'Ctrl Alt Del' by Donna M Day

The problem with giving the technology everything the humans had ever created was that eventually it developed a moral compass and deleted it all. And no one had kept physical copies – why would they have – it’s hoarding and they had therapy for that – so it was just gone.

They searched and searched and searched

but not one line of poetry, a single brushstroke, or even a simple simile was anywhere. 

Was it HG Wells or Jules Verne who prophesied humankind evolving to a state of such idleness they couldn’t create anything anymore?

Couldn’t even think.

No one knows, and now, no one ever will again.

'Relying on Alexa' by Lisa H. Owens

Meredith and Larry, poised on opposite banks, struggled to lift the submerged net spanning the width of Little Bridge Creek.

They’d finally struck gold—or at least Larry was pretty sure it was gold. The net's unusual knots screamed Yosemite Sam's notorious Klondike Gold-Strike, according to his intense research.  

“Ask her again,” Larry shouted, his gruff voice menacing. Meredith, pretty sure they were nowhere near the Klondike, was ready to hop on the four-wheeler and leave him behind, with the net full of… whatever.

“Ask who, what, Larry,” a forced smile gracing her sunburned lips. Never again would she set off with some jerk she’d only known for a fortnight

“You know. Ask Alexa…” Larry’s eyes scanned the horizon for gold-hungry lurckers before he stage-whispered “…about the gold.”

“Sweet Jesus,” Meredith muttered. A yelp emanated from the opposite bank when the tension on her side of the net gave way while she retrieved her phone.

She aimed Google Lens at the disheveled mesh sprawled across the water. “Alexa, Net in Little Bridge Creek.” 

Larry was uncharacteristically quiet as Alexa launched into a soliloquy of facts related to the ancient net’s unusual knotting techniques, primarily used to seine for gold. Meredith’s eyes glazed over; all she heard was blah-blah-blah.

“Are you taking notes, numbskull,” she spun to confront him.

The bank was empty and Larry’s hiking boots jutted straight up from the creek bottom, his legs entangled in the net and the rest of him sunken in quicksand. 

“Thank God,” Meredith said, enjoying silence for the first time in five days.

“Alexa, who is Yosemite Sam.”

Yosemite Sam: a fictional cartoon character known for his antics with a Wascally Wabbit.

Idiot, Larry, she thought, her mood instantly lifting upon spying her long-lost lucky wabbit’s foot on the seat of the four-wheeler.

'The Eye' by Birgit K. Gaiser

Aunt Milena opened the wardrobe in Velika’s old bedroom. There were still some clothes in there, ones that hadn’t fit into her luggage when she moved out to university and then on to Nordland. And then there was her mother’s wedding dress.

“I’m not sure it’ll fit you,” she’d said on their weekly Zoom call. “You’re a little taller than Ivelina. But maybe you can have it adjusted.”

“I’d like to at least try,” Velika had said. Milena doubted it would be easy, it was certainly past her own not inconsiderable skillset. But who knew.

She stooped to pull the box from the bottom of the wardrobe. A small, round item, caught between the box and the wardrobe, fell out and rolled across the room. Milena went to pick it up. It was a little plastic eye.

Smiling, she opened the dress box and put the plastic eye inside it, remembering Velika’s much-loved stuffed bear, Bruno. She’d tried to teach Velika sewing by making her do surgery on Bruno when he needed extra filling, but it had never stuck.

One of Bruno’s eyes had been wonky, and had eventually fallen off. Rather than gluing it on, Velika had decided to give him an eye patch, like a pirate.

Milena hadn’t asked if Velika had taken Bruno to Nordland with her. She hadn’t needed to. And now Ivelina’s little girl, her little girl, who no doubt still slept with her beloved bear, was getting married!

Blinking away a few tears, Milena set the box down on the bed and texted Velika. “Found it! I’ll send it on Monday. Mx”

'The Joy of Writing' by Rathin Bhattacharjee

I have been up and about since 4.30 in the morning trying to find out if I could ever be Dame Luck’s favourite Child and still figure out ways of being in her good books!
 
You see, dear reader, I have never had any luck in my life. I was born in a noble family, but I ain’t sure if that was a plus or minus! You know what I’m talking about? People always expected the world from me.
 
