Welcome back to the home of #ThursThreads for Week 666. We are a secular challenge, so this number is a simple demarcation of the number of weeks we’ve been writing consecutively. There’s no special meaning and we hope you write with joy. Can you believe we’re here? So many weeks (almost 13 solid years!) It’s also 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 666:
College professor, equality enthusiast, and romance author, Louisa Bacio.
Facebook | Bluesky | Instagram |
And now your #ThursThreads Challenge, tying tales together.
The Prompt:
“No one tells you it never stops.”
Again, we are secular challenge, so the number of weeks we’ve been doing this is just a number. Thanks for writing.
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 Sinkhole
Old Mr Tomkinson observed it all from his porch perch across the street.
To say that the practical joke had backfired would be unfair; the prank itself went off without a hitch.
“Darlene!” little Jeremy Cheaver had roared in his reedy falsetto pitch as he hid behind the dumpster in the laneway beside the house. He had placed a bucket over the door a few yards away, awaiting his sister’s emergence, the pail full of iced water a thumb’s nudge away from falling. Then, the concrete beneath both him and the weighty metal skip fell away, sending them plunging. Fourteen-year-old Darlene came out to the back porch to see the hole appear and the dumpster fall into it. Simultaneously, a bucket of iced water landed on her head. She screamed in fright at the water’s frigid temperature, pulled the bucket away from her face, and rubbed her eyes to ascertain if they had deceived her.
A confluence of weird events had confounded Darlene Cheaver as she tiptoed slowly to the hole’s edge to peer downward.
“Jeremy?” she asked, calling, looking around, staring back into the pitch black vacuum, an inverted tower of darkness. “Jeremy? Are you down there?”
The only response was a bleak, over-awing silence.
Old Mr Tomkinson staggered across the street.
“No one tells you it never stops.” He joined Darlene at the hole, and looked at her. “The portal.” He shook his head, pointing into the darkness. “It’s never-ending.”
244 words
@ragtaggiggagon
“Sweet sparkles and bangles, this just can’t be happening again.” Mama Audasity wrung her long-nailed hands and paced in the little office.
“Happening again?” Lisa looked up from the keystrokes. “What do you mean, again?”
“I’m sure you read it in the papers. Carl Weinstein, our own Suzie Cue, was killed two weeks ago just before the big Butte Pride Festival where she was supposed to compete. Suzie wasn’t very nice, a catty bitch if there ever was one, but she was our own. The cops just wrote it off because they don’t like drag queens any more than the local hicks, but she was still part of our troupe. Misty isn’t like Suzie. Everyone liked her.”
“Likes, present tense. She’s not dead.”
Not if I can help it.
But the idea that another drag queen from Big Timber had disappeared and wound up dead filled up Lisa’s stomach with lead.
“When you become a drag mother, you think you just have to worry about catty behavior and the occasional fights. But now I worry about keeping them safe.” Mama Audasity sat down and rubbed her hands on her thighs. “No one tells you it never stops, the worry. But I never expected there to be real fear that they won’t come home.” She turned her extra-long lashed eyes to Lisa. “Please, you have to find Misty. She’s such a good person. She takes care of the other queens almost as much as I do.”
245 ineligible #SirensInc words
@siobhanmuir.bsky.social
The MoonTram Eyeball
While it was good investigative practice to catch the late night MoonTram pretty much at the same that Katie Klopp had lost her LapTipTop, I wasn’t in the mood for staying up late.
Yeah, maybe it was embarrassing but I craved sleep and moon nights, let alone moon days, are a restless time. Asteroids are always a threat so cavern home life, whilst confining, is always the wisest option.
Still, we had plenty of moderately useful moon daylight so we caught the Moontram about noon. She showed me where she had parked her tush and I immediately noted that the CCTV must have caught the whole theft.
The Moon was under constant surveillance. It had become second nature so much so that my generation had ceased thinking about it. No one tells you it never stops if they never tell you it’s on.
It’s just there.
Allegedly unmonitored, it records our existence every second of our lives.
I pointed it out to Katie.
“So,” she said.
“Well,” I replied, “Somewhere there is a recording of your trip last night and maybe what happened to the LapTipTop…”
I could see her peacock blue globes start to swirl with crashing brilliance.
“You mean….?”
I nodded my noggin, wishing for a moment that Fedora’s were still a thing.
“Okay,” she added, “what’s next?”
There I was befuddled with my ignorance. I had no idea where the CCTV footage was stored or how one accessed it.
Luckily, I knew a guy.
250 WIP maybe, much more likely
@billmelaterplea
@sterlings-son-2.bsky.social
Molly closed the door softly, satisfied that the steady breathing was a sign that Kayla was actually asleep and not in that hybrid state where she seemed to be asleep but any effort on Molly or Cooper’s part to leave caused crying. She paused outside the door for a full 20 seconds, then slowly padded downstairs to the kitchen.
The water was running but Cooper wasn’t washing dishes. He was standing in front of the sink staring at the floor with a haunted look in his eyes. Molly knew what he was seeing – a jelly stain, pulverized Cheerios, and toys under the table.
