Ghoulington's Poetry Book

"The Garter Snake"

12/30/22

2:30 AM

In the grass, garter snakes like to hide and wait for unsuspecting insects and tiny tiny rodents to feed upon, swallowing them whole and destroying them as they pass through their long skinny bodies.

Snakes are admirable in this way, how they don't even chew their food before disintegrating them in all their bones, fur, eyes, flesh, and teeth. I suppose that's why I've always taken a liking to owls too, only they know when to spit up things they can't stomach.

My father and I used to walk in the tallgrass by the part of the yard that used to be a swamp but has since dried in the years I've learned to grow up; Perhaps a metaphor for the death of my childhood.

We'd sweep the grass with our muddied feet and searched the ground for any of those unsuspecting garter snakes that came out in the early evening after we had tired out our patience with fishing and catching nothing but one of two sunnies in the part of the river I had affectionately named 'the sunnyside rocks'.

The snakes would be warming their cold-blooded scales in the last few hours of the sun until they slithered back into the sawgrass for the night to hunt and disintegrate those tiny tiny rodents and insects.

My father and I rarely ever found any snakes, especially in the later years when life became utterly insufferable and death-like, but there were those rare moments when there would be a sudden movement by his feet, and he'd reach down and pick the wily snake up by its thin tail as it tried to reach up to bite him, reasonably so.

He'd then pinch its head between his thumb and forefinger to hold it still enough that it wouldn't hurt anyone, or at least, anyone important. Its tail would whip wildly as it struggled hopelessly against a giant, but the predator had become the prey once more, and how pathetic of it to think it ever had the chance of escape.

I'd pet the snake's skin and would always somehow be surprised that it was dry and smooth as if I had never pet one before, and it'd only be a minute before the snake was released from the hands of its death and slithered away into the safety of the sawgrass and ragweed that I was (and still am) allergic to.

For my dad and I, it was another day, another evening of just us together because no one else in my family cared for the outdoors like we did, and I don't blame them because I would always come back with my ankles and feet bit to Hell by mosquitos and the likes that loved to reside in the what-used-to-be swamp. Usually, the bats would take care of them, but they had been wiped out by some virus not too long before.

To the snake, though, it truly was a brush with death.

It knew now what it was like to stare into the eyes of a new God, one with greying blonde hair, and what it was like to be touched by his messenger, the angel of death. Her fingers were soft and smelled of river water and blood, her hair the picture of childish freedom, no strand yet burned by the hot iron of illness and pain.

The garter's heart was surely beating out of its brittle ribs, and if snakes that wild and undomesticated had emotions, it was probably shaking in its scales, counting its blessing that someone or something out there had been watching over it that day.

How rude it was of me to disturb such a simple and harmless creature simply for the pleasure of looking at them and prodding their feeble body. Its crime was nothing but being in the wrong place at the wrong time, which was no fault of its own.

Its life had changed within the blink of one of its beady oil-drop eyes while we walked away without a second thought.

It would eventually forget the fear of today, tomorrow, though, and the fear of yesterday will soon be a distant memory. It will no longer remember what the hand of God and his angel felt like and will forever continue to hunt for insects and tiny tiny rodents to destroy in the oblong pit of its belly until the true messenger of death came for it.

I know I am the giant, the predator, the God, the angel of death; I have lived long enough to know that my hands are not un-sooted and clean for they still smell of river water and blood, but sometimes I can't help but feel like the snake;

A poor helpless creature who is reminded daily that she is not invincible, that she can and will die on any given day. It may be from the illness that has stroked her scales countless times just to see how they feel, or the bare muddy foot that could have crushed her had she not noticed the looming shadow of it in the evening sun, or from the off chance that she's swooped up by the talons of her favorite owl, the one she hears calling to no one in particular in the middle of the night as she struggles to survive on what little she has left in her stomach.

I am just a garter snake that a curious child has picked up, and I will always remember the gentle way she put me back down and waved goodbye.