Daily Flash Fiction Stories
By Marziyeh Kameli
The mom puffs and pants as her labor increases. Though the pain is just for her, the anxiety is shared by everyone around them. After two girls already, the greatest source of anxiety is whether the baby will be a boy. The grandma worries about her son: “How will he manage if his third child is a girl?”
Continue Reading This StoryBy T.A. Margono
He remembers being the fastest and fiercest once upon a time, but somehow, somehow they escape him now.
They build a flimsy house; he destroys it, but they flee, and he cannot catch up. His teeth gnash and his muscles coil. Nowadays, it seems his stomach is always being emptied and filled with stones.
Continue Reading This StoryBy Lisa Weckerle
The envelope arrived as usual, slipped underneath my door by another agent during the night. Inside was the list of today’s surprise inspection sites. I looked over the profiles, grabbed my badge and field kit, and punched the first address into the GPS.
I arrived at the jewelry store at 9:00 a.m. I flashed my badge, and the manager was quite courteous, offering me tea and opening the display cases immediately. I examined the jewelry using my field microscope, which is especially good at revealing stars disguised as diamonds, or cursed rings that bind their wearers in service to mobster goblins.
Continue Reading This StoryThey are lying together in bed, their naked bodies fitfully illuminated by the headlights of the cars passing by their bedroom window. He is trying to relax her, stroking her obdurate back with long slow motions. He focuses on the tingling of his fingertips against her skin. But she is somewhere else.
Continue Reading This StoryCrouched in the attic, I ignore piles of old magazines, notebooks, and abandoned furniture. But not the blue box. It contains ancient five-twelve gigabyte flash drives, Ethan’s first holographic projector, and my least-favorite book, Thinking About Your Brain. Another thoughtless gift from Mom, after my middle-school graduation. She couldn’t change her artsy daughter. Finding no inscription, I touch its un-creased cover and toss it.
Continue Reading This StoryBy Josephine Widjaja
1. Mix flour, yeast, and water.
It was a congee day, my favorite: thousand-year-old eggs and steamed cod and best of all, youtiao. My grandmother spooned thick and clotted porridge into ivory porcelain bowls. She rocked back and forth above the counter, forward and backward and forward again, like a nauseous sailor on her first journey; then she dropped the rolling pin, slathered with flour, into the sink. Golden grease splattered onto trays lined with aluminum foil.
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