Flash Stories

The Therapist's Mirror

hamed Jan. 19, 2025, 6:50 p.m.

Dr. Lila Hart sat quietly in her office, staring at the reflection in the mirror hanging across from her desk. It had been years since she'd hung it there, a simple antique piece with a wooden frame. But lately, it had taken on a new significance, a silent witness to the strange shifts in her practice. A mirror, she realized, could do more than reflect—it could reveal.

She had recently come across a worn copy of Attar’s Conference of the Birds—the ancient Persian poem about the journey of birds seeking their king, Simorgh. The more she read, the more she saw parallels between the journey of the birds and the struggles of her patients. Each one seemed to mirror a different stage of the pilgrimage, though they weren’t aware of it. And perhaps, like the birds, they too were searching for something they couldn’t name.

Her latest patient, Daniel, sat …

The Weight of Choices

hamed Jan. 10, 2025, 6:15 p.m.

Lena stood in the bustling airport terminal, the hum of departing flights a backdrop to her hurried thoughts. She had just returned from a business trip, her mind tangled with deadlines and unanswered emails. Grabbing her suitcase from the baggage claim, she didn’t think twice. It was black, like hers, the same size, the same worn handle from years of travel. She hoisted it onto the trolley and headed to the exit.

It wasn’t until she arrived at home, the evening sun casting long shadows over her apartment, that she realized the mistake. The suitcase wasn’t hers. Her stomach tightened. The zipper, usually stiff, was looser on this one, the fabric slightly worn in places. She opened it, expecting clothes, maybe toiletries. Instead, she found something far more disconcerting.

The first thing that caught her eye was a framed photograph, slightly smudged from travel. A young couple, arms around each …

Tongue of the Earth

hamed Jan. 16, 2025, 5:06 p.m.

The policeman’s hand hovered near his holster. “I said, step back.”

Jahan stood his ground, his breath ragged but steady. The midday sun bore down on the cracked pavement between them, turning the air into a furnace. Around them, passersby slowed but kept their distance, their eyes darting between the officer’s barked orders and Jahan’s clenched fists.

“I didn’t do anything,” Jahan said, his accent faint but undeniable. The officer’s gaze narrowed, dissecting his words as if searching for hidden defiance.

“You’re acting suspicious. Let me see some ID.”

“I was walking home. That’s not a crime.”

“It is if I say it is.”

The words struck like a lash, and Jahan felt something primal stir within him—an anger fed by years of stares, whispered insults, and the weight of being out of place. He reached into his pocket slowly, but the officer’s hand twitched toward his gun.

“Easy!” the …

The Artifact

hamed Jan. 18, 2025, 6:19 p.m.

Zara floated in the void, tethered to her orbital skiff as she guided her gripper arm toward yet another hunk of space junk. Most of her days involved clearing shards of dead satellites, forgotten wrenches, or stray bolts—remnants of humanity’s careless ascent to the stars. It was monotonous but necessary work. A stray bolt traveling at 28,000 kilometers per hour could cripple a station.

“Just another Tuesday,” she muttered, nudging a chunk of solar panel into her collection net.

Her suit’s scanner pinged. Something was drifting nearby, an irregular shape. The display read unidentified material.

Zara frowned. Her scanner rarely failed to categorize an object. Even fragments no bigger than a fingernail had traceable origins. She maneuvered the skiff closer.

The object glinted as it spun, catching the distant sunlight. It was smooth, cylindrical, and iridescent, shifting colors in a way that didn’t seem entirely natural.

“Control, I’ve got something …

The Weight of Mercy

hamed Jan. 22, 2025, 8:51 p.m.

The news broke on a quiet Tuesday morning. President Trump, in his final hours in office, had issued a sweeping pardon—over 1,500 names, a list that included fraudsters, lobbyists, and, most controversially, hundreds of January 6 Capitol rioters. The country erupted in a cacophony of outrage and relief, depending on which side of the divide you stood.

In a small town in Ohio, Mark Harris sat on his couch, staring at the TV. His face was pale, his hands trembling as the news anchor read the list of names. When he heard his own, he felt a surge of emotions—relief, guilt, and a gnawing unease. He had been one of the rioters, caught up in the frenzy of that day, swept along by the crowd and the promises of something greater. He had spent months in legal limbo, his life on hold, his family fractured. Now, he was free. But …

The Curse of Love and Immortality - Chapter 4: The Melancholy of Elnaz

dehongi Jan. 16, 2025, 12:10 p.m.

