Welcome back to the home of #ThursThreads for Week 700. The Septuacentennial week of #ThursThreads! Holy moly! 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 700:
Most Consistent #TT Winner, Newfie mom, and Romance Author, Silver James.
And now your #ThursThreads Challenge, tying tales together.
The Prompt:
“Is this a philosophical question?”
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!
Mamie’s Wake
“A toast to Mamie…may she always file her story on time and on budget.”
“TO MAMIE!!!” the gathered assembly shout, raising their glasses in honour of our departed colleague.
Many are just barely holding back tears. We are banging her out proud.
I’m smiling of course. I’d miss the old war horse journalist but we all knew the irony in my toast proposal. Mamie was a beautiful wordsmith. Wherever she was reporting from, she offered heartstrings and political panache. Human interest or hard news, she was a master.
But deadlines were her challenge.
One of her editors once told her, “Yeah, write the story. Polish the bugger up, fine tune it up the yin yang…but Mamie, we’re inches away from press time. Just get it done.”
She flung back, “Is this a philosophical question, Charlie, or just your hypertension warbling? Have I ever missed a deadline?”
She had, but not by much. Charlie Lennox granted her that but Mamie continued to ride the razor edge of punctuality.
Charlie passed a few years back and Mamie had been the one to organize us all to celebrate his career. And to make a point, she arrived late for his wake, the one she organized.
We all thought Charlie would get a kick out of that.
215 Words
@billmelaterplea
@sterlings-son-2.bsky.social
I was contemplating, my back to the mirrored shelves and beer taps, whether another beer or another bar might be in order, when a short dark-haired girl in a cut-off sweatshirt stood in front of me.
She didn’t block the view, just erased it.
“Do you believe in love at first sight?” she said.
“Excuse me?”
“It’s a simple interrogative. Love? First sight?”
Normally, such a clumsy come-on would be something I’d expect Jake to try. But this girl’s direct — if low-altitude — gaze had already captured my attention.
I looked to her right and left, three-quarters expecting to see other girls making laugh-smothering noises behind their hands. I looked to MY port and starboard, fully expecting to see one or more of the guys snorting like hogs for convincing this cute girl (I had just come to that realization) to bust my chops. Nope and nope.
Decision made: I raised my right index finger between us in the international sign for “One second, I’m drowning in mute confusion,” then half-turned and raised a two-digit vee and pointed to the Bud tap. She was still there when I turned back.
“Well?”
“First, is this a philosophical question?” I handed her a beer.
“No, I don’t have time for navel-gazing.”
I lifted my gaze from her sparkly navel ring, took a swig and answered, “Yes, tonight I do.”
“Good enough.”
Couple “I-do’s,” a kid and twenty years later, looks like I still do.
“Good answer, Dad.”
She looks just like her.
249 Out of my lane words
@JAHesch on X
@joseph.andrew.hesch on Threads
@jahesch.bsky.social
Luger dropped his staff to catch the war chief’s heavy blade between his palms.
The war chief snarled, “Have you come to die?”
Luger grinned back before twisting the blade out of his opponent’s hands.
“Is this a philosophical question?”
“Opposing the Arch-Lich is madness!”
The gauntleted fist to Luger’s face would have been a lot worse if he hadn’t diverted his magic to the impact point in time.
“Yeah, we adventurers are just wacky like that!”
Luger moved the magic to his fist for a devastating uppercut. The war chief hurdled through the air.
“Alright,” the wizard turned, cracking his knuckles. “Who’s next?”
The rest of the warband lay dispatched at the feet of Luger’s three companions.
“What? I only get one?”
123 words
@davidaludwig.bsky.social
“Is this a philosophical question?”
“No.” He sighed exaggeratedly as he resigned himself to one of those conversations. “You’re the one that there were shades of grey. I just wondered what you meant.”
“It’s just a phrase.”
“I know it’s a phrase Elena, but what did you mean? I don’t want to know your ideas on good an evil in the world. I want to know if you think what we’re doing is wrong.”
She looked up at him, finally putting her pen down. “Why? Would it bother you? Or would you stop coming to me for help if I said I didn’t agree with what you do?”
He found himself floundering; did her opinion matter to him?
When he didn’t reply she carried on. “I wasn’t talking about you if you must know. I meant me.”
“What?” The woman made less sense by the second. It was her turn to sigh as she twisted on her stool to face him. Her hands knotted themselves in her lap. “You come along with your magic and sword and stop the bad guys from hurting people. And nine times out of ten the guys you catch are really quite evil. You don’t stop and think about what might happen to you, you just do because it’s what you think is right. Me? Am I good? Does helping you make me good by association. Or am I just passive, morally grey?”
@Lexikonical (bluesky) 238 words
Eddie reminded them they had to ‘watch their girlish figure’.
I’ve never fuckin’ had a ‘girlish’ figure.
Anger built up as they waited at the table. Who the fuck got off on telling someone how to eat, what to wear, or what activities to do? Why was that even a thing?
It wouldn’t be long now before Eddie showed up with breakfast—most likely a hard-boiled egg and some yogurt with berries for Barrett. When Barrett asked if they could have some bacon and warm eggs, they were told it was too fattening and they had to watch their cholesterol intake. That just made Barrett angrier, and their hands tightened into fists as they waited.
They were just about to get up and dig through the closet to see if there was a tool they could use to work on the bolts holding the chain to the wall when the door opened. Eddie came in with a tray and a warm smile that only made Barrett’s skin crawl.
“Good morning, honey. How are you this morning?”
“Is this a philosophical question, or do you really want to know?”
“Ooh, my honeypot is feeling sassy this morning.” Eddie chuckled as he set down the tray. “I brought you your favorite—cottage cheese with blueberries and a hard-boiled egg.”
Barrett gritted their teeth. “I don’t like hard-boiled eggs. I prefer my eggs over-medium.” They crossed their arms over their chest. “And cottage cheese tastes like gravel in sour milk.”
247 ineligible #SirensInc words
@siobhanmuir.bsky.social
“Do you want to marry me?’
“Is this a philosophical question, James?” I asked.
“Cara mia.”
“I’m not one of your Harem. Do you even know my name?”
“Caroline?”
“My sister would not be flattered.”
“Teresa?”
“No wrong again, for a Casanova you really are failing, James. I’m one of six sisters.”
“Six, then I have four more guesses. You are the one with the generous dowry from your dead maternal grandparent?”
I didn’t answer. I loved him,, but he must love me, Viola Beatrice Sheridan.
The next three days he came always guessing the wrong name, on the fourth day he only had one guess left. I expected him to say it at once but instead he sat down and began to converse with me telling me amusing stories and treating me to charm. When the afternoon was done, he said, “I will ask you to marry you Viola, in a months’ time, for I know you won’t believe me yet, but you have done the impossible and captured my heart with your dry wit and resistance.”
I wanted to believe that my heart’s desire lay within my reach ,but I dare not hope. I continued to treat him coldly and at arms’ length for the next month. The time was up and he knelt before m looking scared and asked, I nodded and he took me in his arms, kissing me soundly. We’d be married in a weeks’ time, it had all worked out just as I planned.
250 words @sweetsheil.bsky.social
#ThursThreads Week 700, the Septuacentennial Week, is now CLOSED. Thanks to everyone who wrote this week and I hope to catch you next week.