'An eye for a bride' by Birgit K. Gaiser

Velika removed her mother’s wedding dress from the box. Auntie Melina was right: it would likely need too much alteration to fit her. But maybe she could reuse something from it. Her mother had had worn a veil, hadn’t she? 

She spotted a small envelope at the bottom of the box, white paper in a white box, that she had nearly missed. She opened it and removed a little plastic eye. “Oh my God!” she said. “Bruno’s eye! Liv! Liv!”

Liv came running. “What is it? Are you okay?”

“It’s Bruno’s eye! Auntie Melina must have found it in my wardrobe. Look!”

Liv laughed. She’d been teasing Velika about her raggedy bear and its missing eye – or rather, the eye patch Velika had made for him to hide the missing eye – ever since she’d first set foot into her bedroom.

“Will you glue it on?” she asked.

“Would it make you stop teasing me?” Velika answered her question with another one.

“Unlikely,” Liv said.

“Well then, no,” Velika said. “But I might glue it onto your wedding dress as your something borrowed.”

They both broke out in laugher. Velika marvelled at how happy she was, and at how even the thought of being married without her mother and father couldn’t mar her that happiness.

'The Left Shoe' by Donna M Day

It’s a very pretty story, isn’t it? I’m particularly proud of the pumpkin coach. And now I get to have pumpkin soup every year on my anniversary. What a lovely little bonus!

The truth is no one knows who the mystery woman was, least of all me. 

I found the glass slipper between the butchers and the bakers. A perfect fit, though profoundly useless on its own.

I slipped it into my pocket and forgot all about it until and I got home and the house was in an uproar because the silly prince had promised to marry some runaway.

His valet was prancing about the village with a glass shoe and a promise.

As fate would have it, my big footed stepsister smashed it in a fit of passion. 

I pulled the matching slipper from my pocket with a flourish and basked in the stunned silence of the ridiculous girl and her despicable mother. 

The slipper was placed on my foot, a ring on my finger and a crown on my head, all before the clock struck twelve.

'Clearing Out The Shed' By Abida Akram

Right. It’s time to clear out the shed in the garden. I am finally moving again, to a lovely two-bedroom bungalow, just in time, as my knee operation is scheduled in six months’ time. Time to get rid of unwanted rubbish. My god! There are still cardboard boxes here from the last move, over sixteen years ago.

I open the first large box which is on the floor under the wooden shelves. There is a blue blanket wrapped round a rather large object. I unwrap it carefully to find a painting. It’s a copy of Vincent Van Gogh's White Roses. I thought I had got rid of it decades ago. Mmm, the frame is rather nice, mahogany, worth keeping maybe. The white roses look like a mass of cotton wool balls against a green wall. The curlicues of the petals though, which look as soft as silk and ephemeral as snow, are on the turn. A few fallen roses - crumpled like sodden handkerchiefs. What looks like baby hedgehogs curled up ready to die are but a few fallen leaves. Other leaves within the roses are already blackened by death. No, not for me. I prefer bright colourful paintings, ones of endless sky and mountains.

I remember this framed print was a gift from my father when I was going off to university. We never had the same taste. It reminds me now of how easily he discarded me without a penny, throwing me out as if I was one of those dead leaves. Just because I chose freedom, travelling, adventures and joy, instead of meeting his high expectations of studies, jobs, marriage and children.

I do a little jig as the painting lands in the skip. Ow! My knee. I giggle.

'Turtles, He Said, Carry Their Homes on Their Backs' by Patricia Bender

One day, before they came and took him away, our Dad found a turtle and pretended it was a rock. He picked it up gesturing to us like he was going to put it in his pocket with the other rocks he’d been collecting to put in the garden. We could all see the turtle’s feet and the circles covering its shell and we shouted from the river’s edge: No, no that’s a turtle. Don’t put it in your pocket, it’ll be dark in there. Our Dad acted surprised that he mistook a turtle for a rock and told us how great they were, turtles, so smart and hardworking. And how their shells protected them. He apologized to the turtle and to turtles everywhere for his mistake. Because he told us what you do to one, you do to many. And he promised the turtle before he put it down by the water’s edge to be more careful. Later that morning we found a rock that looked like a turtle and brought it home. For a long time, we would point out the turtle rock in the garden, which for some reason our Dad had almost hidden under the blue hydrangeas, which we called snowballs. We told this story over and over, about the turtle and the turtle rock like it just happened. We told it to each other; we told anyone who would listen. After they took our Dad, we didn’t tell the turtle story or any other story about him because it made our Mother cry and that we had promised our Dad we would never do.

