Shortlist – 2026 Gooseberry Pie Writing Competition
by Suzanne Hicks
He thought he was alone until he was startled by a small child looking up at him wide-eyed, staring into his glowing red orbs, his towering dark frame casting a foretelling shadow over the human.
But Mothman didn’t know if it was just his presence that brought tragedy to people near him or if he had to be observed by them, so he quickly darted into the air to hide in the foliage of the trees, and watched the girl frantically looking around, unable to spot the creature that had stood before her, then slowly walking backwards while staring up at the sky, tripping on uneven ground, and landing on her back, her head narrowly missing a jagged rock that stuck out of the ground.
She meandered back towards a white farmhouse in the distance, hurrying along after a voice called out to her from the porch, and single bee buzzed around her head as she tried to shoo it away with her hands before it landed on her cheek, but instead of piercing her skin with its stinger, it simply paused there briefly before flying away.
As the girl got closer to the house, a snake slithered out of the nearby creek, through the tall grass, steadily towards her, its diamond-shaped head pointed in the direction of her feet, but just before they would meet, it changed direction to wriggle east as the she continued north toward a picnic table that sat just next to the house.
Mothman watched people bring casserole dishes outside, placing them on the picnic table, spooning food onto the girl’s plate, how they laughed and smiled, how after they ate one of them patted their belly before helping to clear the table, and as went inside the house together, the girl glanced back at the tree line where Mothman perched, hidden among the leaves, and waved before turning to go in.
Through a window he could see the people sitting around a fireplace that he watched until the flame burned out, his gaze fixed until all the windows went dark, long into the night as he inhaled the scent of dew on grass, traced fireflies sparkling around, listened to crickets sing, wanting it to never end.
Suzanne Hicks is a disabled writer living with multiple sclerosis. Her work appears in matchbook, Bending Genres, Milk Candy Review, and others. Her stories have been selected for Best Microfiction and the Wigleaf Longlist. Read more at suzannehickswrites.com.
Photo by Nana Nakazwe on Unsplash
