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#285 Flash(back)

Is anyone else in disbelief that we’re now a quarter of the way into this century? You might even say the past 25 years went by… in a flash.

On that note, we’ve got a 2-for-1 theme for you this week: not only are we going to “flash back” to a time before TikTok and Teslas, but we’re also going to encourage you to write in a “flash fiction” style!

Our official contest guidelines are still 1,000 to 3,000 words per story, but we hope to see more stories than usual embracing the concise spirit of flash fiction. Return to a time of cultural maximalism — while keeping your word count to a minimum.

This week's prompts

Write a story in the form of a landline phone conversation.

Dialogue – 78 stories

Write a story from the POV of a now-defunct piece of technology.

Short Story – 80 stories

Write a story in which someone time-travels 25 years or more into the past.

Short Story – 74 stories

Write a story about people preparing for Y2K.

Dramatic – 30 stories

Write a story with a character or the narrator saying “I remember…”

Dramatic – 162 stories

Stories

The TV - Reflected.

Submitted to Contest #285

The TV – Reflected. I sat long ago at the center of the world, in all my glory. I was a force to be reckoned with, heavy, wooden, and beautiful. My body was polished weekly, leaving me shiny and smelling of pine. My front was wiped so clean everyone in the family could see themselves in my window, and my knobs were polished to capture the afternoon sun as she crept in the window, allowing me to sparkle along the walls until someone came and touched them. The touch from one of them is what would bring me to life, and I loved to be touche...

8 likes

A Commodore 64’s Last Stand

Daniel P. Douglas

Submitted to Contest #285

The fluorescent lights of the National Technology Museum’s acquisitions room buzzed like a chorus of judgmental crickets. I’d been sitting there for three hours and seventeen minutes. Being a computer, counting—like hours and minutes—was just something I did. Like breathing, except I didn’t breathe. And at that moment, I was trying very hard not to count the number of times this alleged “tech expert” had checked his ridiculous smartwatch. Twenty-seven! He had checked it twenty-seven times! “Next candidate,” Professor Plug-and-Play called out...

8 likes

VCR Blues

Mary Kaufman

Submitted to Contest #285

My mouth is stuck open. I look like I’m screaming, but I’m not, not really. I’m anguishing inside because no one looks at me anymore. The last time anyone even glanced my way was when baby Gary forced his piggy little fist into my now-gaping mouth and crammed a grape inside my delicate jaw hinge, breaking it. Now it’s stuck open. I can feel dust and other prickly things in my throat. My drum and my rollers are sticky. No one notices or even cares. There was once a time when I was the center of attention. My shiny black body was dusted off, t...

8 likes

A Lifetime of Questions

Submitted to Contest #285

At the click of a button, Luca found himself in an empty lecture hall at the top of the staircase. He stared at the device in his hand, wondering where exactly it had taken him, and more importantly, when. At least a dozen rows of seats and crescent-shaped tables surrounded him. Each row had fewer seats approaching the stage where a large chalkboard spanned the front wall.And then he saw her. Off to the side, there she stood behind a podium, rifling through sheets of paper. At least he thought it was her. The distance between them made it ha...

8 likes

Holding Hands

M. Darrow

Submitted to Contest #285

There’s one thought I keep returning to: a child could never reach that high. The tiny outline of a handprint is easily seven feet in the air, higher even than the largest prints clustered near what might otherwise be called the “top” of the painting--though truly it is too irregular to be labeled so specifically. A beautiful balance of chaos and order.It is hardly a revelation, the idea that a child’s hand would never be able to press itself to the stone that high up without help. And yet the thought is like a thunderclap inside my hea...

8 likes

Pond Water

Karen M. Gregory

Submitted to Contest #285

The pond was nothing special. Scummy and barely six feet across. Spongy green and stinking, nestled between unremarkable trees. There was no clamorous buzzing of insects or soft golden light. There was no feeling of surreal goodness or impending destiny, but I had heard from the tavern locals that it was the place to go if you had a broken soul. It was the place you went to right everything. A place, the locals proclaimed, would take you back in time.I stepped into that tepid water, half drunk, half hating myself. Geosmin squished between my...

8 likes

Y2K As Imagined by a Gen Z

M.G. Davis

Submitted to Contest #285

“You do know the world’s about to end, right?” Steph says, her eyes wild and wide, as I flip through the most recent fashion magazine. I scoff, cocking an eyebrow. I meet my little half-sister’s blue gaze and watch as she pulls her unruly, coiled black hair back into a ponytail. There’s one stray piece that hangs down over her left eye like always. “Oh, please. Don’t tell me you believe in that stuff.” ”Evie,” she says, sitting next to me on the couch, “maybe the world ending is an exaggeration. But…” She huffs. “We don’t know what will happ...

