Welcome back to the home of #ThursThreads for Week 608.
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 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 Facebook, Bluesky, MeWe, and Mastodon, etc.
Our Judge for Week 608:
Dark fantasy author, archer, and horsewoman, Daelyn Morgana.
And now your #ThursThreads Challenge, tying tales together.
The Prompt:
“So what do you suggest?”
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!
Replacement tale…less moth-eaten
The Mother
He rang the doorbell. It sounded like a church tome. Dark! Deep! Excessive!
He could hear steps on the other side of the door. Steps approaching. Not heavy steps…but not hesitating either. The door opened and a woman in her fifties, possibly her sixties was a better guess, tall, thin, big teeth, really big teeth, the kind that would have frightened Danny when he was a child, teeth that his father’s third and final wife had had.
Bitter teeth.
Or maybe it was the shape of her lips, the way they twisted like red licorice.
She had lasted less than six months. His father had spent the next six months muttering, “I sent her packing, I surely did.”
“Yes,” she asked. “Can I help you?”
Danny returned to the here and now.
“Mrs. Scott?”
“Who are you?” She says this with a patrician’s air.
“I’m Dan Hawkins. I work for your daughter-in-law.”
“Doing what?”
“I’m a private detective, Mrs. Scott.”
“Doing what exactly for her?”
“Whatever needs doing, Mrs. Scott. At the moment, she is concerned about…about the well being of your son. He seems…distraught…”
“Of course he is. She wants his children…”
“Hers, as well, Mrs. Scott.”
“Unfortunately.”
“Have you seen him. He has been acting…oddly.”
“Of course I’ve seen him. What do you mean by oddly?”
“Can we talk inside?”
“Here’s fine. Quite fine. So, what do you suggest we have to talk about?”
“Your son, of course.”
“Goodbye, Mr. Hawkins.”
She slams the door shut.
250 edited WIP
@billmelaterplea
I got up from my desk and went for a walk. I couldn’t walk as far as I once could. My bad hip guaranteed that. But I could walk far enough.
As I limped along I started with the obvious question, “So, what do you suggest?” It’s something I do. I talk to myself. I work things out by thinking like I was talking to myself. I have entire conversations in my head. That walk was no different.
“I’ll need a long term plan.” It always came down to that, so I bypassed all the other questions, and went straight for the solution. “With tons of little steps that lead where I want to go.”
I called it building Rome. One brick at a time. I’d need a list of things to do in the yard, and in the house. Things I could do, even with my bad hip. Things that would burn up time. But at the same time, things that would build on each other, until I accomplished some nebulous goal. Or some nebulous series of goals.
I felt better when I got back to the house. Tired, yes. And my hip was talking to me. But at least I had a place to start. I could go from the start to wherever the next steps took me. I didn’t need to know where at that point. I just needed somewhere to start.
The steps I took after I started would lead me to my answers.
249 words
@mysoulstears.bsky.social
She slumped down into the soft leather of the couch in the living room as she watched her stepfather through the glass of the balcony. His tall frame was cowed in grief, rigid and radiating a cloud of despair that sucked the warmth out of the air around him. She had never seen him in such a state before.
Her mom and stepfather had gone through a lot before they met and had gone through even more after. Perhaps that is what made their bond so strong – and her mother’s passing that much more painful. Her stepfather had lost his first and only love. She wasn’t sure if he’d ever get over it.
She had never seen the kind bond that her mom and stepfather shared with anyone else. It was unique. It was more than just love or just marriage, but something deeper and stronger, like their souls were connected. It was scary how intertwined two people could be, how powerful their devotion to one another was, and the power that they held over one another. She wasn’t sure if she envied them such a connection or pitied them.
Sometime later, her stepfather came back inside and went straight for the whiskey bottle sitting on the table. He poured a fresh glass for himself and one for her. Taking both in his hand, he joined her on the couch with sigh and handed her the other glass.
“So what do you suggest we do now?” he asked quietly.
