In the Path

Dispatch 3

My heart is in my throat. My pulse is racing. Sweat on my brow.

I’ve tried to curb these feelings. What are they anyway? Some instinct carried over from an ancestor so far back they are not even a name on my genealogy chart? I hope it served them well.

If the snake feels the same about me, it gives no sign. It just lies there in the path ahead, stock still and unmoving.

We share a moment, this baby snake and I. It is nearly a foot long and its coloring blends so well with the ground that I am almost on it before I realize it is there. My foot is in the air. The snake does not move.

Even in my fear my mind races. What is life like at that scale? What is the view from an inch above the ground? Does the snake wonder what life is like five feet up? Probably not. What are feet to snakes?

Then it snaps. My foot lands just behind the snake’s tiny rattles. I take another step, then another. I try to slow myself but flight has already taken over. My heart returns to my chest. My pulse settles.

The snake becomes a memory.

A little later, on my way back up the path, it is gone. I keep walking.

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