FlashFlood

Saturday, 13 June 2026

'Step' by Kathryn Kulpa

We’ll keep this little secret between us, he said, and he pushed the money into my jeans. Buy yourself something pretty, he said, and I slapped his hand away, wanting to scream but no one would hear; my mother was at work, always at work, even though she said his being here would make it easier. She quit one of her jobs. Now she only had two. That was his one contribution. She had two jobs and I had one. To grow up and get the hell out. You need me, he said, and I wanted to shout to the world how much I didn’t. I needed him like a dead dog needs a hot biscuit. I needed him like a swimming pool needs a shark. He was the shark in my life, those black button-doll eyes that reflected no love or empathy, only a flat, ugly need for power. The power he had over me but wouldn’t much longer. These last few weeks I stayed late after school, used the weight room with the boys, and at first they laughed and catcalled but then Elias from chem lab showed me how to stand. Now they spotted me, cheered me on. Every day my hate for that man burned hotter. Every day I felt myself getting stronger. Almost ready to tip a table, pull some Wonder Woman shit. Almost ready to step up. Someday I’ll be gone, and you’ll be sorry, he said, and I locked my door, knowing that like everything he said, only the first half was true.

Kathryn Kulpa is the author of A Map of Lost Places (Gold Line Press) and For Every Tower, A Princess (Porkbelly Press). Her work has been chosen for Best Microfiction and Best Small Fictions and is published in Boudin, Flash Frog, Ghost Parachute, Matchbook, and New Flash Fiction Review.

'917363' by Dan Schiff

The ad popped up just as all seemed lost. “Send us your unneeded two-step verification emails!” said the ad. “Change a child’s life!”

She clicked and learned how they can repurpose security codes for educational use in developing countries, where whole numbers are scarce. She scoured her inbox for messages to forward, each chunk of digits like a lyric to a half-forgotten tune.

Weeks later, the organization sent a personalized thank you. Included was a photo of children in a peeling classroom, huddled around a single laptop. They turned to lend the camera their beatific gap-toothed grins, shining alongside the computer display rich with numbers.

Her breath caught. From the screen’s corner flashed 917363. That was hers. Amazon log-in, twelfth of October.

There was still good to be done in this world, she thought with glistening eyes, heart full to bursting.

Dan Schiff is a nonprofit professional residing with his family in Washington, District of Columbia. His short stories have appeared in Potomac Review and The Broken Teacup. Dan occasionally exists on Instagram @schiff.dan

Debut Flash: 'Unwanted Pitch' by Christian Todd

The great arthropod, slumber disrupted by a persistent surface sound, crawled up the tunnel. Pushing the semicircle door open, it looked down at the two scourges: salesmen.

“Hello, would you be interes-”

It ejected an acid at them: melting the bodies.

The invertebrate curled back inside and shut the door.

Christian Todd is a writer of the strange and provocative. When he sits down to write, he ponders the images in his mind and picks out the most unique of the bunch. Nothing is more exciting to him than plotting and executing an idea.

'Little Mama' by Nicole Brogdon

The tumor shows up the size of a lemon, protruding off her side. And soon it’s a Florida grapefruit, ruby red, looking up over the waistband of her pants. Let’s schedule the surgery soon, her doctor says. Within the week, it morphs into a watermelon—which they cut, pink and seedless, away from her body. The large fruit floats above us like a giant beach ball—no, a hot air balloon, higher, crashing through windows, knocking down power lines. We crane our necks and still it rises into the clouds, swelling, growing, twinning the strawberry moon, rolling past the space station, floating upwards, the orb, discernible through telescopes, touching the ladle of the Big Dipper, tumbling past stars, big and vital as a planet. Mama lives on the ground below puttering in her slippers, hand at her waist, the wound healing nicely. Relieved, but also missing something round and sound and whole, once here, but now far gone.

Nicole Brogdon is an Austin TX trauma therapist interested in strugglers and stories, with fiction in Vestal Review, Cleaver, Flash Frontier, Bending Genres, Bright Flash, SoFloPoJo, Cafe Irreal, 101Words, Centifictionist, etc., Best Microfiction 2024, & Best Microfiction 2025. X @NBrogdonWrites! & nbrogdonwrites.blusky.social.

