Welcome back to the home of #ThursThreads for Week 703. 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 703:
Desk Jockey by Day, Writer by Night, Pecking her way through life, M.L. Gammella.
And now your #ThursThreads Challenge, tying tales together.
The Prompt:
“Do you know something I don’t?”
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!
The Anniversary
“Wow. Fifty years. That’s impressive, Charlie.”
I nod my head. Harry is easily fascinated by marital fortitude. And not a little suspicious of mine. He’s marched to the alter, which he often refers to as the anchor, four times. Muriel, his fourth spouse, hit the road just last year. He’s still smarting.
“How do you do it, Charlie? I mean, one woman, five decades. How many hours is that?”
Interestingly, I looked that up two days earlier.
“Four hundred and thirty-eight thousand, two hundred and ninety-one,” I reply, smiling a bit, for Harry didn’t exactly expect an answer.
“Really. That’s a lot of hours. And way more minutes I suppose.”
“Harry,” I say, “It’s all the same time. Minutes , hours, years. Life isn’t always rosy but it’s been a blessing having a trusted travelling companion down the years.”
He puts on his hang dog look. I’ve seen it before each and every time one of his marriages fizzled out. I’ve never been convinced that he actually is seeking domestic longevity. His track record speaks to that.
“I don’t know, man. One person. Must get dull. Do you know something I don’t? Something that spices the whole thing up?”
He’s asking for my secret, if that’s what it is.
“Look, I just pay attention. Take it as easy as I can. Enjoy the closeness. The quiet. The planning. You either embrace all of that or you don’t.”
Harry just shakes his head.
He’s heard it before.
Often.
249 Words
@billmelaterplea
@sterlings-son-2.bsky.social
I wasn’t coughing up canary feathers, just scribbling in my journal. But as soon as she rolled up on me, with that into-my-soul look of hers, she said, “What?”
“What what?” I replied, since I had no idea which what she copped from my cowering soul.
“Exactly,” she let hang in the air from her right eyebrow, weighing it down thumb-on-the-scale-like lower than the left. “I can see it in your eyes.”
With a sigh, I closed those damn attic windows to my soul’s panic room.
“Do you know something I don’t?” she asked with that little anxious way of hers. That same expression I fell in love with in sixth grade, flashing that same spark that always melted my heart, while burning down my hopes with it.
“Maybe something I heard?” I gave up. Just like always.
“Okay, tell me about him,” I said, feeding more fuel to the torch I’d compulsively raise in these dark moments just to ensure I could see the love of my life again.
“Well, his name’s Ben and…”
I couldn’t bear losing that crooked smile, the intimate warmth of how she’s always whispered to me, bringing flaming life to any embers of my remaining hope, even knowing she could burn my heart to ash again.
I never thought to tell her the truth whenever she’d come to me like a little girl excitedly showing a new doll to her best friend. Because her best friend is who I am. And always will be.
250 lovelorn words
@JAHesch on X
@joseph.andrew.hesch on Threads
@jahesch.bsky.social
Horace, in his fully human form, cocks an eyebrow, looking between me and my aunt. Cindy can’t see him. Yet. She’s in her room at the care center, watching NASA coverage of a moon mission.
“Why does she say she has been to the moon when she has not?” he asks, leaning on his oversized scythe, one hand in the pocket of his jeans.
“Dementia does that to a person,” I hold her hand as the countdown begins to lift off. “Her dad went to the moon in 70s.”
Her cold, papery skin on mine draws me back to the TV. The space capsule is lifting off, heading for the vacuum of space and its trip around the moon. Her grandkids gasp and clap, her daughter in the background of the Facetime video, smiling.
“Rebecca! Isn’t is amazing?”
“The kids are already asking to become astronauts like great grandpa!” She smiles. “We’re about ten minutes out from the care center.”
Cindy smiles, her eyes wrinkling. The grandkids wave bye to grandma and then the call ends. She lets go of my hand.
“Do you know something I don’t?” she’s lucid for a moment.
I pull my phone out, snapping a picture of her, memorizing her features. Horace nods.
“Wait for Rebecca.”
Rebecca and the boys walk in a few minutes later, a million space questions firing off as soon as they spot grandma. Cindy eyes the door; her husband leans there, smiling. Horace quietly steps out. I’ll be back tonight.
@Aightball
250 words
Sade sighed mentally, rolling her eyes skyward in a why me expression. “Well, well, well,” she said. “Why am I not surprised?” The dragon in human guise smiled and she immediately thought of the very wise internet advice: Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup.
“Fancy meeting you here, Agent Marquis.”
