Welcome back to the home of #ThursThreads for Week 661 of Year 12! What a fantastic testament to the writing community. Y’all rock!
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 661:
Dead Thing Specialist, Mining Geologist, and Original Book Boyfriend, George Varhalmi.
Facebook |
And now your #ThursThreads Challenge, tying tales together.
The Prompt:
“I don’t remember putting it there.”
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!
Moonstoned
She snuck up behind me like a cool tsunami wave, all roly poly and smelling of the sea. I was gnawing on my Moons of Saturn omelette, Dinky Diner’s powdery mix special that’s seen me survive a zillion dark moon mornings
“Mr. Doldrum?” she breathed her salty breath.
Startled, egg slop dangling from my fork, I swirled around and yelled, “Who needs to know?”
Put aback, tears started to bubble up. I’m no good with crying. I gave her one of Dinky’s paper napkins, said, “Dab your peepers, Missy…plunk down, let me eat in peace and then we can verbal…”
She dabbed her peacock blue globes and sat opposite.
I took my time munching but finally finished.
“Now…what’s the matter and who are you?” I asked. I like to ask double-barrelled questions to see if new clients have their thinking caps on correctly.
She sniffled, said, “I’m Katie Klopp. I work as personal everything to Mr. Dack Dinge…”
This was clearly big-time stuff. Dack Dinge was the Moon’s premiere Digger. His company burrowed most of the caves we all live in.
“And the problem?”
“Oh, its terrible. I had the plans for Moon City 2…the only ones. On my LapTipTop…I went to a party last night right after work…snorted some Uranus Gold…it’s all so hazy…took the MoonTram home…left it on the seat next to me…I don’t remember putting it there…but I must have.”
I patted her cheek, said, “a simple recovery. Have an omelette. Then we’ll get to work.”
250 WIP maybe
@billmelaterplea
@sterlings-son-2.bsky.social
They told me he was gaslighting me. I denied it!! That he really didn’t love me, he was really after my money, but I knew they were wrong. The man loved me, showered me with flowers, and love poems. He loved me they were wrong,
I was sick again this morning maybe I was pregnant? I hurriedly went to the drug store and collected a test. I came home and used the test. Waiting I heard the bathroom door echo with knocks.
“Giselle?” Terrence cried, “Hurry, I miss you”
The test was negative, but my stomach was still lurching and I threw up and then brushed my teeth.
“Are you okay? Can I rub your back. Here let me help you into bed.”
Terrence helped me into bed and fluffed up my pillows.
“I can’t find the remote for the television,” I complained.
Terrence looked around the bedroom, he then left the room coming back with it in his hand.
“I found it in the refrigerator,” he said pointedly shaking his head as if he could believe I’d do that.
“I don’t remember putting it there.”
“You’ve been doing that a lot lately it must be stress.” he confessed.
I started to wonder why I really doing strange things? I waited until he went to work then I went to the doctor’s and was tested. They found poison. The police are here now collecting all the evidence soon they’ll arrest Terrence at work. How could I have been so wrong?
250 words @sweetsheil.bsky.social
Aisling peeked around the corner. The hallway remained empty. Darting to her office, she slipped the key into the lock, opened the door, and ducked inside, shutting the door behind her. She turned the lock. Her office had no windows and she stood, breathing hard, in absolute darkness.
She hated the dark, was afraid of it, but she couldn’t force her hand to the light switch. What was happening to her? She’d sat down in one place and stood up in another. She’d lost time. She feared she was losing her mind.
Now breathing normally, she flipped the light switch—and stared at a massive volume resting on the corner of her desk. The red leather cover, torn and faded, sported gilded letters in a language she’d never seen, yet seemed familiar. Focusing, she searched her memory. A name popped into her head. Tolkien. The words resembled the Elvish language he’d created for his books. Granted, the president was an Elf but that didn’t mean they’d ever released any of their literature into the human world. Or had they?
Close to hyperventilating, she muttered, “I don’t remember putting it there.”
“That’s because you didn’t.”
Aisling screamed, whirled and threw the book. She didn’t recall picking it up. The man standing in the corner of her office caught the tome easily and handed it back.
“You need to read it.”
“I don’t understand the language.”
He walked to the door, stepped out. “You will,” he promised, shutting the door behind him.
****
250 words in Penumbra Papers #6 WIP
Silver James
https://silverjames.com
“I swear, you are the only human I know who can misplace an entire horse.” Horace shakes his skeletal head, one hand over his face. “You are sure you left her in the barn last night?”
“Yes, in her stall clearly labeled ‘Destiny’. She was gone when I went to do chores this morning.”
Horace pulls up a map on his laptop. Because Destiny is technically a celestial horse, he can track her no matter where she hides. And it isn’t long before her signal pops onto the screen and my eyes widen. I don’t remember putting it there…she’s supposed to be in the barn at my house on Earth!
“Why is she in the stable with your horse?” I ask, giving him a pointed stare. “They hate each other!”
He shrugs, standing from his computer desk. “They certainly seem to hate each other.”
We make our way to the stables and sure enough, Destiny and Stanley are there, licking each other’s faces. Their heads slowly swing in our direction. I didn’t know horses could look guilty.
“Well?” Horace asks, head cocked, skeletal foot tapping the hay covered floor.
