Inlay

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 * * * * * * * 'Whisper' by Karen Arnold * 'Lunch' by Madison Ellingsworth * 'Evergreen' by Athena Law * Debut Flash: 'Bird Tag' by Nicole Savage * 'Soybeans' by Jeremy Nathan Marks * 'Night Swimmers' by Karen Regen Tuero * 'Philodendron' by Emily Hall * 'Lost Connection' by Sudha Balagopal * 'All That Was Left to Do' by Matthew Jakubowski * 'The Roller Derby Girls Skate Circles Around My Teenage Heart' by Travis Flatt * 'When We Traveled 1,200 Miles for Forest Bathing' by Beth Sherman * 'Shimmy' by Abigail Myers * Debut Flash: 'Natural' by Leigh Ann LeBoeuf * 'Territorial' by Shana Naugle * 'The Hard Part' by Tatum Schad * 'The Invisible Woman' by K.C. Selby * '1993' by M.C. Schmidt * 'All the Ways We Died' by Sumitra Singam * 'Coffee Talk with Mr. Ackshually' by Jim Parisi * 'At the Drive Thru' by Chelsea Stickle * 'What if We All Woke Up with Amnesia?' by Corrie Haldane * 'Denial' by Christy Hartman * Debut Flash: 'Eight scenes of cherry blossoms' by Angeline Tyler * 'Exposure Exhibition on Monday' by Carol Ann Parchewsky * 'Key Finding' by Lisa Ferranti * 'Chickenshits' by Jay Parr * 'Cutting' by Tom Weller * 'Thereafter' by Christine H. Chen * 'Butt Dial' by Jan English Leary * 'When my mother was at Lourdes' by Helen Kennedy * 'Toaster' by Timothy C Goodwin * 'The Question Bag' by C. Oulens * Debut Flash: 'The Shopkeeper Who Stayed' by Vikesh Mirchandani * 'The Pain Bar' by Sharon Hoffmann * 'A Dance Of Dark And Light' by Jaime Gill * 'My Miracle Boy' by Sandy Krausnick * 'My Sister’s Body' by Finnian Burnett * 'Terms and Conditions' by Rachel M. Hollis * 'At the Margin' by Andrea Damic * 'The Day I Finally Learned to Let Go' by Rathin Bhattacharjee * 'Burying The Blue Ox' by Kellan Jansen * Debut Flash: 'Things That Sing of Death' by E. Murray * 'Smoke, Clacking, Bitter, Spaghetti Squash' by T.L. Tomljanovic * 'A Fly in Amber' by Sylvia Petter * 'How many bags of crisps for your melancholic soul' by Rachel Smith * 'Dina in the Dusk' by Kendra Cardin * 'A Boy, A Mother, Nature' by Mandira Pattnaik * 'the history of truthiness' by Ben Starr * 'Standing Still' by Laila Miller * 'The Moment You Learned There’s No Such Thing as Grownups' by D.E. Hardy * 'Heart' by Birgit Solvsten D'Alpoim * Debut Flash: 'Crusader' by Marinela Davies * 'Star Signs' by Chloe Paige * 'Lifting the Veil' by ME Kretschmer * 'It was a time' by Vijayalakshmi Sridhar * 'before the first bite' by Melissa Llanes Brownlee * 'I’m no good with names, I tell the nice cleaner' by Sarah Masters * 'Leopard Sightings' by Arti Jain * 'The Guest We Never Met' by David Dumouriez * 'The House That Called Her Mother' by Anatoly Loginov * Debut Flash: 'Memory is all the home you get' by Romi H. * 'The Girl Who Found Her Feet' by Mileva Anastasiadou * 'The Hereafter' by Sarp Sozdinler * 'Orderings' by Hugh Behm-Steinberg * 'All Aboard That's Getting On Board...' by Pam Martin-Lawrence * 'It’s Time and You Know It!' by Sudha Subramanian * 'Always the same ice-cream van' by Lesley Bungay * 'Change' by Sukhjit Singh * 'How I Refused to Let Your Mother and Your Cancer Ruin Our Marriage' by Sharon Boyle * 'Act of Cleansing' by Cheryl Powell * Debut Flash: 'Springtime Blues' by