Ms. Snake

I'm choking in the park and my family is watching intently with fascination. I'm choking just like the snake on the side of the trail in Ridley Creek State Park. It's the voyeurism of academia. I'm choking like the frog that is being swallowed to an audience. His fat bulbous body being crushed with every pulsating throb of the snake's narrow frame. It's a treat to see nature this up, close and intimate. The predator plans to consume the animal into dust but overestimates her winnings. They're beyond her means. An error in width and depth, not to mention the snakes own spatial awareness has brought us to this moment of existential regurgitation. A vision of a gruesome end wherein her belly splits open and oozes from her scaly body, left to congeal on the side of the road. I want to walk ahead, continue on with our afternoon hike. It's the weekend and there are a lot of people in Ridley Creek whizzing by on their routine run or their bike ride of rare occurrence, but people start stopping to look at the macabre scene unfolding in the dappled waning sunlight, lazily whirring around snake and frog like a mocking spotlight, subject to the whim of every slightest breeze. Then diluted like nectar, I lose the thought until I can't remember a shred of what was once there, just the residue of sawdust and smell of heat and raw wood in the air. My connection to the portal is severed by the glass piece that pokes through the trash bag as I'm walking it out to the street. Its belly splayed all over the sidewalk and busy street.