Fantasy, Flash, Theme Prompt, Writing Challenge, Writing Prompts

Ringside

Nancy's Notes 🖊️♬

Written for Reena’s Xploration Challenge.
The genre is fantasy and the situation is:
You are doom-scrolling late in the night
and you reach somewhere you’d never
expected to be. Here’s my take.

Image by Me & Gemini

Dave had opinions. Loud ones. He’d been hollering at his MacBook for twenty minutes, a half-eaten Hot Pocket sweating on the coffee table beside him, his feet …. naked and unafraid …. planted on the sofa like a man who owned the place.

“THAT WAS A THREE-COUNT, REF! OPEN YOUR EYES!” He jabbed a finger at the screen. “AND YOU, RIC FLAME …. YOU ABSOLUTE DISGRACE …. THAT’S NOT A CHOKEHOLD …. THAT’S A HUG!”

On screen, Ric Flame …. six-foot-four, oiled like a rotisserie chicken …. paused mid-grapple. His opponent, The Decimator, also paused. The referee paused. All three of them turned, very slowly, to look directly out of the screen.

At Dave.

“What the….” Dave stammered.

Two enormous, rhinestone-gloved hands punched through the MacBook screen like it was wet paper. They grabbed Dave by the neck of his Metallica t-shirt and, with the calm efficiency of men who do this professionally, pulled him in.

The last thing Dave’s living room saw was one fleeing foot.

He landed on the canvas with a thud that rattled the arena lights. Twenty thousand fans stared at him from their folding chairs. The referee crouched down, peering at him with the expression of a man who has seen many things but not quite this.

Ric Flame loomed above, hands on his knees.

“You were saying?”

Dave looked up at the lights. He looked at the ropes. He looked at the people looking back at him. He looked at the camera pointed at his face, broadcasting to four million viewers.

He cleared his throat.

“I… stand by my comments,” he said. “That was definitely a three-count.”

The crowd went absolutely feral. Ric Flame …. to Dave’s amazement and enormous relief …. laughed. The referee, still crouching, shook his head slowly.

Dave’s Hot Pocket, back in the living room, just sat there getting colder.

NAR©2026

This is “WWE: The Game” by WWE & Motörhead

Reena’s Xploration Challenge #429

Everything on The Elephant’s Trunk was created by me, unless otherwise indicated. Thanks for your consideration. NAR©2017-present.



34 thoughts on “Ringside”

    1. Now hold on a second! I just read your story, which was fabulous by the way. Are you telling me Ric Flame is a real person? I made up that name to make fun of the real wrestler, Ric Flair. Unless I heard the name Ric Flame and just filed it in my subconscious, I don’t know how this could have happened! WTF? Seriously …. WTF?!? 😳🤣

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