#ThursThreads Week 625 - "But I heard the system break"

 This week is the official start of YEAR 13 of Siobhan Muir's awesome flash fiction contest. I can't believe she's been keeping it going this long. I can barely handle keeping a blog going with somewhat regular postings. Anyway - she's amazing. Check out her website here for the contest and poke around to learn about her books and where to buy them. 

My effort in last week's prompt was meh. I wasn't really feeling it but wanted to try - and then I noticed after I posted that I switched tenses in the middle. YAY PROOFREADING!

Thankfully I caught my tense-flips this time. I hope. It is one of my more maddening habits. 

This week's prompt for #ThursThreads is "But I heard the system break." Here is my entry:

Jean-Pierre stared at the bank of monitors in front of him, bored and impatiently waiting for the end of his shift. All the monitors were green, nothing out of regular parameters. Perfect way to end the day. He glanced at his watch and willed the minutes to move faster. No such luck.

He pulled out his phone to pass the last few remaining minutes. This was typically a no-no, but he couldn’t see what would possibly happen in the few minutes that were left. Nothing ever happened. In the five years he’d worked here, nothing happened. There had never been an incident on record in the company’s history.

Once his shift ended, Jean-Pierre eagerly signed off on the logbook. Thoughts of what he wanted to make for dinner flit through his mind and whether he’d have to run to the grocery store to pick up any ingredients.

The door to the room slammed open and his coverage for the next shift popped his head in. “JP! What the fuck, man!”

“What? What happened, Martin?”

“You didn’t trigger the alarms!”

“What? Why would I? Everything has been fine all day, like it is every day.”

“Everything’s fucked! How did you not notice?”

“How? I didn’t see anything on the monitors.”

“But I heard the system break,” Martin insisted. “Come on, we got to get out of here.”

Martin grabbed Jean-Pierre’s arm and dragged the man outside. Once there, he heard the alarms and explosions. And the screams. So many screams.

Week 624 and 12 YEARS of #ThursThreads!

So this week celebrates 12 years of #ThursThreads going strong lead by Siobhan Muir. Its one of the longest flash fiction contests I know of (granted my knowledge of flash fiction contests is somewhat limited). Either way, I am happy and honored to be able to participate. Check out all of this week's entries, and prior years entries on her blog: #ThursThreads

I missed last week, but I had the pleasure of winning Week 622 with my little tale of the end of the world. That was very cool. 

Apparently I must be on a theme or trend as this week's takes on a similar but different bend.

Prompt:  “I made that last one up.”

Zakaria’s eyes scan the paper in his hand, his eyebrows raising the farther he went. “This is quite the list.”

Adain rubs the back of his neck and stares at the floor. “Well, you asked for what we needed.”

“That I did.” Zakaria looks it over one more time before folding it up and tucking it in the inside pocket of his jacket.

“No questions?” the younger man asks, still refusing to look Zakaria in the eye. He shifts his weight nervously from one foot to another.

“Should I have any?”

“Uh, um, that is-uh.”

“Out with it, Adain.”

“Imadethatlastoneup,” Adian rushes, looking everywhere except at Zakaria.

Zakaria chuckled and debated whether he should put the younger man out of his misery or not. Watching him squirm certainly was entertaining.

“What was that? I didn’t quite catch.”

Adian sighed and stared at the floor again, his face flushed. A beat later, he took a deep breath, squared his shoulders, and finally looked at Zakaria. “I made that last one up.”

Zakaria laughed and clapped Adian on the shoulder. “I know.”

The younger man’s eyes bugged out with a look of incredulousness. “H-h-how?”

“I was your age once, a long time ago. I know how it goes.” Zakaria wrapped an arm around the other man’s shoulder in camaraderie. “Now, let’s go see about fulfilling this list. You only take over the world for the first time once.”

#ThursThreads Week 622 - It's the End of the World as We Know It

 And I feel fiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiine.  

Ah yes, that R.E.M song is quite fitting for this week's #ThursThreads courtesy of Siobhan Muir's weekly challenge. 

I've missed the past few weeks due to various conflicts - work being crazy, personal family stuff going on, life in general... but I made sure I was able to post for this week. 

The prompt for this week is:  “We all said it wasn’t enough.”

And the tie in with the R.E.M song? Well, read on, my dear reader and all will be made known. 

It was really happening, The world was ending. The apocalypse was nigh and there wasn’t jackshit anyone could do.

Of course, when the news broke of the prophecy, mass anarchy broke out. Looting, rampant crime, the complete and total breakdown of modern society. If the world wasn’t already ending, the current state of the world certainly would do it.

Wait.