Cameron * 'Readying' by Kleopatra Olympiou * 'Rescue' by Michael Pettit * 'The Trumpeter in the Rain' by Liz Milne * 'Open Palm' by Heather Emmanuel * 'The Pressing Question of Bees and Their Knees' by Karen Jones * 'Hard Work at the Soft Play' by Kristina Thornton * 'Down From the Door' by Sarah McPherson * 'Paper Warrior' by Joel Bryant * 'Sailing Ban' by Petros Isaakidis * Debut Flash: 'Ablution' by Atiqah Ghazali-alKashif * 'Confirmation Class' by Joanna Campbell * 'Wind-up Shoes' by Ali McGrane * 'Crows Remember, Don’t They?' by Stuti Srivastava * 'Premonition' by Thomas McColl * 'Thank you for applying to be my courtly lover' by Chris Cottom * 'Waxing' by Lucienne Cummings * 'Her mother’s apple strudel recipe' by Liz Berg * 'Queen Mary’s Marmalade' by Christine Collinson * Debut Flash: 'Blank' by Izelle Du Pisanie * 'Nothing Left That Recognizes Us' by Kumar Sen * 'Dear Bunny' by Kerry Byrne * 'Someone in the playground' by Catherine O’Brien * 'Making a Margarita After Filing for Divorce' by James Montgomery * 'Bad Blood' by Alison Woodhouse * 'Fifteen Ways to Grieve your Mother' by Lee Irving * 'The Xylophonist’s Tune' by Sherry Morris * 'One for sorrow, two for joy' by Harshita Nanda * 'Dry Stone Walls' by Slawka G. Scarso * Debut Flash: 'Green' by Chris Hutchings * 'The Moths Have Been At Our Love' by Abigail Williams * '6' by Nick Black * 'Post Partum' by Damhnait Monaghan * 'Stop Wave' by Rachael Dunlop * 'Mary Randall’s Back' by Alison Wassell * 'Good Dog Above' by Ian Johnson * 'Revolutionaries' by Savera Zachariah * 'The Five Stages of Ecological Grief' by Rosaleen Lynch * 'Welcome' by Liam Hogan * Debut Flash: 'Reiki' by Anna Sweet * 'Stolen moment' by Tim Love * 'Anchor' by Rashmi Agrawal * 'What Floated Back' by Meg Pokrass * 'Telegraph' by Sharon Telfer * 'The Texan' by Bronwen Griffiths * 'Dinomum' by Zoë Davis * 'Still Life' by Nora Nadjarian * 'Mbele' by Anselm Eme * Debut Flash: 'The Visitor at Blackthorn Station' by Yolanda Lynn Sheppard * 'Three Cows: Midsummer Reflections in the Up-Meadow' by S A Greene * 'How to Prevent a Breakdown' by Katherine Garrison * 'Mr Shem' by Jude Mason * 'A Brief History of Atomic Time' by Fiona McKay * 'I Miss Smoking' by Cath Holland * 'Fingernails' by Gessica Sakamoto Martini * 'Talking About Potatoes' by Ronald J Greig * 'Magnolia' by Emily Devane * Debut Flash: 'The New Vicar' by John Keogh * 'The frequency of your life self-cleaning cycle depends on spillage and usage patterns' by Cole Beauchamp * 'Raka Is Fine Being A Flask' by Shrutidhora P Mohor * 'Reduce by Half' by Michael Murphy * 'Lipstick' by Sarah Freligh * 'Final Whistle' by Madeleine Armstrong * '15 Days Till Day-Care' by Roberta Beary * 'Sandcastles and Snowmen' by Foster Trecost * 'Flight Tourism' by Catherine Marina * Debut Flash: 'Garage Sale' by Suvarup Saha * 'Discernments' by J. Edward Kruft * 'Are We Happy Now?' by Tom O'Brien * 'On the Fifth Morning After the Timeline Rupture' by Erin Bondo * 'Choosing the Right Kitchen Tool for the End of the World' by Sara B. Fraser * 'Swimming Lesson' by Elena Zhang * 'Last Date' by Niles Reddick * 'The Real Sound of Music, Hillview Rest Home, August 1992' by Kate Axeford * 'Cheesecake Factory' by Mandy Lange * 'Lifetime' by