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Every story published in 100 Word Fiction. Search by title, author, or a half-remembered phrase; filter by year, tag, or contributor.
Showing 18 of 97 stories
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Aisle Seven
Marjorie grabbed the last jar of Rao’s marinara sauce.Alexander’s fingers closed around hers, his nails digging deep. Their eyes met across the shopping cart, decades of rivalry crackling between them.Sauce was required…
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Final Ashes
A package arrived.“It’s heavy,” my wife exclaimed.“14 pounds,” I said. It was from Boise, which I hadn’t considered since I’d fired Boise-based Sid long ago.“A bomb?” my wife asked.“I wouldn’t think so.” Inside was a…
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The Suitcase
I’d forgotten the airport routine, and the turmoil wasn’t helping at all.“Do both these bags belong to you?” the agent asked again.I looked back down the line, but I couldn’t see her.“Uh, this chick asked me to carry…
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Migration
She wakes up early to say goodbye; he’s already gone. She runs to the door, catches a glimpse of his car as he drives away. Her mind takes a picture, processes it, then hangs it in her heart, just a blurry image of him…
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On Freezing and Fleeing
I sat sobbing on the cold tile floor at my in-laws’ house. Exhausted, I had mistaken familiarity for safety.“You’re just too emotional. She’ll hate you for it one day,” they said.My tears kept moving, but I didn’t.The…
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Being Honest
Jason had convinced himself he was dating a real girl, until she asked him for a ride to the android factory where she could score an upgrade. She told him she was considerably behind, due to her dataport having a loose…
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Narcissism vs. Nihilism
In this story I let the actress play her part. She is telling a true story. She has her audience crying. But the flowers in her hat are wilted and turning brown and one of her stockings has dropped. She rises…
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Wilfred and Ruth
We stay off the roads and keep to the woods, cutting the brush with machetes.Old Wilfred falls and dies on the summit. Now we move by dead reckoning, heading the direction he pointed before he died.Only Wilfred’s friend…
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The Cult of Trekkies and Coffee
After graduation, I had to buy everything for my first apartment: bed, sheets, plates, desk, and bookcase. Most of my new possessions were from yard sales. At one sale I found a pair of Star Trek mugs emblazoned with…
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Legacy
Legacy Bookshop was kaput. For 42 years Sarah maternally operated this quaint literary haven. She saw her baby flourish, albeit modestly. Putting all your eggs in one basket might pay dividends, it seemed. But rapacity…
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Fragments
She found the body fragments when she cleaned the attic. All dried and shriveled up in a wooden box—teeth, hair, nails, umbilical cord. Five sets of each in envelopes, named and dated. She wished it was a memory box…
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The Return
The media liked to call it ‘the Boomerang Probe’, whenever they could be nudged into reporting on its progress. More prosaically, the team of scientists and engineers behind its development had named it the…
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On and On and On
On the fifth anniversary of his father’s heroic death in a far-off jungle, a nine-year-old boy pleads and screams as he’s dragged into a tool shed by his drunken stepfather. On the twenty-fifth anniversary, the boy…
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The Game
Mum pointed at the grass, still lush-green despite the summer.“Tread softly,” she said. “The dead soldiers lie just under the surface.”She loved highlighting hidden dangers.Everything came with a warning, another test…
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Butterfingers
He pronounced his name, ‘Gee’, like the French name, Guy. That’s what he said when I hired him as a dishwasher. But, he left the plates greasy. And, he kept breaking the glasses as they slipped through his hands. I was…
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Oh, the Places You'll Go Into!
Black was slimming; red-and-white stripes, not so much. I guess black would make me look like the Grim Reaper. Not a good look for a hospital volunteer.“You’re early,” Hunter, the pharmacy supervisor, said, his bearded…
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Cursed
To stay safe and free is a constant battle. Wherever I land, wherever I hide, human hands plunge into reeds, rushes, and bushes - thorns or not. To smear pond weed and carrion blood on my golden feathers is of little…
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A Different View
Alex slipped on his Augmented Reality goggles and stepped into the street. With a blink he could edit out the noise and smell of the chaotic world. As he walked, he removed the tramps and beggars, the joggers and the…