Flash Stories

The Corruption Algorithm

hamed Jan. 24, 2025, 10:27 a.m.

In the year 2205, humans had long since been freed from the grind of work. Robots did everything—farming, construction, medicine, even art. The world was peaceful, productive, and—perhaps most importantly—unburdened by the concept of work. The machines ran the factories, built the cities, and managed the infrastructure. Humans? They spent their days learning, playing, or simply relaxing. There was no need for jobs.

The only catch? All profits from the robot-driven labor went to the corporations that owned the machines. And by law, these corporations were mandated to share their profits with the nation, to ensure that every citizen received a basic income and a comfortable standard of living.

But like any system, even the most perfect ones have flaws. The profits were supposed to be shared equally, but somehow, every year, a little less found its way into the public coffers. The directors of the robot-run corporations were getting …

The Frog Revolution

hamed Jan. 12, 2025, 5:43 p.m.

Jamal had sketched it on a whim, late at night in his tiny apartment, where the flicker of a fluorescent bulb hummed above his head. The frog was squat, with bulging eyes and a mischievous grin. Beneath it, Jamal wrote: “Trust the pond, they said.”

It was dumb. Silly. Exactly the kind of humor the internet loved.

The meme went viral by morning. Shared, reshared, and captioned into oblivion. It was everything from a critique of corrupt politicians to a rallying cry for lost causes. Protesters painted it on signs. Graffiti artists plastered it across city walls. #TrustThePond trended for weeks.

But with fame came scrutiny.

The government declared the meme a threat to national unity. "The frog undermines trust in leadership," the Minister of Communication announced on live television, the absurdity of his statement spawning another wave of memes. Overnight, Trust the Pond became a symbol of defiance.

Jamal …

Writing Love

hamed Jan. 10, 2025, 5:33 p.m.

Thomas Blake stared at the blinking cursor on his screen, watching it mock him with each flash. Sixteen bestselling romance novels, and now... nothing. His editor's calls went unanswered, his agent's emails unread. How could he write about love when every story felt like a lie, every scene a recycled cliché?

The coffee shop beneath his apartment became his refuge. Not to write – he'd given up carrying his laptop – but to escape the accusing silence of his study. He ordered the same thing every morning: a large Americano, black, like his mood.

That's where he first saw her, arguing with the barista about the superiority of physical books over e-readers. Her wire-rimmed glasses kept sliding down her nose as she gesticulated, her messenger bag overflowing with worn paperbacks. When she turned to leave, he noticed she was carrying his first novel, its spine cracked from multiple readings.

"That's …

The Final Truce

hamed Jan. 26, 2025, 7:46 p.m.

The ceasefire had been declared at dawn, the air still heavy with the residue of smoke and grief. In the narrow streets of Gaza, Yasmin clutched her son Ibrahim’s hand, urging him toward the clinic. The boy’s fever had worsened overnight, and the ceasefire offered their only chance to reach help.

Across the border, David packed supplies into his car. His wife, Leah, had begged him not to go, but he couldn’t ignore the call from a humanitarian aid group. “We’re delivering food to a neutral zone,” he told her. “It’s safe now.” But even as he said it, his voice wavered.

The meeting point was a bombed-out schoolyard, its walls scarred with bullet holes and graffiti in two languages. Yasmin arrived first, her heart pounding as she scanned the desolate space. She didn’t expect to see another family—a man unloading crates from a truck while a young girl peeked …

The Last Storm

hamed Jan. 14, 2025, 4:12 p.m.

The smell of damp wood hung in the air as Nia picked through the wreckage of their living room. The roof had collapsed during last night’s storm, and sunlight streamed through the jagged gaps, illuminating a house that no longer felt like home. Her husband, Mateo, sat on the edge of what used to be their sofa, cradling their daughter, Sofia, who was fast asleep despite the chaos.

“It’s getting worse,” Mateo said, his voice barely above a whisper.

Nia didn’t answer. She stood by the broken window, staring at the street outside. The asphalt was cracked, littered with debris. Their neighbors, faces weary and hollow, shuffled through the wreckage of their own lives. The storm had been the third this month. Floodwaters had come and gone, leaving behind the stench of decay and the gnawing realization that they were losing the fight against nature.