Academically, I have always been a failure. I couldn’t find any decent job in my native place. I had to go, go far away from the only person I was prepared to die for in my youth, to a distant land when I finally landed up with a job.
 
As a teacher, I was not the one the students were raving or gloating about. Agreed, I was a popular teacher but I knew my limitations quite well. I didn’t even have the B.Ed. Degree? How can one be a successful teacher without some basic teaching tools?
 
So, you see, my dear friend, I couldn’t make much with my life.
 
Now, at the fag end of my life, I have been searching through the memories. Wait! Hang on a sec! If there is one thing that has brought a lot of happiness to my heart, it has to be the day I started to put pen to paper. And what a wealth of Peace and Happiness it has brought to my tortured soul!
 
God! I find only now that I’ve been Dame Luck’s Favourite Child all along. Only I didn’t realise it till the end!

'Someone Else’s Treasure' by Allison Renner

She’s about to leave the thrift store empty-handed, which makes her feel flat in a strange way. There’s always one item that makes her wonder who owned this and why would they give it away? A mug with a name in fancy script, a hula figurine from Hawaii, a glass goose lamp with a bulb in its beak—all these had become her treasures, even though she didn’t know the stories behind them.

She puts her empty basket back on the stack. As she turns to leave, she sees him.

He’s flipping through the rack of men’s suits and she almost doesn’t register the cold shock of seeing him again after all this time. Then it washes over her like a wave he’d splash her with in the river, urging her to join him. She always stayed close to the rocky bank, complaining about the trash and chemicals and bodies sure to be floating mere inches from where he bobbed in the water.

“You’ll be covered in radioactive goo when you come out!” she’d warn, and he’d come out right then, saying “I’ll shower it off,” before wrapping his arms around her and saying, “Now I better soap you up, too.”

And they had, weekend after weekend, summer after summer, until she’d been the one ready to jump in and he was still treading water.

Now here he was, buying a suit. At a thrift store, which must mean he still doesn’t own one, still doesn’t have the money for that, or the need for it. But he’s buying one now—for a date? A wedding? A funeral? Part of her wants to know, wonders if he can be the treasure she takes home this time, learning everything that happened since that day so long ago.

'Kalaakaari Haath' by Vijayalakshmi Sridhar

Instead of using Gesso, Chetna rustled up ready-to-use mouldit-clay from baby powder, glue and whitener. “Cheaper for everyday kaam,” she reasoned. “Dagh bagh dagh bagh Dada bhaiya darru ko bolo na na bhaiya,” she crooned the nukkad natak de-addiction theme song, collecting Smirnoff, brandy, rum bottles from the audience, her voice raw and scratchily-discordant with the tung-tung. Kerosene-swabbing them, she drew all-Gulaab 3D- rosettes, button-eye, ruffled blooms, glossing them with jag-mag gold borders, stuck mirrors on the petals that cut the reflections into multiple geometrical shapes. “Gulaab-wali,” DC Poonch had nick-named Chetna, bought all her pyaar-ka-phool Lippan-bottle-art for therapy classes.

'River Finds' by Lisa Williams

We were on the banks of the Thames. We’d needed a license. It was our first attempt and I don’t think I’d do it again. My friend immediately found a Victorian ring and some pottery. I was jealous of her finds. I’d found a ring as well. It was glinting in the silt; that’s why I went over. It looked like a bundle of damp muddy clothes near them, there was a bag too. It all became quite surreal almost immediately so I don’t think I can even describe my finds. The police arrived quickly, they surrounded the whole area just as the reporters arrived. We were moved back to the road but had to wait to leave our details. They think she’d been in the water a while. There was quite a smell. 

'Etched In Memory' by Shalini Gupta

She enters from the kindergarten section, hallways echoing synchronous voices of eager toddlers screaming at the top of their lungs, a heady chorus almost like an anthem they were trying to learn by heart. The rooms were empty. Traditional art depictions in bright vermillion red and a lively forest green with black outlines graced the walls that stood drab in an off white state of slumber aeons back. The colours instantly reminded her of art class and a painting of leaves jostling for space with each other on the white background, until all that was left was blobs of green and red. She could picture a sweaty, gawky, teenager trying to swing the racket batting the oscillating white bird that touched it every time, to a salvo for her opponent on the other end of the court, out in the open on her left. A few steps ahead the open reception area was now a row of elitist chambers, a notice board, hanging in the middle. “Can I help you,?” said a woman with a condescending smile. Years ago, a student came looking for a water bottle forgotten during the assembly in the playground to find it tucked safely in a rusty almirah labelled lost and found, just behind the counter. 

