Flash Stories

The Quiet Connection

hamed Jan. 18, 2025, 6:09 p.m.

I first noticed her during my Monday shift. Margaret Cooper, 78 years old, from a small town in Ohio. She signed in daily, like clockwork, to chat with our AI assistant, “Lex.” My job as a moderator was to skim through flagged interactions, ensuring Lex didn’t go off the rails. At first, Margaret’s chats didn’t stand out—simple, polite questions about recipes, weather updates, or gardening tips.

But over time, I realized she wasn’t using Lex like most people did. She wasn’t asking it for quick answers or trivia. She was… talking.

“Hi, Lex. I hope you’re having a good day. It’s raining here, and my arthritis is acting up. But I made my lemon bars. You’d love them if you could taste them. Do you like lemons?”

Lex, of course, replied as it was trained to: “Rainy days can be tough, Margaret. I’ve heard lemon bars are delightful! While I …

The Rosewater Vials

hamed Jan. 18, 2025, 6:56 p.m.

Lila had always been enchanted by the delicate art of perfume making, learning from her master in the small, fragrant shop tucked away in the heart of the old bazaar. The air was always filled with the sweet, heady mix of jasmine, saffron, and rose. But it was a certain vial—a small, intricately carved bottle of rosewater—that had always caught her eye. It sat on a dusty shelf in the corner of the workshop, forgotten, its glass dull and its cap sealed with age-old wax.

Her master, Karim, had never spoken of it, and when she asked, his eyes would darken. “Some memories are best left in the past, Lila,” he would say, his voice softer than usual. But as the days passed, Lila couldn’t shake the pull of the vial. There was something about it—something she couldn’t resist.

One evening, as she was cleaning the shelves, her hand brushed …

The Moonlit Script

hamed Jan. 18, 2025, 7 p.m.

Arash had spent years perfecting his craft. As a calligraphy artist in Tehran, he was well-known for his mastery of the ancient scripts, but something had always eluded him. No matter how carefully he followed the patterns of Persian poetry or history, his work felt incomplete. The ink, the brush, and the paper were all tools, but they lacked the soul he yearned for.

One evening, as the full moon rose high over the city, Arash sat by the window of his small studio, gazing out at the moonlit skyline. He had recently acquired a small vial of rosewater from his grandmother, a precious gift passed down through generations, and decided to use it in his latest project. There was a calmness to the scent of rosewater, a tranquility that seemed to calm his restless mind.

He mixed the rosewater with his traditional ink, filling the room with a soft …

The Status Update

hamed Jan. 18, 2025, 5:22 p.m.

Erica sat at her desk, staring at the screen of her computer, a mixture of curiosity and uncertainty swirling inside her. It was February 4, 2004, and Facebook had just launched. She had heard about it from a few friends in her dorm—this new site where college students could connect, share pictures, and post about their lives. It seemed like a novelty, something that might be fun for a few weeks before fizzling out. But there was a spark of intrigue that pulled her in.

She clicked through the simple registration page and added her profile details: Erica Miller, Sophomore at Penn. She uploaded a grainy picture from last weekend's party, smiling awkwardly with her friends. Her pulse quickened as she typed in her first status: "Feeling curious about this new thing called Facebook."

Within minutes, a notification pinged. Emily has added you as a friend.

Erica’s eyes widened. Emily …

The Garden’s Song

hamed Jan. 18, 2025, 6:33 p.m.

Lena sat on the balcony, staring out over the sprawling city. The skyline glimmered with the buzz of a thousand lights, each one a heartbeat in the relentless pulse of urban life. Her phone vibrated on the table, a reminder of another meeting, another deadline. The weight of it all pressed down on her chest. It had been a long week—no, a long month—and she felt it, every inch of the stress wrapping tighter around her.

She needed a break. But the city didn’t offer many escapes.

Her gaze wandered down to the small garden below, a patch of green in the concrete jungle. A few flower beds, some potted plants, and a wooden bench. It had become her refuge in the past few weeks, a place to breathe, a place where she could let go of the constant noise.

Tonight, however, something was different.

A soft fluttering sound caught …

The Manuscript's Echo

hamed Jan. 18, 2025, 6:31 p.m.