Lisa Thornton * Debut Flash: 'Photo Day' by Joy DeSomber * 'We Stop For Turtles' by Mackenzie Kelley * 'Out of Habit' by Garima Chhikara * 'Gravity Run Amok' by Louella Lester * 'Death Is Just A Point In Space' by David Luntz * 'Nothing Bad Happens' by Emily Rinkema * 'Milo’s On Her Way' by Sarah Lynn Hurd * 'The Cat Ate the Strudel' by Zoé Mahfouz * 'Spring Sightings' by Maggie G. Daly * Debut Flash: 'gnome' by Emily Garland * 'Hothouse' by J.D. Strunk * 'It's Time' by Cally Ann Kerr * 'How to Deploy an Antimemetic Field Device: Restaurant Edition' by Chris Clemens * 'They Were the Years of Fat Water' by Myna Chang * 'Cloud 10' by Keith Woodruff * 'The Day I Finally Finished Writing My Novel' by Greg Hill * 'The Final Toll' by JP Relph * 'The Cartographer' by Shashi Kadapa * Debut Flash: 'Cityshell Resonance' by Natalie Mather * 'Brandi says the Tooth Fairy Loves Her Best' by Emma Phillips * 'Cheese Louise' by Chaz Osburn * 'A Guide to the Cretaceous Fossils of the East Norfolk Coast' by Jenny Hart * 'The Cradle Will Rock' by Mollie McLean * 'Pentecost' by Fiona J. Mackintosh * 'Trollbooth' by Stephen Connolly * '2:19 p.m.' by Chris Scott * 'Just Another Life Experience' by Jessica Klimesh * 'To Scale' by Nathan Willis * Debut Flash: 'Under the Bark' by EB Converse * 'To Lose a Body' by Thao Vu * 'January Candy' by Eileen Frankel Tomarchio * 'Midnight Market' by Tammy L. Evans * 'The New Year' by Gary Fincke * 'One Day the Horses Disappeared' by David Henson * 'Meeting Up with My Used-to-Be Best Friend at the Apple Fair in Early September' by Dawn Miller * 'Sweep It Under the Rug' by Rachel Weinhaus * 'Found Scraps of Masculinity' by Mike Keller-Wilson * Debut Flash: 'Tagalong' by L.V. Leonhard * 'Rewind, Rewind' by Linda M. Bayley * 'Chihuahua Cow' by Thad DeVassie * 'Little Mama' by Nicole Brogdon * Debut Flash: 'Unwanted Pitch' by Christian Todd * '917363' by Dan Schiff * 'Step' by Kathryn Kulpa * 'Initial Reactions' by Jane Claire Jackson * 'Schrödinger’s Marriage' by Melissa Flores Anderson * Debut Flash: 'Centaurus A' by Olivia Woodcox * 'Thaw' by Tracy Royce * 'My Neighbor is My Future' by Stephen D. Gibson * 'Ọwu Mịni Rẹma' by Meredith Chiwenkpe Asuru * 'Wrestling with Genetics' by Robert Vaughan * 'Unerasable' by Tracie Adams * 'My Sister Begs for a Canary She Won’t Even Love' by Debra A Daniel * 'Big League Chew' by Jesse Binger * 'What Is Remembered' by Patricia Bender * Debut Flash: 'Fortune Telling is a Union Job' by Gwendolyn Hanson * 'I miss my family in late afternoon' by Sarah Barbo Nielsen * 'Sweet, Ugly' by Nan Wigington * 'Organ Donor' by Peter Beynon * 'Coriolis Effect' by Mikki Aronoff * 'Nothing to speak of' by Jude Higgins * 'Night Shift' by Michael J. Ciaraldi * 'Freytag's Triangle' by Mary Guterson * 'Influencer' by R.K. West * 'Girl as a Found Shell on the Beach' by Shareen K. Murayama * Debut Flash: 'No One Will Know Unless It Takes' by Jenna Martin-Trinka * 'Cassandra said you shouldn’t make the coffee run to Bozeman today, ’cuz zombies' by Tom Walsh * 'What Is Left Behind' by Monique Cuillerier * 'Beating Odds and Keeping Time on Magnolia Street' by Jen Wyrauch Edson * 'My Absent Heart' by L. Michelle Nichols * 'The Note My Uncle Left' by Heain Joung * 'Gone, and All Forgotten' by Jon Fain * 'The Surprise Party' by Karen Crawford * 'Thank You for Calling the Thoughts and Prayers Hotline' by Shantell Powell * 'Dragonbeasts' by Alexandra Otto * Debut Flash: 'Don't write about the ceiling fan' by Anya Rosensteel * 'Barometric' by Renuka Raghavan * 'Gestalt (noun): a theory that a whole is different from and more than its disparate parts' by Rachel Abbey McCafferty * 'New Shores' by Alex Grehy

