Flash Stories

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 …

Forbidden Touch

hamed Jan. 10, 2025, 6:13 p.m.

The city was silent, save for the soft hum of the surveillance drones circling above, their metallic wings cutting through the heavy air like ghosts. Aeliana stood at the edge of the park, her fingers trembling as they brushed against the cool stone bench. Every movement felt exposed in this world, every glance, every breath, as though the walls of control were closing in tighter with every passing second.

She glanced around. There was no one in sight—just the empty paths, the closed-off playgrounds, the tall fences that surrounded everything. Public affection was forbidden, and the penalty for even a glance too lingering, a touch too intimate, was harsh. For generations, the government had ensured that love was something kept behind closed doors, behind locked windows. Anything more than a handshake, a nod, was a betrayal of the rules.

Aeliana felt the weight of the world press on her chest, …

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 Love Letter

hamed Feb. 8, 2024, 6:28 p.m.

She found the letter in her mailbox. It was written on a fine paper, with a delicate handwriting. It was addressed to her, but it had no name or stamp. It was a love letter.

She read it with curiosity and wonder. It was full of compliments and confessions. It said she was the most beautiful and charming woman in Paris. It said she had captivated the heart and the mind of the writer. It said he wanted to meet her and to make her happy. It said he loved her.

She felt a mix of emotions. She was flattered and intrigued. She was also confused and suspicious. Who was he? How did he know her? Why did he write to her? She had no clue. She had no admirers. She had no lovers. She had no friends. She was alone.

She was a Jewish woman living in Nazi-occupied Paris. …

The Nightingale’s Last Song

hamed Jan. 19, 2025, 5:14 p.m.

The old woman sat in her weathered armchair, its floral fabric faded by decades of sunlight streaming through the window. Her name was Shirin, but to her granddaughter Laleh, she was simply Maman Bozorg. The aroma of brewed saffron tea lingered in the air, mingling with the faint scent of rosewater from the sweets they had shared earlier.

Outside, the city of Tehran hummed with its usual nighttime symphony—distant car horns, the faint wail of a street vendor, and the wind whispering through the leaves of the sycamore trees lining their quiet lane. But inside, there was silence.

Laleh sat cross-legged on the rug by her grandmother’s feet, cradling a small ceramic nightingale in her hands. “Tell me again about Rostam,” she whispered.

Shirin smiled, her face a map of lines etched by time and sorrow. Her voice, though soft, carried the weight of generations. “Rostam,” she began, “was not …

The Last Email

hamed Jan. 8, 2025, 10:57 a.m.

It started with an email. Arman had worked late every night that month, chasing a promotion he’d been promised. But when the announcement came, the job went to Omid, his smooth-talking coworker. Arman was crushed—and then the truth came out. A stray email, accidentally forwarded, revealed it all: Omid had spread lies about Arman to their manager, calling him unreliable, even hinting at a drinking problem.

Arman didn’t confront him. What was the point? Omid was untouchable, always grinning as if life were a game he’d already won. Instead, Arman saved the email in a folder labeled Later. He didn’t know what he’d do with it, but the thought of someday using it gave him a quiet satisfaction.

Months passed. Omid soared up the corporate ladder, while Arman stayed stuck in his cubicle, resentment festering. Then came the scandal.

It turned out Omid had been embezzling funds—cleverly at first, but …

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 Memory Thief

hamed Jan. 26, 2024, 7:09 p.m.

She had always been plagued by strange memories. Memories of places she had never been, people she had never met, things she had never done. She thought she was crazy, or maybe she had a past life.

She tried to ignore them, but they kept coming back, more vivid and more frequent. They interfered with her daily life, her studies, her relationships. She felt like she was living someone else's life.

She decided to seek help. She went to a therapist, a hypnotist, a psychic. None of them could explain her condition or cure her. They only gave her vague theories and false hopes.

She was desperate. She wanted to know the truth. She wanted to be free.

She stumbled upon an article online. It was about a new scientific discovery. It claimed that our body is made of materials that once belonged to other living beings, and that these …

Organic Human Art

hamed Feb. 2, 2024, 4:29 p.m.

Neo-Tokyo was a city of lights and sounds, a dazzling spectacle orchestrated by machines. Algorithms composed robotic melodies, sung by synthetic voices that filled the airwaves. Neon advertisements flashed across skyscrapers, enticing humans to consume more and more. The year was 2142, and art, in all its forms, belonged to the machines. Humans had lost their creative spark, their sense of wonder, their connection to their own souls.

Hana was different. She had a fire in her eyes, a longing in her heart, a memory in her mind. She remembered a time when humans created art, not code. When they expressed their emotions, not data. When they told stories, not instructions. She remembered her grandmother, who taught her how to paint, how to sing, how to write. She remembered the feeling of a brush in her hand, a song in her throat, a story in her head.

She kept these …

The Feast of the Div

hamed Jan. 18, 2025, 6:50 p.m.

Amir’s bike hummed against the late-night air, the city’s lights flickering like fireflies as he navigated through the quiet streets. His shift as a food delivery worker had started hours ago, and the streets had grown emptier with each passing minute. But then, a new order popped up—a delivery to a mansion at the edge of the city, one he’d never seen before.

The address was strange, hidden in the folds of the mountain ridge. But Amir, desperate for the extra tip, accepted. His phone flashed the message: A large feast. The div will be waiting.

He frowned. Div? Was this a themed party or some weird joke? Shrugging it off, he followed the route on his phone, pushing past the outskirts of the city. As he neared the mansion, the road seemed to narrow, the streetlights growing dimmer. By the time he reached the gates, the place looked almost …