'Kapaʻia Swinging Bridge' by PL Harris

I feel her sneakers tread my lumber.

The people of Kauaʻi came together just a few years earlier to renovate me.

Originally built at the turn of the 20th century to help fieldworkers get to and from home and work over the gulch cut into landscape by Kapaʻia stream, I was gray and weakened by the 21st.

How I shuttered and swayed when the old planks were removed.

How I worried that I’d fall, crashing into the river below when civil engineers removed and replaced my cable suspension.

But these good people put me back together. I’m not surprised. With both their Buddhist and Catholic churches nearby, I’d always felt doubly blessed.

And now she is here, this woman I’ve never seen before. Though it is the first time she has walked across my back, her soft features and dark skin are familiar to me.

I think back to all the feet that have crossed this bridge, mostly Japanese and Portuguese feet, the feet of immigrant fieldworkers. Back and forth they went, every day of the week. 

No one had sneakers back then. Work boots, flip flops, sandals, yes. Trainers no. She is a descendant, I conclude, but she sees and walks differently.

She is alone. No co-workers or family. And she is drinking it all in. Her eyes rest on me. Her eyes rest on the river. Her eyes reach out into the distant horizon, where sugar cane once met the sky. 

What is she looking for? An apparition? A voice from the past? Who her people once were? Who she should be?

There’s no way for me to know. I feel her feet leave me on the far side of the bridge. I miss her already. I wish for her return. 

'Sunflower' by Melissa Flores Anderson

The yard fills in early spring with weeds that have flown in on the coastal breeze from nearby wildlands, the purslane and sowthistle greens that grow up through the sandy soil where cultivated grass never seems to survive. Charles ignores the growing leaves, imagines he’ll deal with them over spring break or maybe finally hire a gardener. The weeds grow without maintenance, watered by the coastal fog. One of the weeds shoots up taller than the rest, a Redwood compared to a Japanese Maple. Charles considers chopping it down, but the stalk is thick. He comes home from work one day, and the tall weed has transformed from a weed into a brilliant sunflower, open to the sky, it’s petals golden and warm on a rare sunny day. He does not know how the sunflower got into the yard, perhaps a gift from a bird or squirrel who left it behind.

***

Lilly hurried Jack to wash his hands and put on his shoes. He threw a tantrum that morning, crying about missing Mick, and she had lost her cool. Her father took Jack by the hand and guided him out to the garden, where the pair planted a variety of sunflower seeds.

“When do the flowers show up?” he asked.

“We have to be patient, mijo,” her father said. “Flowers take time to find their way, but they’ll get there.”

He was full of dirt when he came inside, had calmed.

At the spring party, Jack ran with the other kid’s, veering toward Charles’ backyard and back. Lilly let him stray, but kept an eye on him. No one saw him toss sunflower seeds over the fence, setting through one season unchanged, only to bloom the next.

'A Library Bonus' by Jean Feingold

Lindsey always expected to find something special at the public library. Even though she went looking for a particular thing, like a great book or a funny movie, what she ended up with was often much more.

Her most recent visit took her to the mystery section. She wanted something new to read when she came across an author she’d never heard of named Henry Modread. His book was called This Book Will Change Your Life. Lindsey liked her life pretty well as it was, but enjoying a challenge, she checked it out.

Back home, she opened the book and a document fell out. It was the deed to a mansion a few miles away. A note attached to it said once the finder registered the deed with the court, the mansion was theirs to do with as they wished. Lindsey was skeptical, so she called her lawyer friend Ben. A deed like this was new to him so he came over to take a look. 

After a careful reading, Ben concluded the deed and the deal were legit. “Let’s drive by and see what it looks like,” Lindsey said. “It could be a joke or a dump.” They gasped as they gazed at the house. It was huge, it was gorgeous, more lovely than either had imagined. 

