#TellTaleThursday – The Wrath of Gods

Today’s prompt is this powerful image –

Image : Unsplash.com

His eyes opened to the majestic blue sky. A clear sky would be delightful to many, but not to him. It meant his woes would not come to an end today.

Shaking his melancholy aside, he got up from the charpoy and went to the nearby jungle to complete his morning ablutions. If it didn’t rain by the end of this week, he would have nothing to give back to his creditors who hounded him mercilessly.

He went to the hut. His wife, who all of 25-years but looked like 50 with years of poverty and hard work, looked at him with hope. He shook his head. His two kids were still sleeping, their faces gaunt and their skin thin due to hunger.

She handed him some food. He had neither gone to the market, nor had given her money to buy food. He knew what she had served her. Any rodent or tabby she could get her hands on in the field became their meals these days.

Before going to sleep that night, he put his hands together. Calloused hands with dirt beneath the fingers joined together in a prayer. He prayed to the Rain God to send some over to his field. And slept.

In the night, he woke up to unusual sounds. What was it? He felt hot, burning hot. Within seconds he was up. A fierce inhuman cry came out of his mouth as he ran towards his field. Or what was left of it.

The Gods don’t answer all prayers.

Note:

We are taking a break from #TellTaleThursday in the month of July. See you in August with a renewed vigor. 

We request you to kindly share our links in your posts. <#TellTalethursday with @anshu and @priya so that others can reach us.

Till then, write bold write unique. 

#TellTaleThursday – Innocent Wish

Prompt – You make a wish at midnight and it comes true..

Innocent Wish

Jenny came home from school. She threw her bag on the floor, flung her shoes in the air and sat on the kitchen stool with a surly face.

Her mother asked, “What’s wrong Jenny? Why are you sulking?”

“All my friends got new gifts for Christmas, except me,” she complained. “Sonia got a new pair of rollerblades, Ron got a football, Amy got a cool pair of gloves and Tina got a new prosthetic leg.”

“But you did get a Christmas gift, remember?”

“A black cardigan from the Salvation Army does not count as a gift,” Jenny retorted. Her mother didn’t like the tone of the little girl, but she was not wrong either. She wasn’t able to gift Jenny anything new for the last couple of years.

“OK, do one thing. Tonight at midnight, make a wish and I promise it will get fulfilled,” her mother promised. She could spare some savings for a new doll.

Jenny was ecstatic and couldn’t wait for the midnight. At the stroke of midnight, she made a wish. A simple wish.

The next morning, her mother came to Jenny’s room to wake her up for school. She saw her daughter was surrounded by strange things around her. She could see Rollerblades, a football, a golden ring, a parrot and what was that! Was it an artificial leg? She gasped.

What did her daughter wish for?

Can you guess what was Little Jenny’s wish??

Note:

We have discontinued with the weekly linky party. However, we will be sharing the prompts with our stories. Feel free to write on the prompts every Thursday. You can share the links in the comment section. We promise to read it. There is no word limit anymore. 

We request you to kindly share our links in your posts. <#TellTalethursday with @anshu and @priya so that others can reach us.

As always, write bold write unique. 

#TellTaleThursday – The Hand

Credit: Unsplash

“Aren’t you afraid of ghosts?” Sia asked Rohan upon leaving the theatre after watching a late-night ghost movie. “The whole theatre was screaming in fear, only you were sitting unperturbed through it all.”

“There are no ghosts in the real world,” Rohan replied.

“How can you be so sure?”

“Because I haven’t come across one in 33 years of my life,” he replied nonchalantly, already bored with the subject. As if it wasn’t enough that he had to watch a silly movie, now he had to talk about it too.

As luck would have it, there were ghosts in his dream too. A white sunken face bobbing on a wasted body was chasing Rohan in the woods. Though he was running to the best of his ability, it wasn’t enough. The ghost was quickly moving upon him. Rohan came upon a cottage, he went inside and locked the door. The ghost knocked at the door, but he couldn’t get inside. Rohan saw a lone emaciated hand with long nails making a screeching sound on the window pane.

Rohan woke up with a start. He shook his head to ward off the unpleasant dream. Strange, he had never dreamed of ghosts before. Maybe the movie had a part to play in this.

He was thirsty, so he went to the kitchen. He filled up a glass of ice-cold water and started sipping. He heard a screeching sound outside the window and turned around. It couldn’t be true! It was the same white hand.

Note:

We have discontinued with the weekly linky party. However, we will be sharing the prompts with our stories. Feel free to write on the prompts every Thursday. You can share the links in the comment section. We promise to read it. There is no word limit anymore. 

We request you to kindly share our links in your posts. <#TellTalethursday with @anshu and @priya so that others can reach us.

