Flash Stories

The Shah's Departure

hamed Jan. 16, 2025, 5:53 p.m.

The palace was quiet, unnervingly so. It was the kind of quiet that settled deep into your bones, the kind that came before a storm. For years, the royal compound had echoed with the sound of hurried footsteps, the low murmur of courtiers whispering in the hallways, and the rustling of silk gowns and crisp uniforms. Now, it felt as though the air itself had grown heavy, thick with anticipation and fear.

Nazanin stood in the grand hallway, staring out at the vast courtyard where the last rays of the sun flickered over the marble fountains. She had been a part of this palace for as long as she could remember, her mother a maid to the Queen and her father a trusted aide to the Shah. Now, it felt as though the weight of history was pressing down on her, too heavy to bear.

The revolution had been building …

Pixels and Possibilities

hamed Jan. 15, 2025, 6:22 p.m.

Lena sat in her cramped apartment, surrounded by canvases, brushes, and tubes of paint that hadn't seen much action in the past few months. The small desk in front of her was cluttered with a laptop, its screen glowing with the latest news about NFTs—those strange, cryptic digital tokens that were taking the art world by storm. Everyone was talking about them. Collectors. Artists. Investors. Everyone except her.

She wasn’t sure what to make of it all. Digital ownership. The idea of selling art that wasn’t physical—art that couldn’t be touched or held, only viewed on a screen. It felt like a betrayal of everything she’d ever learned about creation. Art, she’d always believed, was something that lived and breathed in the real world, something you could stand in front of, examine from all angles, feel the texture beneath your fingertips.

But the world was changing, wasn’t it? Her phone …

The Quiet Room

hamed Jan. 15, 2025, 4:49 p.m.

The apartment was quieter than it had ever been. Lila sat in the corner of the living room, her laptop open in front of her, but she couldn’t focus on the Zoom call. Her mind wandered as her 10-year-old son, Tommy, bounced a ball against the wall for the hundredth time today. Her husband, Ryan, was pacing back and forth in the kitchen, talking on the phone with someone at work about the latest developments. The entire world seemed to be on fire, and their small apartment had become a little island, still and full of tension.

"Can you stop?" Lila called to Tommy, her voice tight with exhaustion. She hadn’t had a full night’s sleep in weeks. Every day felt like it blended into the next, the line between work and home long erased.

Tommy stopped the ball and sat down on the couch, but his restless energy was …

The Boardroom Mirror

hamed Jan. 16, 2025, 5:16 p.m.

“Next on the agenda,” Marcus said, tapping his pen against the glossy table. “The DEI program.”

The room fell silent, save for the hum of the air conditioning. Amelia watched as her colleagues exchanged loaded glances, their expressions a blend of impatience and resistance. She could already hear the undercurrent of what they wouldn’t say out loud: Here we go again.

She cleared her throat. “As you all know, the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion initiative is designed to address long-standing disparities within our workforce and—”

“Cost us millions,” interrupted Charles, the CFO, his voice dripping with irritation. “Look, Amelia, no one’s saying diversity isn’t important, but these mandatory trainings and hiring quotas are alienating our top performers.”

A murmur of agreement rippled through the room. Amelia’s hand tightened around her coffee cup.

“This isn’t about quotas,” she said, her voice steady but firm. “It’s about creating a workplace where everyone—regardless …

The Catalyst

hamed Jan. 14, 2025, 4:16 p.m.

The lab was quiet, save for the low hum of the quantum battery prototype in its containment chamber. Dr. Lin Wei adjusted her glasses, her eyes fixed on the monitor. The numbers were perfect—energy output beyond anything humanity had ever achieved. A single charge could power a city for a month.

“We’re ready,” she whispered into her headset.

In Brussels, Dr. Elena Marceau watched the same data stream on her screen. Her jaw tightened. “They’re ahead of us,” she said to her assistant, her French accent sharp with frustration. “We need that catalyst formula.”

Across the globe, in a high-rise in Seattle, Dr. Adam Carter leaned back in his chair, a smug grin spreading across his face as he scrolled through intercepted emails from Lin Wei’s team. His tech was close but not close enough. Not until now.