'Chihuahua Cow' by Thad DeVassie

The wife brought home our new pet. What is that? I asked. A Chihuahua cow, she said. Or as the exotic pet breeder lady called it, a Cowhuahua. I didn’t know that was possible, I said. I mean, logistically, how can that happen? Then a rather disturbing memory from my childhood on a distant uncle’s farm poked at me: it was AI of a different kind. Artificial insemination. I was considering the Shih Tzu Cow but remembered your allergies, all that hair, the grooming, she said, while stroking our new but unnamed Cowhuahua. It was the size of a regular Chihuahua, with pinkish paw pads instead of hooves, a face like a cow, and a smooth, udderless undercarriage. It prefers to bark rather than moo, but it can do both,” she said with confidence. When I asked how many stomachs it had, she said two, which seemed like a reasonable compromise, but it didn’t stop us from gawking at its belly wondering where there was room for a second stomach on such a tiny frame. This thing is absolutely ridiculous, I bemoaned, and kept bemoaning, seeing that look in her eye and knowing this milk-free animal wasn’t going back to the exotic pet breeder lady. It is a living, breathing metaphor of us, she said with the flatness of an accountant. I couldn’t validate this truth out loud, not to her face or the cow-face of the handheld pet. But I knew which one of us was cautiously curious, which one had the ferocious bark with no bite.

Thad DeVassie is a writer and artist/painter from Ohio. He is the author of three chapbooks and was awarded the James Tate Poetry Prize in 2020 from SurVision Books. Find more of his written and painted work at www.thaddevassie.com

'Rewind, Rewind' by Linda M. Bayley

Two of the VCRs are busted now, but Aldous still has one that works. He uses it to tape the wrestling and watch it on fast-forward later on. He doesn’t need to hear the chatter or see the moves in real time; it’s all mythology anyway. He knows how it’s going to end.

He took Athena once down to the arena to see the wrestling live. She was, what? Eight? Nine? Not too sure what to make of the men in their leotards bouncing around the ring. Looking back and forth between their muscles and her daddy’s big belly, sizing him up.

He exercises that belly every night with moves of his own, clenching and releasing it to keep it in shape. So many times he’s told Athena that the belly's all muscle he believes it himself. So many times she’s poked the belly with her finger and watched it bounce back.

He does his bicep curls with bean-filled beer bottles while the spandex gods speed through their routines. The VCR makes a whirring sound. The pictures speed even faster, then stop. Onscreen the big guy is holding the little guy up over his head, looking straight into the camera.

“See, Al?” he seems to be saying. “This is how you do it. Ya gotta grab life by the balls and slam it down to the mat. No more excuses.”

Athena sitting quietly eating her popcorn. Athena jumping up to cheer as grown men bash each other over the head with metal chairs. Athena crowning her daddy the big guy in her own mythology.

The VCR whirs again and the little guy flies over the ropes. Aldous reaches for the remote, hand twitching. He is the big guy. He is.

Linda M. Bayley is a writer living on the Canadian Shield. Her work has recently appeared in BULL, Does It Have Pockets, Frazzled Lit, Trash Cat Lit, Urban Pigs Press, and Fictive Dream; and was shortlisted for the 2026 Bath Novella-in-Flash Award. Find her on Twitter and Bluesky @lmbayley.

Debut Flash: 'Tagalong' by L.V. Leonhard

I press the doorbell and pray that no one answers. My heart pounds a strangled staccato, a knot clogs my throat. I count to three. The door is still closed. I thrill; I can leave. Just as I turn away, the door clicks open. A blinding white fear constricts around me as I realize that it’s too late now, I can’t get away. I want to run. She stands in the doorway, looks down at me. Can I help you, she asks. I try to answer but my voice is a paralyzed whisper. The words come out in a feeble croak, Would you like to buy some cookies? I hold the order form toward her, which has become progressively more mangled by my sweaty grip as I have proceeded from house to house in my ungainly brown felt beanie. The same at each one: I pray that no one is home, or I knock on the door so lightly that I know no one will hear. I am supposed to sell these thin wafers of minty chocolate, these treacly coconut dusted caramel rings. I am supposed to, I don’t want to, I haven’t been able to, I must, I can’t. The afternoon has passed and my order form is still blank. A dog pants behind her. She smiles politely and shakes her head. She closes the door and I run back down to the sidewalk, triumphant. I have escaped. I will not earn a badge for this.

L.V. Leonhard is a writer who lives in Baltimore, Maryland.