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. This is important as I have noticed that some of the ping backs have not been working. If you would prefer to post your tale in the comments (some people have very specific blog themes but still want to participate), I am happy to post a link to your site when I post your tale in the Round Up.

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!

This Week’s Twittering Tales #155 – 24 September 2019 – Photo Prompt

Photo by MarkusmitK@pixabay.com

Starting us off…

A Beginning

“Who’d ever wanna come here?” he thought. But this would be the last day he watched the trains come and go. Tomorrow he’d be on the morning express, seat 34a, a window view. He ran his fingers over the ticket in his hand and smiled. Life begins tomorrow. No looking back.

~kat

271 Characters

Twittering Tales #154– The Roundup

Photo by Tama66 at Pixabay.com

Starting us off…

The Time Capsule
The Year is 3020. A time capsule from 2020 has been unearthed. Hologram screens materialized around the world as the Western Hemisphere President unlatched the trunk revealing an iPhone, shape-wear, A camera drone, an Instapot, air fryer, CBD oil and Donald Trump’s tax returns.
~kat
280 Characters

By Reena at ReInventions:
Hidden Treasure
Grandma always said her wealth of a lifetime lay in the trunk, but it can be opened only after she dies.
The family found a piece of paper in it after her funeral – “Ignite hope in people. It keeps you going.”
Was it the mystery that ensured she was well-cared for? Hidden treasure?
(280 characters)

By The Dark Netizen:
Grandma’s Chest
The chest lay untouched.
All us cousins knew we weren’t to go near it. Grandma had made that clear. However, on a boozy night, our curiousity got the better of us. I accepted the dare to open it. There lay grandpa’s corpse, one eye staring at us.
A knife plunged through the other.
Character Count: 280

By Amritha at Igniting Hope:
The Key
We gathered around a trunk found in the storeroom, now displayed in our living room. What could have been a moment of history became an ordinary event – it was an empty trunk.
As everyone left the place in disappointment, I noticed a tiny key inside the ’empty’ trunk!
(269 characters)

By Tien at From the Window Seat:
Ashes to ashes
His great grandfather bought the luggage as a sale item.
His grandfather treated it as a tool of escape.
His father, a memento and him, history.
Sadly, with his son, it was a piece of junk. And when he is gone, his grandson will treat it as a sale item in a garage sale.
Dust to dust.
(280 characters)

By Willow at WillowDot21:
The Find.
“It looks great in the hall.”
“Where’d you find it?”
“The attic.”
“I’m not sure it looks a tad worn.”
“Nothing a good polish won’t fix.”
“Umm, really?”
“Look a rub here, a rub there and it will shine like new!”
“Let’s get some coffee.”
As Will and Ed walked off the knocking started.
(275 Characters)

By Fandango at This, That, and the Other:
Scaredy-Cat
“Aren’t you excited to see what’s in the trunk?”
“Not really. He was a very private man and I’m afraid of what he might have kept locked inside this trunk all those years.”
“Don’t be such a scaredy-cat. Open it.”
Reluctantly, she slowly opened the lid and looked inside.
“Oh my God!”
(279 characters)

By Mike at the Bookish Recovering Know-It-All:
Vaudeville Returns
$500 on this storage space at the auction, an old beat up trunk? Ive bewn at this awhile and I ususally get at least some furtinture, maybe a victorian lamp, even some old coins. Something more than ancient carriage. But today I guess its Vaudeville. But here goes. (Opens) Whoa!!
(280 characters)

By Sadje at Keep It Alive:
They said these trunks belonged to Houdini, the famous magician. How grandpa got them in his attic was beyond Mick. He was forbidden to even touch them, let alone open. But how can you expect a fourteen year old be so obedient. Now the family is looking all over for him.
Character count: 273

By Graham at Graham is Just My Name:
A multilingual misunderstanding
“Il est temps de se faire la malle Frank.”
Marie-Claire followed him as he went upstairs and opened the big trunk.
“What are you doing cheri?”, she smiled.
“Packing – la malle!”
“Mais ‘se faire la malle’ means to make a quick getaway, not to pack it!
Frank grinned.
“Zut, wrong again!”
(279 chars)

By Suzette at Suzette B’s Blog:
The sea chest
They endured the long voyage amid tumultuous waves.
An entirefamily’s treasurecarefully packed and kept dry inside.
Now, re-purposed, a fitting footstool at the bottom of the stairs, for the now four generations that call this house home in
the land of the free.

By Di at Pensitivity101:
I don’t want it in the house!
But it was your uncle’s.
I know, and inside are the blood stains when his cut the lady in three trick went horribly wrong.
150 characters

By Jim at Mindscapes.net:
What if We’re All Just Inside a Trunk
Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you lot #42. Said to contain the deceased owner, Yahweh‘s most prized possession, his ‘universe’.
Do I have an opening bid?
154 characters

By Larry at East Elmhurst A Go Go:
Quite an Atypical Solution
“Why do you have that suitcase, packed, from last year’s Buffalo trip?” Fred asked Jane. “I’m sloppy,” he replied. “Each year, I plan a trip, don’t go, and leave the suitcase to avoid a mess. Everything’s neatly organized that way. It’s my only hope, and it works.”
(268 characters)

By Lisa at Tao Talk:
Reverie
A loyal shipping trunk’s reverie:
How many ports have Tess and I met?
How many sailors’ songs?
How many dreams sailed with the wind?
How many drowned in a storm?
How many dresses packed away?
How many lovers gone?
Now tired & battered,
How many more before we can rest
‘Til the final dawn?

