BIG FOOT by Linda Hibbin

Twenty-four hours ago, curled in a gloomy retreat, the colony mindlessly awaited dusk.

Suddenly, their world lurched, flipped over to face the sun, and moist muscles hissed as the settlers were picked off and flung into the wasteland.

One had been overlooked, and when the sky pivoted and the moon replaced the sun, it peered out from the safety of home before emerging and slipping into the shadows.

Sensing nearby foliage, it set foot along familiar trails, guided by the vibrations of the ‘unch-unch-unch’ of others bingeing beneath the stars. Inching around obstacles, its peepers pivoting and probing for predators. Silently, slowly, slithering across rough concrete.

Today—

Shattered shell.

Foot note

In a room, in a room, in a room deadened of sound, can be heard the amplified ‘unch-unch’ of the creature’s 2,640 teeth and ‘hiss-ss’ as it shrinks back home. Nature’s concerto.

The lubricated muscular foot does the 🎵 loco-motion 🎶 one meter an hour (give or take), and acceptable to those of us accused of moving at a snail’s pace.

Two brain cells and two pairs of olfactory organs .… to see … to smell … to taste, and, as to the begetting? Let’s be honest, who hasn’t experienced during romantic 💕 liaisons, basic animal magnetism? Even snails in ‘lurve’ experience an electric-current-like-telepathic-link that pulsates along a transparent thread connecting them.

The Heavenly Designer created the Golden Spiral in the creature’s shell. The same, mathematically, as the spiral in the Milky Way Galaxy; the same, mathematically, as the spirals in our DNA; the same ratio in music that transcends cultures around the world.

However, the final details in His creation of the snail were slipshod. The creature is near-sighted and unaware of the bigger picture.

So, take care where you set foot.

Linda began writing in 2020 when she joined online WEA creative writing courses. She is an artist and, in her ‘golden years’, has discovered the magic of painting pictures with words, creating colourful characters, and disappearing into imaginary worlds. She enjoys writing quirky fiction reflecting comical observations of herself and the world around her but also relates stories she hopes will touch the reader’s heart. Linda recently won 1st prizes in the Pen to Print Short Story competition, the Worcester LitFest Flash Fiction Competition, and was a finalist in the Oxford Flash fiction Winter 2024 Competition. 

linda_my_words

Photo by amirali mirhashemian on Unsplash

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