“Court’s open today,” Ben said. “Got your ID on you? You’ll need it for signing documents. And remember I said I wanted a new roommate? You have an extra bedroom for me now.” 

As they drove to the courthouse, Lindsey opened the book and inspected it. All the  pages were blank other than the title page with the book’s name and the author’s signature. Now she had a research project, to learn everything she could about Henry Modread. 

'The Bag Under the Bed Doesn’t Have a DNR' by Erin Bondo

She thinks I don’t know about the bag, but I do, found it months ago foraging for a spare duvet to  make up the guest bed for Auntie Mick, eyes snagging on a flash of bumblebee yellow, and I looked. I had to. I'm not someone who can let things go: I pick and pick and pick until it bleeds, or worse. So I excavated my mother's carefully concealed dream, each tiny item gender neutral, tags on, suspiciously cheerful – OshKosh B'gosh, Beluga Baby, Mini Mioche – the stench of talcum powder and hope a swift kick to the gut. But not the right kind; not the kind she wants for me.

For months after, I tried to tell her, but there is no script, no social ritual or appropriate announcement, not like the alternative.

Tiny Converse sneakers nestled between adult counterparts.

Custom t-shirts proclaiming ‘coming soon’ or ‘big sister.’

To-the-point ultrasounds with perfunctory details: what, who, when.

I imagined arriving at the house unannounced, removing my coat with a flourish to reveal ‘barren womb’ printed across my flat belly in curling cursive, but I couldn’t do it. She would never find the humour, would think I was mocking her. It is only now, packing up leftover tea sandwiches from the wake, edges dried to an inedible crust, that I realise there is no one left to tell.

I decide to keep the bag, for now, her dream on life support a little while longer.

'Unfurling' by Rachel Burrows

Sarah knew her mother was on Valium, it was no secret. She constantly recommended it to her youngest daughter, usually in public - which was enough to trigger a need for it in anyone. For as long as she could remember her mother had hung on to reality with wisp-like tendrils that all of them at one time had been held responsible for breaking. Her brother had won greatest acclaim for this – he alone had made her hair fall out. Her crowning glory had been felled by his decision to move abroad. She had swayed and drooped in fear of the future and the others had propped her up until she had regained her ability to hold on – and find a wig that didn’t itch. The garden was her one solace, as she frequently told them. She could dig and make progress, plant and rear beauty. Her mothering skills were at least appreciated by her flowers - they could all parrot-phrase. She felt ‘earthed’ here. And kneeling on that earth is exactly where she had found it. She had frozen. Her heart had ‘thrown itself against her chest wall’ and made her ‘sink powerless’ to the ground.

At first Sarah thought she was dead. 

Wanting a break from her revision, she had wandered to the bottom of the garden to catch her mother calm – relatively speaking – amongst her hollyhocks. She had wanted to bemoan the pressure of A-levels, for the imagined joy of off-loading but it wasn’t to be. 

She had run when she’d seen the plimsolls protruding – the death of Ophelia, Cath Kidson style. Her mother’s eyes were open, unblinking. Next to her, the fallen trowel. And beyond it, Sarah recognised it from the last time, the first unfurlings of a stem of ground-elder.

NFFD 2026 Prompt #10: Finders Keepers?

 

Prompt #10: Finders Keepers?

Welcome to The Write-In!  This year, we're celebrating the 2026 National Flash Fiction Day Anthology theme of Bridges. Throughout National Flash Fiction Day, we'll be posting one prompt every hours from 00:00 until midnight (BST), for a total of 25 prompts in all.  You have until 23:59 BST on Sunday to submit your responses for possible publication here at the Write-In over the course of the next week.

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To start us off, write a flash in which a character finds something unexpected.  Make it a physical object, not a person, an emotion, or a memory. Where is the person? Where was the object before it was discovered? What does the person do with what they find?

To make this prompt extra challenging, the following are not allowed: the object cannot be a letter, a key, a photograph, a ring, or a body. Optional bonus points if you make us smile.

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If you’re submitting this to us, make sure to note that this is a response to Prompt #10: Finders Keepers?

You can submit responses until 23:59 BST on Sunday, 14 June 2026 for a chance to be published here at The Write-In.

You can claim the badge for this prompt by visiting our badges page.

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Photograph by Nicole Almendrada via Unsplash.