flash fiction Archives

What Did Graham Know About Spiders?

Steve Campbell Janet slumped down onto the sodden floor, back against the side of the bath, a high-pitched ringing in her ears. […]

Warning

Eda Tse Decide this time you’re done. Find a secluded section of the park. Put your back into it when you dig. […]

Science Never Sleeps

Stephanie Carty Stella is a scientist of men. She logs every detail in the notebook of her mind: the creasing of […]

Witch

Janice Leadingham Your wife called to me, John Bell. She came to the craggy grin, the doorway to my home under […]

There’s A Shit Monster In The Shape Of Your Father, Moaning On Your Bathroom Tiles

Eliot Li …and the plumber in navy blue coveralls rattles his sewer auger, ready to impale it. Moments before, the […]

The Geometry of Dead Girls

Kik Lodge You can never leave the place you die in, Harriet says, and Fay nods like a hand puppet. […]

Double-Glaze

Mary Byrne Writer’s Note: Travelling to Ireland from France could sometimes cause culture shock. This piece started with my father’s reaction to […]

The Weight of Feathers

Lindz McLeod Writer’s Note: Near my home, there’s a high tunnel where pigeons nest; whenever I pass through it, I wondered whether […]

Delete water, insert rubbish

Mary Byrne Writer’s Note: Delete water was provoked by a very vivid memory of myself and a few student friends huddled over […]

Mr. Dupont and the Death of Romance

Mary Byrne Writer’s Note: I set out to write a flash about a quiet teenager who seems more mature than her parents’ […]

White Feathers, Scarlet Heart

Sarah McPherson Pristine snowfall; the familiar made unfamiliar by winter. The early morning light touches each heap and hollow lightly. She is […]

Things Left Behind in an Oxfordshire Field in 1989 the Day After an Illegal Rave

Amanda Saint A pair of scuffed Kicker boots (size 5) —love-heart patterned socks tucked neatly inside, rainbow laces tied together to make […]

Snapshot

Peter Burns Sixth day standing at this bus stop staring across at him in the bookies, he comes out plunging his […]

Saints, Sinners, and the Dirt Track to Redemption

Kate Axeford Saints It started with the cows. Jacob saw them straight-lining it out of Hobson’s farm as if they sensed […]

On the Backroads

Jeanine Skowronski 1. We dig holes, because Wren insists there’s treasure buried in this dirt. We unearth silver slips of paper, two […]

The Only Constant is Change

Mary Byrne Writer’s Note: This flash piece was inspired by a very real woman who used to sit at my tram stop, […]

Night on Preston’s Bald

J. Dianne Dotson Writer’s Note: This story bounds ahead of a real-life terrifying encounter on a mountaintop in East Tennessee many years […]

Slaughterhouse of Love

Max Hipp Writer’s Note: I’d been thinking about how isolating love feels when it goes wrong and how marriages crack along childhood […]

Annie Is Sleeping

Sherri Turner Annie will wake in the morning later than usual. She will have a hangover that she doesn’t remember getting. […]

The Writer Tries to Address Her Origins

Deborah Zafer Writer’s Note: I am fascinated by the lost Jewish East End in London. My grandparents (and those of many British […]

A Climmer’s Chance

Christine Collinson Writer’s Note: I was listening to a podcast on birds through history when I first came across ‘Climmers’ (or Climbers). […]

Love, Departed

Emily Devane Writer’s Note: This piece started with a voice, and a feeling: I am looking for the key to the drawer […]

Truth or Death

Lori Sambol Brody Writer’s Note: I set out to write a flash novella about a high school theater kid (Julia) navigating her […]

What We Leave Behind

Stephanie King Writer’s Note: This is part of a series I call “Monologues,” a loose collection of those really voicey flash pieces […]

The best vintages have a distinctive character

Eleonora Balsano Fresh blood is the colour of Pinot Noir, bright red and translucent. I’ve never said this to the […]

However far she runs away from home

Rosie Garland My mother lives in a house full of gravestones. Every morning, she vacuums around their beds and washes their […]

She Remembers it Like This

Emily Devane Always, the sun shines and the black telephone dangles from its cloister wall like a stricken beetle. Always, […]

I took my skeleton for a walk today

K.A. Nielsen My skeleton tilted their skull up, stretched their bones wide in the cool, crisp sun. We stood in the […]

A Fable of Two Halves

David Luntz Writer’s Note: Myths and fables have long interested me. So, I tried writing a quirky fable that shows how we […]

Seed of a Rainbow

David Luntz Writer’s Note: Seed of a Rainbow is the third flash in a series I’ve written about a fictional uncle (“Uncle Kev”). […]

Two Flash Fictions: After Dad Fell Down to Earth And Mom Deflated & As a kid, I thought Canada was the place you went when you died

Rosie Garland and Meg Pokrass Writers’ Note: Since 2020, we – that’s Meg Pokrass and Rosie Garland – have been collaborating on flash fictions […]

The Psychic Plays Dress-Up

Chelsea Stickle Writer’s note: The psychic snuck up on me one day. She tapped me on the shoulder and introduced herself as […]

Welcome to the Pixel Exhibition

Paul Thompson On screen you are an abstract masterpiece. I secretly take screenshots as we talk, print and rearrange them on my […]

This Seagull

Richard Barr This seagull was bigger than my cat. Noticeably so. It was rush hour. All at once the people, so many […]

Osmosis

Shannon Frost Greenstein It doesn’t taste as bad as you would expect. I thought it would be like swallowing a mouthful of […]

I’m a Corpse Flower, and I’ve Got a Bone(r) to Pick with You, Botany

Shannon Frost Greenstein So. Botany. Let me just say it, right out loud, because it’s what everyone is already thinking, anyway. I’m […]

The Vanishing

Jared Beloff 1. The house went without a sound during Mrs. Thompson’s daily trip to the mailbox last fall, her back turned […]

My Boyfriend’s Wife

Iona Rule When I’m with my boyfriend, who is also her husband, he serves me spaghetti in their pond green bowls. I […]

Untied

Al Kratz Skitter scattering critters of the ceiling, we’re trying to sleep around here. I guess boundaries and borders. I guess party […]

God knows what to do with our bed

Kik Lodge Down in Grignan, a man called Didier has a comfortable clic-clac. He’s a self-diagnosed poet and truffle-hunter, says all treasure […]

How A World-Famous Pianist Arrives At His Venue Where He Plays Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody No 2 In A Slightly Out-Of-Tune C Minor

Noémi Scheiring-Oláh All I see are eyes, staring at us as we leave London Waterloo Station, carrying our heavy load across […]