Three Line Tales

Photo by Michael Hull

 ***

Five more steps and she’d be at the centre of the bridge – too late to turn back, to rethink, to think at all.

If there were Watchers hunched against tree trunks, spying from the brush, they were invisible – too hate-filled not to watch, too smart to be seen.

She gripped the trigger, now sticky in her palm, felt the weight of the explosives dragging the back pack onto her pelvis – three, two, one.

***

My dear blogging pal Sonya over at Only 100 Words has started a new Thursday challenge – Three Line Thursday. She supplies us with a suitably intriguing photograph and we have three lines in which to create a story. Full rules here. It’s great fun – why not jump on board?

 

29 thoughts on “Three Line Tales”

  1. Hooray! Thanks for joining in, Lynn 🙂

    And what an intriguing tale it is… Why is it so important to blow up the bridge to blow up herself? Great stuff!

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    1. Don’t really know why it’s so important – I think it’s a vital supply line for the Watchers (nasty peices of work) who threaten ruck sack girls’ people. Kill yourself or be killed, I’d say. Great challenge 🙂

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    1. Thank you! Funny, I have a vague idea who she is trying to destroy and why – and that our heroine will live to see another day! Weird how much your mind races around such a short piece. Thanks for reading 🙂

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  5. I love all the takes on this photo – how all of ours are different. There is a lot going on all around those three lines of yours! I’m hoping something happens that she survives…

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    1. Thanks jenkjac! Yes, amazing how varied stories can be. It’s fun not to read others before you write your own, and then see the differences – and similarities – between ideas. I have a suspicion that she will get through this – perhaps she has some friends out there watching as well as enemies … 🙂

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      1. Oh, glad to hear it! 🙂 This is my first “challenge” of this sort (as well as being a blogger newbie) and I, too, write first and then look at everyone else’s. Glad to be reading yours, now, as well.
        Jenny

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      2. Tempted to – it’s sort of (accidentally) my genre, I guess. Might be fun to continue it on the blog – I should put more YA on there as I’m pitching a YA book!

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      4. Haha! Guaranteed audience, then! I heard back from Mslexia about Monster edition – it’s a no for me. Boo! Yet, I’m still tempted to enter their annual short story contest – and they run a 300 word flash genre section now for subscribers. Tempting. Am I daft or just blindly optimistic? 🙂

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      6. Sorry you got a ‘no’ too. Glad it didn’t upset you too much. I was okay about it too – last week I got a ‘no’ from one of the publishers I sent my novel to, so this feels pretty small in comparison!
        I probably will try to send something – with the confident expectation of another rejection! Not sure my stuff is quite there yet for big magazines like this – it’s too derivative and the structure’s not good enough, I think. Never mind – will keep trying 🙂

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      8. Ah, thank you! I don’t seem to have much success with proper ‘literary’ competitions – not sure my style’s right for them. They seem to look for something more polished, more intellectual – I’m more a genre, thrills and spills girl I think. 🙂

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      10. Thank you! I have always been drawn to the dark … Whereas most literary comps want you to write about thoughts and feelings and relationships, I want to write about the monster hiding in the kitchen cupboard … 🙂

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    1. Thank you! I have a rough idea who the Watchers are and why the bridge has to go, but not sure I’ll take it further. sometimes it’s just as interesting to let other people decide what a story’s about. Thank you for reading 🙂

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