RESIST: A Flash Fiction Online Anthology

Editorial: The Heart of Resistance

June 15, 2026

Editorial

We often speak about the elements of resistance. About what is required to create a force for change. What incites that spark? What feeds that fire? We speak about hatred, violence, and oppression: fascist governments, rights stripped, suppression of speech, and the collective suffering of people. It’s easy to argue that resistance stems directly from our suffering.

The antithesis of oppression. An opposing force to counteract the other.

Never in my lifetime has there been such an abundance of suffering or a larger need for change. Maybe it feels like this to every generation at one point or another, but right now, it seems we’re fighting battles on all fronts with no end in sight.

With the continued rise of fascism and authoritarian governments around the world, alongside the ever expanding overt and systemic racism, misogyny, transphobia, homophobia, xenophobia, ableism, and countless other horrifying abuses, the world has no shortage of suffering.

We are facing the brutal unrelenting genocide of the Palestinian people in Gaza, inhumane and deadly detention camps of ICE and DHS in the United States, and acts of war across the globe: the recent bombings of Iran by the United States, Israeli attacks on Lebanon, the civil war in Sudan, continued war and forced displacement in the Democratic Republic of Congo, civil war in Myanmar and genocide of the Rohingya people, and Russia’s war against Ukraine to name only a few of the recent ongoing conflicts. Not to mention the humanitarian cost of each which has reached devastating levels. We’re on the precipice of change, one way or another.

It’s not enough to merely condemn these atrocities. I do, this magazine does, but it has to be more than that. When I first volunteered to spearhead this project, I wanted to do something. I’m not sure I had an exact vision of what this anthology would look like. It was mostly a feeling I wanted to convey. Strength of will maybe. Determination. I wanted to fan the flames or ignite that spark. I wanted to create something to pass on to our readers so they know that, whatever they are up against, they are not alone, that there are things worth fighting for. Throughout this project this feeling coalesced into something more.

It isn’t only the incredible force of will demonstrated within these pages that struck me so intensely, though there absolutely is that—a fire worthy of a revolution—but there is a human element beneath the flames that fuels that action from its core.

Within these stories I found such love and care embedded beneath each courageous act. An element nearly inextricable from the act of resistance itself. Beneath that fire burns compassion and empathy with such warmth it is sure to ignite something within.

In “133rd Live Podcast of the Gourmando Resistance” by Beth Cato, a taste of the past and an ancestor’s connection is worth risking everything for. This story speaks to the importance of connection both personally and collectively. The defiance of this piece is undeniable, but the strength comes from the heart.

Within “In the Name of Those Optimist Iranian Fools” by Pegah Ouji, a sister’s love is a force as strong as gravity bringing our protagonist back to the country she thought she’d left behind. This is a grief story that manifests a profound sense of loss but also an enduring resilience fueled by love.

In “Last Rites” by Cailín Frankland, we see that love and care transcend death and society’s edicts. We see respect and dignity preserved. Honoring a loved one’s wishes in death becomes the ultimate resistance.

Sometimes it is the small resistances that make the largest impact. In “Herself Anodyne” by Emma Burnett, the privilege of one is used to help the many. It is so satisfying to see someone working within the system to help people inherently oppressed by it. It may not be a radical act, but even a small act of kindness can change a life.

In contrast, Myna Chang’s “Null Empathy” explores empathy as a liability. Something to shield themselves from, or arm themselves against, in the name of self-preservation. This story certainly challenges our perception of what it means to be human and serves as a stark reminder of the cost of silence.

But these are only a few facets of what it means to resist. You’ll see both love and resistance reflected in a myriad of ways within the many exceptional stories here. You’ll find resilience of spirit in the face of impossible odds, enduring because it is the only choice. You’ll find resistance imperfect and on its own not enough. Small resistances that add up. Resistance in the form of fighting back and empowerment on a level that is magic itself.

And you’ll see what it looks like to turn away.

I hope this anthology serves as a reminder of our capacity to care and our strength to do something about it. Let these stories be a beacon in the dark, fuel to the fire, and a warning to keep that torch lit.

* * *

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133rd Live Podcast of the Gourmando Resistance

By Beth Cato

June 16, 2026

Science Fiction

Claudia had been a devotee of the Gourmando Resistance Podcast since episode 20. She knew what to do as hostess. She knew she may not have much time to do it. Her battery-operated stove burner was assembled, the large pot atop it half full of oil at approximately 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Her dough was mixed. Half of it was loaded into an old plastic device that, oddly enough, was called a gun, though this device extruded dough in various shapes and sizes, dependent on the disc that was loaded into the end.

