September 4, 2018

Twittering Tales #100 – 4 September 2018

About the challenge: Each Tuesday I will provide a photo prompt. Your mission, if you choose to accept the challenge, is to tell a story in 280 characters or less. When you write your tale, be sure to let me know in the comments with a link to your tale.

A final note: if you need help tracking the number of characters in your story, there is a nifty online tool that will count for you at charactercountonline.com.

I will do a roundup each Tuesday, along with providing a new prompt. And if for some reason I missed your entry in the Roundup, as I have occasionally done, please let me know. I want to be sure to include your tale.

Finally, have fun!

And REMEMBER…you have 280 characters (spaces and punctuation included), to tell your tale…and a week to do it. I can’t wait to see what you create this week.

Twittering Tales #99 – The Roundup

Prompt photo by Conquero at Pixabay.com

Starting us off…

It was 8.3 on the Richter scale. The town had never experienced an earthquake. Fracking had rendered the bedrock unstable. Aftershocks sent herds of wild horses and other animals through the center of town. The worst was yet to come. No one would live to tell, when the dam broke. ~kat
(280 Characters)

By Reena at ReInventions:
Hatching Plans
She will never know…
He had let the horses out to kick up a dust storm. They would return home in the evening.
But she will not know what happened beyond the horizon – and he will never return to the palace, where she waited with a conspiracy to kill him.
(253 characters)

By Deepa and Sync With Deep:
Waiting for Prince Charming
I see chords of silver lining in my dark hair adding wisdom to my age. I was particular about marrying the guy of my interests. Waiting for my prince charming on a white stallion for years now, I failed to realize the one sitting next to me since childhood craving for my love.
(277 words)

By The Dark Netizen:
Run
They could sense him coming.
His scythe ready to swing at closest innocent. His mere visage could freeze the very blood of humans. However, for the herd, the source of fear was not the rider. It was the hungry monstrosity he rode.
Just as he hungered for men, it craved foals.
Run!
Character Count: 280

By Piyali at Piyali’s Blogs:
Final Moments
Her once taut rippling muscles had slacked. The thick glossy mane had lost luster. She could no longer lithely trot down the meadow or forage for food.
Staring at her twitching muzzle & lifeless 16-hands-tall body, Betty sighed.
Putting Belle to sleep was a difficult decision.
276 Characters

By Fandango at This, That, and the Other:
The Stampede
“There’s only one way outta here. Get on that horse over there. I’ll open the gate, smack a few horses on their butts, and get ‘em all to run out of the corral. Then you ride up to the gate and I’ll hop on.”
“This better work, pal, or we’ll be hangin’ from them gallows at dawn.”
(278 characters)

By Radhika at Radhika’s Reflection:
The Prophesy!
The recurring dreams of the horses running berserk tormented Amanda.
Staring at the same picture in the papers along with a news item a few days later, sent jitters down her spine.
She recalled the gypsy woman’s prophecy at the carnival, “Visions of the future will haunt you”!
Letter count : 279

By Anthony at Dear Daughter:
Their Own Path
The walk through the woods was peaceful as it always was. Joe and I were walking our normal trail, reminiscing about our recent trip to the little league world series, when a family of wild horses came rumbling through the woods. An array of colors from white, black, brown, white & brown.
We were Speechless.
Character count (255)

By Willow at WillowDot21:
“All I said was let them out for a run” Satan mumbled. Michael was having none of it.Gabriel had been sent for time out by the big man. Azriel sat in the corner happily.
The heavenly herd had rampaged the earth leaving destruction in their wake. Satan just couldn’t see the problem.
(280 Characters)

By Peter at Peter’s Pondering:
The Hunt
I really think I’ve cracked it now.
Even though I say so myself, the form of the horses is quite superb.
My painting is almost like a photograph.
I’m really pleased with the result!
It’s such a pity that I can’t paint human figures, or dogs, or saddles, reins, or stirrups.
Tally Ho!
(280 characters)

By Jan at Strange Goings On in the Shed:
Wild Hunt
The Wild Hunt begins,
The Signal is given,
Cernunnos emerges from shadows and moonlight,
Calls forth the Old Ones,
Those who are resplendent in glory and deep mystery.
Epona’s children race forth,
Their riders are hidden,
The horn is sounded,
The hounds are loosed,
The Horned One flies!
(277 characters)

By Amritha at Igniting Hope:
The Gift
I was obviously curious to open the neatly wrapped gift from my dear friend. It was a portrait of a herd of horses in haste, prehaps to safety or towards their goal in grace that is personified with horses. Whatever it maybe, my bedroom wall is adorned by this photo frame.
(273 characters)

By Hayley at The Story Files:
Through the Mist
Everything was hushed at 6 am as I hide in the forest, breathe held. Through the misty trees ran the wild horses with their coats of many colours, their hoofs pounding the earth, manes and tails flying in the wind. It was a beautiful sight and well worth the wait.

By Anurag at jagahdilmein:
Night Shift
I woke up to find them lazing around on their sorry asses. My BP went shooting up like Apollo-13. Did they expect ME to keep feeding them indefinitely?
“OUT!” I shouted, and they broke into a stampede. People might be scared of them, but I too was the mother of all night mares!
278 characters.

By Universal Unionist:
I know that your young colt is a stallion Darling, but he must do something about his body sweat.

By Deb at Twenty Four:
He was silent and still as he watched them rush past, a cloud of dust rising as they found the forest path. He knew tomorrow there would be questions, but tonight he didn’t care.
When he had heard the boss on the phone talking to the slaughterhouse, he had known what he would do.
(280 characters)

Thank you everyone for joining the challenge last week. Some of your tales were very moving, some inspirational…and some gave me a chuckle. Well done everyone.

This week…DRUMROLL PALEEEAZZZZE! This week is Twittering Tale Challenge #100!!! I can’t believe we have been doing these twitter-sized tales for 100 weeks! When we first began, twitter only allowed 140 characters. Remember those days? Talk about a challenge! Then the rules changed and several of you wondered if you could ever get used to more characters. But it didn’t take you long. Those extra 140 characters were a welcome change! Just for the fun of it, I challenge you to write a tale using 140 characters or less in honor of this, the 100th challenge. Or not. Don’t fret if you need more than 140 Characters. I’ll post all tales 140 – 280 characters if you choose to join us for this milestone!the main thing is to have fun! Today’s photo is by Lauris at Pixabay.com.

I am so grateful for you, for your creativity, for your cyber-friendship in this strange place where we spend time pressing words. See you at the Round Up next week. 🙂