SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 2026 · This week's fiction · Submit a story →

The archive

Read fiction

Every story published in 100 Word Fiction. Search by title, author, or a half-remembered phrase; filter by year, tag, or contributor.

Reset

Showing 18 of 147 stories

  • Oct 25, 2026

    The Rise of Anne Boleyn

    Queen Catherine grips the intercepted letter. Mere minutes before in the hands of her lustful husband. Snatches of syntax rise from the page.The pain of absence… Stricken with the dart of love… Your servant…What woman…

  • Oct 25, 2026

    Crossroads

    A plaque beside the path we’d strayed from memorialized the meadow as a Civil War battlefield. A spring storm blew through the wildflowers like a ghostly vendetta.“There’s no meaning but what you make it,” she said…

  • Oct 25, 2026

    Poisoned Justice

    Giulia placed the rose between the sleeping couple, the poison shimmering green in the dark.She cursed, fingertip stinging from the hole hidden in her glove.With each breath, the thieves drew closer to death.As now did…

  • Oct 25, 2026

    Chummy

    You call me by a stranger’s name.What happened to his spots? You.Got 'em lasered off. Your father.A photograph of you and me together. Your gap-toothed grin like sloughed scales. My face, a stranger set in familiar…

  • Oct 25, 2026

    High Octane Love

    I knew it was over the moment he jumped down into the dirt with nothing but boots on. The way he dashed up the ramp with ease, his manhood flopping all around, and raised his arms in victory as the monster truck hit the…

  • Oct 25, 2026

    Riz

    Thick, furry neck and gravel voice. Half bear, half ape. Riz. What kind of name’s that?After he caught you gawking you scared yourself out of sleep every night. Told yourself never! Not if you were down to your last…

  • Oct 25, 2026

    Last Encounter

    I went to the bar alone. I wasn’t planning on socializing, but I saw a friend.“How’s it going?” he asked.“Good.” I laughed: “What was with the armful of shooters at the store last night?”“Oh, helps me stay good,” he…

  • Oct 25, 2026

    The Pink Lady

    Goosebumps shiver me as my niece recounts her family’s first night in their new home. They’d been sitting in their family room while, outside, rain and dark descended. Her daughter, five-year-old Elyse, ran shrieking…

  • Oct 25, 2026

    Christmas at Rite Aid

    Sitting in my car, which is nearly paid off, in the parking lot of the Rite Aid on Christmas Night, around 11 PM. The lot is empty except for me and one other vehicle, reindeer antlers on its hood, probably belonging to…

  • Oct 25, 2026

    When the Smoke Clears

    The path is difficult—fraught with slippery spots and broken boards. It was not always this way. Still, the journey is worth the effort. We exchange news, goods, gifts, and help in times of trouble. But years of passage…

  • Oct 25, 2026

    The House That Can Only Be Seen

    A little, white house with big bay windows sits at the edge of the woods, between the veils of what can and cannot be seen. Blueprints exist. Deeds of ownership can be traced. Still, none in town recall ever having met…

  • Oct 25, 2026

    Shadows Burning Bright

    Outside, an unrelenting sun hurls daylight at the communal farmstead. Parched garden soil cracks and crumbles. Inside the main house, windows darkened by layers of aluminum foil, a single candle illuminates a circle of…

  • Oct 25, 2026

    The Concerning Consent of Love Spells

    Do not ask me to brew you a love spell. Love spells are not consent. You wouldn’t walk into a bar and dump roofies into someone’s beer. If you would, I’m definitely not giving you a spell to control their deepest…

  • Oct 25, 2026

    Two Cities

    Two cities, one full of smoke and machines, the other green and full of life. Both cities serve the same purpose: to anchor existence. People in the smoky city live through innovation, bending nature to their will. The…

  • Oct 25, 2026

    Betty Boops

    Sonny takes a drag of his cigarette, sighs his eyes shut, attempts a butt cheek shimmy. Right. Left. Knees quiet. Dammit. He wrote that he loves King Charles Spaniels. True. Loves dancing. Half true.David, responding…

  • Oct 25, 2026

    Nobody Mutates during a Marathon

    One foot in front of the other. Slow and steady. Easy breathing. Long flat roads with gentle hills. Up slope, flat land, down slope, flat land. No need to change. The ground behind is like the ground ahead. No evolution…

  • Oct 25, 2026

    W. Kerr Scott Dam & Reservoir

    My bobber, a piece of cheap white-red plastic, bobs up and down a few feet from the boat dock. I saw one at the tackle store that was shaped like a duck, but Dad said no.“Sing to the fishies,” Other Grandma tells me. I…

  • Oct 25, 2026

    Critique of Judgment

    Siblings grow apart. It’s normal. Right?I moved to the City, he stayed in New Jersey. I was in school for ten years, he fixes toilets. I never married, he spawned three kids.“The youngest's recital was last week,” he…