I’as born in the scrub forests of eastern Oklahoma and passed time roothoggin’ through the leaf mold, searching for the small and tasty bugs that lived there. All things told, I enjoyed myself. Memaw Snake raised me up, ma Snake havin’ met her end by a cat with a passel of kittens to feed and Pa Snake found the sharp end of a garden hoe when he went investigatin’ a bean patch. I hear tell that Pawpa Snake is still alive, havin’ run off with a lady ringneck snake and livin’ cross the border in Arkansas. ‘Tennyroad, it were just me and Memaw.
I’as feeling mighty blue the day my adventure began. Old Memaw, she had refused to even meet my latest love and had slithered off to count her scales under an old rotted log. My own lady love, she slithered off, tongue flickering in aggravation. On my own, I hightailed it over the nearest hill, fixing to see why Memaw had tol’ me never go there.
It was a long slither and I was mighty tired when I finally arrived. The whole place stank of danger: birds, rats, bigger snakes, cats, sharp hooved horses. And worst of all, people. People was the worst. If’n they weren’t grabbin' you up in their sweaty, stinken hands, they were whacking you with a garden hoe. MeMaw had been tellin’ it straight. This was no place for a country snake.
I determined to slither home, but the sun was goin’ down and I was getting’ mighty cold. Tomorrow, I’d head for home fast as my belly scales could carry e. I slithered into a tiny crack in a big ol hay bale, figuring to be safe from cats and rats and then I fell fast to sleep. I’as still asleep when someone swung the hay bale high up and into a horse trailer, me long with it. And then, all I knew and held dear was gone.
Come time I warmed up enough to look around, I been throwd in the feed bin of the horse trailer, Great rubbery lips sifted through the hay. I slithered out of the way just as those big ol yeller teeth ate the hay I’d been hiding in. The horse sneezed all over me and I commenced to feelin’ blue, what with bein’ slimy and bein’ scart.
Finally, the rumblin’ stopped and a hand reached into the trailer feed bin. I laid flat, fakin’ at bein’ a blade of hay. Musta worked ‘cause next thing I knowed, it’as all quiet. I slithered out the feed bin and fell to the floor. I scooted around a big steamy pile of horse hockey, checking for flies or something I could catch. I found a hidey hole and slithered through it to, well, let’s us just say I weren’t in Oklahoma nomore. Even the air tasted wrong and there was honest-to-goodness dirt, not nice soft leaf mold under my belly scales.
There was not even a hint of snakes round me. I tested the air hard, feelin’ extra blue. I coiled up into a knot, ‘membering my Memaw and how soft her scales were as she wrapped ‘round me in the winter. If’n only snakes could cry or even close my eyes ‘gainst this terrible new world I found myself in.
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