Beside her, Marcella sucked in a breath. She couldn’t blame the other agent. The dragon did have a way of tweaking female hormones. “Agent Lloyd, may I present Nikolas Constantine, Drakon of Klan Kholikikos.
“D-d-dragon?” Marcella finally got the question out.
“Yes. Why are you here, Nikos? Do you know something I don’t?”
“I might ask you the same, Sade.”
“Well, gee. I mean with Rochester being a null space when it comes to magic yet a high-ranking fae and the chief enforcer of a dragon klan are both right in the middle of things. My spidey sense is tingling.”
“Null space?”
“Yeah, no magic.”
“Whatever gave you that idea?”
“Seriously? All you magicks say that. Or imply it because none of you have claimed Rochester.”
“It’s wild magic.”
“Excuse me?”
“The magic here is wild, uncontrollable so we avoid the place.”
“Then why is Ariel here?”
“That, my dear Sade, is the question of the day.” His eyes flicked beyond her. “Shall we ask him?”
Sade turned, noted the guilty look on Ariel’s face. “Well?”
He held his hands up in surrender. “It’s complicated.”
“So are dead girls.”
****
249 Penumbra Papers #6 WIP words
Silver James
https://silverjames.com
“I commend you for making it so far; but centuries of preparations cannot be overcome, even by as unexpected a band as yours.”
The Arch-Lich’s voice boomed through the final chamber as his platform separated from the floor, surrounded by a forcefield thrumming with arcane power, rising toward the vaulted ceiling. Luger and Zee positioned themselves between the lich and Hanako. Luger glanced back at their cleric.
“Yeah, I can’t really do anything about that forcefield.”
“No one can, fool! By the ancient magics, and with the entire tower as a resonator, the barrier is completely impervious from your side. And now you will all perish to the chamber’s defenses!”
Lightning charged in a ring around the chamber, surging in toward the party of four. The Boogey Ma’am glowered, unmoving, at the back of the party. Eyes boring through their foe. Hanako covered a smile with her folding fan.
“Oh my. You seem quite certain of that.”
“Do you know something I don’t?” The Arch-Lich’s tone was a flat mix of scorn and curiosity.
“A couple of things.”
Hanako snapped her fan shut, surrounding the party in a soft glow that swallowed the lightning. Except for Boogey, who dissolved into shadows.
“I punish. Bad Men.”
The bugbear growled from behind the Arch-Lich before slamming his skull into the inside of his own barrier.
223 words
@davidaludwig.bsky.social
“Do you know something I don’t? How do you know it’s the Life Mother and not just your own inner hopes?” My voice faltered when he tilted his head, his lovely locs of hair falling across his shoulder.
“I’ve learned to discern the difference between my own voice and that of the Life Mother within.” He shrugged and I enjoyed the ripple of his muscles under his smooth brown skin.
“How?” I blinked all four of my eyes, as if that would help me understand his conviction.
He smiled as his brows lowered, giving him a perplexed look. “I don’t know if there’s a way to explain it. There’s just a difference. My voice sounds like me in my head. The Life Mother’s voice…sounds older, wiser, confident, like an elder without the superiority or condescension. Her words resonate within me, whereas mine sound…” He lost his smile. “Uncertain. Hesitant. Cautious. If I’d listened to that voice, I’d have never come.”
161 ineligible #WIP words
https://patreon.com/SiobhanMuir
I stared out the window, looking at the waves of heat coming off the pavement, and watching the grass wilt and turn brown. I knew from having ventured out that the ground was dry enough it was starting to crack in places.
We were in a drought. In the middle of August, of all times. I could sit in one of the chairs on the front porch, and sweat. It was that hot and humid outside. And it hadn’t rained since early June.
As I stared out the window, I shook my head, and asked the universe, “Do you know something I don’t?”
It was another thing I couldn’t talk to any of my relatives or friends about. I knew what was happening. And I knew it was going to get much, much worse. “Global warming”. Two magic words. My brother believed in them so much he bought a big ass truck with a big ass engine in it. I knew he got crap gas mileage. Just like I knew a tank of gas set him back over $100.
My brother was normal. Everybody I knew was like him.
Except me.
I drove a 20 year old car that had a tiny engine in it. My brother wouldn’t be caught dead in that thing. It wasn’t big enough. I looked at the neighborhood driveways. My brother wasn’t alone. There were trucks in almost every driveway.
“We’re doomed, aren’t we?” I watched the heat waves coming off the pavement.
@mysoulstears.bsky.social
248 words per Google Write.
#ThursThreads Week 703 is now CLOSED. Thanks to everyone who wrote this week and I hope to catch you next week.