As always, write bold write unique. 

Let the hair down – #TellTaleThursday

Prompt for this week –

At a dinner party, you find that someone’s drink is spiked

Write a story narrating what you will do next.

Pub with bartenders and people sitting and ordering
Image credit: Unsplash

Word count – 247 Words

Let the hair down

He was sitting on the Barstool, sipping his whiskey, neat. There was a terrible cacophony in the pub, loud music, drunk people trying to drown the music with their loud talking and clinking glasses. This party looked like a mistake. He should have heeded his instinct and never come.

“Excuse me, can you mind your leg please?” said the polite, but a haughty voice from the next stool. He turned around to see a small, petite women in her late-twenties, oval face, brown eyes, long hair tied in a low chignon and red lips.

“Sorry!” He said aloud. His smile was not returned.

“Bartender, coke please!” She squeaked in her feminine voice.

“After a long week at work, you need more than a coke I am sure,” he joked, looking at the laptop bag resting at the foot of the stool.

“I don’t drink with strangers, thank you!” She retorted and turned her face.

That was definitely a brush-off from Miss Hoity-Toity. He said to himself.

It happened so suddenly that he had barely time to react. The bartender winked at him and poured what definitely looked like rum in his neighbor’s glass of coke.

Without realizing, she gulped down the contents of the glass in a single breath. And asked for another. The bartender again gave her a spiked drink.

A few minutes later, she kept the phone down and turned to him, eyes drowsy and appealing.

“This is my favorite song. How about a dance?”

We have discontinued with the weekly linky party. However, we will be sharing the prompts with our stories. Feel free to write on the prompts every Thursday. You can share the links in the comment section. We promise to read it. There is no word limit anymore. 

We request you to kindly share our links in your posts. <#TellTalethursday with @anshu and @priya so that others can reach us.

As always, write bold write unique. 

 

#TellTaleThursday – 30th May 2019

Prompt for this week –

Fiction picture prompt for #TellTaleThursday
Picture Credit: Unsplash.com

The Bridge to Hell

Word count – 164 Words

Her mother told her not to cross the wooden bridge.

“It’s the bridge to hell! One who goes never comes back,” she said.

Little Anna was scared and did not set foot on the wooden bridge. But now her mother was gone, her husband died in the war and her baby due to the fever. There was no one to stop her. She was not afraid of the bridge, neither of hell.

Her heart started beating faster as she set her feet on the bridge. But she took a deep breath and started walking towards the other end.

The sky was bluer, the grass greener and the air cleaner. She felt suddenly lighter as if a big load had gotten off her chest. She felt happier as she had never felt before. There was no pain, hatred or jealousy.

She wondered why this was called Hell! She hoped she had paid back for all her karma. She hoped she would never be sent back.

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#TellTaleThursday – 16th May 2019

Prompt for this week –

Fiction story where Michael sets fire to the woods and hutment
The Good Boy – Prompt for #TellTaleThursday from Unsplash.com

Word count – 203 Words

The Good Boy

“Michael is a good boy,” said his mother. Michael smiled secretly. While all his siblings got scolded and punished, he knew he was his mother’s blue-eyed boy. He was always there when she needed him to fetch things or to look after his younger siblings.

“Michael is a good boy,” said his teacher at the school. While kids bullied and got bullied, he kept away from trouble. He carried books to the staff room and even went to the teacher’s house in the evenings when she had a special work for him.

“Michael is a good boy,” said his boss. He was the first one to arrive in the office and the last one to leave. He packed in more work than all his colleagues combined. His superiors relied on him and his peers looked up to him.

One day, the town woke up to the news that a man was caught setting the woods and the nearby hutments on fire.

No one cared that his mother called him only when she needed money. And that he was always passed over for promotion while his colleagues who came late and left early were now his superiors.

“But Michael was a good boy,” they all exclaimed.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

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The rules are simple:

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  • Copy and paste your Story URL to the inLinkz list.
  • The story should be up to 250 words.
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#TellTaleThursday – 9th May 2019

Prompt for this week –

Your car breaks down on the highway

Write a story following the incident.

Women too know about cars

Word count – 206 Words

You car breaks down on the highway
Picture credit: Unsplash.com

 

“Oh shucks!” He cried aloud; a large frown appeared between his brows.

“What happened?” She asked.

“Car trouble. Looks like we will have to stop here.”

“On the highway?”

“I am not happy about it either. But there is no way this car is going forward.” As soon as he said these words, the car gave a lurch and stopped.

“Did you check the fuel gauge?” She asked.

“Of course, I did. Do you take me for an idiot?”

“Don’t snap. People do forget sometimes,” she sounded defensive.

