Showing posts sorted by date for query Sudha Balagopal. Sort by relevance Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by date for query Sudha Balagopal. Sort by relevance Show all posts

Sunday, 14 June 2026

2026 FlashFlood: The Complete List

In case you missed any of the pieces we appeared during the 2026 FlashFlood, here's an index to everything.  Sadly, the 'Blog Archive' sidebar list maxes out at 100 titles per day, so use this as your guide to the complete 2026 Flood....

Happy Reading!

 

2026 FlashFlood

 

 

 

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Saturday, 13 June 2026

'Lost Connection' by Sudha Balagopal

When Mother calls, Sonia itches to extricate from the repeated grievances: lazy nurse-attendant, unsympathetic doctor, thieving pharmacist, yet listens, therapist-like, although she, too, has problems she can't share―husband unemployed, leaky roof―because Mother'll remind her she could've married Jay, her choice, until Sonia's daughter interrupts and Mother calls the child disrespectful, demanding, at which Sonia grits her teeth, hangs up, only to berate herself: Mother's starved, memories her sole company, once-agile body gone, the inevitable looming, so hand over heart where aggravation and love tussle, she calls back, says cell phones are unreliable, somewhere, somehow, they lost their connection. 


Sudha Balagopal has had two novellas-in-flash published by Ad Hoc Fiction, UK: Nose Ornaments and Things I Can't Tell Amma. Most recently, her collection, Family Matters, won the Santa Fe Writers Project Literary Award. Her stories have been included in Best Microfiction and Best Small Fictions.

 

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Thursday, 19 June 2025

2025 FlashFlood: The Complete List

In case you missed any of the pieces we appeared during the 2025 FlashFlood, here's an index to everything.  Sadly, the 'Blog Archive' list maxes out at 100 titles per day, so use this as your guide to the complete 2025 Flood....

Happy Reading!

 

2025 FlashFlood

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Saturday, 14 June 2025

'Tongue' by Sudha Balagopal

Father's tongue falls out of his mouth during Sunday dinner. One moment he is spewing a hail-storm of hateful, hurtful words, next moment, the muscle lands from his mouth onto a half-eaten bun.
 
Mother crushes the napkin in her fists, quakes in her chair. My fork and knife clang-clatter onto the tiled floor.

Father's vast, toothy mouth drops wide open, revealing bits of food stuck in his molars. He lunges after the slimy pink organ with his meaty fingers, scattering the bread and tipping the soup tureen. The quick tongue, moist with a coating of spittle, slip-slithers away from him.

Father is particular about taking care of his sinful tongue. He scrapes the three-inch length with a stainless steel, U-shaped tongue cleaner every morning and every night, over and over. He has grated, and grated, and flattened his taste buds. Now, he cannot taste the tomato sauce in a lasagna or the brown sugar mother adds to the apple pie.

Today, he screamed at Mother for her muddy soup, for the chalky bread, for the salt-less vegetables. His tongue, that soft body part, hit her harder than a baseball bat.

She's learned to tuck the injuries under a soft voice, inside her soundless movements, behind her lowered gaze.

Father swings across the table making guttural sounds, gasping, grasping for his tongue which has flipped upside down in the oven-roasted vegetables. Faint blue lines mark the organ, veins maybe.

The muscle leaps onto Mother's plate. In two breaths, she places the tines of her fork on Father's tongue, holds her knife poised over the flesh.

He waves his arms up and down, up and down, stamps his feet, thud-thud-thud.

Mother pins her gaze on him. It's as steady as her fork on his passive tongue.

 

First published in Stanchion Zine, October, 2022. 

Sudha Balagopal work appears or is forthcoming in Banshee, Doric Literary and Fictive Dream among other journals. Her novella-in-flash, Nose Ornaments, was published by Ad Hoc Fiction, UK, in 2024. She has had stories included in Best Microfiction, Best Small Fictions and the Wigleaf Top50.

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Friday, 13 December 2024

Congratulations to our 2024 Award Nominees!

Huge congratulations to FlashFlood's 2024 nominees for the following awards.  We wish them well in the selection process!

 

Best of the Net

Best Microfiction

Best Small Fictions

 Pushcart Prize

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Sunday, 16 June 2024

2024 FlashFlood: The Complete List

In case you missed any of the pieces we appeared during the 2024 FlashFlood, here's an index to everything.  Sadly, the 'Blog Archive' list maxes out at 100 titles per day, so use this as your guide to the complete 2024 Flood....

Happy Reading!

 

 2024 FlashFlood


  

     



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2026 FlashFlood: The Complete List

In case you missed any of the pieces we appeared during the 2026 FlashFlood, here's an index to everything.  Sadly, the 'Blog Archiv...