May 2025 Flash Fiction Winner: Pride
Realities
by Alexandra Lupas
I always believed that I was a cat in another lifetime. Maybe a fleecy black cat with golden eyes made of melted honey and broken realities; it is said that cats have 9 lives. Does that mean 9 different destinies? 9 different stories? Or just 9 shadows of former realities?
I may have been an orange cat, the one who hides drops of orange and grapefruit juice in her fur and watches you with her gloomy eyes as she absorbs your entire history. Your conscience and dreams and wishes to become a writer and scenarios and unfinished sentences and demolished questions.
Right now, I’m in my cat’s reality. I look at myself with stabbing blue eyes. I look at the girl I used to be a few moments ago, knowing she might never be able to see the shadows and lights, the illusions and the mirage of looking from 9 perspectives. Knowing she might never be as powerful as she is now.
Alexandra Lupas is 15 years old and living in Oradea, Romania. Alexandra relishes the opportunity to write. “Writing means everything to me; it’s like my blood that runs through every single vein in me. Whenever I write something, there’s a feeling I can’t explain at all. Something like a relief but with a hint of magic. Or maybe chaos? I guess I’ll never know truly.”
Our monthly Flash Fiction contest is co-hosted with Melbourne writing collective, The Provocative Inklings. This contest is free to enter, and writers of all ages, from anywhere in the world, are invited to submit! Follow us on Instagram or subscribe to our newsletter to stay up-to-date.
