Haveubeenflashed Instant

Three dots appear. Disappear. Reappear.

I pull the curtains shut. But the flash is already inside me. It always was.

Last week, I’d been walking home through the underpass when a flicker—no, not a flicker, a strobe —painted the concrete walls in negative. A man in a reflective vest was adjusting a floor lamp on a tripod. “Streetlight maintenance,” he’d said without looking up. But streetlights don’t hum at 19,000 hertz. And maintenance men don’t vanish when you blink. HaveUbeenFlashed

The phone buzzes again. Same friend: “Seriously. The app. It’s fun.”

I don’t click it. I don’t have to. Because I just remembered something I never lived: standing in a white room, countdown from ten, a needle on my skin. A voice asking, “Have you been flashed?” And me replying, “Not yet.” Three dots appear

Outside my window, the streetlight flickers once. Twice. A rhythm I’ve heard before—in a dream, in a warning, in the space between heartbeats.

I type back: “Define ‘flashed.’” I pull the curtains shut

Then a video link. No preview. Just a black square and the words: “You already know the answer.”