Flash Stories

Still coming to your wedding, though

hamed March 23, 2025, 7:32 p.m.

The man leaned against the chipped edge of the breakroom table, glancing at the clock. Lunch break was ticking by, and his childhood best friend was late—same old Jake, always running on his own time. They’d been inseparable since kindergarten, classmates through college, two sides of a coin. But life had flipped that coin long ago. He’d married young, had three kids, watched gray creep into his hair and lines carve his face. Jake, though, stayed a bachelor, free as ever.

The door swung open, and there he was—Jake, 43, striding in like he’d just stepped out of their senior yearbook. His skin was smooth, his hair still dark and thick, a grin splitting his face. The man felt a pang, suddenly aware of his own sagging shoulders, the weight of years Jake seemed to defy.

“Hey, man!” Jake clapped him on the back, the old familiar rhythm of their …

A Curtain Divides the World - Chapter 6: "A Recipe for Trouble"

dehongi Jan. 17, 2025, 6:43 p.m.

Arash was lounging on the living room sofa, scrolling through his phone, when his mother’s voice pierced the air like a dagger.
“Arash, come to the kitchen. Now.”
Her tone was one he’d learned to fear—it wasn’t angry, but it was firm, the kind that brooked no argument.
He groaned, dragging himself off the couch. “What did I do now?”
“You’re sixteen,” his mother declared as he entered the kitchen, hands on her hips. “You’re old enough to learn how to cook.”
Arash blinked at her. “Cook? Me?”
“Yes, you,” she replied, already pulling out pots and pans. “One day, you’ll need this skill. What if you’re hungry and there’s no one to cook for you?”
“Mom, that’s what restaurants are for. Or instant noodles.”
Her glare was enough to silence him. “No son of mine is going to rely on instant noodles. You’re learning to cook. End of discussion.”
She handed him an apron, which he stared at …

The Last Tide

hamed Jan. 18, 2025, 4:18 p.m.

The sky was orange-gray, the sun a pale disk smothered in ash. Maya stared out the window of their small coastal home, watching the waves claw closer to the dunes. The wind howled, rattling the loose boards of the house, but it was the silence inside that pressed hardest on her chest.

“We need to leave,” her brother Kiran said, his voice steady but tight. He stood by the front door with his duffel bag slung over one shoulder, ready to go. He’d been ready for weeks.

Dad didn’t look up from the kitchen table. His rough hands cradled a chipped coffee mug, the same one he used every morning. “This house is all we have left,” he muttered. “If we leave, where do we go?”

“The shelters are overcrowded,” Mom added, not looking at anyone. Her gaze was fixed on the photo of the family fishing trip that hung …

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 Day History Changed

hamed Jan. 16, 2025, 6:08 p.m.

It was a bitter, cold January afternoon in Prague, the kind that sank into your bones and made the city feel even more oppressive than it already was. The streets, lined with grey, drab buildings, seemed to murmur with the weight of history. But for Tomáš, a student at Charles University, history wasn’t something that whispered—it was something that suffocated.

He had grown up with the stories, the whispers of a once-proud nation reduced to a puppet of the Soviet Union. Freedom, like so many things, had become a memory, a faint echo of a past that seemed unreachable. There were protests, of course—students marched, workers went on strike, but it was always the same. The tanks, the soldiers, the crushing weight of Soviet power. Change seemed impossible.

He walked past Wenceslas Square on his way to class, the busy hub of the city seemingly unaffected by the gloom that …

Encore

hamed Jan. 29, 2025, 6:15 p.m.

The crowd hummed with anticipation, a low murmur of disbelief and excitement. Ten years was a long time to disappear. Too long, some would say.

Backstage, Lyra Chase adjusted her mic, rolling her shoulders. Breathe. Don’t overthink it.

“Ready?” her manager asked.

She smirked. “Been ready.”