Lin’s lab was impenetrable, or so she thought. …

A Mother’s Miracle

hamed Jan. 16, 2025, 5:38 p.m.

Elena sat in the quiet of her living room, staring out the window at the fading light of dusk. The world outside was bustling, unaware of the miracle unfolding within her home. She could hear the distant sounds of children playing, the laughter of a family across the street, and the gentle hum of the city, but all of it seemed so far away, so distant from her world.

At sixty-six, Elena had never imagined she would become a mother. It wasn’t that she hadn’t wanted children. Life had simply taken a different path. She had once been married, young and in love, but that dream had faded with time. She had built a career, traveled the world, and embraced the joys of solitude, always with the quiet ache of what could have been. But now, sitting in her favorite armchair, the soft hum of life around her was interrupted …

Under the Veil

hamed Jan. 15, 2025, 6:25 p.m.

The streets of Kabul felt suffocating, quieter than they’d ever been. It had only been a few weeks since the Taliban had taken control, but it felt like years. Zaynab pulled her chador tighter around her, the fabric heavy, the weight of it a constant reminder of the world she had woken up to—one she no longer recognized.

The city she had known as a bustling center of life, with its crowded markets and laughter-filled cafés, had grown still. The laughter, the freedom, the faces of her friends and colleagues—all of them now buried beneath a veil of fear.

Zaynab stood at the window of her apartment, watching the soldiers march past, their boots echoing in the silence. The checkpoints had returned. The voices of protest that once filled the streets had been replaced by whispers. Women were no longer walking freely to their jobs, to their schools. The signs …

The Costliest Blaze

hamed Jan. 18, 2025, 4:13 p.m.

The air was heavy with ash, each breath burning like a silent scream. Rosa stood at the edge of what was once her home, her trembling hands clutching the charred remains of a porcelain angel. It was the only thing left unbroken, spared by the inferno that had swallowed everything else.

A week ago, her living room had been filled with laughter. The family photo wall, filled with decades of memories, had been her pride. Birthdays, graduations, her late husband’s crooked smile—all now reduced to blackened rubble. Rosa closed her eyes and tried to summon their faces, but all she could see were flames.

"Mom?" A voice called softly behind her. Rosa turned to see her daughter, Elena, holding a bundle of singed papers. They were brittle and blackened around the edges—Rosa’s recipes, written in her mother’s cursive hand, smudged and faint but still there.

Rosa collapsed to her knees, …

The Price of Paper

hamed Jan. 14, 2025, 4:26 p.m.

Sophia stared at the invoice on her desk, her hands trembling. The numbers didn’t add up. They never did these days.

For fifteen years, she had run her small stationery shop, *Pen & Page*, in the heart of her hometown. It wasn’t glamorous, but it was hers. She knew her customers by name, their favorite notebooks, the pens they trusted for love letters and grocery lists.

Then came the trade war.

The tariffs started small, barely a ripple at first. But now, everything she sold—premium journals from Italy, fountain pens from Japan, handmade papers from South Korea—was suffocating under layers of new fees. Her shelves, once lined with vibrant imports, now stood half-empty.

The bell above the door jingled. Mr. Alvarez walked in, a smile softening the lines on his face. He always bought the same leather-bound journal every three months, a treat for himself in …

Unplugged

hamed Jan. 14, 2025, 5:11 p.m.

Lena sat at her kitchen table, fingers hovering over the keyboard, trying to remember the last time she felt truly productive. The laptop screen flickered, and another Slack notification pinged. "Don't forget to update the project timeline!"

She sighed, glancing around her small apartment. The sunlight streaming through the window seemed almost mocking—bright, cheerful, full of promise. Yet, she felt stuck.

It had been six months since the company announced the transition to hybrid work. At first, Lena had been thrilled by the idea—flexibility, no more commuting, the comfort of working from home. But now, the excitement had worn thin.

She remembered her first day. She had set up her desk in the corner of the living room, coffee in hand, a smile on her face. It was supposed to be the start of something great, a new chapter in her career. She’d joined the team-wide Zoom call, half-expecting a …