The king sat in silence for a moment, gazing at the flickering candlelight as if seeing another time, another place. The princess waited, sensing the weight of the tale he was about to share.
“Tonight,” he began softly, “I will tell you of Elnaz, the Pari who fell in love with a poet. Her story is one of beauty and sorrow, of words that wove their way into her immortal heart.”
The princess’s brow furrowed. “A poet? Did he write of her?”
The king smiled faintly. “Not at first. Elnaz lived in a secluded valley, far from human eyes. Her days were spent wandering among fields of wildflowers, her heart untouched by the fleeting lives of mortals. But one day, she heard something that stopped her in her tracks—a voice, soft and rich, reciting verses that seemed to carry the weight of the stars. She followed the sound and found him.”
The princess leaned …

Medical Miracles

hamed Jan. 26, 2025, 7:43 p.m.

Dr. Elias Banner stared at the MRI scans, his coffee growing cold on the desk. He’d seen cysticercosis before—larval cysts lodging themselves in human tissue, a cruel trick of parasitic survival. But this case? This was unlike anything in the textbooks.

The patient, a 27-year-old woman named Sofia, had come in complaining of seizures and vivid hallucinations of a forest she'd never visited. The scans revealed clusters of cysts not just in her brain but branching into her spinal cord, forming an intricate, web-like pattern. The sheer extent of the infestation should have left her in a vegetative state. Yet, aside from the seizures, she was lucid, even articulate.

Elias flipped through her blood work and records again, searching for something—anything—that might explain her resilience. That’s when he noticed something buried in her chart: an experimental antiparasitic compound she’d been prescribed during a humanitarian mission in rural India. The compound …

The Echoes of Fallujah

hamed Jan. 18, 2025, 5:17 p.m.

Private First Class James Carter crouched behind the cracked wall of an abandoned building in Fallujah, his heart pounding in his chest. The dust hung thick in the air, a haze of destruction and smoke that seemed to blur the line between the living and the dead. Outside, the sounds of war were deafening: gunfire, explosions, the cries of soldiers and civilians alike. But it was the silence in between that James hated most—the stillness before everything erupted again.

He wiped the sweat from his brow, his fingers trembling as they gripped his rifle. His comrades—men he had come to trust more than family—were scattered around him, each hiding behind what little cover they could find in the shattered city. They had been in Fallujah for weeks now, fighting through the streets, house to house, room by room. The enemy was everywhere, blending into the population, using the civilians as …

The Unexpected Mediator

hamed Jan. 27, 2025, 6:11 p.m.

The feud was everywhere. Headlines screamed Hollywood's Biggest Fight Yet: Ava DuMont and Chris Stellan, co-stars of the blockbuster franchise Eclipse, had turned their onscreen chemistry into offscreen chaos. Accusations flew like daggers in viral interviews and cryptic social media posts.

But no one expected Zoey Harrington to get involved.

Zoey wasn’t even in Eclipse. She was a pop star, not an actress, known more for her glittering gowns and catchy anthems than for her opinions on Hollywood spats. That all changed one afternoon when, mid-podcast, Zoey veered off topic.

“I mean, I don’t know Ava or Chris personally,” she began, her voice casual, “but maybe if they spent less time sniping at each other and more time figuring out what they actually want, we wouldn’t have to watch this mess unfold.”

The comment hit the internet like a wildfire. Within hours, #ZoeySaidIt was trending, a mix of fans applauding …

The Threads of Fate | Chapter 3: A Mother’s Love

dehongi Jan. 25, 2025, 4:04 p.m.

The old man sat silently by the window, his hands resting gently in his lap. The soft evening light filtered through the curtains, casting a warm glow over the room. His mind wandered, as it often did these days, to another critical choice—a choice that had once seemed so straightforward, so inevitable. Yet, in hindsight, he now saw how deep the divide had been, how far-reaching the consequences.

It was many years ago, a time when his children were still young and full of laughter, their voices echoing through the house like a melody. They were the heart of his world, and his wife, Samira, was the steady force that held them all together. He had been on the brink of another decision, a turning point in his life. The company he worked for had offered him an incredible opportunity: a promotion, an advancement that would take him to a …