Week 726 of #ThursThreads was a success, a remarkable feat for 13 solid years. Thank you to everyone who writes each week. You are why we’re still doing this. I’m truly grateful for all y’all!
If you’ve just found us, welcome to the crew! May you come back again and write more great flash. A thousand thanks to Bill Engleson for judging this week. Follow Siobhan Muir on Bluesky or check out the #ThursThreads #flashfiction group on Facebook or the #ThursThreads group on Discord to keep up with news, etc.
Entries:
- Silver James
- Siobhan Muir
- Sheilagh Lee
- David A. Ludwig
- Eric Martell
Bill says: Like clockwork, ― well, perhaps not quite that methodical, as we British Columbian’s, to prove the point that time is malleable, have adopted permanent year-round daylight-saving time, or Pacific time (PCT) ― here is my second judicial rendering of 2026. Even through I am an occasional Judge, it is always an honour (honor) to participate in Thursdays Threads.
Today’s prompt, “Was it still there?” suggests loss, loss of whatever each writer might care to wonder about. Life is full of loss but it is often replete with change. Not that change trumps loss. You can see where I was going with this. I hope you can because I’m not sure I can.
Back to the pleasurable task at hand.
Mentions
Silver James
Bill says: Silver had my head spinning with lines about loss as a chimera like this: “It was nothing. It was something more.”
And her delightfully abrupt ending, having Sade finally enunciate an expletive of sorts:
Ariel spat. “Ravens.”
“Well, crap.”
Sheilagh Lee
Bill says: Sheilagh pretty much suggests that she, well, her female character, won’t be camping any time soon, what with brown eyed Malamutes and brown eyed furry man-creatures bounding about, thinking nothing of collecting a cave harem. Big Foot or Sasquatch or something else, the woods, she posits, are not safe for a woman alone in a tent.
Who could disagree after her character’s eventually successful abduction into the furry void.
David A. Ludwig
Bill says: David, I think, teases a favourite Shakespeare play of mine, Julius Caesar, (which I was compelled to read in high school eons ago) channelling Mark Antony’s famous eulogy of sorts, “Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears; I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him,” when he has Aalis beckon, “Spirit of the Red Phoenix, lend me your form!”
Okay, I admit David has a lot going on after he hails the Spirit of Red Phoenix but my point stands. I certainly enjoyed the moment.
Siobhan Muir
Bill says: Ever the proficient writer, Siobhan captures in one phrase, a fine mantra for writers. Always be prepared and ready to improvise.
winner announcement
Week 726 Winner
Bill says: Without saying what is out there, Eric creates, in the allotted modicum of words, a wintry retreat of safety for a time, a rural community of friends and acquaintances, all aware of an external danger, gathering in a pub, a tavern, all uncomfortably cognizant that half the community is no longer there.
Best of all, Eric takes the prompt, “was it still there” and ominously answers it with “it was still there.”
His tale is a tight and complete story even if there is a beginning we can only imagine and an ending that seems horribly inevitable.
The snow followed me in, swirling eddies of white and then wet as I closed the door and the heat from the fire took hold once more. Conversation stopped as it always did when someone came in, all the more so when it was someone like me, someone who’d traveled a fair distance for a pint and a bowl. Thirty-eight pairs of eyes on me (thirty-eight where there once were twice that number) all asking the same question. The one we asked before going out, whether to the outhouse or the woodshop or the general store or the taproom.
Was it still there?
I gave the usual nod and got the usual reactions back. It’s why we came out to this place, after all, risking the chance we might not make it. Life wasn’t meant to be spent away from other people.
Melly poured me a pint of brown ale and scooped up a bowl of browner stew. I took it to my usual table, setting it next to the mugs and bowls and axes and pistols that filled the surface.
We talked of the things that people talk about when they don’t want to talk about the big topic and watched the fires burn as long as we could, but eventually it was time to head back to the places we slept.
There was every chance there wouldn’t be 38 pairs of eyes to greet me next time. Or that there’d be a next time.
It was still there.
~~~~~~~
Congratulations THIRTY-FIVE TIME WINNER Eric! Don’t forget to claim your badge and display it with pride. You certainly earned it!
Pass on the great news on Facebook, Bluesky, Mastodon, shiny mirrors, Morse Code, and signal flags. Check out all the original tales HERE. Thanks for stopping by and happy reading! 🙂
