Welcome back to the home of #ThursThreads for Week 696. Year Lucky 13! The last year of the cycle, the Moon Year. To those who keep coming back, I’m delighted to see you again!
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 Discord 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 Bluesky, MeWe, Discord, and Mastodon, etc.
Our Judge for Week 696:
Cat wrangler, master violinist, and Tea connoisseur, Muirlette #1.
And now your #ThursThreads Challenge, tying tales together.
The Prompt:
“What do you know of dreams?”
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 in the Moon Year. Good luck!
My Dream Job
“You do know what the position is?”
“Yes. I think so. Dream Interpreter?”
“Yes. That’s how we at A.I.M. have classified it. A brand-new position. We’re quite excited.”
“Right. So am I.”
“Fine. In reviewing your …resume…it appeared that you have had a variety of work experiences.”
“Had my share.”
“An understatement. For instance…several engagements as …a Beverage Dissemination Officer…What is that exactly?”
“Exactly?”
“Yes. Exactly!”
“Bartender.”
“Really?”
“A complex occupation.”
“How so?”
“It’s a night job. People floating in. Wanting the perfect libation. Wanting me to advise them what will hit…will hit just the right spot.”
“And this being a bartender strikes you as somehow giving you the requisite skill-set to interpret dreams? I mean, really, what do you know of dreams? Of dream fulfillment?”
“I’ve served alcohol to a wealth of folks…lovely humans…some a tad ragged…dreamers all, I suppose.”
“I’m sure you served them well. You do know that A.I.M. stands for Artificial Intelligence Matters. I hope we were clear.”
“Of course.”
“So, would it surprise you to know that the D.I. position, the Dream Interpreter position is meant to serve…not quite a human entity?”
“Huh?”
“Let me explain…but please sign this non-disclosure agreement…thanks…whether you get the position or not…A.I. does almost everything we humans do…every day, more and more. And now…A.I. is…dreaming.”
“Oh! That’s kinda neat…”
“Neat…and problematic. So we need a range of people to interpret the dreams that A.I. can’t help but tell us.”
“I’d like a crack at that.”
“You’re hired.”
250 Words
@billmelaterplea
@sterlings-son-2.bsky.social
“We’ll start by finding out where they got abducted. I don’t think it was at this gas station.”
“I’ll get on it as soon as we get back.” Lisa headed for the SUV.
“No, you’re gonna nap or you’re gonna be useless to us, Circuits.” Mo stuffed the hair back into the seatbelt clip where she found it. Then she gathered up the rest of their gear and closed the Prius’s driver’s side door. “We need you at full capacity and right now, you’re runnin’ on fumes. Sit your ass down while Bindi and I get the gear.”
Lisa scowled but she did as ordered. Mo and Bindi were right. She was barely hanging onto her sanity as it was, but her gut said Eddie had Barrett. The necklace and the abandoned vehicle clinched it for her, but she couldn’t prove it.
She sighed and leaned back in the seat, closing her eyes. Just her luck, she finally meets someone she liked, and someone else yanks them away for some sort of sick game. She was only looking for true love like in the romance novels she kept reading, and boom! There they were until a serial killer showed up, screwing up her dreams.
What do you know of dreams or true love?
She grimaced as Mo and Bindi got into the vehicle. Not a damn thing, but Barrett was the closest she’d found and she’d be damned before she let Eddie Farnsworth take them away from her.
249 ineligible #SirensInc words
socel.net/@SiobhanMuir (Mastodon)
“What do you know of dreams?” I regretted the question as soon as it was out of my mouth. It was a struggle to fight the vision that’d been plaguing me the last three nights. Did he know? Had he seen them too?
“In general? Or just yours?” Mischief danced behind his quicksilver eyes as a smirk drew my attention to his lips. I could still feel the ghost of them – too vivid to just be my own imagination.
If he didn’t know before, he definitely did now.
“Never mind.” Doing my best to feign nonchalance, I pushed past him. “Coming to see you was a mistake.”
“I’m teasing!” He shifted to stand in front of me again, keeping me from the door. “If I knew you were so sensitive, I wouldn’t have said anything.” The mischief was gone, replaced instead by an earnest curiosity. “Really. Sorry. I’ll be serious. What do you want to know?”
Against my better judgement, I let the tension leave my shoulders. Something told me I could trust him, but a part of me still knew better than to be entirely honest.
“Prophetic dreams. How accurate are they, exactly?” Somehow, I managed to keep the blush from rising past my neckline.
207 words I had to claw from my brain 🙂
@avilak90.bsky.social
I saw her on the patio. It was a wonderful, and expensive, venue and her view was across the Sound, to Daisy Buchanan’s green light.
The official dances had ended and the band had shifted from the Great American Songbook with its Gershwin and Porter to modern songs I didn’t recognize.
I was at the edge of the hall, holding a tumbler with a high-end Scotch I could never afford, and I studied her. She didn’t seem to have moved.
I opened an old, glassed door to the patio and her shoulders dropped at the encroaching sound of the band but her gaze remained where it had been. Only when I closed the door and it was again the quiet of a fall Westchester did she look to see who was disturbing her.
Confirming that it was me, she again looked out but she extended her hand behind her. I grasped it. It had been a while.
She pulled lightly for me to join her.
“What do you know of dreams?” she asked as much to the water with dusk slowly encroaching from the east as to me. I kept my attention on a sailboat hastily rushing to get into the harbor before dark. She tightened her grip.
“I know,” I finally answered, “that I’m in one now.”
She tilted her head towards me. It came to rest against my shoulder.
“Me too.” She paused. “I’ve missed you.”
She lifted her head away. We watched the boat turn the point.
The Point @JPGarlandAuthor 250 words