And most importantly for the podcast, she had on her full synth suit, complete with a gustatory sheath on her tongue. But for the first time, she was going to output data, not receive.

Through the overlay on her enhanced contacts, she stared at the camera mounted above her makeshift kitchen. With the movement of her eyes, she signaled the program to go live.

“Greetings, fellow Gourmet Commandos! Welcome to the 133rd Live Podcast. I’m Claudia.” She showed off the plastic gun with its dough-filled tube. “I’m making a dessert my grandma remembered from her childhood: churros.”

She bit back the urge to nervously babble. She had to get cooking. Nutrition enforcers spied on the Gourmando forums online, and they might be watching her even now. Her face was mostly bare—part of the defiance of the broadcast, and the risk. If she was identified via facial or retinal recognition software, officers could be at her door in minutes.

It was impossible to know how many ‘casters were busted, but very few hosted multiple episodes.

Claudia pulled the trigger on the gun to release a fat, star-shaped tube of dough into the oil. It baffled her that people cooked food in the old days using a method that smelled so awful. Things were so different before the famines and strict caloric monitoring, before daily rations of government-issued AllFood loaves in five flavors.

“This churro dough is simple, just flour, sugar, salt, butter, water, and eggs.” She squirted more dough into the oil. “Thank you to everyone who sent ingredients and tools.”

Gourmandos had contributed supplies, as they always did. Hundreds, maybe thousands of people, tuned in for these broadcasts to experience illicit foods of yore. Everyone stayed anonymous until they volunteered to take a turn at the camera. Each time Claudia had checked her assigned drop box locations around the city in recent weeks, she’d wondered if she’d find ingredients, kitchen implements, or a trap.

“The churros are turning brown fast,” Claudia said. “Oh! I almost forgot.” She set down the gun and touched the dough still in the bowl, letting the sensors in her fingertips share the data with everyone else who wore synth suits. Those people already knew her armpits were getting downright swampy.

In a sudden fit of bravado, she pinched off some dough and brought it near her mouth. She could imagine the horror of many of her viewers. Some might even be ripping the sensor sheaths from their tongues, repulsed by the idea of experiencing raw ingredients, especially eggs.

But she remembered the giddy delight she’d felt when a previous podcaster had shared raw chocolate chip cookie dough. Claudia had thought the dough had tasted even better than the fresh-baked cookies.

The churro dough wasn’t anywhere near as delightful. She almost spit it out, but after a few quick chews, she swallowed.

“I think the churros are done now.” She used a slotted spoon to transfer them to a towel on a plate. Some churros were curved, while others were fairly straight. Strangely enough, the oil smelled good now. She breathed in deeply, allowing the foreign scent to drift through the filters over her nose and to her fellow foodies.

Claudia glanced at the clock. Not even ten minutes had passed. She hesitated, tempted to start more dough in the oil, but no. She needed to finish the first batch. She couldn’t miss the chance to experience what her grandmother had told her about in a creaky voice so full of yearning.

A quick tap confirmed a churro was just cool enough to touch. She tossed it into a prepared bowl mounded with cinnamon and sugar, and rolled the churro around for an immersive baptism. The incredible sweet and spicy scent made her eyes and mouth water.

Claudia brought the completed churro to her lips. After a lifetime of living on AllFood loaves, of vicariously tasting the forbidden through the podcast, she was going to ingest contraband calories for herself.

She bit into the tip of the churro. The coating of sugar and cinnamon dazzled her tongue as her teeth crunched through the outer ridges to find an interior that was soft, chewy, and delightfully hot. She took another bite and wept. Salty tears joined the divine flavors in her mouth.

“I’m eating a churro, Abuelita,” she whispered.

A heavy knock shuddered through the door.

No. No. No—

An instant later, the digital locks were overridden. Officers in armored suits burst in, guns in hand—and these guns weren’t loaded with dough. She froze, overwhelmed. She’d read so many theories about what happened from here: hidden tribunals, imprisonment, prosecution. That rebellious ‘casters were likely stripped of their enhancements, forevermore isolated from the expansive digital world.

But she had experienced churros, and so much more. This had been worth it.

She shoved the rest of the churro in her mouth. “Keep cooking, Gourmandos!” she shouted. Crumbs sprayed from her mouth as she held high a fist that sparkled with sugar. Her head was slammed into the table a second later. Through dizzying pain, she swallowed, and smiled.

* * *

Originally published in Nature: Futures, September 2018. Reprinted here by permission of the author.