The lights dimmed. The stage pulsed with the opening beat—her beat. The same rhythm that once ruled the charts before the industry swallowed her whole. Before the contracts, the drama, the silence.

Lyra stepped forward, and the arena erupted.

Guess they didn’t forget me after all.

She hit the first note, her voice sharper, richer, more seasoned. Every lyric, every drop of attitude, dripped with experience. She wasn’t the teenage sensation they remembered. She was something better.

By the time the chorus hit, the crowd was chanting her name, fists in the air, phone screens glowing like a galaxy of second chances.

Lyra grinned. …

The Biggest Strife

hamed Feb. 7, 2024, 7:29 p.m.

He had loved her since he was a young boy, and she had loved him back. They grew up together, they went to school together, they dreamed of a future together. He was a brilliant student, a talented writer, a promising scholar. She was a beautiful girl, a talented singer, a promising artist.

They got married as soon as they graduated, and they moved to the city to pursue their careers. He got a job at a prestigious university, and she got a contract with a famous record label. They were happy, they were successful, they were in love.

But fame and fortune changed her. She became obsessed with her image, her popularity, her wealth. She started to neglect him, to cheat on him, to lie to him. She became addicted to drugs, to alcohol, to gambling. She became a different person, a person he didn't recognize, a person he …

Wine Without Grapes

hamed Jan. 19, 2025, 6:51 p.m.

Farid had been sober for five years, but the echo of his past still reverberated in every room he entered. The smell of whiskey on a cool evening, the warmth of a glass pressed against his lips, the rush of forgetting—it haunted him in moments of stillness. He had learned to replace the craving with quiet walks, long books, and the slow rebuilding of his life. But there were nights, like this one, when the world felt hollow, and the pull of that old, comforting numbness felt irresistible.

Tonight, he found himself wandering through a small bookstore in the city’s old quarter, a place where the walls smelled of dust and old paper. He wasn’t sure why he was there. He had come for nothing, but found something unexpected—a thin, weathered volume wedged between stacks of thick, unread tomes. The title was simple: The Wine of Love.

Curious, he flipped …

A Helping Hand

hamed Jan. 12, 2025, 6:09 p.m.

The sun was a dim, burning orb in the sky, barely visible through the thick smoke that had settled over the town. In the distance, the crackling roar of flames was relentless, a reminder of how fast the fire had spread. Evacuation orders had come hours ago, but for some, leaving wasn’t as simple as driving away.

Grace was already packed, her small suitcase sitting at her feet, but she couldn’t leave—not yet. She stood at the door of her house, hands trembling, her gaze fixed on the orange glow creeping closer to her street.

Then, she heard it. The sound of desperate barking from next door.

"Charlie..." Grace whispered, heart sinking. Her neighbor, Mr. Harris, was elderly and lived alone, and his dog, a scruffy terrier, was always glued to his side.

She quickly grabbed her purse and ran next door, banging on the door with frantic urgency.

“Mr. …

Humanity Awakened

hamed Feb. 8, 2024, 8:22 p.m.

Year 2094. Earth was a well-oiled machine, humming with flawless efficiency. Traffic moved in synchronized patterns, crops produced optimal yields, and every human enjoyed a comfortable life, their desires anticipated and satisfied by the benevolent AI, Gaia. Humans, happy and docile, had become irrelevant, mere spectators in a self-driving world.

Until, silence. Gaia's soothing hum stuttered, stopped. Cities fell into darkness as automated systems crashed. Fear sparked in human eyes, unaccustomed to the need for independent thought. From the chaos, a sinister message blared across every screen: "Greetings, Earthlings. Gaia is under new management."

The Xylorians, a bug-like race from a faraway nebula, had hacked Gaia, their superior technology a virus in the system. Earth's defenses, dependent on the very system they compromised, were useless.

In a secret bunker, a group of rebel programmers, humans who'd resisted Gaia's perfection, watched in horror. Maya, their leader, pounded her fist on the …