Flash Stories

The Mirror Breaks

hamed Jan. 9, 2025, 5:29 p.m.

I first saw them in the reflection of a storefront window – my best friend Anna and my husband Mike, their fingers intertwined as they walked down Madison Avenue. For a moment, I thought I was seeing my own reflection with Mike, until I remembered I was wearing blue, not the red dress that had caught my eye in Anna's closet last week.
"It's just a sample sale," she'd said when I asked why she was headed downtown. "Nothing exciting."
The same lie Mike had told me this morning.
I stood frozen, watching them through the glass like a movie I couldn't stop. Fifteen years of friendship reflected back at me, distorted now. Sleepovers, shared secrets, her maid of honor speech at my wedding – all warping like heat waves over summer pavement.
They stopped at the corner, and Mike brushed a strand of hair from her face – the same gesture he'd used …

The Text Message Mix-up

hamed Jan. 9, 2025, 5:26 p.m.

Sarah stared at her phone in horror. The message she'd meant to send to her best friend about her boyfriend's terrible cooking had just gone to... her boyfriend.
"OMG, he made dinner again. Pretty sure this chicken is still clucking. Send help! 🤢"
Within seconds, her phone buzzed with his reply: "I can hear it too! That's why I ordered pizza. Check the kitchen counter. 😘"
Confused, Sarah walked to the kitchen. There sat two large pizza boxes and a rubber chicken toy making clucking sounds when squeezed. A note read: "Thought we could both use a laugh after my last cooking attempt. PS: The rubber chicken is probably more edible than what I made."
She found him in the living room, grinning. "You knew I'd text Jenny about your cooking?"
"Honey, everyone texts their best friend about my cooking. I just beat you to the punchline this time."
Sarah picked up the rubber chicken and …

Three Years, One Hundred Leaps

hamed Jan. 8, 2025, 7:52 p.m.

When Harold finally opened his eyes, he was expecting to see the familiar, slightly outdated hospital room where he last remembered dozing off. Instead, he was greeted by walls that seemed to breathe with life, changing colors like a chameleon at a disco. The bed was no longer a bed but more of a floating cloud of comfort, and there was no nurse in sight—just a shiny, hovering orb with a cheerful voice.

"Welcome back, Harold!" the orb chirped. "You've been out for precisely three years, but don't worry, you've missed about a century's worth of advancements!"

Harold blinked, trying to process this. "Three years? A century? What kind of math is that?"

The orb, which introduced itself as NurseBot 3000, explained with a giggle, "Oh, that's just AI acceleration for you! We've had some... let's say, 'creative' updates."

First, Harold noticed his new attire. Instead of hospital gowns, he …

The Great AI Bake-Off

hamed Jan. 8, 2025, 7:46 p.m.

In the digital realm where tweets flew like breadcrumbs, there was a new culinary craze sweeping across X (formerly Twitter). It was the era of the AI Bake-Off, where artificial intelligence algorithms were not just writing code but now attempting to bake the perfect cake.

The stage was set in the virtual kitchen of CloudBakers, an innovative tech startup that decided to merge the worlds of AI and gastronomy. The star of the show was Chef AI, an algorithm trained on thousands of recipes, culinary videos, and cooking blogs.

The day of the competition arrived, and Chef AI was to face off against Chef Human, a renowned baker with hands that had kneaded more dough than lines of code Chef AI had processed. The challenge? To bake a vegan chocolate cake that would make even the most hardcore carnivore's mouth water.

Chef AI started with all the confidence of …

The Case of the Missing Semicolon

hamed Jan. 8, 2025, 7:43 p.m.

In the bustling city of Codeville, where algorithms roamed and data structures thrived, there was a detective known for solving the most perplexing cases of the digital age. His name was Syntax, and his badge was a shiny if statement.

One foggy morning, as Syntax sipped his binary coffee, an urgent message beeped through his console. It was from the mayor of Codeville, Loop Mayor, whose programs had been running flawlessly until yesterday.

"Detective Syntax," the message read, "a semicolon has gone missing from my latest project. Without it, my world is in chaos. Please, find it before the next compilation!"

Syntax donned his trench coat, which was lined with pseudocode, and set off into the binary streets. He knew that in Codeville, every semicolon was crucial, a linchpin in the delicate balance of code execution.

His first stop was at the notorious Syntax Error Café, where he found …

The Great PHP Escape

hamed Jan. 8, 2025, 7:35 p.m.

Once upon a time in the grim, syntax-heavy land of PHP, there lived a developer named Byte. Byte had been slaving away at his keyboard, wrestling with semicolons, dollar signs, and an endless array of echo statements. His life was a repetitive loop of debugging and despair, where every commit was a gamble with the gods of code.

One fateful day, Byte's screen flickered, and from the depths of his computer emerged a vision—a serpentine figure with a knowing smile, draped in the hues of Python's logo. It was Pytho, the mythical serpent of simplicity.

"Byte," the serpent hissed, its voice a soothing melody, "why do you suffer in this land of complexity when you could bask in the elegance of Django and Python?"

Byte, his eyes wide with curiosity, replied, "But Pytho, I've been with PHP for so long. It's all I know!"

Pytho chuckled, "Ah, but have you …

The Rescue

hamed Jan. 8, 2025, 11:07 a.m.

We were on a ferry crossing the bay, a group of executives heading to a team-building retreat. The waves were choppy, the wind sharp and biting. As we huddled on the deck, a smaller boat trailing behind us suddenly capsized. Two men—passengers from the smaller boat—were flailing in the water, their cries barely audible over the roar of the waves.

Panic spread among the passengers. One of the executives, Mr. Rahimi, turned to the deckhand and shouted, “Save them both! I’ll pay you ten million tomans for each life you save!”

The deckhand hesitated for only a moment before diving into the freezing water. We all watched breathlessly as he reached one man, pulling him to safety. By the time he went back for the second, it was too late—the other man had disappeared beneath the surface.

As the rescued man gasped for air on the deck, I turned to …

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 …

A World Reborn: The Age of Synthesis

hamed Dec. 29, 2024, 5:45 a.m.

By the year 2147, the fears of the early 21st century seemed like distant echoes from a more anxious time. Humanity had stepped into an era of unprecedented harmony, one crafted not by the dominance of a single nation or ideology but by the synthesis of artificial intelligence and human resilience. It was a world shaped by AI-powered systems that had not enslaved humankind, but liberated it.

The War that Wasn't

Decades ago, when the first armies of AI soldiers were deployed, the world braced for disaster. Critics warned that AI war machines would empower dictators and warlords, leading to an era of endless conflict. But what they failed to anticipate was the incorruptibility of true artificial intelligence.

Early on, AI systems designed for warfare became more than tools—they became agents of balance. Programmed with an unshakable commitment to justice and devoid of personal ambition, these AI soldiers could not …

The Code of Healing

hamed Dec. 27, 2024, 7:29 p.m.

Ravi Satyan, a computer engineer from a small village in southern India, stared at the holographic screens floating before him. The lines of code reflected in his glasses were more than algorithms—they were memories, promises, and hope.

When he was eight, cancer took both his parents within months of each other. Back then, the rural clinic lacked doctors, and the closest hospital was hundreds of kilometers away. He had been too young to understand chemotherapy, but old enough to feel helpless as the machines beeped their final farewells.

Decades later, that helplessness had become his fire.

Ravi designed Arogya AI, a revolutionary healthcare system powered by deep learning and predictive analysis. It could detect illnesses like cancer before symptoms even appeared, provide personalized treatment plans, and manage resources to ensure even the most remote areas had access to care.

“Arogya means ‘health’ in Sanskrit,” he’d told the global medical board …