Happy Tuesday, and welcome to the Round 106 Winners post. Thanks to everybody who wrote stories last weekend and to Rob Knipe who did an admirable job as a first time judge. You’ll find his comments below.

This is the first time I’ve ever judged anything, more or less. I’ve inspected things and made sure that they’re all done to a certain standard, but this was far harder than pointing out a build up of carbon and telling someone to bring it back when it’s clean. Two things you should know, I use smiley’s way too often, and sometimes I write a joke in a story then have to delete the smiley at the end of it. I smile too much, and I put them everywhere. Apologies in advance.

Some great stuff here. I was going to do some HMs and 1^st and 2^nd, but thought they…

Terror on the Tarmac

by Rob Knipe

The sun gleamed off the aircraft’s metallic underside. He could feel it radiating heat. His distorted reflection stared back, facial features recognisable, but askew. For a moment, his mirror-image appeared to smile, though he did not. He slowly reached out.
He hoped the thin veil that separates this world from the one so often reflected would hold out.
His hand inched closer to the fuselage.
Despite the heat, the metal surface was cold, and the hairs on the back of his neck stood up. The fingers of his image intertwined with his own and held him fast. He was being gently pulled.
‘Johnson…’
The voice faded almost as soon as it began, whispered through an unseen mouth, from an unknown being.
His likeness’s expression remained passive as black tendrils grew from the edge of its face, spreading out until it was surrounded by…

Good morning, friends. Sorry again about the error with the photo this past weekend. I do my best to mark them with the round they’ve been used for, but occasionally one slips thru the cracks. Thanks to my astute writers who recognized the familiar prompt. Thanks also to CR Smith for judging the stories this weekend. You’ll find her comments and top picks below.

I’ve spent a very pleasant afternoon reading all the entries and — let’s face it — they’re all outstanding, which makes choosing a winner all the more difficult; there really isn’t much between them. But a Flash Master must be crowned, so, before I get down to it, here’s a selection of my favourite lines.

Formaldehyde: The nursing home is a carapace of thoughts and cobwebbed memories; the rocking-chairs and statuesque invisible once-young.

Ongar-Bongar Cheese: …which led to acting-Factory Manager Ted Eagle’s concussion, memory loss and subsequent…

Hello again, writers! Your intrepid hostess is on a mission to find a new home this upcoming week, and your photo prompt is a prediction of just what it may look like. Our judge this weekend is CR Smith.

*Edit – new photo posted at 11:00 am. Somehow the original photo didn’t get tagged as previously used. Thanks to those who brought it to my attention.*

Before we get started, here’s a brief reminder of the rules.

Deadline: Sunday at 6:00pm MST. You all have 36 hours to create your best work of up to 360 words (exclusive of title) and post it into the comments below. Please include your word count (required) and Twitter handle if applicable. For complete rules, click here. 

The winning author and their story will be featured as Wednesday’s Hump-Day Quickie, receive a winner’s page, and be crowned Flash Master of the Week.

Here…

I’ve just had another story published in ‘Drainpipes for Strike Posts’ by Mantic Games, featuring such literary greats as David Guymer, Guy Francis Haley, and that Rob Knipe guy that keeps following me around.

The story is called ‘The Price of Success’, and it’s a suitably grimdark tale about what happens if you get too big for your own boots.

The blurb:

A DreadBall Xtreme Anthology

We’ve all watched pro-wrestling at some point.

Even if we don’t openly admit it, at some point or another we have sat and watched those big, oiled-up men in their costumes and carrying their gimmicks and their ‘steel chairs’, putting each other through the ‘Spanish Announcer’s table’ (why always the poor Spanish?) and whether it’s been a guilty pleasure or just something we’ve happened upon, we’ve all had some flavour of the same thought: ‘It’s all very fake.’

Dig a little deeper…