Flash fiction
about borders.

A border is where a country decides who it is by deciding who it isn't.

Crossing points · What papers carry · The body at the checkpoint

Borders in the Tumbleweed Words archive are not metaphorical — they are literal crossings, passport controls, the specific anxiety of a checkpoint even when you have the right documents, especially when you have the right documents and are aware that this is not universal. The Schengen zone has made most of Europe's internal borders invisible, but the borders are still there in the architecture of the crossing points, in the language of the signage, in who gets waved through and who gets questioned.

"At the border between Serbia and North Macedonia the guard held my passport for longer than necessary. He was not looking for anything. He was demonstrating something. I learned the difference that afternoon."

David — Tumbleweed Words — Balkans

Border writing requires precision about power — who has it, who doesn't, what the gap between those positions does to each person in the encounter. Flash fiction is useful here because it can render this power dynamic in a single exchange, a single moment, without the extended analysis that would tip into polemic. The scene holds the politics without naming them.

David — Tumbleweed Words Flash fiction and poetry written on trains, in hostels, and in city streets. Published in Litro, Adelaide Magazine, Cleaver Magazine. Pushcart-nominated. Read on Substack.