flash fiction Archives

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 […]