. Are you a dryad?”
Roxanne laughed. “You really are concerned with this, aren’t you?”
“It’s always good to know who is willing to help us and who isn’t so we can share it with the village.” Mahalia’s voice held no humor. She meant her words.
Roxanne sighed as they skirted group of downed trees. “Wow, there are a lot of trees down around here. Was it a bad winter?”
Mahalia shook her head and the snakes hissed in tempo with her steps. “No, that was caused by the rock wraith.”
“Good glory, it must have been huge. There are at least thirty good sized trees down.” Roxanne stepped around a fan of deciduous saplings, using the torch to illuminate the branches so she wouldn’t trip.
“Of course, it’s a rock wraith. Haven’t you seen one before?” Mahalia gave her a surprised look.
“Nope. I’m completely new here. It’s been an eye-opener, let me tell you. There are some weird things where I’m from, but this whole place makes that look tame.”
250 ineligible #Sirens words
@siobhanmuir on Bluesky
“You knew this whole time and never told me?”
Helen Harper wasn’t letting this one go. Even if it meant following her father into his gun safe. She didn’t mind him having guns. She just wasn’t excited by the craftsmanship and couldn’t stand the noise or recoil.
“You told me not to! The other you. Was she wrong?”
How was Helen supposed to answer that? She was still trying to wrap her head around the fact that she was the multiplying superhero, Gemini. Probably not even the original.
“Wait. Are you still in touch with her?”
“I was nine days ago. She said she’d be incommunicado for a while.”
Colonel Harper reached around the edge of his rifle display case. He pressed a hidden latch and the front of the case swung out, revealing a compact closet with several of Gemini’s super suits inside.
“Now that you have her Power, you probably want one of these.”
Helen ran a hand dumbly over the front leotard. Her father placed his hand firmly on her shoulder.
“She thought you’d be happier not knowing. How are you holding up?”
Helen slowly shook her head.
“It’s been an eye-opener. Just how many of me are you in touch with?”
“Only the three,” Colonel Harper coughed rather than continue.
Helen searched her father’s face.
“Me, the superhero, and…” She gasped. “The supervillain? She really is a distinct person?”
Colonel Harper nodded while studying his shoes.
“She calls on Mondays.”
244 The Many Lives of Gemini words
@davidaludwig.bsky.social
“Try again,” his therapist said, offering herself. “I do believe that you’re getting there. Let the night grab the reins and relinquish your self-control.”
The Count shook his head. This had never happened before. He’d never shied away from a bloodletting; it had been ingrained into him for hundreds of murderous years.
“I just can’t do it,” he said. “It’s nothing personal. I’ve never had a problem before, but I can assure you it’s not you. Your neck and your throat are exquisite. Your body’s deliciously warm. And I’ve never seen such a delectable tracery of arteries and veins. Not ever, not in all the years since I was sired.”
“But there’s nothing forthcoming? Not even a hint? Not even if I make a small cut and bleed out onto the tip of your tongue?” The therapist nicked herself at the base of her throat and offered him a quick, deliberate dab. But the Count shrugged away, his eyes wide, face paler than milk.
It was most peculiar.
“I don’t understand it. And you say that it’s vegans? I’d have thought it wouldn’t make any difference. Blood is blood, whatever the provenance of how it’s produced. There’s been nothing comparable recorded in any of the arcane tomes I’ve read. Let me tell you – it’s been an eye-opener. A first-ever for one of your kind.”
The Count shrugged. Embarrassed. “There was that time with Gwyneth Paltrow and that bath filled with Goop. What do you think? Could it be that?”
250 words – twothirdzrasta.blogspot.com
“My gran was Irish. I’ve got a wee bit of Irish in me.” Her green eyes sparkled as she lay on the fake accent.
“Do ya now? Would you like some big Irish in you?” I waited until she got the full drift of my meaning and her eyes widened and then I winked.
“You are horrible!”
She playfully slapped me on the shoulder – while ever so hesitantly feeling out my muscles. Oh yeah, I noticed.
“That’s not what I’ve been told.”
“Seriously, are you ever serious, or is life all one big pun to you?”
Being with her has been different than anyone else I’ve ever dated or been involved with. It’s been an eye-opener. Megan didn’t compare to anyone else, no wonder she’s the one who broke the curse.
“Seriously? Do those cancel each other out? I find life too short to be serious, seriously.”
Our banter fueled the fires of our physical connection. Megan gave as good as she got. Every moment with her made me want more. Now that we were past the initial get-to-know-you stage, I worried that maybe she wouldn’t like the real me.
The din of the bar grew louder the later it got on St. Patrick’s Day. It seemed like on this day, more than any other, people searched for a little bit of luck. I’d be lucky to finally have found love.
A bloom spread up her chest. “You’re not that horrid.”
“It must be the luck of the Irish.”
@LouisaBacio
249 words
It’s not that I wasn’t exposed to it growing up, but I never gave it any thought. Not one to be easily influenced by my peers, I stayed in my own little world, living out on a quiet gravel road, being the stereotypical Iowa farm kid.
Then my resolve crumbled. I tried it. It wasn’t anything like I thought it would be.
Let me note here that I drink farmer’s coffee. For the uninitiated, farmer’s coffee grows hair on your chest. Two cups of that shit could run a tractor all day. It’s almost as strong as truck stop coffee.
Sitting in a small café in Sioux Falls, Adrianna finishes her drink and grins at me.
“Well? What’d you think about your first espresso?”
“It’s been eye opening.” I set my empty cup down. “I don’t know if I’m alert because of the sugar or the caffeine.”
Adrianna laughs, gathering her purse. Her chair scrapes the tiled floor as we depart to resume our shopping trip. It’s beautiful out today.
“It’s probably the espresso.”
We walk out and I shove my sunglasses on. “I’ve had my dad’s coffee. How is that stronger?”
She shrugs. “I don’t know. Did you like it?”
I nod. “For a girl who takes her coffee strong and black, that latte was damn good.”
Adrianna grins, holding the door to a bookstore open “Good. We’ll get you hooked on mochas next.”
Raising an eyebrow, I decide not to ask what that is. I’m already vibrating.
@Aightball
249 words
“What does one sell at the Wispy Thicket?” the small auditor asked indignantly.
“Dreams, Salvatori. We sell dreams.” The proprietress answered primly. “And drop the act, glamours are forbidden in this establishment.”
The air became hazy and thick, with the smell of lilac and brimstone. “You are no more a little person, than I am a kindly old woman, gnome.”
As she spoke, the visage of a kindly grandmother was replaced with the face of an angry pink fae lord.
“State your business quickly. I have little time for the minutiae of your tiny-minded bureaucracy.’
“Annual audits of your establishment,” the gnome growled, trying to wrestle back control of the conversation, “and your full cooperation are not only required – they are demanded.”
“And dear Salvatori, we both know the terms of my contract have always been, shall we say, fluid.” Matilda said slyly, as she placed a small bag of gold on the counter.
The gnome nodded, picked up his clipboard and completed his report certifying that the Wispy Thicket had passed its annual inspection.
“Thank you for your time, Matilda, and for the tour of your fine establishment.”
“I did not think anyone could sell dreams, but your store has changed my opinion. This experience,” he reached up and pocketed the gold, “it’s been…” he paused, searching for the right words, “It’s been an eye-opener.”
“But remember, next time there will have to be a full audit.”
Matilda shrugged, “see you next year, Salvatori.”
Joel Sandersen
@Whirlwindof
245 Words
#ThursThreads is now CLOSED. Thanks to everyone who wrote this week and I hope to catch you next week.