“We could …

The Text Message Mix-up

hamed Jan. 9, 2025, 5:26 p.m.

Sarah stared at her phone in horror. The message she'd meant to send to her best friend about her boyfriend's terrible cooking had just gone to... her boyfriend.
"OMG, he made dinner again. Pretty sure this chicken is still clucking. Send help! 🤢"
Within seconds, her phone buzzed with his reply: "I can hear it too! That's why I ordered pizza. Check the kitchen counter. 😘"
Confused, Sarah walked to the kitchen. There sat two large pizza boxes and a rubber chicken toy making clucking sounds when squeezed. A note read: "Thought we could both use a laugh after my last cooking attempt. PS: The rubber chicken is probably more edible than what I made."
She found him in the living room, grinning. "You knew I'd text Jenny about your cooking?"
"Honey, everyone texts their best friend about my cooking. I just beat you to the punchline this time."
Sarah picked up the rubber chicken and …

Five Minutes

hamed Jan. 14, 2025, 4:54 p.m.

Marcus stared at his phone, watching the seconds tick by. 4:57 AM. His thumb hovered over the delivery app, waiting for the morning shift to open. He'd learned the hard way that five minutes could mean the difference between making rent and falling short.

4:58 AM. His daughter Elena shifted in her sleep on the couch beside him, wrapped in his old jacket. The heating had been out for three days. His landlord's voicemail was full.

4:59 AM. Last week, he'd missed the morning slots because his phone died – the electricity had been cut off, and he'd forgotten to charge it at the library. By the time he got online, only the dead afternoon hours were left, when orders slowed to a trickle.

5:00 AM. His thumb jabbed at the screen. Error. He jabbed again. Error. On the third try, the slots appeared. Already, the prime breakfast rush hours …

Invisible Walls

hamed Jan. 18, 2025, 6:17 p.m.

Zeke adjusted the AR goggles on his face, his fingers flying over the holographic interface as he programmed the final touches. The alley buzzed with activity, but no one noticed him standing there, seemingly tinkering with thin air. That was the beauty of his work—it only appeared to those he chose to see it.

Tonight’s piece was called Broken Chains, an enormous sculpture of glowing digital links shattering into fragments. It would hover at the city’s busiest intersection, visible only to immigrants and refugees who had registered their augmented reality IDs.

Zeke had become a legend in underground circles, known as the "Ghost Painter." His art wasn’t about gallery shows or corporate commissions. It was rebellion. His pieces were bold messages tailored to the overlooked: a blazing phoenix for underpaid teachers, a field of flowers that only children in foster care could see, and a black hole swallowing coins that …

The Weight of Knowing

hamed Jan. 14, 2025, 4:07 p.m.

Dr. Anya Calder stood at the podium, the sleek conference room bustling with delegates from across the globe. The *World Employment and Social Outlook: Trends 2025* report lay on the desk before her, its pages heavy with data she had analyzed late into countless nights. Her fingers trembled as she adjusted the microphone, though the room's air-conditioning chilled her to the bone.

“Thank you for being here,” she began, her voice steady but brittle, like a pane of glass under pressure. She glanced at the crowd: world leaders, economists, activists, and reporters. The weight of their expectations pressed on her chest.

The report was supposed to be about employment trends, labor markets, and policies. But buried within it were her findings—unemployment and displacement driven by cascading climate crises. Rising seas were swallowing entire industries, heatwaves making outdoor work lethal, droughts collapsing agriculture-dependent economies.

“This year’s report reveals …

The Divide in the Classroom

hamed Jan. 14, 2025, 4:39 p.m.

Maria sat at the back of the crowded classroom, her textbooks worn and barely holding together. The fluorescent lights flickered above her, and the hum of the old air conditioning did little to mask the chatter from her classmates. The community college she attended felt like a far cry from the prestigious universities her friends from high school had gone on to. She had taken the public bus to class again today, the trip stretching across hours as she squeezed into the cramped seats, her backpack heavy with assignments she could barely afford to complete.

She tugged her sweater tighter around her shoulders, trying to focus on the professor’s lecture, but her mind wandered to the other things—the bills her mother still hadn’t paid, the second-hand laptop that crashed every time she tried to write a paper, the part-time job she worked to scrape by. She hadn’t wanted to go …