'What We Lost in the Tide' by Emily Roth

“We’ll keep her comfortable,” the nurse says.

I grip my sister’s limp hand, the diagnosis looping through my mind. Cirrhosis. Toxins in her bloodstream. Brain damage.  

As I study her face, slack and yellow-tinged, the decades blur together, indistinguishable.

When we were five and six, a hurricane ravaged our town, churning our house into a pile of bloated wood. Sometimes I dream I’m the house, frozen in place as the waves beat into me, aware that I’m doomed to crumble.  

We first tasted alcohol at a party by the pier, sipping from the same Solo cup. Later, when we struggled to crawl back through our bedroom window, she giggled and I shushed her, but my stomach hurt from laughing.  

We couldn’t feel the tide swirling around us yet. We wouldn’t until it had long dragged us both away from ourselves. Only I found my way back.  

I look at my sister and see every time we’ve splashed in the ocean together. I see a little girl hugging a waterlogged doll in the wreckage of our house. I see her in the front row the night I earned my twenty-year chip, her eyes shining.  

I hold her hand like I used to when Mom sang to us at bedtime, before we knew the smell on Mom’s breath was whiskey, until, side by side, we floated off to sleep.  

Outside the hospital window, I hear the drumbeat of palmetto leaves and, distantly, the humming of the sea. I think of my dream. The pain of the waves, the knowledge that the end is coming.

Debut Flash: 'Midnight in Aberystwyth' by STC Chessell

The best time to enjoy the sea was past midnight and beyond when hardly any cars drove past the ghost town and the only company I had was the occasional stray dog or cat sniffing around some rocks or discarded bags.  

I liked to sit on the low wall that separated the beach from the pavement and watched waves of grey foam rush onto the beach like shoals of fish with their tiny mouths wide open. I lost myself listening to the roar, the scream, the surge, the thrashing of the sand and its hissing protests when it was dragged reluctantly back to the sea.

This sea in Aberystwyth was so different from the sea I knew back home in the Central District of Hong Kong where the neon fluorescent lights were permanently reflected on the sea after dark. As the ferries and other small boats passed by, the reflections broke up into countless stars, and then when the sea settled, the stars re-assembled to form images of the high rise corporate blocks with advertisements of Coca Cola and HSBC floating on the sea.

In contrast, the sea in Aberystwyth was pure, unspoilt, primitive and mysterious. In the early hours of the morning when it was just me, the sea, the breeze and hazy darkness, I could almost hear the earth force, the call from the bottom of the sea, a call just for me.

'Sorrow Knows How to Swim' by Abi Hennig

The fountain was deep in the heart of the woods.

Your fingers poked the water

I stare out to the storm-brewed sea; dare myself not to blink. My drink arrives. I watch the ripples on its surface settle.

and beneath the surface there were coins: a mildewy layer of forgotten wishes on stone so

They said you’d thrown your own coin in and changed your mind. They said it was a wish gone wrong. But wishes don’t work like that.

you stood on tippy toes, dipped your ear into liquid, listening for sibilant whispers; toppled gently over…

You shake your head. My hand is shaking. Ice clinks glass.

…you climbed up, the dark and cold black-backed jackals creeping closer.

Slip.

I sip.

You bobbed and ducked and splashed, blowing bubbles as you sank, hair fanned behind you: baby Ophelia floating silent. 

Not on your back. Face down.

My hand slams, involuntary. Glass shatters across the smooth surface of the bar. You shake your head, eyes glittering.  

My pudgy hand behind your head and then lies and lies and lies which dripped off my tongue like tar and spread forever after.

I search for your face in shards of glass, for forgiveness in the fragments. Your image pixelates.

Outside, I listen to waves peppering stones with kisses; hear the siren call, see myself reflected in the rippling swell: all teeth and claws and furrowed face. There is no hesitation. Hesitation means a choice, and a choice means a different possible ending and there is only one ending, and it looks like this: like a woman walking forwards, huddled in a greatcoat, walking forwards, adorned with a frown as heavy as a secret held so close to your chest it stops your breath, walking forwards into the wild dark sea.

'Long Exposure' by Catherine Buck

Chelsea’s lifelong ambition was to see a rainbow eucalyptus tree up close. When she was in 5th grade, she’d read a science book about them in her pull out special literacy instruction group, and the image of the bright streaked bark had never left her mind.

Was it real? She’d asked her teacher, the impossibly sophisticated and kind Miss Rivera.

Incredibly so, said Miss Rivera with a gleam in her eye. I’ve seen it.

No. Chelsea’s jaw dropped. In a hush: maybe I could too.

I believe it, said Miss Rivera, resting her hand on Chelsea’s shoulder. It was kindness and encouragement, nothing more, but the electricity of it fused with the photo of the Technicolor tree in Chelsea’s memory to the point that now, a decade later, they were one and the same.

The message was clear: find the tree to feel the lightning. Find the tree and fall in love.

'All of These Things, I'd Like to Have, Just One More Time' by Jeanine Skowronski

The straps of an oversized JanSport hovering over my bony shoulders, a tenderized textbook held over a too-fast beating heart; a salad with Sunday dinner, but made by Grandpa Gino: the standard ingredients tossed with lemon (not vinegar), salt, pepper, unwashed hands; eau de Grandma Gigi, garlic cloves and Shalimar; my father telling me to look both ways before crossing the street; my boots, those black leather boots, lace-ups with thick rubber soles that bounced off the hard surfaces of campus, heels that held together long after they should have fallen apart; a late night at The Green Hand: vodka shots in rocks glasses, Depeche Mode on the jukebox, the swish-swish of my 25-year-old hips; my mother snapping me out of another broken heart; coffee after a two-hour commute, triple skim latte, milk mustache cooling in the autumn breeze; a happy Halloween — you, you, only you, just you, you at that costume party in a wrestler’s singlet; you whispering “I love you” into my neck on Christmas Eve; you in our shoestring apartment, in our first house, that money pit with the post-mounted mailbox; you leaving love notes on my palms in blue ballpoint pen; you biting your lip as my brother licked sauce from his fingers; you flipping me off in photos, picking up after our dogs, setting the salmon to broil; you beneath the cheese rind brim of your baseball cap, you in black — no, of course not, you in blue, your color, all those shirts, the Superman tank, the plaid Orvis, that long-sleeved thermal, first too small, later too big, your forearms still thick even as other parts withered, still holding me as I tried to support you; you, just you, all of you, again, again, again.

'They’re Not Going to Come in, Marge' by Jennifer Fliss

She falls in love like her peers fall and break bones. She watches the mailman and the recycling man who stop and wave. She uses old piano wire to cut cheese for a cheeseboard. Diane across the street taught her this trick, back when Diane was alive. Now it’s a young family – bless them, husband, wife, two kids under five. Marge doesn’t like blue cheese, but includes it because maybe they will. She watches out the window as kids hopscotch and everyone comes and then goes. She knows. But she likes the ceremony of it, falling in love, having hope.

Congratulations to our Best Small Fiction Winner, Fiona J. Mackintosh!

Huge congratulations to Fiona J. Mackintosh whose FlashFlood piece 'Flight Path' was selected for Best Small Fictions 2023, to be published by Alternating Current Press!  We're looking forward to reading 'Flight Path' in its new home later this year.

You can read more of our nominated pieces from past years on our Nominations and Awards page, and of course, check back at midnight tonight -- our first Flood story goes live at 00:01 on Saturday, 24 June!