The prophecy never said how the world was ending, just that it was. Everyone assumed they knew how, well every religious fanatic nutjob did. Fire and brimstone, hellfire and destruction.

We didn’t have to wait for the end of the world. We did it ourselves.

Shit.

The ultimate self-fulfilling prophecy.

With a long-suffering sigh that only a being who wasn’t quite immortal but certainly older than any human could make, Josiah cracked open a beer.

That first cold, crisp swallow coated his throat and down to his stomach. He sighed again, this time in relief. The fires were getting closer and the ever-present smoke in the air was irritating his throat.

His companion, another quasi-immortal like himself, leaned back in the chair across from him, his boot-clad feet propped up on the table.

"We all said it wasn’t enough.”

Josiah looked down at his dwindling beer collection as the other man grabbed a beer from the cooler.

“I know, but how does one properly stock enough beer for the end of the world? I bought ALL of it.”

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Thanks for reading!

#ThursThreads Week 618 - Drabbles Ensue!

Welcome! 

Another week of participating in Siobhan Muir's #ThursdayThreads flash fiction contest. Week 618 - coming up soon on 12 years of that contest. It's the longest running flash fiction contest that I am aware of. Siobhan has my upmost respect. It takes a lot of time an energy to keep up a blog for that long, consistently week after week. I am grateful for it, and the people I have met along the way. 

This week's drabble doesn't have any affiliation with anything I'm currently working on, just a little fun exploration of a random scene. Still heavily influenced by the show Lucifer, but doesn't necessarily have to be within that universe. 

Check out the other entries on Siobhan's blog here.

This week's prompt: "They can try to kill me."

Walking through his club, most people would make the mistake that he was human, that he was mortal. Sure, there was something usually magnetic about him, an aura that drew people in, but that didn’t mean he was anything more than a charismatic club owner.

They would be mistaken.

He was those things--charismatic, magnetic, the life of the party--but he was not human or even mortal. He rather enjoyed the charade. It meant most people underestimated him, much to their determent.

Leaning against the edge of the bar, he surveyed the dance floor. His patrons were enjoying themselves getting lost in the music, the booze, and whatever extracurriculars they brought with them.

His head bartender tapped his elbow as he deposited a fresh drink next to him. “Hey Boss.”

“Hmm?”

“There’s a group of men at the freight entrance that want to talk to you about a deal.”

The boss sighed and quickly downed his drink. “Took them long enough to show up.”

The younger man looked uneasy. “They are all clearly packing. Do you want me to call the cops?”

Setting his empty glass down, the boss chuckled. “Certainly not. No need to get law enforcement involved in this. They can try to kill me, but they will find it rather difficult.”

The bartender nodded. If his boss wasn’t worried, then he wasn’t either. He had seen too much in his time here to not acknowledge that his boss was extremely capable of taking care of himself.

 

Thanks for reading! Until next week or whenever I post again!

#ThursThreads Week 616

Happy July folks. Another week of #ThursThreads. I missed last week due to the craziness of my work and stuff going on in real life. However, I did win Week 614, so that was pretty cool. It is a nice bit of validation to win. 

I've essentially finished the Mouningstar story - it was a little drabble of Lucifer fanfiction, and the completed story can be found on my AO3 account. In the #ThursTheads bits I have posted, I purposely kept the proper names of the characters out as I wanted the focus to be on the actual story and not that it was fan fiction. I know there is some stigma with fan fiction, but truly there are some absolutely amazing stories out there. And, it helped me get back into my writing. Sometimes its nice to play in another person's playground. The ideas and stories are still new, just not the universe. And in the case of plot holes or things that fans didn't like about a show or series, they can put their own spin on it. In the case of the Mourningstar story, it started based on a #ThursThread prompt and grew from there. The link to my AO3 story is linked below.

For this week of #ThursThreads, you can check out the other entries here.

My entry to #ThursThreads is a continuation of the Mourningstar story - a sequel perhaps? I haven't decided. The prompt made me think of that same story and how/where it would continue. 

The Prompt: “Then you can stay.”

 

His finger drummed on the table, his nerves needing a release.

The receptionist glared at him from the other side of the room.

He stilled his hand. Then his leg started bouncing, his heel of his shoe clicking on the tile floors. He was too wound up to care that he was annoying the receptionist. If she knew what he knew, what had just happened, she would be anxious too.

His wife, his dead wife, had returned. Not just returned, but seemed like she was in perfect health. It shouldn’t be possible. It wasn’t possible, and yet, she was back, like nothing had happened.

Now, she was at her doctor’s office getting checked out. How does one restart their life after being declared dead? There had been no mistake. He identified her body at the morgue. Her fingerprints and dental records confirmed it was her. Yet, here she was, alive and well.