Plus a counter covered in dishes, pans, snacks, a power drill, and a laptop open to a PowerPoint presentation that he’d been trying to edit for five hours but was still on slide three.
Molly walked over to her husband and felt his warmth as they wrapped their arms around each other. “Can you believe that it’s only been two days since your Dad watched Kayla and we scrubbed every inch in here?”
Cooper snorted. “No one tells you it never stops. I mean, they try, but you can’t know until you know. You know?”
“And we still outnumber her. What’s it going to be like when the twins are born?”
“I’m going to cover the house with plastic and we’ll powerwash everything.”
Molly smiled, kissing her husband.
“Let’s finish this up. We can probably watch half an episode of Poker Face before we pass out.”
“Deal.”
250 words
@drmag00.bsky.social
My husband drove his car to work and, on the way, he crashed the car into a tree. My friends and family rallied around up to the day of my husband’s funeral and then everything went back to normal for them. I tried too. I went to work came home and slept briefly averaging about five hours a night. Soon I had shadows under my eyes, I hadn’t cut or dyed my hair since before the accident. People started making comments and I tried to appease them by acting like everything was fine in public but soon I didn’t care anymore.
My boss said “Your husband died a year ago shouldn’t you be over this Catherine?’
I j burst into tears, excused myself and went home.
My friend ,Melanie suggested a therapist. I laughed and said, “I’m not quite crackers, yet.”
“No one said you were crazy, you just need to talk to someone.”
“So, I looked through the list on the internet. The first one was a man and a dud he didn’t seem to understand anything and I was in the mood to hear and how does that make you feel. I searched again and found one with glowing references , a doctor who specialized in grief.
There first words out of her mouth were reassuring, “No one tells you it never stops. It fades but it never goes away. You just learn to cope that’s all.”
I’m coping now, but I will always love and miss Reginald.
250 Words @sweetsheil.bsky.social
No one tells you it never stops. They tell you it’ll get better and that time will soothe your pains. They say that in a year’s time you’ll be over it and you’ll have moved on into a life without chaos.
But who are these people who’re so confident? What experiences have they had to live through and survive? Are they guessing about how they would have managed if their circumstances had put them where you are now?
The pain is eternal even though we are not. It lives though our every hour. We wake in the morning with a feeling of loss, an empty space open and yawning beside us. We try to forget and feel guilty for that; our conscience flaying us emotionally raw. We choke back a scream, and we bury our brain; an ostrich with a head filled with memories that burn.
And yet we persist. We survive. We go through each day, expecting remorse, counting backward to the last incidence of pain. Anniversaries of everything that happened to us before – births, marriages and birthdays, dates of diagnoses and scans. There’s nothing that exists that can’t cause us grief; it’s the knowing that they happened that hurts.
But eventually we do better. The wounds become numbed. The scar tissue that forms will bring us feelings of hope – a life beyond all that we had. Our missteps will become surer; the sun will still rise. We will find our new beginning and move on.
247 words – twothirdzrasta.blogspot.com
“You’re going to call your demon again, already? Even after what just happened?”
Angelina Dawning fretted over the prone Pippi Pierrot. Sitting up, Angelina’s colorfully cloaked companion adjusted her sad clown mask.
“It is tragically true.
No one tells you.
It never stops.
Always, the demon plots.”
Pippi regained her feet and faced the chaos of the cursed fairground. Starlee Swann stood silently to Pippi’s other side. Rapier at ready. As guarded against their friend as the horrors before them. Angelina rose.
“But why let it use you?”
“Our enemy has the same knack,
Not given, but taken.
The demon can claim it back,
But first must waken.”
Pippi clasped her diamond pendant and opened herself to the darkness. The shadows danced. Lost souls shrieked. And the enemy’s power began to rip violently from his creations. His full ire turned on Pippi.
Starlee sighed before stepping between Pippi and their foe in time to part a hellfire torrent with her blade of starlight.
“This had better work.”
167 words
@davidaludwig.bsky.social
Aisling stared morosely at the glass in her hand. She didn’t remember picking it up and had no real clue as to what the amber liquid inside it was. She lifted it to her nose and sniffed. She crinkled her nose while shifting through the various scents. Vanilla. Cinnamon. A hint of maple syrup maybe. Something darker. Licorice. And a touch of orange. She looked up at the woman sitting with her.
“What’s this?”
“Brandy. It’s good for what ails you.”
Her expression now dubious, she took a hesitant sip. She ended up smacking her lips and taking a full drink. “That’s kinda good.”
“Told you.”
She swigged a long draw, swallowed. “I’m sorry. Who are you again?”
“My name is Sade.”
“And you’re here because…” She sipped again, deciding she really liked this brandy stuff.
“I’m here because I think you’re in trouble.”
Releasing a huge sigh, Aisling finished off the brandy and held it out for seconds. Sade obliged.
“I’m not in trouble. I’m just…” Another deep sigh and a swallow before she continued. “To tell the truth, I’m in over my head. I mean, no one tells you it never stops.”