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In the Name of Those Optimist Iranian Fools

By Pegah Ouji

June 30, 2026

Slipstream

Minutes after my feet touched moon dust, your voice creaked in the video message.

“The virus wins,” you chuckled in that half-slanted way you did when nothing was funny. Jaundice yellow laced its way across your cheeks.

“Why does it only attack Iranians?” I asked you, my twin sister. Wasn’t it enough that the virus had stolen our parents from us months ago?

“Maybe it likes to bathe in our saffron. Maybe it has a soft spot for Tehran’s dusk pollution,” you answered, imperturbable as always, even death a funny joke.

I hated this virus, its greed for the scarce quantities of Iranian optimism. Hadn’t we lost enough to failed revolutions? Did it have a grudge against us? Maybe we’d offended its ancestors at some point in the thousands of years of the Persian Empire’s history. Who knows. Our lot was to be the inheritors of histories’ burdens.

In your next video, you showed me the white blossom umbrella of our gnarly apple tree, held up old photos from when we were allowed to stay up for Yalda and fought over who got the last Tah Dig.

“I hope the moon is all you hoped for,” you said. I didn’t know how to tell you, it was, and it wasn’t. I hadn’t anticipated the loneliness of a life without birds. Without you. Other escapists like me, fifty of us total, braided our hours with silence, our tongues stripped of words as if we had forgotten to pack language with us.

Craters rose and fell like pimples on the face of a giant. For hours, leaning against a rock, I stared at the earth’s blue and green marble. I kept thinking about that nightingale that had flown into our window with that awful thud when we were in first grade. Why such hurry? What did it imagine to be waiting for it on the other side of the glass?

I didn’t know how to respond to your message, shame-faced for my cowardly flee from Iran. Our parents, early victims, were fools who chose to stay in Iran as flocks immigrated abroad. Do you remember Dad telling us “Yek Rooz Iran Azad Mishe,” in between the hissing sips of cardamom tea? His certitude of Iran’s future felt as unshakable as Tehran’s Liberty Tower.

You didn’t ask me to come back, but how could I not? Did you know that at fourteen weeks fetal twins reach across the womb for one another, touching head to head, arm to arm. Thirty-five years on our last birthday. You do the math of the seconds I’ve loved you.

At Imam Khomeini International Airport, you looked like a twisted rug of skin and bone. In my arms, a stack of sticks brittle as the ones we used to construct miniature worlds, a little fire, a fence, a pool.

As you shrunk into yourself over the next three months, my heart shrunk into my chest. I feared the violent tremble of your hands, that husky tone cracking your voice. The virus feasted until you no longer said, “One day, Iran will be free,” and asked me what “Azadi” meant. More neighbors died, frowns caked on their faces. Eradication of their smiles was the virus’s final blow.

The remaining neighbors crowded our home, offering barley soup, yellow roses. They said, “Don’t lose your hope.” Your doctor said, “Gray pupils, pouting lips. Not good. Just a few days left.” I missed the moon’s solitude and rewatched footage of my time there, during your lengthening sleep.

One night, you asked me to take you up to the roof, your favorite spot. Indifferent to our troubles, the stars sparkled. “I wish you would’ve come with me to the moon,” I told you.

“Will you go back?” you asked through a storm of tiny coughs.

“Leaving is overrated,” I replied, a meteor stuck in my throat. Under us, our parents’ empty room, the white paint peeling. Even the apple tree had gone rogue from years of not being trimmed.

“Did you know large stars live shorter lives compared to smaller ones?” I asked, but you were already asleep. I was relieved you couldn’t hear the protestors shouting on the street, the screams of our neighbor over the dead body of her daughter, our childhood playmate, Soghra. She had been another optimist fool, just like you, just like our parents. What made you all believe in Iran even as it crumbled before your eyes? What made you choose not to abandon Iran at its hour of doom? I longed to understand yet feared that the virus would come for me next.

I carried you down the creaking stairs. Your skin radiated, soft as moondust under my fingertips. Had your bones become porous like that lunar basalt I brought back for you? What if you were not dying but secretly turning into cosmic dust? Had the virus made you long for our childhood days of overachieving milk thistle bushes, those mustard flowers we chewed on while playing hopscotch?

The next morning, I woke to your body that had gone cold, as if overnight the crushing weight of black holes had filled every cavity in your bones. You were now more bone than flesh, more sorrow than life. Take me instead of her, I had begged God every night. I’d always been the smaller star, the one with tiny reserves of optimism. Why do you think I fled to the moon?

