ELIZABETH ROBERTSON LAYTIN

FICTION: SHORT STORIES

Brown Sugar
The house where I live is deep in the woods. The driveway is overgrown with moss. A defiant mushroom has pushed up through the tar where the drive meets the street.  How its roots wound their way under and up, I cannot imagine.  It is ready to pick, or poison.

The flutter of wings startles me, and a red-tailed hawk lands on a branch of the tree to my left. I wait to see if he sees me. His chest is puffed forward, and his head is still, but his eyes blink lazily. I stand still, to see what he will do next. His wings are partly outstretched when he falls, dips, and rises to land on an evergreen to my right.

“Hi, Dad,” I say. There is a look of recognition, as he winks, or perhaps that is what I see, not what happens. As then he is up, flying, the gold tail-feathers flashing in the sun.

“Winner Elizabeth Laytin’s Black Sugar is a meditation on a subject
  Frank McCourt explored: Heading away from home to figure out
  one’s life.”
                                               —LOU ANN WALKER, Editor-in-Chief

“We fell in love with your poetic descriptions, and the unique story
  you tell elevated your essay above the rest.”  
                                                                                      
—EMILY GILBERT, Editor

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  © Elizabeth Robertson Laytin, 2017

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