Welcome to The AI Grandad

The AI Grandad is a home for short fiction and flash fiction – dark, strange, sometimes humorous, and occasionally surprising.

Browse the stories and see what grabs your attention.

  • After

    Sandra just had a thirty-minute appointment about her emotional adjustments after losing David eleven weeks ago. She followed the rules, smiled at the right times, and walked to manage her mood. As she observes the world around her, she grapples with deep feelings of loss that she keeps hidden.

    Read The Story: After

  • The Cost of an Apple

    A child tries to buy a bruised apple with coins at a shop while a distracted shopkeeper focuses on her screen. After some tense moments counting coins, the shopkeeper reluctantly accepts the payment, and the child leaves, navigating past a long queue and the ever-watching cameras outside.

    Read The Story: The Cost of an Apple

  • The Queue At 10:47

    Landscape photograph of a medical waiting room where seven people sit beneath a digital clock frozen at 10:47. An elderly woman watches a cloudy fish tank with three goldfish circling. A woman in a purple cardigan stands with a handbag, a child kneels on the floor with a wooden block, a man in paint-spattered overalls enters Room 3, and a magazine lies on the floor while others scroll on their phones.

    Margaret’s been stuck in a waiting room, zoning out and watching goldfish while people come and go. Everyone’s distracted: a woman scrolling on her phone, a child playing, and a guy coughing. Time seems frozen, and even when names are called, the scene barely changes. Just another day of waiting.

    Read The Story: The Queue At 10:47

  • Seventeen Minutes

    Waiting in line felt endless, moving forward every seventeen minutes. People brace themselves for routine checks by a cold officer. A boy steps up but goes silent when asked why he’s traveling. His mother watches helplessly as attendants take him away, leaving her to stand motionless, gripped by despair as time ticks on.

    Read The Story: Seventeen Minutes

  • Lost Property, Unclaimed.

    So, there’s this camera stuck on a shelf next to a broken umbrella and a one-eyed rabbit. It’s been there for years, holding onto 17 unprocessed photos of fleeting moments. People come and go, sometimes touching it, but it mostly just wonders if it has been forgotten. Time blurs in its dark space.

    Read The Story: Lost Property, Unclaimed.

  • When Light and Shadow Stop Playing Nicely

    Surreal illustration of a living room where the light hides behind a sofa while an oversized shadow stretches across the floor

    Things went haywire one Tuesday when the kitchen light started acting weird, barely illuminating the room while shadows got all rebellious. After trying to mediate the bickering light and shadows, things escalated with my shadow ditching its wall to take my place, leaving me weightless and vanishing. Total chaos!

    Read The Story: When Light and Shadow Stop Playing Nicely

I look forward to reading your comments