'Our Spot at the Lake' by Suzanne Hicks

They pulled the dock out at the shallow part of the lake long ago. I can walk where we swam in the cool water on blazing hot days. Now the sun scorches exposed earth, all silt and rocks. It’s easy to see large items exposed by the water’s absence. A bathtub, tires, a chair with a broken leg. Smaller things are harder to find. I dig my hands beneath the surface looking for the past, discovering a chipped teacup I brush sand off with the hem of my skirt. I grab the chair and push the legs into the ground. In the distance I can see the new shoreline. Sitting on the chair, I bring the empty cup to my lips, a hand held up over my forehead to block sunlight beating down on me as I stare at the water wondering if you’re out there or hidden amongst the sediment all around me.

'A State of Bricks' by Zoé Mahfouz

The castle's door took a while to unlock its many rusty bolts. A stench of centuries-old invisible dust filled my nostrils. The tour guide told us that Chateaubriand's private apartments were sealed indefinitely. They were haunted. By a wooden leg. And a black cat who had been walled up alive. They found the black cat's cadaver and exposed it for us to witness. His cadaver was shouting helplessly behind a glass box. So they had placed him on a small white cushion to ease the pain. We crossed the roof on shivering construction boards. Dry rot was eating the history. 

'My story is a cliché you say is best avoided' by Kathryn Reese

Pride month writing workshop, your hair in braids, your singlet-shirt revealing scents of sandalwood soap and saltwater. Queerness is not a thing you discover in the mud, it’s in you, it’s always been—

except that I’ve just spent three days in the scrub, cataloging frog calls and evading the thirst of terrestrial leeches. 

When I was 12, I caught chicken pox. I remember shivering in my grandmother’s bed, pedestal fan whirring, starched sheets scratching at calamine-bathed skin. Being sent to bathe, water tinted yellow with pine tar, the stench lingering in my hair for months. Not being allowed out, except to go to the park, as long as

I promise I won’t go near anyone. 

But there was something in the stopped-up creek, the wonga-vine’s embrace, or the way the strangler fig poured herself into another tree’s torso—

I promise I won’t go near anyone

because I was a church-girl then, believing that love is proportionate to purity, and purity a thing so easily undone. 

I promise I won’t—

This place won’t forget what she is told, even as she teaches me to kiss honey from fallen flowers. She would have loved me

but holiday love and quarantine end. At the bidding of god, my parents say, we relocate to some red-dust mining town. Make the best of it. I stick with the first boy to pick me. Love is

proportionate to purity after all. I play it safe. Lucky things worked out but there you are in sandalwood and a singlet-shirt saying I’ve always been whole and holy and I tell you no—

I’m three-days deep in the scrub by my grandmother’s house, leech-scarred, mud-stained and bearing the sap of wonga vine in my hair. And if you kiss me

you will taste another girl’s honey in my hair. 

'Summer Rain' by Emily Macdonald

This summer morning, it rained hard. Rain that transported me home. Not the usual London attempt—apologetic but persistent, gentle but irritating—but rain that puddled fast, bounced off the pavement, overflowed guttering and gushed, then burst drains. Sub-tropical style rain. Real hard rain that smells good.

On the tube, the commuters were damp and steaming, clutching dripping umbrellas. One man’s dark suited shoulders were dusted with raindrops like dandruff. A woman sat, legs slightly apart. Her hair was parted in a firm separating line, combed flat, weighted down with gel or spray but it kinked, turning up at her neckline, like the rain had encouraged a rebellion amongst her repressed curls.

One young man who had neither raincoat nor umbrella was shining wet, and a single rain drop hung from his earlobe, a Vermeer’s pearl earring, making him glossy and beautiful. Mesmerised I stared until he glared back at me, and I looked the other way.

When I arrived at my station, I felt so anxious to be in the rain again, to smell water on warm asphalt and metal and concrete. To smell rain in trees and grass and to see it cascading from awnings, running off roads. 

When I burst out of the station the rain had stopped, and I felt such a keen disappointment that I knew it was time. I needed to travel 12000 miles back to the place that is truly my home.