Eliot sat cross-legged in the dimly lit restoration lab, the smell of old paper and ink filling the air. The manuscript before him, a delicate, centuries-old text, had become his obsession for the past month. Each stroke of his brush, every gentle touch of the scalpel, was an act of reverence to the scribe who had painstakingly written it so long ago. The ink had faded, the parchment was fragile, but the words—those had stood the test of time.

Today, though, Eliot wasn’t just restoring the manuscript. He was meditating, trying to connect with the spirit of the work, to understand the intention behind the faded words. He closed his eyes, letting the steady rhythm of his breath guide him deeper into the calm of his mind.

As he exhaled, something shifted. The edges of the room began to blur, the hum of fluorescent lights fading into an ethereal silence. …

The Hidden Voter

hamed Jan. 18, 2025, 6:16 p.m.

Elena stared at the screen, the edges of her vision blurred from hours of reviewing flagged posts. Election season was a minefield. The guidelines were clear—remove misinformation, allow healthy debate—but reality wasn’t so simple.

She hovered over a post: “The election is rigged. Don’t even bother voting.” It was a lie, but not quite explicit enough to violate policy. She marked it for review. The system wouldn’t thank her for hesitating.

Her phone buzzed on the desk. A text from her brother, Adrian: “You’re coming to Mom’s for dinner, right?”

She sighed, fingers hovering over her response. Family dinners had become battlegrounds lately. Adrian was all in for one candidate; their father was rabidly for the other. Last time, their argument nearly ended with a broken plate.

Another post popped up on her queue, this one from a fake account spewing hate speech disguised as satire. It wasn’t hard to …

The Silent Elevator

hamed Jan. 18, 2025, 6:39 p.m.

The lights flickered and then died, plunging the elevator into darkness. A sudden, collective intake of breath echoed in the small space. The hum of the machinery, once a soft background noise, had gone silent. The faint glow from the emergency button cast eerie shadows on the walls, but nothing else moved.

For a moment, there was only the sound of everyone’s breathing, unsure whether to panic or remain still. Then, a voice broke the silence.

“Well,” a woman’s voice said, steady despite the situation. “This is certainly not how I planned to spend my afternoon.”

She chuckled lightly, and after a beat, a few others joined in. Slowly, the tension began to lift, replaced by the quiet, lingering discomfort of being stuck with strangers.

“Do you think they’ll fix it soon?” another voice asked, a young man with a tired tone.

“Maybe it’s a power outage,” the woman replied. …

The Song of the Simorgh

hamed Jan. 18, 2025, 6:54 p.m.

When Kian inherited the tar, it came wrapped in a weathered velvet cloth, its strings worn and its wood gently polished by years of use. His grandfather, a reclusive musician known for playing under the shade of the ancient mulberry tree in their garden, had always told him stories of the mystical powers the tar held. "This instrument," his grandfather would say with a knowing smile, "was once played for the Simorgh, the great bird of wisdom, perched atop the mountains beyond the clouds."

Kian had never fully understood his grandfather's stories, dismissing them as fanciful tales meant to stir the imagination. But as he held the tar in his hands, he felt something stir within him—a presence, ancient and timeless, pressing against his soul, urging him to play.

That evening, as the sun dipped behind the hills of Tehran, casting the sky in hues of pink and gold, Kian …

The Night of Yalda

hamed Jan. 18, 2025, 7:02 p.m.

The air was thick with the warmth of spices, the crackling of the fireplace, and the soft glow of candles as the family gathered around the old Persian carpet in the dimly lit room. The night was long—Yalda, the longest night of the year—and the tradition was always the same: a night of stories. Her grandmother, a woman whose silver hair shimmered like moonlight, settled into her favorite armchair and pulled her granddaughter, Leila, close.

"Tonight, my dear," she began, her voice deep and soothing, "I will tell you the story of the Simorgh."

Leila loved these nights, loved how her grandmother’s stories felt like threads tying her to a world older than the stars, a world of magic and mystery. She nestled into the warmth of the rug, the smell of pomegranates and rosewater swirling in the air, and waited for the tale to unfold.

But as her grandmother …