“Yes, amateur drivers and women.”

“I never forget and I am a woman,” she smarted at his ‘women’ remark.

“Good for you!”

“Did you check the tires? Maybe one of them has burst,” she ventured.

“As if you understand cars. Why can’t you just go and sit pretty in the car? I won’t take a few more minutes to figure out the problem.” She waited for an hour and then came out.

“Lemme see,” she told him and started fiddling with the carburetor. After shutting the bonnet, she sat behind the wheels and fired the engine. The car came to life immediately. He stepped back in a hurry and she drove away without once looking back.

“Women, huh!”

 

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#TellTaleThursday – 2nd May 2019

Prompt for this week –

“Warm smell of colitas, rising up through the air” – Hotel California by The Eagles

Write a story that may include these words or makes a reference to this song.

Word count – 154 Words

The Motel on the Highway

He was cruising down the highway in his brand new chevy. His eyes were moving like a pendulum and he wetted his lips constantly in nervous anticipation. This particular stretch of the highway was notorious as a pick-up place.

It had been a long time since he had got laid. Not since the time his wife had left him.

He spotted two leggy lassies and stopped immediately. The girls hopped in in the car. He took them to the nearest motel.

…………………..

He woke up the next morning with his lips cut, face bruised and broken ribs. It was no use reaching for the wallet, he was sure it was gone, and so was the car.

The song “Warm smell of colitas, rising up through the air” from Hotel California was playing somewhere in a loop.

As he remembered the night before, he mused aloud. They were leggy, but they were not lassies for sure.

The rules are simple:

  • Write a story, complete in itself.
  • Check spelling, grammar, and punctuation.
  • Copy and paste your Story URL to the inLinkz list.
  • The story should be up to 250 words.
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#TellTaleThursday – 25th April 2019

Prompt for this week –

You are at a fair and you get a note – “Catch me if you can!”

Write a story describing your experience.

Word count – 199 Words

Village Fair

Village fair - a weekly fiction prompt
#TellTaleThursday – 25th April 2019

 

Village fairs bored him. If it weren’t for his sister, he would have never come. While she was having a fun time on the rides, here he was sitting on the bench alone, waiting to walk her back home.

He was thirsty. He went to the water cooler. He saw a paper stuck to the tree nearby. It was a note; it said – Catch me if you can! Clue on the back.

This was exciting. Something better than just sitting on his own. He looked at his watch; plenty of time before the fair ended.

He looked at the back of the note. It read –

Up and down, round and round,

Your tummy makes a funny sound.

No. 22

It was a code. He cracked it and went to the giant Ferris wheel. Luckily car no. 22 was empty and he sat on it. On the side of the car, he found another note.

Gallop in the winds,

High and low, it sings.

No. 9

Excited, he went to the carousel and waited to ride horse no. 9.

He sat on 5 more rides when he found the note – Hope you had a great time. See you next year!!


The rules are simple:

  • Write a story, complete in itself.
  • Check spelling, grammar, and punctuation.
  • Copy and paste your Story URL to the inLinkz list.
  • The story should be up to 250 words.
  • Add this line < #TellTaleThursday with Anshu & Priya > at the end of the post.
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#TellTaleThursday – 18th April 2019

Prompt for this week –

Pages of book fluttering in the wind
#TellTaleThursday – 17th Apr 2019

Word count – 247 Words

The Book

The trail was a bit tricky as it had rained the previous evening, and the snow and mud had turned into a grayish-black slush. The pine trees soon gave way to the river. It was a beautiful sight.

He climbed down the rocks and saw an open book lying on it. The pages were fluttering in the cold wind.

“Anyone there?” No one replied.

He shrugged and took the book in his hand. There was no title. He started reading the book.

Once upon a time, a man came upon a river and sat on the rocks. He was mesmerized by the blueness of the river and the peace of the mountains. There was not a soul in sight. He found a book. Curious by nature, he opened the book. It was a book that merged the reader with the nature. The more he read the book, the more he found to be one with his surroundings, till he became a part of it.

He didn’t feel like putting the book down, though it was time to get going or he would be late for work.

He turned the page and read – “He didn’t feel like putting the book down, though it was time to get going or he would be late for work.”

“How did the book read his thoughts?” He was scared. He put the book down and started running in the direction of the pines.

He turned back and saw the pages fluttering again.


The rules are simple:

  • Write a story, complete in itself.
  • Check spelling, grammar, and punctuation.
  • Copy and paste your Story URL to the inLinkz list.
  • The story should be up to 250 words.
  • Add this line < #TellTaleThursday with Anshu & Priya > at the end of the post.
  • Read, comment and share – spread the love.