The door next to the receptionist opened and his wife stepped through with a smile on her face. Her doctor followed behind her with the same shock and bewilderment on his face that his own had when he first saw her. They talked quietly for a moment before she joined him by the table.

“So, what did he say?”

“That I’m perfectly healthy. He can’t find a thing wrong with me but wants a run some additional tests. Said I’m as healthy as a middle-aged woman could be.”

“Then you can stay.”

“As long as you’ll have me.”

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Here is the link to the completed Mourningstar story: Created For a Purpose

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The #Mourningstar drabbles are based on the Lucifer TV show. While my story is original and divergent from canon, I am playing in another creator's sandbox. 

#ThursThreads Week 614 - The Mourningstar

 Not going to blather on much today. This week's installment in my The Mourningstar drabble courtesy of the #ThursThreads prompts hosted by Siobhan Muir. 

You can check out the contest rules and other entries on her blog, as well as check out her books and other things she is working on. 

This week's prompt is "The clock was ticking." 

My entry:

He knew he couldn’t hide forever. As much as he tried to re-enter society—re-enter reality, he found it was nearly impossible. Doing so would make it real, acknowledging her death happened, that she was irrevocably gone.

Everyone kept telling him that everyone handles grief differently and to take all the time he needed to process her death. There would never be enough time for that.

He would stop time if he could.

Despite his wishes, the clock was ticking. Time continued to move forward, steadily and sure, tick tick tick.

He poured himself another whiskey, having stopped counting them a long time ago. The alcohol did little to assuage the pain, no matter how much he drank. If she was here, he’d be right well drunk, but she wasn’t, so he wasn’t.  

Movement out of the corner of his eye caught his attention, a familiar wisp of golden blonde hair. The scent of the ocean soon followed.

“Come to torture me some more?” he asked her ghost. “Thought you had enough fun toying with me already.”

His wife stood there with the same sad expression that she had the last time he saw her ghost. She looked perfect, not a single hair out of place. No broken bones or fractures or blood, unlike the day he had to identify her body at the morgue, mangled and lifeless.

“Why are you here?”

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The #Mourningstar drabbles are based on the Lucifer TV show. While my story is original and divergent from canon, I am playing in another creator's sandbox. 

#ThursThreads Week 613 & Other Musings

 The #ThursThreads flash fiction contest was off last week so there wasn't a prompt, but I've been busy writing other things in the meantime. I've been pretty successful in writing nearly every day. Sometimes it's only for an hour or less, other times a few hours. Some of the time is more productive in word count, but all of it is productive in some manner. Either outright writing or going back and fixing a section. 

A writer friend gave me a great piece of advice a few weeks ago that has really struck with me, especially while I work through a thorny part of a story I'm in the middle of. She told me "If you find yourself really stuck, chances are whatever it is that's gone wrong is actually at least a few scenes earlier if not more."

As I sat at my laptop and realized that my characters didn't have the same information I had in my head - that they should, or at least one of them should have that information as a source of their motivation, I went back a few scenes and saw where a slight tweak to dialogue and adding a bit more to the scene solved the issue of the missing motivation. Some truly great advice that I am sure I will use many, many times in the future. 

My #ThursThreads story 'The Mourningstar' continues this week. I barely posted the prompt in time, but it got in before Siobhan closed it. Now we wait for judgment from the guest judge. You can check out the other great entries at her website here. 

The Prompt: “Only one minute remained.”

Time seemed to come to a standstill as his brother manifested from the shadows, his boots echoing across the cement floor. It had been years since he had last seen his brother and he looked exactly the same. Of course he would. He didn’t age unless he wanted to age.

“Brother, you have five minutes to divulge what you know before I make you regret your ill-advised scheme.”

“I’m sorry about C-“

“Don’t you dare. You don’t get the privilege to say her name,” he snarled.

His brother held his hands up in a placating gesture. “I’m sorry all the same. I always liked her.”

“If you liked her so much, why wouldn’t you just tell me what you know? Or was that just a ploy to get me to come meet you?”

“We both know you wouldn’t have come if you knew it was me that reached out to you.”

He stared at his brother, his arms loose at his sides, his weight on the balls of his feet. He wasn’t sure what to expect, but he would be prepared for whatever happened. The minutes ticked by until only one minute remained.

“Time’s almost up, Brother. Tell me what you know about my wife’s death or we are done here.”

The screech of metal startled both men, as a large freight door at the back of the warehouse slid open, a figure illuminated in the doorframe.

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Thanks for reading and leave a comment if you feel so inclined. :)

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The #Mourningstar drabbles are based on the Lucifer TV show. While my story is original and divergent from canon, I am playing in another creator's sandbox.