8 likes

Barry Tavern

Stephen McManus

Submitted to Contest #285

The mustard yellow sign creaked as it swung gently in the chill December air. “Barry Tavern” it read, but with space between the two words. A fluorescent bulb near the bottom flickered like it was on hospice, awaiting its last exhale. Damon leaned forward into the breeze, striding carefully across the uneven sidewalk. He paused to stare up at the sign for the third time that week, knowing what the missing words were, and hoping he’d have the courage to say something tonight. The icy cold door handle burned his fingers as he yanked it open.&n...

8 likes

Life's Essentials

Submitted to Contest #285

Like an ominous warning that life as we knew it could end at any moment, the grocery store’s Mazak crackled amid the humming fluorescent lights overhead. If anything went wrong with the Y2K transition, we could be plunged into chaos. An unimaginable apocalypse might begin at midnight.I checked my watch: 11:15 PM. Only forty-five minutes left to grab essentials and prepare for the worst. I looked down at my laden cart and realized one thing was missing: toilet paper.Oh no. The picked-over and scattered bins of fruits and vegetables sent my he...

8 likes

The Geriatric Counsel

Priyanjali Bhattacharyya

Submitted to Contest #285

The summer wind was cool. Mrs. Ray's arthritis was acting up. The first 30 minutes after getting up in the morning was brutal. Thereafter, walking along with everyone else made things a little better for her knees.She would cloister with the other older people in the monastery just after waking up, groaning as she went. Saayaa would be a patient listener to her problems, problems of the same nature everyday. Mrs. Ray had become a widow recently. Mr. Ray had been a part of the Geriatric Counsel of the town. Nothing in the village happened wit...

8 likes

Occisoris Angelicus

Charles Dean

Submitted to Contest #285

-I remember, boy. I'll always remember that day. –Marcellus turned to see a group of kids sitting before him. The eyes of excitement and curiosity from the children gawking at him with open mouths and wide-open eyes.-What was it, sir? –A young lad saw an old Marcellus. Missing an eye and his left arm. He lifted his gaze to the stars and took a deep breath. He pointed at the night sky at a constellation and said:-An angel. A harbinger of death… -***-Marcellus? Nero? –Asked a man as he walked inside a tent. As he opened it, he saw candlelight ...

8 likes

Invisible Ink

Submitted to Contest #285

[CONTENT WARNING: severe brain injury, aphasia, and implied death.]:There was a kind of beauty in drawing, I had always thought, because a picture didn’t have to say anything.My eyes watched as a piece of black charcoal slowly swiped across the parchment. In its wake was a think line of flaking carbon, of which decorated the face of the square parchment sitting at my fingertips. Rich marks intersected one another, drawing the eye in a circular pattern from left to right, like a timeline. Road signs for a wanderer’s mind.Almost like a sentenc...

8 likes

Dear Doctor

Quinn Cain

Submitted to Contest #285

Dear Doctor Grant,You requested to know my side of the story from that night.I remember it all in vivid detail.I remember...I remember fidgeting in my Paris dorm, sitting on the bed half-dressed and sleep deprived. Tattered dark red curtains hung over my room’s window, just above a slightly-less-tattered wooden desk and chair. Was I going to go through with it? Was this worth it? I really wanted to make friends, and here I was on the cusp of finally making friends, but I had a decision to make.I’m not one to break the rules… usually. I’ve al...

8 likes

FIRE

Andrew Winfield

Submitted to Contest #285

FIREThe air was acrid with the heavy, dank smell of smoke. The still-smouldering brush, undergrowth, and scorched ground trailed wisps of smoke into the air. Several firefighters were still trying to dampen down the embers.Twenty-four hours earlier, my older brother, Daley, and I had walked our dog across the cliffs towards the beach. We had a backpack to collect Corona pop bottles we might find, which we would take to the shop for a three-pence refund on each return. At the head of the cliffs, we saw the first signs of...

8 likes

A Saturday Exploit

Sandra Moody

Submitted to Contest #285

A Saturday Exploit I remember Saturday afternoons. They dangled like a carrot at the end of the school week—golden. Dad would be at work. Mom would be occupied with the littles. Saturday meant freedom.I had seven siblings, and I was blessed to be number five. The middle ones get the least attention which was the way we liked it. Me and my brother, the brother one up from me and number four, we were best friends. He had fun friends, too.The two of us, plus his friends, always meant adventure. Like the time we rode the swollen stream on a raft...

8 likes

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Contest #286

This contest has ended. Thank you for your submissions.

$250

Prize money

424

Entries

145

Stories

Ended on 23:59 - Jan 17, 2025 EST

Won by Calum Mathison 🏆

Title: Looks Like You Are Trying to Write a Eulogy?

Submissions must be between 1,000 - 3,000 words and will be approved and published on Reedsy Prompts within 7 days of the contest closing.

Read the full terms & conditions or check out the FAQ if you have any questions!

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