Name - right here, on this spot
Written by - Parker M. O’Neill
Published on - Flash Fiction Online October 2026
To be memorable as a flash fiction piece is quite a hard work; you have less than a thousand words to get a point or message across that has to stay with the reader after they are done with it. It is possible only when you are passionate or thoughtful enough.
This is the second story I read by this author; the last one was a piece I read on the excellent 'ECO25: The Year’s Best Speculative Ecofiction'. It was quite different in tone and plotline than this, but the author seems to have a particular fondness for telling stories dealing with familiar relationships, which is something I also enjoy.
This one by Mr. O'Neill is a very strong and melancholic piece. Here, the narrator is digging on a post-war battlefield looking for a piece of memorable object for someone else. But instead he dregs up memories from many wars in the past, from his memory of a father lost to war and from his own personal memory of being part of a war.
The style is very different from many flash pieces. It never tries to be too vague or poetic; rather, it tries to hammer home any point. Rather it deals with the trauma that war forces onto the survivors and how the memory of such battles lingers on long after the final bullet has been fired.
A passionate piece focusing on the personal horror and neverending reality of war. This gets 4.5 out of 5 stars from me.