249 words
@mlgammella
“Have you duplicated?” the other Helen Harper asked.
Helen in gym warmups nodded, but couldn’t help grimacing at the other’s sickeningly frilly pink dress. Other Helen noticed and smiled wanly.
“Yeah, pretty ridiculous, huh?”
“Why are you wearing that?”
Frills sat with a sigh and patted the couch next to her.
“We were still pretty new to the superhero thing when we first faced the Dixons. We cut a deal with them to leave one of us to be their living doll every year in exchange for the release of their other hostages and promise to stop taking people against their will. This is far from the worst thing they’ve had me wear.”
Helen’s mouth opened and closed in mute horror. What the hell had she gotten herself into?
“It’s not all bad,” Frills continued. “This is kind of a perfect way to store a backup in case something happens to the hero. Which I’m guessing it has.”
“She, she’s missing.”
Frills took a bracing breath.
“Okay. Absorb me. Then you’ll know everything she knew a year ago, can leave a new duplicate for the Dixons, and decide what you want to do from there.”
“Absorb you?” Helen squeaked.
“Yeah, the duplicates you made aren’t still out there, are they?”
“No, but they only lasted a few seconds! This feels different.”
“So what do you suggest?”
“I don’t know! But there has to be some other option.”
“We haven’t found a better one in the last ten years.”
248 The Many Lives of Gemini words
@davidaludwig.bsky.social
“Are you going to be standing there the entire time, waiting to see if I change my mind?” Jenoa quirked a brow as she looked out the open door to the armored man who stood there, next to the tall horse. She would have thought it was a human knight but the horse gave it away. No human could get any equine flesh where the coat seemed to gleam with golden high lights. And horses were smart but this one looked like it could give humanity a lesson or two with how it stared her down like it was trying to help its’ rider. Elven horses were a whole different bread compared to their common brethern.
“So what do you suggest? Is there anything I can do to help?”
“I have lived quite well on my own without having some do gooder knight trying to ‘help’ me with basic chores. Shouldn’t you worry more about if I’m going to curse you? Make your skin boil off your bones? Make you impotent so that you can’t satisfy all the ladies who swoon over you when you return to your home?”
“That’s what I’m here about.”
“You want to be cursed?”
“No, about removing a curse. I was told that you were the one to speak to.”
She turned to stare at him before giving a small giggle. “You want me to remove a curse? How about if I don’t want to?”
“Then I die.”
243 words
@solimond
Andrew bit his lip and looked up into Ryan’s eyes. “Yeah, I do.”
Ryan grinned. “Hell yeah. You have my cell number, but let me text you my email, too. That way you can always get a’hold of me.” He released Andrew and pulled out his phone to type a message.
In a moment, Andrew’s phone chimed with a new text. He grinned and pulled out his phone to check the text.
:knightoftherealm@datamail.com:
“Nice.” Andrew tucked his phone away. “So, what do you suggest we do now? Do you want to call it a night and say our goodbyes?”
“Not really, but it kinda depends on when your flight is…and if you want to get some sleep before hand.” Ryan waggled his eyebrows.
Andrew laughed. “Yeah, the flight is pretty early. I think I have to get to the airport around six am. But I’m not feeling very tired right now. Can we walk a little more around the Strip? It’s not like I’m going to get back down to Vegas for a while.”
At least, not if there isn’t anyone here to visit.
“Well, you’ve seen the Bellagio fountains and the Paris’s Eiffel Tower. Have you been to the Forum Shops at Caesar’s Palace?”
Andrew shook his head as they pulled away from the railing overlooking the fountains. “What’s the big deal? It’s just shopping, isn’t it?”
“Oh, no, it’s way more than that. It’s a whole experience.” Ryan grinned and tugged him in the direction of the casino.
250 ineligible #TripleStarRanch words
@siobhanmuir.bsky.social
#ThursThreads Week 608 is now CLOSED. Thanks to everyone who wrote this week and I hope to catch you next week.