THRESHOLDS

Tweeted Stories

photo by Justyna Furmanczyk

To celebrate Flash Fiction Day, we’ve been asking our Twitter followers to send us their Tweet-length short stories. And with so few characters to play with, that’s not an easy feat.

We were amazed by the overwhelming response, and the quality of the stories that have come in. Not only are they concise, but so many have thoroughly entertained us. It has been wonderful to read through them, and a difficult task to choose a selection to publish here on the forum, so a big thank you to all who got involved.

Our Top 50 Tweeted Stories

“Who was it?” You hug Bear, bleary-eyed. I lean on the door. “No one,” I say, my legs trembling. You look so like him.
@jadamthwaite

Just got a book from the library, ‘23 Ways To Kill Your Wife.’ Had problems with #17, but have to say #21 worked a treat!
@mj51day

Let’s go camping he said, packing tent pegs and mallet. Ooh in a yurt, she replied, pulling on posh pink wellies.
@BloomsburyBlue

Such a touching funeral service, and so nice they’d put her back together again. Except her head. That’s in my garage.
@LauraHuntley

“Where are you going?” you asked. “Shopping,” I said. “With a suitcase?” The worst thing is you believed me.
@jadamthwaite

He found them sitting at the kitchen table. ‘It’s not what you think,’ she said; naked. He didn’t notice the easel.
@SJIHolliday

The small boy’s uncle returned from the biggest city in the world and offered him chocolates and advice on how to be successful. He ate up both and went out to play in mud.
~ JoseVarghese

The Japanese Consul still kept on stamping the transit papers. Thousands were saved. Now, cherry trees blossom in Vilnius.
@Mblobs

“Shut up!” he yelled. SLAM. His wife left. From the basement flat below, the young woman perfected her wine stained smile.
@ifindyoucurious

“In summer I miss the sound of ice cream vans.” Ground Control radioed back, “Do not abort mission. In space, no one can hear ice cream.”
~ PaulineMasurel

Artificial light illuminated the intertwined pair, whilst the night sky shrouded a figure looking up from the street below.
@lisajderrick

While the car tumbled down the cliff, he thought of the ring in his pocket; would they find it? Would she know how he felt?
@drerhumu

“Wrong number,” she said. At the other end the phone went dead, but he smiled. He hadn’t heard her voice in over a year.
@vickyhinault

She wanted to surprise him so he visited unannounced. She surprised herself though when she caught him in bed with Joe.
@Kokokoms

I do not suffer from a dearth of love; my actions came from love’s devotion and my great benevolence to what I hold dear.
@nakibex

Our bass-player is a Labrador, which is okay until the end of a show, when the drummer chucks his sticks into the crowd.
@robert55graham

He killed her because it was neater than a divorce. At the burial 2 days later, he told mourners how much he loved her.
@StNaija

On the first evening of their honeymoon, the Templemeyers couldn’t agree where to eat. It was from that night on that the rot set in.
~ Nigel Taylor

She sits outside the pub; lets the smoking shelter empty. She grabs the abandoned half-drink, necks it, and waits again.
@eamonngriffin

The trunk finally arrived. He lifted the lid, it was empty. No arms, no legs, no head, nothing. Where the hell was she?
@mj51day

Wild fennel clings drying to the shadows of Etna that drape Randazzo’s ancient walls: battered by allied bombers in 1943.
@aiwicks

She called him a tofu-wiener. He said she’d always had a problem with vegetarianism, but vegetarianism wasn’t her problem.
@robert55graham

Everything was sorted. Looking round with quiet satisfaction, he knew the waiting was over. Nothing would stop him now.
@DeniseSprrwhwk

‘Hey there’ he said, trying to sound cool. ‘Where?’ she asked, trying to sound cooler. That really stumped him.
@Liam_Aidan

D’you miss him? he said. A bit, she said. Lovely guy, he said. He’s not dead, y’know, she said, he’s just living in Stoke.
@robert55graham

What is unfollowed? His English teacher asked. “Oh! Ma it’s a Twitter term.” “I see,” she answered. His result was an E.
@StNaija

Bjorn looked at Agnetha and foresaw everything. Music. Love. Fame. Heartache. “Voulez-Vous?” she asked. “Aha.“
@darrenmjones

The girl of my dreams never came. I felt like a kid with his nose pressed up against a candy store that wouldn’t open.
@talebreaker

“Do you think they know we live in their shoes?” she asks, dropping a bag of teeth in the corner & straightening her wings.
@jadamthwaite

“52 per cent?” she raged, cramming 48 per cent of him into a bloody bin liner.
@CorkyCorks

Their breath freezes all the buds that had once bloomed in their conversation.
@InkLinked

She drags his body to the doorstep in a panic and takes a deep breath. “Oh my god!” she shrieks. “The cat’s caught a MAN!“
@jadamthwaite

She puts on an overcoat and waits. In trains, late parks, she spots strange guys alone, undoes and flashes her heart.
@angelreadman

He went quiet. I pushed the pillow down further. “Keep yer haun o’er yer ha’penny,” gran had said. I wish I’d listened.
@HelenMacKinven

He knew everything except how to stop being the way he was.
@AnonAuth

They stared in silence at her empty black chair, waiting, not knowing that she was in the park, watching ducks.
@Overinaflash

She watched as the car sped off. In one hand, she gripped the pliers; in the other, the piece of brake cable. She grinned.
@SJIHolliday

It went well for a blind date, until she said, “Why aren’t you finishing your chips?” “They’re the wrong shape,” he said.
@robert55graham

Check your watch again. And the time on your phone. What about the station clock? She’s not that late. It might be traffic.
@eamonngriffin

“Truck? Did Tommy say truck?” asked the teacher. “Sure,” said the three-year-old’s mother. “He just says it with an F.”
@SEWWriter

He picks up yesterday’s feathers and scatters birdseed across the lawn. “It’s the cheapest way to feed the cat,” he shrugs.
@jadamthwaite

My reincarnations are like clockwork: always the same place & time, always a new person. Always slightly closer to my goal.
@benwerd

“It needs doing by the end of the day, Jones.” “But, sir, it’s not in my job spec.” “Just do it, and remember, no blood.”
@mj51day

Squeals of laughter bounce in waves. “No,” I playfully say. She freezes in fear, then melts my heart with her smile.
@FiorDiDee

They slow danced and the world stopped for him. She was fed up, she was waiting for Funky Town.
@LauraHuntley

The platform dissolves. She steadies herself on spongy concrete. Longing punches her again. Blood pulses. Inside, bruises. 
@janerichardsme

It breaks his heart that his wife won’t recognise him. He licks her hand; she wipes it on her jeans & pats him on the head.
@jadamthwaite

The tube had been between stations for ten minutes. Then the lights died. Claws, scratching at doors. Still, no-one spoke.
@eamonngriffin

‘Another stabbing?’ DCI Trundle sighed. She nodded and washed her bloody hands in the kitchen sink. ‘Sorry dear,’ she said.
@SJIHolliday

He went mad at midnight; claimed to be Prince Charming and stole my shoe. I slapped his face and fled the party.
@LauraHuntley

So hungry was Zak, he dined on The Sun. Craving superior words, he spent his last 20p gorging on a charity shop dictionary.
@lisajderrick