A couple of whinnies escape the both of them and then Destiny puts her head down and comes to me. I can’t really be mad, I suppose. Neither of them can do…that…so no harm no foul. I pat her on the head and smile and she nuzzles me, a rainbow of thoughts filling my head. I think all’s been forgiven.
@Aightball
249 words
The lighting was subdued, an amber glow suffusing the corridors. Their ceilings were dark, hidden in the gloom, the footways the only source of light. The orderlies spoke in hushed tones; afraid they might break the spell he’d cast.
“I don’t understand it,” Barry said. “I was only in there a couple of minutes.”
The procession continued; clerics, accountants and even a trio of misfits from human resources, members from each of the outpost’s departments tagging onto the end of the line, every one of them keen to witness the germination.
The seed had found its home and Mankind could be saved.
“I was only taking it for a walk,” Barry continued. “Away from all the monitoring equipment. Who would have thought it was a little shy? It’s only a seed; barely alive and definitely not sentient.”
The troupe had increased to almost a hundred, only the most essential members of staff remaining at their posts, having drawn straws to decide who could go. There were rumours one of the security staff had cheated, swapping over his straw for one that had been used, but the surveillance recordings failed when they were asked to replay the footage of the draw.
The throng filed into the canteen, the lighting in there more subdued than usual. The seed had sprouted, grown a stem and equipped itself with leaves, the Twinkie bar it had taken root in almost exhausted.
“I don’t remember putting it there,” Barry said. “And I definitely didn’t unwrap it.”
250 words – twothirdzrasta.blogspot.com
Captain Rhea Damas leaned heavily on her ship’s quarter deck rail and sighed at the shore. Starlee Swann had taken a party in search of provisions, and any clues as to why their ship felt they “needed to be here.” Rhea had led the repairs they hadn’t been able to complete at sea.
As the shadows grew long, she suspected she was the only one aboard still awake. Rhea needed a drink. And, just like that, she saw her depleted brandy bottle by her elbow on the rail. While squinting suspiciously at the serendipitous spirit, the captain noticed her navigator down on the main deck.
“Elodie, did you rescue my bottle?”
The small, bespectacled navigator shook her head gently so as not to lose her little voice.
“I don’t remember putting it there.”
“Forgetting things is more like me than you.”
Rhea shrugged, grabbed the bottle by the neck and took a swig. Her reflex was to cough up the sea water. But she kept it down for the sake of the brandy in the mix. Elodie ascended the ladder to join Rhea on the quarter deck.
“You remember more than you let on.”
“More than I’d like.”
The women watched as the sky darkened. Strange ghost lights flitted flickeringly over the hills ashore. Elodie glanced at Rhea.
“Shouldn’t the others be back by now?”
“Aye.”
226 words
@davidaludwig.bsky.social
𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝑳𝒐𝒐𝒑
Warren walked the loop, counterclockwise as always. Lock, secure, jiggle. Windows, lights, garage.
He’d done this every night since the kids were babies, when fear came in through the smallest crack.
Now, the house was quiet. His wife buried last spring, the kids scattered in other time zones with locks of their own.
The loop took six minutes, but tonight his memory crept closer to five. Each pass quietly erased the last like chalk. By midnight, he’d circled a dozen times. By 4:00 a.m., fifty. His slippers wore soft tracks in the hard wood.
Eventually, the moon signed off, and the sun took its post.
Around 7:00, the lawn kid and his shaggy hair walked into the shed, same as every Tuesday.
Warren saw the boy’s figure through the window and froze. Not in fear but something older, harder. Some mechanism deep in the bones that steers a man either toward chaos or away. Maybe it’s wisdom. Maybe it’s just habit with a limp.
He went to the closet and found the shotgun. His old, speckled hand lingered on the stock like a question.
The boy looked up, saw the man and gave a lazy wave.
Warren stood, shoulders hunched like a coat left too long on the same hook. He blinked. Then blinked again.
The gun was in his hands.
“I don’t remember putting it there,” he said to no one.
He checked the front door and began the loop again.
247 words
@krvanhorn (Bluesky and X)
She unlocked her vehicle and opened the driver’s side door as Barrett walked around the back. When they reached the passenger side, they dropped out of site for a moment, picking something up from the ground. Lisa frowned as they stood back up and opened the door.
“Did you find something?”
“Yeah, it’s a glasses case. It looks like mine for my prescription sunglasses.” They shook their head as they opened the door. “I don’t remember grabbing it tonight. At least, I don’t remember putting there, in my pocket, when we left.” They frowned and settled into the passenger seat. “So weird.”
Lisa immediately scanned the parking lot again. “Are your glasses inside?”
They opened the case. “Yup. They’re right here. I wasn’t going to bring them because it’s dark. But maybe I slipped them into my pocket out of habit.”
“But you found them on the ground here? Where do you normally keep your glasses case?” She took in all the cars still in the lot. It was pretty full, but no one walked around outside except a couple who came out of the restaurant behind them.
“I usually keep it in my car because that’s when I need the glasses most.” Barrett stared at their knees, their expression unsettled. “Wait, yeah, I didn’t get the case out of the car because you were driving and it was dark. How the hell did it get here?”
“I don’t know.” But she had a sneaking suspicion.
246 ineligible #Sirens words
@siobhanmuir.bsky.social