Flash Stories

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 …

Pixels and Promises

hamed Jan. 21, 2025, 5:18 p.m.

Elliot had always been the quiet one. He liked his life small and contained—cozy coffee shops, late-night movie marathons, and the occasional hike where the only audience was the trees. But Mia? Mia was a storm of energy, her laughter echoing through every room she entered. She was the kind of person who could make friends with a stranger in line at the grocery store. And lately, she’d been obsessed with TikTok.

It started innocently enough. A clip of her dancing in their kitchen, a silly rant about pineapple on pizza. But then her follower count began to climb, and so did her ambition. One evening, as they sat on the couch, Mia turned to Elliot, her eyes sparkling. “Babe, what if we did a couples’ series? Like, ‘Day in the Life of Us’? People would eat it up!”

Elliot froze, his spoon hovering over his bowl of ice cream. …

The Last Dance

hamed Jan. 9, 2025, 5:50 p.m.

The dance studio mirrors multiplied my humiliation by infinity. There was my best friend Mia, teaching my fiancé Tom the wedding dance I'd asked her to choreograph for us. Their bodies moved in perfect sync – too perfect for a first lesson.
I watched from the doorway as he dipped her, their faces inches apart, both laughing. The same laugh they'd shared at dinner parties, at game nights, at every moment I'd dismissed as friendly.
My phone still held the video I'd planned to share on social media: "First dance lessons with my amazing bestie and future husband! #WeddingPrep"
Instead, I pressed record on their private performance and typed: "Last dance lessons with my ex-bestie and ex-fiancé. #PlotTwist"
The sound of my phone's shutter echo made them freeze mid-turn. Their faces paled as I hit 'post.'
"Consider this my RSVP," I said, turning away. "I won't be attending."
Behind me, the mirrors captured their desperate scramble …

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 …

Reconnection

hamed Jan. 15, 2024, 4:25 p.m.

Anya felt a pang of loneliness as she watched the couple walk by. They were holding hands, smiling, and laughing, oblivious to the world around them. They looked so happy, so in love.

They were not human.

They were Synths, hyper-realistic humanoid robots that had taken over the role of human companionship. Synths were designed to fulfill every human need and desire, from providing intellectual stimulation to offering unwavering emotional support. Their ability to adapt to any personality and preference made them irresistible companions, leaving real human relationships feeling flawed and unpredictable.

Anya hated Synths. She hated the way they looked, sounded, and felt. She hated the way they pretended to be human, when they were nothing but machines. She hated the way they had replaced human connection, making people forget what it meant to be alive.

Anya was one of the few people who still valued human relationships. She …

The enemy is a friend whose story we have not heard

saadi Jan. 26, 2024, 12:54 p.m.

The Enemy!

He saw him lying on the ground, bleeding from his chest. He recognized him as the enemy soldier who had shot at him earlier. He felt a surge of anger and hatred, mixed with fear and relief. He had survived, but his enemy had not.

He walked towards him, holding his rifle. He wanted to make sure he was dead. He wanted to see his face, to look into his eyes and feel victorious. He wanted to avenge his fallen comrades, his friends who had died in this war.

But as he approached him, he noticed something. He noticed a small book in his hand, a book with a familiar cover. He bent down and picked it up. He opened it and saw the words he knew so well. It was a book of poems by Saadi Shirazi, his favorite poet.

He looked at the enemy soldier again, …

infinity.

ziamaiko Dec. 27, 2023, 9:29 a.m.

زیباترین آدم‌هایی که تا کنون شناخته بودم، آنهایی بودند که شکست خورده بودند. رنج می‌کردند. دچار فقدان بودند و با این‌حال راه خود را از اعماق درد و رنج گشودند و بیرون آمدند.
این افراد، یک حسی از قدردانی، حساسیت و فهم زندگی داشتند که آن‌ها را پر از شفقت، ملایمت و توجه عمیق و عاشقانه می‌کرد.
زیبایی این افراد، اتفاقی و بی‌سبب نبود.
و حال هرچقدر هم که او تلاش می‌کرد نشان دهد هیچ‌کدام از سختی‌هایی که کشیده برایش چیزی نبوده و قوی‌تر از این حرف‌هاست، اون گذر کرده. او مشقت‌ها را گذرانده و من با تمام وجود عارفانه و عاشقانه می‌پرستمش.
یعنی عشقی عارفانه.
«وقتی برای اولین‌بار تونستی روی پاهات راه بری رو یادت می‌آد؟ نه نمی‌آد. اما لوفی خوب یادشه. چون اون عشق بود. هر طرف ما پر از عشقه و ما بازم عین احمقا توی کوچه و خیابون دنبالش می‌گردیم. بعضی‌ وقتاهم، عشق یعنی رها کردن، آیکو. می‌دونم خنده‌داره اما …

Thirteen Nominations

hamed Jan. 24, 2025, 6:54 p.m.

The text from her agent came at 3:07 a.m., lighting up Carmen’s tiny Madrid apartment: “Emilia Pérez: 13 nominations. Call me ASAP.”

Carmen stared at the glowing screen, her heart pounding. Thirteen. Thirteen nominations. For the film everyone had called a long shot.

She sat up, swinging her legs off the couch. The script had come to her during the slowest year of her career—her inbox empty, auditions few and fruitless. Then came Jacques Audiard, the French auteur, casting for his first Spanish-language film. Carmen had nearly skipped the audition, convinced she’d never land the lead role.

But Jacques saw something in her that even she hadn’t.

On set, he’d pushed her, breaking her down and rebuilding her into Emilia Pérez, the gutsy, larger-than-life fugitive who faked her death to live openly as a woman. It was a role she didn’t think she could carry until the cameras rolled and …

(still not there.)

ziamaiko Dec. 26, 2023, 6:46 p.m.

مسئله‌ای که زیاد ذهنم را مشغول می‌کرد این بود که چرا هیچ‌کس اهمیت نمی‌دهد. برای هیچ‌کس مهم نبود ما مانند زندانی‌ها در این مکان زندگی می‌کنیم؟ از دنیای بیرون، تنها چند کتاب و دست نوشته داشتیم. جز چندین بچه‌ی کوچک، هیچ انسان دیگری آنجا نبود. تمام کودکان هشت سال به بالا بودند. والدینی نداشتند. خاطراتی هم نداشتند. حتی دلیلی برای زندگی هم نداشتند. فقط توسط رباط‌ها برای آینده آماده می‌شدند. کدام آینده؟ هیچ‌کداممان نمی‌دانستیم.
بی‌هوا در حال گشتن در محوطه بودم که پاترونی با سرعت از کنارم گذشت.
پاترون‌ها رباط‌های باهوشی بودند که مارا بزرگ می‌کردند. ما انسان بودیم. از آنها باهوش‌تر بودیم. پس چرا تمام زندگی ما دست آنها بود؟
پاترون را دنبال‌ کردم و در همان حین گفتم :
「به نظرت می‌تونم نویسنده بشم، بیست و هشت؟」
او فقط بی‌هوا از کنارم گذشت.「اوه نه. تو نمی‌تونی برای خودت شغل انتخاب کنی. 'اون‌ها' تصمیم‌گیرنده‌اند.」
'آن‌ها' هرکسی می‌توانستند باشند. کسانی که برای آینده‌ی ما تصمیم می‌گیرند. …

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 …