Denial: Oil Slick Spillage, Family Grade We’ve never seen the sea so flat and black. The tanker, like you, is long gone, too damaged to return. You leave our ecosystem petrified, from the drill-bits you bored us with and the crude oil fires you lit. We don’t realise, that to recover, we must decontaminate ourselves of you. Anger: Dali Bends Time For Me In the photo, I’ve no idea I’m lounging on Mae West’s lips, leather-cracked and red, eyes framed photos of Dali’s soul, Paris and Perpignon. I hold the undeveloped Polaroid, wanting to let go of reality, swearing on those lips that I’ll destroy it all, the golden-eggs, melting time, and Marilyn Monroe, until a tour-guide corrects me, a case of mistaken identity, he says. I discard the pills. There’s time to be reborn. Bargaining: Primordial Soup ‘How many times has life begun on earth?’ I ask. You answer, ‘About 117 billion times.’ I say, ‘Not human life, not homosapiens, not Adam, Eve, the snake, apple or tree, but the soup to create civilisations, that dying out imagine such myths?’ You answer, ‘So many it’s happening now.’ Depression: I Rain I rain days, flood waters carry me to land, where I lay in camouflage, run off, slip into darkness, watch sea levels rise, to take me on a wave, make me buoyant, uplifted in evaporation, to peak in condensation, head in the clouds, until once again, I rain. Acceptance: Neptune Grass My family tree is underwater, a single ancient organism, roots anchoring shoots, spreading over hectares and years, growing into seagrass meadows, floating fields of flowers, and fruit, olives of the sea, Neptune grass rising like rainforest reefs, protecting our ecosystem, birthing a future, a new reality, pollution free, for our land-bound progeny and our tiny seeds of hope. --- Rosaleen Lynch is an Irish community worker, teacher and writer in London with work selected for the Wigleaf Top 50, Best Small Fictions and Best of the Net and is currently exploring the power of stories to promote social change.

Mum has ketchup on her finger, she’s been painting on empty plates again. Bobbi and I, elbows on the table, wait for her promises to sizzle, to pop. The kitchen smells of fried and crispy nothing balls and in the TV ad some kids are licking colours, chewing Gummy Bears, their tongues all rainbowy. It’s all an illusion, this life thing, Mum says. But still. Bobbi’s eyes water, my mouth too. The plate is a pizza is a plate. The plate is a pizza and it breaks when Dad kicks the table. Mum has ketchup on her finger. --- Nora Nadjarian is a poet and writer from Cyprus. Her short fiction has been published in journals including Milk Candy Review, Ghost Parachute, Fractured Lit and was chosen for Wigleaf‘s Top 50 (selected by Kathy Fish). She placed third in the Welkin Writing Prize in 2025.

