Short Fiction: Pique

“'Why insects?' you asked one day. I didn’t know what to say—maybe because the world underestimated them, dismissed them as pests or parasites. They deserved better. “Do you see yourself in them?”

By Charlotte Gutzmer,

The needle sinks into the mounting board hot and precise as a bullet. I am slow and gentle when I fix the wing down with glass sheets. It is a deliberate thing, pinning an insect—one summer night you called it an obsession, but I think it’s part faith, part practice. This is not fanaticism. This is art.

You float behind my shoulder a…