Category: Short Stories

Flash fiction exercise for Halloween 2026. With acknowledgements to Colin Nissin in the New Yorker.

by Simone Abbot “So even if the hot loneliness is there, and for 1.6 seconds we sit with that restlessness when yesterday we couldn’t sit for even one, that’s the journey of the warrior.” ― Pema Chödrön, When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times I had mixed feelings about voluntary redundancies. Was an employee smart…

It starts with a tickle in your nostrils. A light sensation, no pressure or pain, just a tiny presence your breath passes over, wetting the inside of your nose. It is a dribble of mucus, you might assume, the outflow of congestion caused by a change in the seasons. You sniff, and wipe your nose…

A desert settlement’s water supply has been sabotaged, raising questions about who is responsible.

An audiology test leads to an unexpected and unwanted superpower. Winner Science & Storytelling (National Science Week) 2025

Trapped. Able to improve the future if only he had the knowledge to do so. Being unprepared to inspire greatness and haunted by that failure, Resolve Wilkins struggles with possibility.

Two men, faced with their own mortality, must decide the fate of the other.