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

    Rain-soaked Manchester street on Deansgate at dusk, with a thoughtful middle-aged woman in a dark coat standing in the foreground. A pigeon stands in a puddle near her feet while a red bus approaches in the background. Shopfront lights and wet pavement reflections create a sombre, reflective mood suggesting quiet grief and urban isolation.

    In a future Britain, grief’s illegal; Sandra complies after her Compliance Appointment, hiding her true feelings while following the rules.

    Read The Story: After

  • The Cost of an Apple

    A dystopian shop interior where a young child in a worn green jacket stands at a counter, placing coins beside a bruised apple on a glowing digital scale that reads 20. A tired shopkeeper looks at a computer screen while a silent queue stretches outside towards tall grey tower blocks. A wall display behind the counter shows vertical crops under purple light, suggesting controlled food production and rationing.

    A child purchases an apple with coins, while a distracted shopkeeper processes transactions amid a long, silent queue.

    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, watching goldfish and people shuffle around. Everyone’s caught up in their own world while time just drags on. The clock refuses to change!

    Read The Story: The Queue At 10:47

  • Seventeen Minutes

    In a long, emotionless queue, people face a cold officer who decides their fate, while a mother watches her son disappear.

    Read The Story: Seventeen Minutes

  • Lost Property, Unclaimed.

    The story shares the perspective of a forgotten camera in a lost property office, reflecting on time and lost moments.

    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