The Snake
By D. Dina Friedman
There was outside and there was inside, but the trees outside cast shadows with their scary arms. Joy knew it was better to be inside reading in the orange armchair, next to the clock that didn’t work, its black serif numbers mummified in the varnished wood. To know the time, Joy had to lift herself and walk to the kitchen clock, which had slashes for numbers and a red second hand that paused between each click. Outside had no clock at all. Outside had heat and poison ivy. Joy didn’t know the names of plants, so poison ivy looked only like something green in a field of green things, gestured to by her parents as forbidden woods. In their long-winded warning, Joy only heard the word poison, a word she knew meant certain death.
Joy’s brother, Damian, chose outside over inside because he didn’t like to read. Letters wriggled in his brain, refusing to stay in their normal patterns. But Joy’s parents stayed in their normal patterns, which meant they stayed inside, where the air was heavy and stale. Since Joy and Damian and their parents came from the city, where both the inside and outside air were stale, no one noticed the invisible fog of molecules that hung like a germ factory in the making if any of them might be sick, though luckily, none of them were. Joy let herself be swallowed by the armchair as she read about how Nancy Drew cracked codes to solve the mystery of clocks. She read for hours, only knowing she’d been reading for hours when she checked the time on the kitchen clock and saw that her parents and grandfather had already gathered for soda and cocktails on the screen porch, a place that wasn’t outside or inside, though it felt more like inside because it had walls and a door.
Joy put down her mystery and joined her family on the screen porch, just as Damian opened the door and came inside. They drank orange soda and ate potato chips. Damian got wild from too much orange soda, so Joy’s parents sent him outside and warned him to stay away from the poison ivy. Marie-Thérèse brought everyone else another drink. Joy didn’t know who Marie-Thérèse was. She was just Marie-Thérèse and she had always been there. Joy’s parents said Marie-Thérèse was there to take care of her grandfather, but they only spoke to her grandfather, leaving Marie-Thérèse alone in the corner of the screen porch, her large shoulders bent over her cocktail.
Damian shouted from outside, “A snake!”
Joy’s parents put down their cocktails and hurried outside. Joy followed, her legs pushing through grass that came up to her knees. When she looked up, she saw a new swing hanging from one of the scary trees—an unpainted wooden board on chains. Joy raised herself onto the swing. “Push me!” she shouted to her parents, but they were across the field with Damian, looking for the snake.
“It’s a rattlesnake!” From across the field, Joy could see Damian’s grin, his missing front teeth. “It’s long and black and it was right there wriggling in the grass.”
Joy’s mother told Damian it couldn’t be a rattlesnake because rattlesnakes weren’t black. Joy thought it must be a poisonous snake because of the poison ivy. She looked down to make sure her feet wouldn’t scrape the ground, and something black shot through the grass.
“The snake’s here!” She jumped up to stand on the swing, in case it reared its ugly head like the cobras she’d seen on cartoons.
Joy’s parents came running, but by the time they got to the spot, the snake was gone.
“Push me!” Joy yelled, righting herself as the swing listed.
Joy’s parents ignored her and continued to walk through the parted grass, searching for the snake. But Marie-Thérèse opened the door and marched outside to the swing. Marie-Thérèse was tall with big muscles that she got from milking cows in Quebec, even though she was old now, with wispy gray hair and blotchy skin. With her long arms, she reached up and pulled the swing farther and farther back, catapulting it toward the pink edge of the setting sun. Joy gripped the chain. The board began to tilt under her feet, and as if she were an enchanted bird, she lost the chain and flew, then thudded down on something squishy, which darted out beneath her.
The snake.
“Lie still!” Her mother placed a hand on Joy’s shoulder, pressing her into the grass. “You hit your head! Lie still!”
“How many fingers do you see?” Her father held up two blurry ones, then three.
“The snake went over there, into the poison ivy.”
Damian giggled so hard, he drooled. He jumped up and down. “It’s a rattlesnake!”
Joy squinted at the figures hovering around her, silhouettes in the setting sun. Her father, her mother, and Damian. Marie-Thérèse was gone.
Her mother said, “If you’re not dizzy, you can get up now and go inside.” So Joy and her family went inside and sat down with her grandfather at the dinner table. Marie-Thérèse brought out a platter of meat and roasted potatoes with string beans, and a bowl of pale applesauce for dessert.
After dinner, Marie-Thérèse washed the dishes and ate alone in the kitchen. Joy’s grandfather went outside with a flashlight to put the board of the swing back on the chain. Joy’s parents sat on the screen porch, working on a crossword puzzle. Damian lay down on the floor next to the armchair, surrounding himself with pieces of plastic railroad tracks. He rocked back and forth, mumbling to himself. When Joy asked him what he was doing, he told her he was talking to the snake and the snake was God. Joy ignored him. She sat in the armchair with Nancy Drew, determined to finish the mystery.
D. Dina Friedman has published widely in literary journals (including The Sun, Aji, Hawaii Pacific Review, Cold Mountain Review, Calyx, Common Ground Review, Lilith, Negative Capability, Rhino, New Plains Review, Steam Ticket, Bloodroot, Inkwell, Pacific Poetry and Fiction Review, Tsunami, Jewish Currents, Anderbo, San Pedro River Review and Mount Hope) and received two Pushcart Prize nominations for poetry and fiction. Dina has also published one book of poetry, Wolf in the Suitcase (Finishing Line Press) and two young adult novels. Escaping Into the Night (Simon and Schuster) was recognized as a Notable Book for Older Readers by the Association of Jewish Libraries, and a Best Books for Young Adults nominee by the American Library Association. Playing Dad’s Song (Farrar Straus Giroux) was recognized as a Bank Street College of Education Best Book. She has an MFA from Lesley University and teaches at the University of Massachusetts/Amherst.