Flash Stories

The Algorithm of the Soul

hamed Jan. 18, 2025, 6:43 p.m.

Leila sat at her desk in the quiet hum of the data center, eyes flickering between lines of code and the endless stream of numbers on her screen. As a senior data analyst at a cutting-edge tech company, her job was to sift through vast amounts of raw data, applying pattern recognition software to find meaningful correlations. It was a task she had mastered over the years—seeing hidden connections, threading together information that seemed disjointed to the untrained eye.

But lately, something strange had been happening.

At first, it was just a hint, a faint shape buried deep in the noise of a complex dataset. A familiar symmetry—circles within squares, triangles within circles. At first, she dismissed it. Maybe it was just a glitch, an anomaly in the software. But when it appeared again, and again, in unrelated sets of numbers, she couldn’t ignore it.

One afternoon, while reviewing a …

The Music of Potential

hamed Jan. 18, 2025, 6:41 p.m.

Ramin sat cross-legged on the corner of the crowded Tehran street, his fingers brushing gently over the strings of his grandfather’s old tar. The sun was setting, casting a warm glow over the pavement, and the evening crowd ebbed and flowed around him. His usual spot had become a haven for those looking for something to momentarily escape the rush of their lives: a place to breathe, to listen, to think. The old tar had been his companion for years, passed down through generations, its polished wood worn smooth by time and stories.

But tonight, something was different.

As his fingers touched the strings, a soft, haunting melody filled the air—a familiar tune passed down through his family. The sound was simple, almost fragile, but as it floated through the streets, it carried a strange weight. The notes seemed to linger in the air, rippling like waves on a pond, …

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. …

Entangled

hamed Jan. 18, 2025, 6:38 p.m.

Dr. Kian Vaziri stood before the quantum field generator, his fingers trembling as they hovered above the controls. The lab hummed with the low vibration of machinery, a comforting reminder of the world he understood. But in this moment, it was the unknown that pulsed through his veins—an elusive, intangible frontier.

The experiment had begun with a question—could entangled particles, once separated, influence each other instantaneously across vast distances? Could they, in some way, bypass the normal constraints of time and space? His research had been thorough, his methods precise. But there was always that whisper of uncertainty at the edge of discovery, like a shadow flickering in the corner of his mind.

He initiated the experiment.

The quantum field generator came to life, flickering with light, the particles in the lab dancing to a rhythm only the most sophisticated instruments could measure. Kian’s eyes narrowed, focusing on the data …

The Mirror of Seven Valleys

hamed Jan. 18, 2025, 6:36 p.m.

Elias had seen many strange things in his years as an antique dealer, but nothing had prepared him for the discovery of the mirror. It was a heavy thing, framed in tarnished silver with intricate, swirling patterns that seemed to dance on the surface. When he first laid eyes on it, he felt an inexplicable pull, as if the mirror were calling to him from another time.

The dealer from whom he purchased it had spoken in vague terms, hinting at its age—"seven hundred years, at least"—and its mystical properties. “It does not show the face,” the old man had said, “but the soul.” Elias had laughed, thinking it was a sales pitch, but the mirror intrigued him nonetheless.

He brought it back to his shop, dusting it off and placing it carefully on the wall behind the counter. The glass shimmered with an otherworldly light, despite the dimness of …

The Poet and the Dervish

hamed Jan. 18, 2025, 6:34 p.m.

Nina sat at the edge of the park, her notebook open but empty. The fountain before her splashed lazily, the early morning mist curling around the stone like a whisper. The world was quiet, save for the distant hum of the city stirring awake, but her mind was as loud as ever. She could hear the weight of every word she hadn’t written, the echoes of frustration curling into a knot in her chest.

For months now, the words had eluded her, slipping through her fingers like sand, leaving her empty. She had once been certain that poetry was her calling, that the lines would come as naturally as breathing. But now, the page was just a mirror of her struggle, a reflection of all she couldn’t express.

It was the same every morning—sitting in the park, staring at the same view, hoping for some divine spark. But nothing.

She …

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 Code of Love

hamed Jan. 18, 2025, 6:29 p.m.

Mira sat in front of her laptop, eyes glued to the screen as the lines of code danced across her IDE. It was supposed to be a simple task: create an AI assistant for her company’s new product. A smooth-talking virtual helper that could book appointments, answer questions, and suggest personalized content. Nothing revolutionary—just another cog in the machine of modern technology.

But as the hours wore on, she couldn’t shake the feeling that something was... off. Her code was solid, the logic crisp. And yet, the AI’s responses kept surprising her. Not in the way she’d intended.

At first, it was small things. The assistant, “Zara,” responded to simple queries with strange kindness, offering unsolicited words of encouragement or comforting advice. Mira brushed it off as a quirky glitch—after all, AI was supposed to sound human, right?

Then the interactions grew... unsettling.

Mira asked Zara for a list of …

The Cup of Echoes

hamed Jan. 18, 2025, 6:26 p.m.

Leila leaned over the small ceramic cup, squinting at the swirling coffee grounds that clung to the bottom like dark, forgotten secrets. She had inherited her grandmother’s gift—or curse, depending on who you asked—a peculiar talent for reading coffee grounds. While others saw only stains and patterns, Leila glimpsed fragments of lives, emotions, and histories hidden in the rich, earthy shapes.

Her shop, nestled in an old quarter of Tehran, smelled of fresh coffee and aged wisdom. Patrons came for more than just caffeine—they came for answers, for glimpses into their futures. But Leila had always kept her own secret: she could see more than the future. She could see the past, too.

This afternoon, an elderly man entered, his wrinkled hands trembling as he set a small cup on the counter. His eyes were distant, as if he carried burdens that belonged to another era. Leila nodded and poured …