Three Word Story
From the archives of X
I am, as most of you know, on Twitter, which I still refuse to call X, but yes, I mean X. I’m there to make bad jokes, to read Stephen King’s bad jokes, and to become overly engaged in the defense of some VP candidate’s very awesome son.
X doesn’t do it for me, but I don’t like social media, and it actually doesn’t do it for me less than all the others. Facebook is for my real friends, family, people I actually know. Instagram is bullshit. Threads is, what is Threads even? I am on Bluesky too, which is like much nicer Twitter, but I’m also on Twitter. I mean X.
Sometimes there are these silly requests from what I think of as huckster accounts. Accounts that exist only to engage by creating engagement. They’re bait accounts. They post things like “Name your ONE favorite color,” or “Favorite Anthony Hopkins movie, without saying Silence of the Lambs,” this type of stuff. It’s self-fulfilling engagement, and those accounts have tons of followers and post every thirty minutes.
Some of these post ‘story’ prompts, six word story requests. Write a scary story in six words, write a love story in six words. Usually six is the number I see. I don’t know why. I don’t care, I tend to shy away from stunt writing in any avenue, whether themed calls for submissions, ultra-shorts like this, using the word ‘hi’ fifteen times in a flash fiction piece. I’m just not interested. It’s because my brain doesn’t work that way. Basically, I have enough problems writing without fitting in your box. I don’t need prompts, I don’t need writing games, I don’t care that your journal’s October theme is ‘Dragonfly mist.’
But, there was a request last night, for a three word story that was ‘happy.’ And so I came up with one, a happy story, for a change some would say.
I hope it resonates with you.
The story is below. Until next time, Night Hawks.
The Three Word Story
Found you again.