Flash Archives

Adolescent Nesting Disorder by David Scott Hay

May 20, 2026 · Fiction

Mandy screams her son’s name as pine needles crunch underfoot. Missing for thirty-six hours, the Park Service worries. You can go days without water, she remembers, more without food. Her son is lean, but resourceful. So many mornings he’s helped his younger brother get ready for school. Still, she takes an ogre’s swig from her flask and screams into the forest and listens for a response, a rebuttal, an echo. Anything. Nothing. A pine cone lands at her feet, and then a stick. Her heart now the thrum of a hummingbird. She cranes her neck and sees a large shadow….

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Narcotics Anonymous by Jennifer Ostopovich

May 18, 2026 · Fiction

I’m not quite old enough to stay home by myself while my mom works, so I tag along to my dad’s NA meeting with him. I snag a ball from a large plastic bin on wheels and bounce it off the wall in the opposite corner of the school gymnasium where the meeting is held. No one seems to mind. The men are focused on their meeting and barely acknowledge I’m there. I pretend not to listen while each one details his struggles with addiction. Darren “No-Nose” Gibson is the first to speak. He rubs at the bridge of his…

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Slug Life by Matthew Dexter

May 14, 2026 · Fiction

I blow blunt smoke of Unicorn Poop in the shape of brontosauruses through my tracheotomy hole. My son Connor is a gangsta rapper. Connor rocks relentlessly on our rickety porch swing, guzzling cans of Coors Light, spitting rhymes to the beat of the squeaky double-loop chain. His Mormon friends listen intently, bopping their skulls with the wizardry of worldly tweakers. Connor can catch a sunburn from the refrigerator lightbulb. His flow is smoother than a baby-oiled boob and colder than a clew of earthworms. Connor’s rap name is Cocaine Cul-De-$ac. His YouTube channel bankrolls cases of Coors Light, gaudy gold…

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A Day In the Life by Kaylee Howard

May 13, 2026 · Fiction

I am watching men kill pedophiles in Walmart online while my mother cooks dinner. I guess they don’t kill them directly — a self-inflicted shotgun spray to the skull will do them in after two thousand comments about his texts with minors and allegedly small penis appear in the comments. It doesn’t make the local news because they aren’t allowed to put suicides on the news. My mom got the recipe for the pasta she is making from a blog that insisted on inserting ten paragraphs of the creator’s life story before mentioning a single ingredient. I’m not sure if…

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One Late Summer Morning by Louis Scantlebury

April 22, 2026 · Fiction

1 One late summer morning, we found two ladybugs humping doggy-style in Max’s garden. We held each other and watched them. “Look,” Max said, “the top one is pinning down the legs of the bottom one.” “The thrusting is so smooth,” I said. “Their bodies are so shiny,” Max said. “They remind me of us,” I said, and bent down to pick them up. “Amy, what the fuck!” Max said. “But I want them to come inside and be with us when we have sex,” I said. “That’s so sweet,” Max said. “OK, pick them up.” I placed my finger…

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CHEST by Oliver Land

March 19, 2026 · Fiction

At the work Christmas party I sat with the junior staff, who were all shy and awkward. I made small talk about indie music with the shyest one, then talked to another about video games. One of the senior waitresses, there with her ex-boyfriend, was flirty with me. She wanted me to stay all night, then go home with her. She laughed too hard at my jokes. Every now and then, as she spoke to me, her live-in ex glanced at us. She pretended not to notice. Back at her table, she messaged me, suggesting we leave the party and…

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THE HUMANE ZOO AND HOLIDAY HOME by Pia Koh

March 13, 2026 · Fiction

When the guests are sitting around the table Lucien’s mom asks Lucien “Do you ever think about your dad?” If the guests weren’t there Lucien would glare bitterly at his mom then turn back to peeling the egg. But when guests are over and Lucien’s mom asks him something like this, he’s obliged to make a thoughtful expression. He says “Sometimes,” as if he’s never considered how much he thinks about his dead dad and this consideration is in itself somehow valuable. Lucien’s mother when they’re in the presence of guests and eating boiled eggs as an appetizer, chopped celery…

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ELEPHANT EYES by Kristopher Monroe

February 25, 2026 · Fiction

When I was in fourth grade my mother disappeared and I never saw her again. At first my father wasn’t sure what to tell me but he realized that the truth was better than obfuscation so he told me she was admitted to a sanitarium which I didn’t understand so then he explained she was simply sick and resting which I definitely did understand. For as long as I could remember my mother was sick in a certain way. She’d be doing dishes or loading laundry or scrubbing the tub and suddenly become overwhelmed with sadness and break down weeping…

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JAIL TIME by Duff Allen

February 20, 2026 · Fiction

As a little boy nothing made me happier than to visit Dad in jail. Daniel, Mom would say every time, you haven’t forgotten your father, have you? We both sat down on the same side across from him. Who I called Dad, Mom called Daniel. He didn’t call her anything. He didn’t speak to her. He only spoke to me. Tell me how your grades are, he said. You don’t wanna end up a loser, like all these guys. Dad would look around then at the other tables with other prisoners. They were talking to their families too. I knew…

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THE FACEPLANT by Jamey Gallagher

February 19, 2026 · Fiction

We got the plant at the plant show and we brought the plant home and we put it on the windowsill and we watched it—not constantly but a lot more than we watched our other plants. Its lanceolate leaves grew fast. It got these paper-thin blooms that grew and unfurled and became translucent and turned out to be faces. Lips, nostrils, cheeks, eyeholes: all the usual face parts. The faces, after they unfurled, made little motions all day. Moues, I guess you could say. Women’s faces, men’s faces, it was hard to tell which. Some of the faces were stunningly…

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