flash contest

Our February 2023 Flash Contest was based on Prompt #240 , which asked that participants write a story/poem about love. The love we wanted participants to write about could have been any form of love—platonic, romantic, familial, etc. We received a bevy of submissions interested in all kinds of love, with pieces ranging from a poem from the perspective of a spited and obsessive former lover to a story about the protagonist’s love for their dog to a poem about Eros and Aphrodite. As always, thank you to all you participated, and please keep submitting next month! In particular, we congratulate our Winners and our Honorable Mentions, whose work you can appreciate below. Winners “Operation Valentine” by Oola Breen-Ryan, 11 “Teddy” by Aaron Duan, 11 “An Unexpected Valentine” by Violet Kottkamp, 12 “Love as a Blanket” by Claire Lin, 12 “Agapi” by Nova Macknik-Conde, 11 Honorable Mentions “Love” by Sofia Grandis-Oliveira, 10 “Because She Never Knew” by Sophie Li, 12 “Lay Me Down Tonight” by Chloe Ruan, 13 “Our Creek” by Pranjoli Sadhukha, 13 “Between Friends” by Joycelyn Zhang, 12 Operation Valentine Oola Breen-Ryan, 11 It’s the Friday morning before Valentine’s Day, and I’m completely panicking. Everyone else in my class has a date for the Valentine’s Dance. Trust me, I have absolutely no interest in going. I’m just planning on staying home and consuming large amounts of chocolate. My best friend, however, is on a different schedule.   “You want me to what?!” I exclaim, dropping the chip that I’m holding onto the giant fluffy rug that covers her bedroom floor. The dance is on Tuesday, but I’d assumed that Kenzie would want to stay home like I was going to do.   “Come on, Harper—I just need you to befriend Nate. That’s all that I’m asking.”  “How does me being friends with Nate have anything to do with him asking you out?” I ask.  “Because then you can set us up,” she says, as if it’s obvious.  This plan seems…problematic. “The dance is on Tuesday, giving me two school days to become friends with Nate,” I say. “This plan has more holes than Swiss cheese.”   “Please—I’ll arrange a date with whoever your crush is if you do this!”   This stops me cold. I’m not sure how I romantically align myself, but I have never had a crush on anybody before and I’m not sure if I ever will.   I must look pretty confused, because Kenzie quickly says, “If-if you do have a crush.”   I sort of grimace. “Kenz,” I say. “You’re my best friend. Of course I’ll try.”   She smiles at me then, and I realize: I have no idea how I’m going to pull this off.   #  “Um, hi Nate.”   Nate looks startled as he slams his locker door shut to reveal me, just standing next to his locker, slightly maniacal-looking. I stayed up late last night devising a strategy and I think I know what to do.   “Um, hi to you, too,” he says, looking sort of perplexed. Then he just walks off.   Darn it! I messed up my one chance to approach him. Now it’ll seem like I like him if I keep on bothering him during the day. And I’m not quite in the mood to embarrass myself.   I have basically no idea how to talk to him, though, so embarrassing myself it is.  #  My attempts were pointless. He has evaded, escaped from, steered clear of, eluded, and otherwise avoided me for the entire day.   Time for my last-ditch attempt. I have a folded-up note in my pocket that I wrote in art class. It’s pathetic, but I’m desperate.   Sliding it through the slits of his locker, I glance around. Our last-period classes are just wrapping up, so this is my last chance.   The paper makes a satisfying “clunk” as it lands in his locker. I walk away from it carefully, like it could explode at any point of contact.   And then I’m done.  #  On Monday morning, Nate completely ignores Kenzie. Eventually, he asks Tabitha Miller out. Tabitha is ecstatic.   Kenzie comes over to my house after school and sobs. I didn’t realize that it was possible for somebody to cry that much. But it is. I just sit there, on the sofa, wondering if I should get a glass of water for her so she doesn’t run out of liquids in her body.   “Hey, Kenz, want to go to the dance together? As friends,” I say, then gasp. I don’t know where that came from.   She looks up from her pillow, eyes wet and rimmed with red. “I, um, sure,” she says, sounding just as surprised as I am.   I nod. “Okay. I mean, Nate is a jerk.”  We both start laughing.  Nate ended up completely ditching Tabitha. She was crying in the girls’ bathroom. I felt sort of bad for her, but I wasn’t really sure how Nate had made so many people cry without being aware of it.   The dance was chaotic, but I think Kenzie realized that there was more to it than just being asked out by classmates. She had a lot of fun, and, to be perfectly honest, so did I.   And, for the record, I still got to eat a lot of chocolate.  Teddy Aaron Duan, 11 The air around me was filled with a whimsical cheer. I playfully circled around Mom and Dad, trying to catch snowflakes on my tongue. The merry laughter of the crowd that had gathered on the promenade and the faint twinkling of the Christmas bells sounded far away as I immersed myself in my own bubble. Another flurry of snowflakes blew towards me and I rushed to get a closer look at their dazzling white, but my heavy boots failed me, and a moment later I was lying face down in a fluffy pillow of snow. I was brought back to reality by Mom’s loving smile, her eyes a kaleidoscope of colors, reflecting the light shining from the glowing