'Our Lady of Perpetual Help' by Jan Elman Stout

1. He asked for her left ring finger. A small ask in the grand scheme, really. She’d still have the right. And did she really need it? I’m left-handed, she said, pleased she’d spoken up. But wouldn’t she appreciate the challenge? Had he underestimated her? 
   
   
2. As long as he had her finger, he might as well take her whole hand. If she loved him she’d give it to him. If she loved him with all her heart she’d give it to him and be pleased she had. But I need it. He shook his head; she was overreacting.
   
   
3. He wanted her right arm. He needed it. How much of it do you require? After all he’d done for her. So ungrateful. Now when she gave it to him it would no longer feel like a gift.
   
   
4. His uncontrolled diabetes led to kidney failure and he had to be put on dialysis. If she gave him a kidney they could spend more time together. I’d like to think about it. Really? It’s not as if she can’t live without one. Why, he’d give her one of his if the tables were turned.
   
   
5. And still his diabetes was out of control. He developed floaters and blurred vision before losing his sight. He knew she’d give him an eye. If I give you an eye that’ll be the end of it. He pouted. He closed his rheumy eyes. He turned over and faced the wall. She  was always so dramatic.
   
   
6. His body continued failing. His enlarged heart worked as hard as it could but couldn’t keep up. He had trouble breathing and was fatigued. He peed constantly. His legs, ankles, and feet swelled as big as balloons. He needed her heart; he wasn’t asking for the world.

'A Pondering of Velocity When you’re too Scared to Move' by Tommy Dean

My son stands at the end of the driveway, the tip of his rubber soles balancing in the shadow between roadway and cracked cement. Safety an invisible line I think, I demand, I can control by saying, “Be careful”, but the wind, the universe, the controlling variables of our lives, don’t give a fuck, so I count the steps in my mind, brace myself to sprint, holding back my body, because this is independence, this imaginary tether I’ve created, a facsimile of trust, when why would I ever let him go? The road is too scary, a version of a video game, where we don’t respawn, we don’t rematerialized to make the same mistakes again, where we learn the algorithm of nature, of drivers distracted by another algorithm of beeps and chimes, alerts of someone asking for money, wanting attention, that dammit this driver can’t afford to give in this tensed second of my son’s life, of my life, a patterned doomsday of coiled muscled emotion that borders on mania, released in the fragile prayer, of being careful. A haunting from the living, those ten feet that one day I’ll never bridge, or jump, or stumble through, or climb, or plow ahead, hands on my knees, a gap yawning.

'Reckless' by Kim Murdock

They stand alongside the canal, hand in hand, the mother's low heels pressed against the curb of the asphalt roadway, the boy's knees poking out above wellington boots like two pale eggs caught in first light. The mother wears a moss green wool coat with an oval brooch of painted flowers and grips a thin black clutch in her other hand. The coat is too heavy for this time of year, but it brings comfort.

Behind them, the canal lies dark and still. So still in fact that this east/west ribbon could be mistaken for a rain-slicked roadway. Behind that, a tangle of scrub presses against a concrete wall that cuts the horizon. They are on their way to the kindergarten, or maybe the grocery store. She is unsure.

Behind the concrete wall lies a factory, a perfect study in greys and nubs of manufactured texture. Steel structures crawl skyward while inverted funnels yawn indistinct powders that weave through the fog. All but the loudest emergency sounds are trapped and reduced to a low hum. Sometimes she catches the workers changing shifts. They call out to her Elise! Elise!, and she waves and waves and waves back.

Behind the factory lies the sea, where black depths and crested swells push like an open hand on the small of the back to another coast, jagged and wild, heath scraping her ankles, swaths of pine, her name the wind and flowers shoved recklessly into pockets. Where a laugh caught in the throat rises to the clouds.

FlashFlood 2021 is now open for submissions until midnight on 8 May!

FlashFlood is OPEN and ready for your submissions!

We will open for submissions from 00:01 BST on 2 May to 23:59 BST on 8 May. 

Over the next week, we'll be reading hundreds of flashes and choosing a selection to publish in the next FlashFlood which will take place on National Flash-Fiction Day's 10th Anniversary on 26 June 2021.

Full submission guidelines can be found here.

You can submit here for free, via Duosuma:

https://duotrope.com/duosuma/submit/flashflood-journal-lej4G

It is 100% free to use Duosuma to submit. You'll need to create an account through Duotrope/Duosuma to submit work, but you do not need to purchase a subscription to send your work to us.  If you need help, Duosuma's technical support can be found here.

Unpublished writers, scroll down the page; we have a special submission call just for you if you'd like to be considered for one of our reserved debut fiction slots!  Look for the Flash Fiction (Unpublished Writers) call and send us your work!

Save the Date! The 2021 FlashFlood submission window is open from 2 - 8 May....

 The next FlashFlood will take place National Flash-Fiction Day's 10th Anniversary, next mass-writing event taking place on 26 June 2021.

We will open for submissions from 00:01 BST on 2 May to 23:59 BST on 8 May. 

Full submission guidelines can be found here.

FlashFlood Contributes to Best Microfiction 2021!

Huge congratulations to Bill Merklee and Regan Puckett, our two 2020 FlashFlood nominees who have been chosen to appear in Best Microfiction 2021!  You can read their flashes here:

• “Magic Bullet” by Bill Merklee
• “Moon Watching” by Regan Puckett

 The anthology will be available from the Best Microfiction website later this year.

FlashFlood's 2020 Award Nominees

We'd like to mark the end of 2020 with a little celebration of this year's FlashFlood writers.  Congratulations to the following writers who have been nominated for the following awards this year:

Pushcart Prize 2020

• Programming Language by Gail Anderson
• Refashioning Another Clumsy Gift from My Mother Into Something I Really Want by Anika Carpenter
• Stephanie by Carrie Etter
• Homing by Jason Jackson
• The Lies We Tell by Hema Nataraju
• A Subtle Burn of Ginger by Jenny Wong

 

Best Microfictions 2020

• Barq's Famous Old Tyme Root Beer by Renee Agatep
• Crossed Path by Françoise Harvey
  
• Family by Veneese Ipler
• Magic Bullet by Bill Merklee
• The Anchor by Steven Moss
  
• Moon Watching by Regan Puckett

 

Best of the Net 2020

• Things That Fall by Cathy De'Freitas 
• Stephanie by Carrie Etter
• The Snake Derbies by Bill James  
• Dark Moves by Marie Gethins
• Flight by Janice Leagra  
• A Test by D. Brody Lipton
• Scatterlings by Taffi Nyawanza
• Jump-off Point by Tara Isabel Zambrano

 

Best Small Fictions 2020

• Chalk by Vanessa Chan
  
• Spinning by Noa Covo  
• Your Mama's a Hippo by Clodagh O'Brien 
• A Subtle Burn of Ginger by Jenny Wong 
• Pilot Episode by J.E. Yeadon