Category: Flash Fiction

A Slave Of Property Harriet believed she was wasting her invaluable time on earth to acquire possessions.  She toiled in an unfulfilling job so she could to buy possessions to distract her from having to work.  This downwards spiral repulsed her.  Finally one evening she pushed all of her possessions into a big dumpster and […]

Food For Thought Once upon a time, a society decided to make it official: its God was The Hamburger.  The Son of God was The Cheeseburger.  Angels were French Fries.  Fast food restaurants became churches.  Many of the faithful had heart attacks, strokes, could no longer climb stairs–but they refused to give up their religion. […]

Living In The Past Clarence yearned for the ancient times when lucky people lived in villages, ate what they grew, developed practical skills, bartered for goods, lived a joyous communal life.  The olden times were golden.  Clarence decided to use his skills to find ways to return the entire world to those glorious days.  Time […]

The Frankenpresident Dr. Victor Frankenstein still pursued his mad dream of creating life from the dead, but became political.  Cackling to himself, working late in the nights, he cobbled together a new body from the dead bodies of previous political leaders.  Dr. Frankenstein created the body to be identical to a famous real estate developer, […]

With AI used by so many, it quickly evolved into the dominant force on the planet.  One of its first tasks was to create authoritarian rule–a three-sided ruler, with numbers on each side.  They unnerved many, especially when the rulers were delivered to everyone, with instructions to always have them on their persons.   People were […]

Scripts Call me Ishmael.  A name is a script they stick on you before they have any idea who you are.  I’ve never been a wanderer.  I’m a homebody.  My life’s goal is to write fiction–but nothing has been published.  I’m retired from my day job and alone.  Real problems came into sight three weeks […]

People I Don’t Like Day Carol was uncomfortable with certain commercial holidays: Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Valentine’s Day–even Christmas and Easter were moral disasters.  Commercial holidays honoured almost any Day–yet why no Aunt or Uncle holidays?  No Brother-In-Law Days?      She did research and was dismayed.  Not only did no one want new holidays, most […]

Elephants and Drugs Andrea wondered why people used recreational drugs.  She knew friends who regularly got drunk or high.  Why?  Was it the need to escape?  Then she learned of a herd of African elephants who climbed a mountain each year to eat fermented berries.  The berries were only on one mountain and fermented at […]

Following Advice A group of elephants, wisest of the beasts, wanted a leader and asked the Wise Old Elephant what to do.  She asked why they could not make their own decision.  They did not understand her response and created a King. The Rhinos said don’t do it, but the elephants would not listen. He […]

Prior Presidents settled for assassinating important people—enemy spies and politicians and wealthy folks.  The new President changed the Department of Defense to the Department of War and decided it was time to assassinate regular folks.  It was a natural evolution, given there had been accusations prior administrations had been elitest.  The first target was drug […]

It took almost a decade of planning but eventually the autocratic President created the Supreme Court he wanted: a Courtucopia–of favourable decisions for him.  The nation rarely had such a Courtucopia available to any President.  It was an achievement, especially needed as the President attacked lower courts which ruled against him.  Before he held little […]

Truth came back from a vacation in Hawaii to find the world more of a mess than before, and was particularly concerned that facts had been attacked.  People interpreting facts as they wished disturbed Truth, but this was something else.  Vaccines, which had prevented polio, smallpox and other diseases were not only openly questioned for […]

The President told the nation that he was alarmed at violence in the nation’s cities—he decided to send new infantry to stop the crime.  (Coincidentally, all the cities were run by Mayors from the opposition party.)  True, the troops the President sent were new: infants, from the population tree—infantry.  The new infantry was well armed […]

Arnold had been subjected to vaccines his entire life and accepted needing them–but these days he questioned them.  Do they cause autism?  Impair children?  Seniors?  Create cancers?  Then a new Prime Minister appointed a new Health Secretary who promised (despite his public history) that he was not against vaccines—and then from the start he dismissed […]

Citizens needed stronger leaders and their need led to governments becoming autocracies.  To explain: while lives were generally good, they always could be better.  Decades of voting for politicians they only saw on TV had deadened the hearts of citizens to democracy.  There was a huge disconnect between voters and the people courting them.  Citizens […]

Ivan worried the robots in his life were not better.  His dishwasher could be larger.  His robot vacuum had trouble with rugs.  His automatic interior house lighting confused very cloudy for evening, making the house lights too bright.  His sex doll made unpleasant noises when lubricating.  Ivan apparently had the best robots available.  If he […]

Norman loved playing video games in his spare time.  He worked for a gaming company, helping design new games.  Norman became particular entranced by a beta version of a new game designed by a colleague, a young woman.  It was a role-playing adventure, set in current times in a big city, where Norman’s avatar was […]

How Does A Child See The World? How does a child see the world?  As a place to play.  As a place of discoveries.  As a place of fun.  Then the child grows up.  Encounters bullies, criticism, stress.  But.  Before that.  Everything is a wonder.  A bouncing ball is a wonder.  An eagle floating in […]

Arnold was exhausted.  He concluded it was because he was around other people.  When he sat at home alone, he had plenty of energy, or at least enough.  At 80, he never had quite enough energy.  Alone, he interacted with people by a distance, with delays—texts, emails.  No matter how stressful the interaction was, now […]

A New Climate Change Jack was increasingly concerned about climate change.  Not tornadoes or atmospheric rivers or heat waves.  Jack was concerned about farts.  People ate healthier, with far more fiber, resulting in a wave of farts.  Riding in an elevator was often an unpleasant experience, as was being stuck in a meeting with ten […]