By Joe at Does Writing Excuse Watching:
My Inheritance
my eccentric rich uncle passed away and left me a huge trunk. i knew that he had collected numerous treasures. i opened the trunk with trembling hands. slow work with all the locks.
inside, i found nested trunks all the way down to a pillbox that held four aspirins. child dose.

By John at The Magic Shop:
Plenty of Space
“Are you happy now?” Ted snapped, opening the empty trunk. He was the newest resident on the block and neighbor Phil confronted him about the trunk’s contents. “You thought there’d be a corpse in there, right?” Phil smiled and took out a gun. “Actually, I wanted to see if you would fit in there”.
(299 characters)

By Tessa at Tessa Can Do It!:
Who Can We Trust?
“Ron I am scared.
“I am too, but we have no choice. Nator is after us for the chip and we have to think of the safety of our son.”
“I found several pieces of luggage.”
They contained a mound of costumes. “We can sneak out.”
“How do we know we aren’t watched here?
” We don’t.”
272 characters

By Peter at Peter’s Pondering:
The Legacy
Sad! Now that Granddad has gone there are none of his generation left.
Oh look, there’s that old trunk. I thought he’d got rid of that years ago.
I haven’t seen that for years, not since Grandma left him.
Better see what’s inside. You never know, he may have left us a nice surprise!
(280 characters)

By Regina at Help From Heaven:
Leaving Home to Find Myself
Janna looked at the chest holding her few worldly goods. Tomorrow, she begins her journey to find herself. She is scared, but she can stay here and die slowly, or courageously go forth. Her friends say that it is insanity to go where she knows no one. But, she chooses life.
(275 characters)

By John at Broadsides:
This trunk used to belong to Cliff Richard. He would, from time to time, put various girlfriends in it and lock them up, in order to prevent big handsome Hunks stealing them away. Back in the day that was cool and OK. But now, well, it wouldn’t be allowed.

By Deb at Twenty Four:
When she’d been advised she’d been left something in their will she’d been nervous, they’d always been eccentric and it appeared that hadn’t changed.
Pick a piece of furniture, she was directed.
What choice?
It was all the same.
She sighed in resignation.
(255 characters)

By Ramya at And Miles to Go Before I Sleep:
Jammed Trunk
The trunk was being auctioned for free as it was considered a jammed piece of junk.
Obviously, I got it.
After all, it was my spell that jammed the trunk.
“Stupid Muggles, now all the belongings of Harry Potter are finally mine!!!“, I thought as I walked away with the trunk.
Character count :272

By Lorraine at Lorraine’s Frilly Freudian Slip: (THREE TALES!)
with the fishes
Bumping the dead-weight trunk down the stairs, he thinks.
“Doh, was I ever stoopid! After the next assignment, I’ll use a burner phone to call 1-800-got-junk!”*
140*1-800-got-junk is real company. Motto: “All you have to do is point.”

travel just ain’t what it used to be
Super-sized cruise ships provided a wonderful nightly buffet of necks. With no coffins allowed in staterooms, Dracula suffered the indignity of spending his days inside a trunk. (179)

being neighbourly
His back strains moving her trunk.
“Heavy crafting materials,” he thinks.
Not origami paper; but his body neatly folded inside.
In death, as in life, he remains very helpful.
(179)

By Hayley at The Story Files:
Trunk
The train station was busy and steam filled the air. The tall man glanced back as the porter struggled with the large trunk.
‘What have you got in here!’ the porter cried.
‘My sister,’ the tall man replied simply.

By Jan at Strange Goings On in the Shed:
The Relic
The suitcase felt soft under her fingertips, urging her to undo the straps and open the locks.
She resisted, knowing how dangerous that would be. The relic reached out to her in dreams, relentless in its objective. She was terrified of what was coming.
Then the lights went out.
(278 characters)

By Kitty at Kitty’s Verses:
The kindness Akshaya Patra
Curious Aku was surprised to see a trunk in the storeroom.
Unfastening the lock she was dejected to find an old vessel inside.
“I expected a genie to appear in front of me, & grant my wishes, I find this.
Unfair.
What if I become the genie and I start an Akshaya Patra* of kindness?”
278 characters
Akshaya patra* :- Inexhaustible Vessel

By Rugby at The Bag Lady:
Come Closer. . .
I see you staring, wondering what’s inside. Admire burnished beauty? I’m used to it, no worries. What’s with the locks? Well I am ancient after all, different locks have been removed or added over the years. Feeling woozy? That’s perfectly normal. Come close, look inside.
280 characters

By Kristian at Tales From the Mind of Kristian:u
The Legacy
When Grandad died, he left a note and a key.
It said, “In my trunk in the attic is the world greatest hui.”
They wondered, Is it a load of cash or some arcane knowledge?
When they opened it, inside was only a clock, a subtle message to enjoy life while they can as time flies.
[279 Characters]

What treasures your tales were this week! And who knew so many things, ideas and bodies!!! So creative! This week’s prompt is a photo by MarkusmitK@pixabay.com. Tell me this guys story in 280 characters or less, of course. And I’ll see you next week at the Roundup!