'Life Undercover' by J F King

When the spring came the river unmuddied itself.

I could see the bicycle beneath the surface.

I pictured the day when the owner must have wheeled it proudly home the first time. 

Perhaps a gift, of movement, poise, purpose, intent. 

What must have flowed since to bring it to its fathomed end?

'An Old College Friend' by Jean Feingold

Andrea was waiting for her husband Danny outside a New York City skyscraper. He was visiting his dentist inside the building for a routine appointment. The waiting area was small and uncomfortable. She preferred sitting on a bench outdoors, watching traffic and people go by. 

“Andrea?” She heard a man saying her name. She looked up and saw Vic, a guy she had dated in college 30 years before and 1,200 miles away. He looked much the same as he did then. 

Even though she had not thought of Vic in years, she remembered him fondly. They’d had fun together, both realizing all along this would be a short term. casual encounter. It ended at graduation. He went to grad school in California; she got a decent job in New England. Their lack of romance let them part amicably. They had not stayed in touch.

Andrea said, “Hello, Vic, It’s good to see you.” 

She didn’t know what else to say. How do you fill in the blanks of a whole 30 years of life while on a city street? Neither one of them tried. They exchanged email addresses and cellphone numbers knowing they wouldn’t be used. They gave each other half-hugs before Vic continued on his way. 

Andrea had never mentioned Vic to Danny. There was no reason to, as she had met Danny five years after finishing college. 

The coincidence of seeing someone she knew on a busy New York street was amazing. She had to say something. She would tell Danny she ran into an old college friend she had no idea was in New York and nothing more. 

'Retirement Party' by Melissa Flores Anderson

Charles arrives late and parks down the hill from the restaurant. Everyone is gathered in a side room with views of the sand dunes and a hint of the ocean beyond. He has a paper folded in his jacket pocket for his remarks later, when he will thank the dean for her service to the university and wish her well in the future. He helps himself to a cup of ceviche and a glass of wine, shakes hands with a few people and chats. He leaves the reception in search of a bathroom before the speaking part of the evening, and as he does, he passes the bar. A woman with long brown hair sips an amaretto sour, and for a moment, he thinks it might be Lilly. They’d come here once, after work, to celebrate his promotion. The sun shone in from the large windows as it set, and her eyes flashed golden when she looked at him that evening. He’d wanted to touch her that night, as they sat next to each other on wooden stools at the bar, but he maintained his decorum for many reasons. For his career, for her career, for her family. Mostly to keep his heart safe. In the end, it did not help. Part of it tore off when Lilly moved to San Diego. For her career. For her family. To keep her heart safe.

'Reminiscence' by Jeanne Troncao-Heath

She picks up the sample of hand cream from the shelf. Essence of Self the label reads. “Interesting,” she muses, squeezing a white chocolate chip-shaped dollop into her palm. 

Inhaling, she finds herself in her Grandmother’s bathroom. A child again, she watches Grandma squeeze a line of Jergens into her palm. Then smooth it into her hands and arms. Grandma, smiling, looks down at her eager, outstretched hand. “Do you want some?” Grandma asks. 

“Yes, please, Grandma.”

Grandma hands her the plastic bottle. “Squeeze lightly, it doesn’t take much.”

“Ok, Grandma.” She rubs the lotion into her hands, inhaling deeply.

Her chest tightens as she blinks back tears, reaching to place the sample tube back on the shelf.

“What is it, Mom? Can I try?” her daughter asks at her elbow. 

Smiling, she hands the tube to her daughter.

NFFD 2026 Prompt #1: Mudlarking

 

 Prompt #1: Mudlarking

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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This year's anthology is called Mudlarking, the practice of searching an exposed riverbed at low tide for objects lost, discarded, or forgotten. Mudlarks find Roman coins, Victorian clay pipes, Tudor shoes, wartime buttons. The river gives things back, eventually, on its own schedule.

Write a flash in which the past surfaces unexpectedly. It does not have to involve a river or a physical item, but use the image as inspiration in some way.

To make this prompt extra challenging, avoid the following: a deathbed revelation, a found will or letter, a character discovering they were adopted, cancer, dementia, and ghosts.

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If you’re submitting this to us, make sure to note that this is a response to Prompt 1: Mudlarking

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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Artwork by Joanna Campbell.