Shortlist – 2026 Gooseberry Pie Annual Writing Competition
by Claudia Monpere
Crossing the street, you see the eye is taller than you with huge, ropey, red veins and a cold, blue iris that follows you wherever you go, and this makes you so anxious that back home the blender jar slips out of your hand and shatters as you’re pouring your strawberry smoothie, the only thing you can almost taste since you lost your sense of smell and taste during Covid two years ago, and a shard slices your bare foot, and after bandaging the wound, sweeping away broken glass, and wolfing down toast you cannot taste, your junker car gets a flat on the way to work. You can’t loosen the rusted lug nuts and Roadside Service comes and says your spare is a donut, good for only 50 miles and you wonder how the hell you’ll get the money for new tires, the other three almost bald, and although you texted why you’re late, you know the assistant manager, in charge while the manager is in hospital, will hold this against you, this woman who somehow knows that you bullshitted your way into this job as a clerk at Psychic Light, you a skeptic of chakra cleansing, tarot readings, healing crystals, spells. The assistant manager oozes sweetness as she sits you down, gives you lavender tea, grasps your hands and says “Brightest blessings,” then fires you because you don’t fit the store’s vibe, and you imagine gouging her pale hands with aragonite star clusters, but instead drive past the liquor store five times, call your sponsor who doesn’t answer, go in and buy a bottle of Vodka, congratulating yourself that it’s a pint, not a liter. At home checking the mail you discover a credit card bill for $3,800, and you realize your father took out another credit card in your name, and you wonder what’s the point of being eight months sober, and the giant eye watches as you stand in the window cradling the Vodka when the phone rings, and your caseworker tells you that your request for an unsupervised visit with your little girl has been granted, and she asks if next Wednesday 4:00-5:00 pm will work, and after you say yes, voice drenched in gratitude, you walk the vodka over to the giant eye, emptying it into the soil. “Thank you,” you tell the eye. The eye blinks, and you blink back.
Claudia received the 2024 New Flash Fiction Prize and the Genre Flash Fiction Prize from Uncharted. Stories in Best Small Fictions 2024 and 2025 and Best Microfiction 2025 and 2026. Her collection, The Periodic Family, is forthcoming: Cowboy Jamboree Press.
Photo by Cole Parks on Unsplash
