My Best Friend, the Sasquatch

A tale of interspecies friendship

Gibberish: Flash Fiction Friday - Mercy

July 11, 2025

Scoot’s Assignment: Write about a new discovery, with “devastating recency,” a character who feels behind, and the phrase, “have mercy on me.”

Photo by Debra Manny Mosley on Unsplash

My Best Friend, the Sasquatch

I’ve always been a bit slow, falling behind in my schoolwork, always being chosen last for team games, lagging way behind my classmates on field trips. But, given enough time, I always get where I’m going, eventually.

That’s how I met my best friend, Yowie, in fact, when I’d lost sight of the tour group during a class trip to the Mount Washington Observatory. While my classmates searched for souvenirs in the gift shop, I noticed a cat prowling near the edge of the public areas. I liked cats more than souvenirs, so I set off to see if I could introduce myself. The cat saw me, but was mischievous, and started playing a game of hide-and-seek with me, leading me on and on into the scrub forest of twisted, stunted trees. Finally he stopped and allowed me to pick him up. As I petted his soft grey fur, I realized that he was Nimbus, the Observatory’s mascot. But as the purring furball snuggled into my arms, I realized something else: I was lost and it was getting dark… and cold. And then I remembered one of the things that that I’d learned during the tour: That it gets very cold very quickly on the summit, and people can freeze to death, even during the summer. Just last August, a hiker died a half mile below the summit. Old timey stories of dangerous weather conditions are kind of entertaining, in a ghost-storyish kind of way, but the devastating recency of last year’s death chilled me even more than the freezing wind. I was very inappropriately dressed in bluejeans and a T-shirt. I was in trouble.

Nimbus didn’t seen at all worried, though. In fact, he leaped from my arms and seemed to want to continue his strange game of follow-the-leader. Not wanting to lose sight of my last connection to the normal world, I followed Nimbus deeper into the forest, until we came to a cave. He led me over the threshold, and there, sitting on a stone towards the back of the cave, was a giant, furry creature, who looked a lot like Chewbacca in Star Wars. But as it turned out, he wasn’t a wookiee, but a sasquatch. This was to be my first introduction to the not-so-mythical big foot species.

“Hey, Nimbus, good to see you!” The sasquatch peered towards the cave entrance and spotted me. “Come on in out of the cold, Girlie, I won’t hurt ya. Come in, come in, there’s some nice, hot stew awaiting. You look like you could use a little warming up.”

Nimbus was busy twining himself around the creature’s legs and purring up a storm, so I knew it must be okay. I tentatively stepped into the cave. The sasquatch held out a huge, furry paw. “I’m known as Yowie. Nice to meet ya!”

I extended my own hand and we shook. “I’m Sally. Nice to meet you, too!”

Yowie wrapped me in old clothing that had been discarded on the trails - they were ratty and ragged, but warm - and he handed me a big bowl of hot stew. We talked all night, with Nimbus splitting his cuddle time between us. By morning, we’d all become fast friends. I walked back up to the Observatory in the morning, carrying Nimbus. The lab workers all assumed that I’d rescused their cat and were so overjoyed by his return that my twelve hour disappearance caused no repercussions.

After that night, I spent as much time hanging out with Yowie as possible, getting summer jobs in Bretton Woods to earn my room and board and spending all my free time hiking the Mount with Yowie. By the time I hit high school, I knew that I wanted to live and work on the Summit, so I buckled down on my science classes. I majored in science education at UNH, taking time off for internships on the Summit - they had a cool plan that gave me one free week every month to spend with Yowie and UNH gave me credits for the work. After seeing my cheery face for months on end every year for over a decade, I figured I was a shoo-in for a job, but competition was fierce, and I was behind once again. I wasn’t hired. I begged, but they refused to take mercy on me. Apparently I wasn’t “professional” enough. I ran sobbing from the Summit.

Yowie found me crying in his cave. “Sally, what’s wrong?” After I explained, he looked thoughtful. “So why do you want the job? For the money?”

“I need a job so I can be up here with you,” I wailed. But then I stopped and thought a second. I actually didn’t need a job to be here. I could just live here! People throw out a lot of useful stuff that I could scavenge, and Yowie was awesome at hunting and gathering. I could easily make what little money I needed from occasionally guiding hikers on the trails. I smiled at my new discovery.

Yowie saw my face and read me like a book. “So you figured it out, Kid, eh? Welcome aboard! Let’s work on modifying this cave to give you a mite of privacy then, shall we?”

And so we lived our lives together, on the mountain we loved. And we were happy.

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