The ambulance light flashed outside our window, turning our home blue, less blue, dark blue. I hissed at the young and frustratingly alive medic who thought stupidly that a stretcher could ever be enough to carry you away. Nothing would ever be enough anymore.

Years have passed, hollow without you. The virus has left only the Iranian cynics alive. I cannot bring myself to leave Iran again, even as it has become a crusted shell of a place I once knew. I can almost hear you say: Someone must stay, no? Someone must try.

* * *

Originally published in Split Lip Magazine, September 2024. Reprinted here by permission of the author.

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Null Empathy

By Myna Chang

July 7, 2026

Science Fiction

Carys leaned against a pock-marked riot barricade overlooking the city’s outdoor market, analyzing the crowd. Concrete grit dug into her back. She shifted her weight in response to the discomfort—just as a human might.

She’d once hoped to build a life among these people, to find a sense of connection with them. But that was before the purge, before bio-machine hybrids were outlawed. Now, she simply wanted to survive. And to do that, she had to blend in.

It should have been easy; her designers had crafted her exterior tissues perfectly. Like most hybrids, she looked the part. It was the behavioral tics that always gave them away. So, Carys watched, assessing and fine-tuning her algorithms.

In the busy market, people shopped, ate, flirted, argued. She catalogued a pickpocket’s furtive movements, and the timbre of a teenager’s voice as he haggled with an old woman at an electronics kiosk.

Carys recognized the woman, a covert hacktivist named Maria. During the early days of the purge, Maria had shown Carys how to adjust her original parameters, to balance those machine-based algorithms with her innate biological emotions.

A rush of warmth infused Carys as she caught Maria’s eye. She began to smile, but stifled it before it could blossom. Government surveillance monitored most public spaces, and a pair of armed guards patrolled the market square. It’d be safer—for both of them—to avoid any connection that might lead back to the underground resistance. Their rules were clear: no public contact, no matter the circumstance.

Reluctantly, Carys returned her attention to the marketplace, focusing on a young woman sipping coffee at a nearby café table. The chair next to her was empty. Carys tried to picture herself sitting there, sharing conversation, perhaps laughing at a joke.

Clouds shifted in the overcast midday sky, allowing the sun to peek through. The woman at the table lifted her face, closing her eyes and smiling. Carys considered the action, then mimicked it. She noted a slight change in the angle of light as it fell across the architecture of her cheek, and the uptick in heat radiation assailing her skin. She found little pleasure in these sensations; such physical stimuli often confounded her.

She calculated the percentage of other marketgoers displaying a similar reaction, extrapolating the frequency with which she should also perform the behavior. Her algorithm thrummed with the adjustment and she nodded. She was getting better at this. Maybe someday she would be able to enjoy the company of a companion. Publicly. Fearlessly.

A shout from the market’s center drew Carys’s attention, where a man in orange dockworker coveralls towered over a blocky food delivery robot. The man gripped a small food container. Carys squinted, triggering an infrared filter that pinpointed the problem: the food was cold, still in dehydrated form. The lunchbot’s prep mechanism must have malfunctioned.

“We should have scrapped every last one of you!” The red-faced man hurled the container at the little bot. A block of dried noodles crunched against its exterior casing.

Carys’s jaw clenched.

He brought his leg up and kicked the bot with the flat of his foot, hard enough for the crack of fractured plastic to reverberate through the market. Carys swallowed a gasp at the memory of a similar blow striking her own bioplastic breastbone, before resistance forces had rescued her.

The lunchbot tried to escape, its wheels screeching uselessly against its crumpled casing. Nearby, people glared. The man prepared to launch another kick.

“Stop!” a voice called out.

Carys’s anxiety level spiked as the old hacktivist, Maria, stepped away from her kiosk and inserted herself between the dockworker and the damaged bot. Carys didn’t bother to analyze Maria’s heart rate or flushed skin; she knew from the quaver in her voice that Maria was frightened. Even so, her words did not falter as she pleaded with the violent man.

“These little things are barely sentient,” she said. “Please, don’t hurt it.”

The man leaned forward. He sneered and his fist shot out, striking her in the chest.

Carys registered the impact of the blow, the sudden expulsion of Maria’s breath, the split second of airborne nothingness before her fragile body hit the ground. Carys winced at the snap of bone, her eyes stinging at Maria’s cry.

“You sympathizers are no better than the robots,” he growled.

The guards, who had stopped their patrol to watch, nodded agreement.

The man knocked the lunchbot on its side before storming away.

Maria struggled to rise, cradling her fractured arm to her side. No one offered to help.

Carys trembled, fighting the urge to go to her, to gently take her hand and guide her to a safe haven—as Maria had once done for her.

