Flash!Mob May26: JACK IN THE BOX

The FLASH!MOB prompt for May 2026 is JACK IN THE BOX

300 to 1k wobbly words... any genre... any style... go wild with the whatifs!

What if...

• a new toy is delivered to the store but there's a strange sound coming out of the box...
• a clockmaker is commissioned to make a special gift for the new prince but the clockmaker hasn't forgotten a long ago incident with the royal family...
• an ancient box is uncovered on a building site... who is going to dare open it?
• cheerful music is coming from the basement but no one can find the source... it starts to get louder and faster...

Any of these or whatever springs to mind... have fun and happy writing.

Deadline: 29th May 2026

Please email stories to: submissions@harveyduckman.com with the subject line JACK and please check out our submission guidelines so you know what you're letting yourself in for (original work only, fiction or creative non-fiction welcome, no AI, no fee, no royalties, for fun only, minimal admin and correspondence, all proceeds to the Harvey project for future stuff...).

If you want to receive an epub copy of the Flash!Mob book when it comes out, please sign up for the £5/month membership. Otherwise it's only £1.77 on Amazon.

If I miss out your story, it's probably an oversight... please give me a shout and I'll fix it asap.

A note on wobbly word counts: 300 words is just a rough guide... anything up to 1k words or so is fine xx