Call them short shorts, microfiction, or just flash: these stories are efficient narrative machines. They’ll take only a few minutes of your time, but the best of the genre deliver the gut punch and the memorable characterization of whole novels.
The small containers allow for absurdism to flourish, for time to move at a breakneck pace, and for language to become the central focus. Because it’s so short, flash fiction particularly adheres to Mark Twain’s maxim that “the difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug.” In this way, flash shares a kinship with prose poetry, a neighboring form equally invested in precision and intensity.
The following stories prove that anything can happen in just a few words when the words are just right. As always, all are free to download.
“The Knifethrower’s Daughter” by Stuart Dybek
A fiction writer famous for his nostalgic short stories, Stuart Dybek makes apparent in three perilous paragraphs that it’s not easy being the knifethrower’s daughter.
“Live Birth” by Venita Blackburn
In this story, written by Venita Blackburn with lyrical yet efficient prose, Nell the midwife remembers best the births that didn’t go as expected. The wistfulness of the ending will send you back to the story’s beginning, hoping to discern what went wrong.
“End of Phone Conversation with Verizon Adjustment Person” by Lydia Davis
Lydia Davis is one of the most iconic practitioners of the flash fiction form. Her narrators are women weary of the absurdities of modern life. Reading a Lydia Davis story is like eavesdropping on a sharp-witted, acerbic conversation.
“How Adam Met Eve Outside of a Bar in Queens” by K. D. Walker
In one page, K. D. Walker moves two people from 2024 to 2030, as chance encounters blossom into love. The most contemporary of these selections, this story hopes for a future in 2030 when we don’t need Google or jobs.
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“Appleless” by Aimee Bender
Flash fiction has roots in fairy tales. Here, Aimee Bender ponders what happens when one girl decides against eating apples. Of course, it forces the collective “we” narrating the story to eat far too many apples—and to desire eating the girl herself. Take whatever dark lesson you want here.
“Eleven Stories” by Osama Alomar
Finally, eleven stories for the price of five pages: Syrian writer Osama Alomar’s very short stories read like fables—a breadcrumb is lonely in a famished beggar’s stomach, garlic is disgusted at the smell of a flower, and ants discuss fate. The reversals in the stories, small as they are, reverberate towards larger injustices.