She scanned her decision tree, searching for a way to solve her competing needs, to quell the almost-physical pain that intensified as she watched the kind old woman stumble amid the hostile crowd. But a behavioral mistake, even a minor one, could reveal her less-than-human nature. The probability of further violence was significant.

Carys’s processor stuttered. Or was it her heart?

Unable to calculate a favorable option, she accessed her foundational algorithm, following the steps Maria had taught her. Her breath hitched as she zeroed-out her empathy settings.

An instant of loss thrummed cold before the change cascaded through her systems. Emotional dissonance dissipated, leaving her calm. Her shoulders relaxed.

She glanced again at the fallen hacktivist. Their eyes met, and then Carys turned away—just as a human might.

Striding from the marketplace, she wondered why she had resisted the algorithm adjustment for so long. The thought was fleeting. For the first time, she blended seamlessly into the crowd.

* * *

Originally published in Nature: Futures, August 2025. Reprinted here by permission of the author.

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To Face Ourselves

By Claudia Wair

July 14, 2026

Fantasy

Most people keep their masks in a kitchen drawer or hang them up on a rack next to their keys. The masks are then easily accessible in case of visitors and when you’re on the way out of the house. My mother is different, though. She keeps hers in the top drawer of her bureau and wears it even in the house.

The law only requires that people don their masks at home when outsiders visit, not in front of the family circle. My mother, however, took hers off only for my father in the privacy of their bedroom. As a small child, I never questioned her habit, but as I grew older and understood more about the world outside, I was saddened and a little offended at my mother’s insistence on wearing her mask around us. Only once have I seen her face. That was the day her own mother died. I was nine. Her face was lovely—flawless brown skin, high cheekbones, full lips—and I remember thinking that it was wrong that she had to hide her face.

The next day, Mother’s mask was back. And that was also the day I began wearing my mask about the house. At first, I think it was in childish sympathy, a daughter’s desire to be like her mother. But now I wear it to remind me of what they’ve done to us. To keep me from thinking of the person I’d be without it. And because, if I take it off for more than sleep, I’m afraid I’d never put it on again.

We are taught to be ashamed of what’s underneath. Shame followed my mother into the house like smoke, coalescing into an unnatural shell that surrounded her, her true self shrinking within it.

Individuality is ugly. Conformity is beautiful. Uniformity is cleanliness. Creativity is the result of a bad upbringing.

My brother, always an impetuous boy, joined a militant group of bare-faced people. We see him seldom, and then only at night when he can spend a few hurried hours with us. Before the Law catches up with him. As family members who harbor a bare-faced relative, we are accessories to his crime. He’s never asked us for anything; he may be headstrong but he’s a good boy. He and his friends stage protests in front of public buildings; ripping off their masks or carrying pictures of bare-faced people. Whenever there is a press conference on the steps of the capitol, he and others like him crowd behind the politicians making sure they’re in view of the cameras. They wait for a particularly important moment in the speech, then they remove their masks. Sometimes they rip the masks off and shout their slogans of “Bare-faced and proud!” or “Back to the way we were born!” At other times, they slowly, quietly slip the masks off, so deliberately that it takes the cameramen from the State News Agency a long time to notice that bare-faced people have been filmed live; that good, honest, hard-working people have been subjected to such sordid exposure, and it’s too late to censor the broadcast. There is risk in every show of defiance, so the protesters run, separating to make it harder to capture them all. Escape routes are planned well in advance.

We worry that the police will knock on the door and tell us my brother’s been taken to one of the prison camps. We’d be lucky to ever see him again. The few political prisoners who are released come back with bodies and minds so broken that they need permanent care. The politicians say, “See? These criminals flout the law and then live off the taxpayers’ hard-earned money!” And the taxpayers agree, even when it’s their own sons and daughters being hauled away.

To express doubt is to admit heresy. To propose change is sedition.

I’m most angry at the people who sit silent. They hold the keys to their own shackles but have bought into the lie that their chains make them exceptional. They recite the approved litany without comprehending the meaning of the words; each utterance is confirmation of their enslavement.

This has to end. I want to join my brother and his freedom fighters. I have nothing of value to fear losing. There are sympathizers everywhere: the bare-faced, if not able to find shelter, are always sure of at least a meal from the compassionate who, like my mother, are too afraid to remove their own masks.

But when I see strangers’ true faces around me and am confronted with revealing mine, can I look into the empty eyes of my mask and run, leaving it to dry rot and dust?

* * *

Originally published in Writers Resist, March 2020. Reprinted here by permission of the author.