Looking for Beauty, Looking for Bigfoot - two new flash fiction stories

Two interesting short – one is very short – flash fiction stories for you now. Both involve men searching for something elusive – and in the process missing something more important. 

Our first story – The Bigfoot Hunter – is by Christopher DeWan. He is author of the book Work and Other Essays, and has published over 30 stories in journals including A cappella Zoo, Bartleby Snopes, DOGZPLOT, Jersey Devil Press, JMWW, Juked, Necessary Fiction, and wigleaf. His fiction has been nominated twice for the Pushcart Prize and you can find him at http://christopherdewan.com

Then we have The Collector by Suzanne Conboy-Hill, a British writer "with no genre allegiance". Her flash fiction and short stories have been published by Fine Linen Literary Journal, Full of Crow, Zouch Magazine, and Cut A Long Story amongst others. She was a finalist in the Lascaux Short Fiction Prize 2014 and she once met Isaac Asimov and can be found at http://www.conboy-hill.co.uk


The Bigfoot Hunter
by Christopher DeWan


There’s a Bigfoot hunter in the woods, stooped over what he thinks might be a footprint in the mud. He kneels and squints at his tape measure. He’s looking for proof. He’s been days tracking, making his way up the Duwamish River estuary and through to the watershed at Kanaskat, alongside cliff faces carved out, the hunter knows, by the Cordilleran Ice Sheet, 15,000 years ago. He’s deep in the heart of what was once Salish country – the Salish, who were well acquainted with his famous, elusive quarry: they called it Sasq’ets the Big Man of the Mountain – Sasquatch – and they saw what the hunter himself cannot see:

That while he crouches in the mud, measuring the indefinite imprint, assessing, cataloging, labeling, he himself is at the center of a valley of rock, hundreds of feet deep, thousands of years old, its walls carved out by ancient violence, magma flowing under its skin, and shaped—though he cannot make this out from his vantage—exactly like a human foot, arched, five toes, and bigger, older, more colossal, more magnificent, more dreadful than the man can possibly imagine.  



The Collector
by Suzanne Conboy-Hill


‘Only Art is immortal,’ she says, her arms umber-stippled ribbons, lithe in the firelight. ‘Humans are not.’ Alia dances with cognisance, knowing every fluid move and bringing each one to him where he sits, red and heavy, in the warm desert sand.

‘My passion is immortal,’ he says to her. But he is a collector and he is thinking of how appreciative his friends will be of her exoticism. She will dance for them and their eyes will glow hot under the cold northern skies.

She makes an ululation, ‘Humans grow old and they die,’ she sings. Her words are bells somewhere within him, drawing together the scent of the smoke from the men’s pipes, the bitter taste of the coffee on his tongue, and the pungency of the pack animals nearby. She is exquisite; he has bought her; he will take her home.

‘There is another thing.’ An older man, his breath smelling of liquorice, brings his face close so that his iron beard almost brushes the other man’s sgraffito complexion.

‘I have paid,’ the collector replies, ‘the contract is signed.’ He slides a slow blink.

‘A small ritual; our custom.’ The old man inclines his head, smiles and weaves deference into the air with his hands. ‘You will come?’

The night is filled with the heaviness of desert scents and the collector’s mind with thoughts of Alia dancing to command. ‘As you wish,’ he agrees. So he, the old man, and Alia move away from the fire to a small tent; low hanging, tasselled, and lit with oil lamps. A bowl deep with henna sits in the centre and hollow brown pens surround it. A tattoo, he thinks. Well that can easily be removed.

But it is not for him. Alia turns away, letting her tunic fall to her waist, and now he sees that she is the embodiment of fine design – brown on gold, darker on dark, curving with her curves and extending tempting tendrils beyond the soft folds of her robe.

‘Your likeness will appear here.’ The old man indicates virgin skin towards the centre of Alia’s spine and the collector leans close to look, excited by the intimacy of it. As he does, faint lines begin to appear – an outline, some shading – but with no stylus supplying the ink. He sits back: the drumming outside, the smoke, the spiced coffee – those things, he thinks, are playing tricks. He leans forward again, and now he notices human forms in the patterning. They are beautiful, but as he watches there is movement: eyes pleading, hands reaching out. Fear catches him and he sweats. Trickles of rose pigment erupt from his pores and fade to blush in salty streams, draining down from pastel shoulders, and bleaching the faint ink sketch that he is becoming until it holds nothing of him.

The new eyes on Alia’s back deepen and plead. ‘I told you,’ she says, ‘only Art is immortal.’