We learned to paint our mouths kissable, but were taught not to. By the parish priest, by our mothers, by Seventeen magazine. Never on the first date, never more than one boy at a time, never below the neck. We practiced on the mirror and at slumber parties. When boys scratched on the window, we giggled and shivered. Only Lana slipped out, came back smeared and tight-lipped, full up with stories she wouldn’t tell us. At school on Monday, we lipsticked the mirror in the third-floor girl’s room: LANA SUCKS. Later we all learned. Later we all did it. --- Sarah Freligh is the author of eight books, including HEREAFTER, winner of the 2024 Bath Novella-in-Flash contest, and OTHER EMERGENCIES (Moon City Press, 2025). 'Lipstick' was first published in 100-Word Story in 2021.

And one morning she has simply had enough of her life, its smallness and its hardness, and she lays down the skin she has worn like a mask for a decade and brings out from the attic the parts of herself she has almost forgotten, untouched for so long - heart marking time, eyes piercing shadows, mouth that conjures laughter like a spell - and she closes the door for the last time and looks out at the land rising up to the sky as though for the first time and the mountain shimmers and she smells rain on leaves, hears rain on leaves, tastes rain on tongue, and she shoulders her pack and doesn’t look backwards even for a moment and a bird calls like a memory and her scarf is cool against her skin and her rage at all the wasted years is hot in her cheeks and she lets it be, lets it breathe, doesn’t smother it, and she has only a little money in her pocket but she knows these woods, knew them as a child, knows them now after all and she sets her foot on the path and the mountain waits. --- Sarah McPherson loves folk tales and myths and finding the weird in the everyday. Her flash fiction has been widely published, nominated for Best Small Fictions, longlisted for the Wigleaf Top 50, and selected for Best Microfiction 2021. Find her on Bluesky as @summermoth.bsky.social or at https://theleadedwindow.blogspot.com/.

Here I am, dated and pasted between thin plastic sheets, pressed and smoothed in the red leather album from Grandma’s house. I’m the girl with the pudding bowl hair, gap-toothed, arms splayed, up against the wall where the pear tree droops. My sandals are sticky with sweet rotting fruit and the wasps are biting. I’m the girl with hyacinth eyelids, wobbly strawberry lines around my mouth, dusty pink kisses on my cheeks. Downstairs, she whacks her ruler across the back of my hands, twice. My room is out of bounds, she says, and nice girls don’t wear make up. I’m the girl on the back seat of the Zephyr 4 parked outside her front door, my Sunday dress too tight across my chest. Grandma’s cigarette is clamped tight between her lips and she’s looking elsewhere. Where’s the photograph of the raggedy lobed hawthorn and purple sloes flying past the car window and the hundredth time of my mother saying she was a kind woman, wasn’t she? Where’s the picture of Grandma’s house never smelling of bread and blackberry jam, just empty shells and a stiff north-easterly? Or the shoreline where I walk, smoking in quick inhalations like a beached fish gulps air. I hang back as our little family tramps up the gravel path to St. Botolphs, but there’s no photograph of me sucking blood from my thumb, ravenous. Are you alright, my mother asks, but maybe not then, maybe much, much later. When they finish lowering Grandma into the freshly dug hole, I step to the precipice, turn out my pockets. Shell shards tumble and so do my cigarettes but no one sees, they’re too busy slinging mud. I don’t cry, oh no, not until Mother’s thin arms lasso me, and then I am gasping. --- Alison Woodhouse is a writer and teacher of short fiction. Her debut novella, The House on the Corner, is published by Ad Hoc Fiction and her collection of short fiction, Family Frames, is published by V Press.