monthly flash contest

Our June 2023 Flash Contest was based on Prompt #256 (provided by Stone Soup intern Sage Millen), which asked that participants write an unusually specific story, one in which a parachutist lands next to the protagonist while the protagonist is sitting on the lawn. The rest of the details, however, were left to the brilliant imaginations of our participants, and they did not disappoint. Submissions ranged from a story about a clueless time traveler named Bob to a story about unsuccessfully meeting a Mr. Beast challenge to a story about two boneheaded “heroes” too focused on who saved their town the most. This week, due to a high volume of stories good enough to be selected for Honorable Mentions, we only chose four winners—two of whom are actually twins!—instead of our usual five, because it was too difficult to elevate one of our honorable mentions over the others. As always, thank you to all you participated, and please keep submitting next month! In particular, we congratulate our Honorable Mentions, listed below, and our Winners, whose work you can appreciate below. Winners “The Spy from the Sky” by Ariel Makri Levy, 11 “The First Snow” by Evelyn Lien, 12 “The Landing” by Isabelle Lien, 12 “Shoot the Moon” by Maya Ruben, 12 Honorable Mentions “Dandelion” by Han-ya Chen, 11 “One Day, One Short Life” by Sophie Li, 12 “Recruiting Mr. Pineapple” by Chloe Lin, 10 “The Heroes of Graztown” by Meg Schmit, 10 “Bob” by Ariel Zhang, 11 The Spy from the Sky Ariel Makri Levi, 11 Willow the fox cascaded down his velvet red staircase, plummeting towards the plate full of breakfast tacos. The kitchen, with wood-paneled cabinets, looked seemingly dormant. He had barely touched them when his sisters, Anne and Chiquita, rocketed out from under the yellow-painted table and seized the tacos. Willow let out a gasp, before regaining his senses and lunging for the tacos and, with one in his hand dashed out their red front door, the knocker letting out a large KNOCK as the door slammed shut. Willow let out a huge sigh of relief, and plonked himself on the lovely, fluffy grass in his front lawn. He had nearly finished his chicken-corn-chip taco when he spotted a small rectangle-shaped silhouette gliding down from the sky. Alarmed, Willow quickly ran into his makeshift tent he had made the night before and ducked for cover. He heard a rustle in the grass outside, and a whimper of, “Oh, no! The boss will be so mad at me now that I’ve accidentally landed in the Fox Lands!” Willow, slowly but surely, inched out of his tent and stared at what was before him. A flying squirrel with a parachuting helmet and gear had just landed in his front lawn! “Hello?” Willow asked.  The flying squirrel jumped up with a jolt and quickly turned around. “Aaaughh! It’s a fox!” screamed the frightened parachuter. “Calm down, calm down. What even are you? You don’t look like a regular squirrel,” said Willow. The parachuter’s face turned a bright shade of pink and he slowly folded out his arms. Willow expected his arms to fold out on their own, but a thin flap of skin connected his arms and legs together, like a parachute! “What’s your name?” asked Willow. “My name’s Jello. Jello Gelatinno Spaghetto Pizzapayo. I work for the Suspiciously Unidentifiable Squirrel Spy Youngsters.” “Did you come to spy on the foxes?” Willow asked suspiciously. “No, no, no! This was all a gargantuan mistake! I meant to land on the Wolf Lands. You know, where the “brave,” “helpful,” and “awesome” wolves live?” Willow shrugged. “Yes, I know.” “So anyway,” Jello continued, “a bizarre force was pushing me back and not allowing me to enter their territory.” “What do you and your squirrel company even want?” questioned Willow. “You see, my boss, Sir Squeaksqueak, is making me perform a bunch of rigorous tasks like spying on the Mad Wolves, sabotaging and preventing them from being wicked, that sort of stuff, and I only get 15 dollars per hour! For being a spy and potentially putting my life in danger!” “I will help you!” announced Willow in triumph. “I am dying for adventure!” After they had both trundled up the stairs to his room, Willow took a blank paper out from his drawer and started writing. Jello leaned in a bit, but Willow’s fur was so puffy, he couldn’t see anything. Willow spun 90 degrees in his chair to look at Jello, with his paper in his sweaty palm. “This is the plan.” he announced. “We will start our own spy business, people will come to us when they need to know something or when they need to protect someone, and if they ask if it’s federally acceptable, we’ll just say we have a relationship with a friend of the president of the Squirrel Lands.” “It’ll be called the Brilliant Anonymous Super Spy Federation!” said Jello. “Are you sure you want to leave The Squirrel Lands?” asked Willow. “Yes, I’m sure,” Jello confirmed, “I think it’s time to take my own path in life.” They marched together out of Willow’s house, and with the parts of Willow’s makeshift tent, they quickly constructed a small cabin with a sign on it reading, “The Brilliant Anonymous Super Spy Federation, your wish is our command.” Customers quickly started coming in, and Jello and Willow were swamped with work. Who knew there was so much drama in the Fox Lands? 12 years later Willow and Jello were strolling down the streets, looking for somewhere to sit down and have a nice cup of coffee. “Hey, look, a veggieterean cafe!” Willow said. “It’s ‘vegetarian,’ not ‘veggieterean.’ Anyway, I’m up for a nice cup of vegetarian coffee!” said Jello. They strutted into the coffee shop, and none other but Jello’s former boss, Sir Squeaksqueak, was sitting at one of the tables! “Hi, what’s up?” asked Jello. “I just want to say I’m really sorry,” Sir Squeaksqueak said, “for making you