“What never stops?”
Aisling stared off into space before answering. “The wanting. The needing. It hurts, you know?”
“What is it you want and need, Aisling?”
“That’s just it. I don’t know.” Her voice turned plaintive. “There’s something out there but I can’t see it. Can’t touch it.”
Sade knew that feeling. “You’ll figure it out.”
****
250 Penumbra Papers #6 WIP words
Silver James
silverjames.com
It Never Ends
It never ends, never, believe me I checked. I walked the road, well, trail, road implies a noticeable structure. Not even sue if this can be called a path, is a path better than a trail? I would ask somebody if I ever saw another living being.
I know there are others here, walking this same road, the grass is beaten down and there is bare dirt from use but I never and I do mean never see anybody. Pretty sure the flies and gnats are not responsible for keeping the path open, oh, sorry road. I can tell it is a road because every day I see a sign saying “Next Exit 3 Miles” but like other people I have never seen an exit.
It never stops, there is nobody to tell you it never stops but given a few million days it seems to be the fact, I 666 just never ends, never changes, no exits.
No one tells you it never ends. Souls always need to be somewhere and I’m the party destination. They all know it and the jokes abound: ohhh…I’m driving the bus! It’ll be fun! All the fun people are going there, so it won’t be boring!
Well, I’m in charge and I can make it fucking boring. Dial 666 to be bored to tears. Or lost. I swear, the number of souls who are misplaced down below is staggering! And the panic! The endless stream of ‘I was a good Christian! I hated the right people! I voted the right way!’ I’ve heard it all. And it’s tiring. But I always look forward to sending them topside.
Being in charge of the down below has its perks, but it’s not as fun as it sounds. Dial 666 for a boring time with Stan!
@Aightball
142 words
– Always Becoming –
At dawn, the city stretches in tangerine. Outside Margaret’s window, vending machines blink like sleepy robots, and the sky unrolls like a Hokusai painting. Her kettle squeals, her toast pops, and she packs her satchel with stickers and emergency chocolate.
The train whooshes like a polite dragon. Salarymen sleep standing. A girl with a unicorn mask plays on her phone. The air smells of miso and Monday. And Margaret clings to a pole and imagines riding a haiku across town.
𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝒕𝒓𝒂𝒊𝒏 𝒘𝒓𝒊𝒕𝒆𝒔 𝒑𝒐𝒆𝒎𝒔
𝒊𝒏 𝒊𝒏𝒗𝒊𝒔𝒊𝒃𝒍𝒆 𝒌𝒂𝒏𝒋𝒊 —
𝒕𝒉𝒐𝒖𝒈𝒉𝒕𝒔 𝒓𝒉𝒚𝒎𝒆 𝒊𝒏 𝒎𝒐𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏
Her classroom: half dreamers, half doodlers, one boy chewing a plastic fork. Koharu sparkles when saying “umbrella.” Yuto groans at grammar like a sunflower afraid of the dark. Renji the Mischief toys with words, bending syllables and twisting idioms into neon shapes, while nervous Nana holds her language carefully, like spun sugar.
Margaret watches and listens. No one tells you it never stops, she thinks, watching verbs evolve midair like butterflies dodging nets.
Lunch is rice and mistranslations, yet through it all, a universal syntax of smiles and shared glances. The science teacher Haruka calls her lunch “legendary.” Margaret says, “Totes,” and they high-five in accidental harmony.
Via text, her son greets her: “this curry hits different fr fr.”
She blinks. “Hits?”
“it slaps duh,” he says, rolling his eyes in emoji. 🙄
Language mutates. Slang blooms like mushrooms after rain.
Margaret laughs into her tea. In every sip, the alphabet dances on — always becoming.
246 words
@krvanhorn (X & Bluesky)
“No one tells you it never stops.”
Tariel paused and turned her head to stare at the old woman on the deck of her house, thin pipe in her mouth trailing a thin cherry vanilla line of smoke.
“What do you mean?”
The stares, the talking behind the back. You just get used to it and accept help from those who don’t pay attention to all the rumos and talk. Even if it means they’ll get drawn in as well.” Gert gave her a pointed look before taking a puff, letting the smoke roll out of her mouth like tiny thunder clouds.
Tariel shrugged as she picked up a cord of wood to take inside and put it by the fireplace. “Talk is just talk when they have nothing else to do with their lives. This isn’t the first time I’ve been part of it.” She paused and crouched next to the older woman. “I don’t care but is it true?”
Gert leaned back in her chair before tapping out the tobacco into a medium metal caldron. She looked at the younger woman before snorting. “That I did. I got tired of being his punching bag. He started it. I finished it. They knew he was doing it and was too afraid to help.”
Tariel tilted her head. “I’m sorry. But good for you. I hope he’s in the hottest pit of hell.”
233 words
@solimond (Twitter/bluesky)
#ThursThreads Week 666 is now CLOSED. Thanks to everyone who wrote this week and I hope to catch you next week.