COUNTDOWN TO EXTINCTION #23, Today On KOOP Radio

You Know You Can't Be Still

OVER YOU

While convalescing in bed there was a knock at the door.  I ignored it, as you do, but the knocking persisted.

It was the model.  She told me there was a snake in my yard.  Her man had attacked it with a rake and it slithered under my gate.  I met them at the fence line and he told me it was behind the tool caddy, where Hank goes for his naps.

I peered behind the caddy and sure enough, there it was, long and laying there, its tongue out and staring at me.  It heaved in and out and kept its eyes dead on me as it caught its breath.

“It’s just tired.”  I spoke in their direction, aiming my voice somewhere over the fence.  I was winded too.

My vision dimmed and went weak.  I stood up to face them; they were just shapes and colors.  The yard was bright, too bright, the light and the air.  I felt my pulse slow and my blood run cold.  

“I appreciate it," I said to the fence and slid closed the glass doors.  I drew the blinds and cranked the thermostat down low.  Opened the fridge and basked in the pale cool light.  I pulled a hard boiled egg from a ceramic bowl and swallowed it whole.

The AC came on behind me.  I heard the floorboards tremor, the evaporator coil rattle. Every whir of the fan motor.  I crawled back to bed and lay there, head to feet, writhing in a still and molting sleep.