Sex, death and a snake in the grass: 19 linked short stories, fiction for the Internet. Read in narrative sequence using the left-hand menu or follow characters through the in-page links
14
The adder spat and cursed as it wound heavily away into the ditch. Laura stood stock still, her heart recovering only slowly.
She'd simply failed to see anything out of the ordinary. Wandering along the edge of the field, her head had been full of moonshine and sandalwood.
'Why?' she'd been thinking. 'Why was she so useless with men?
Her love life was a litany of disasters, a long line of unsuitable blokes, ever since Jake. Jake was probably the worst thing that had ever happened to her. But also the best. The excitement he created in her was so strong sometimes it was enough to make her forget his selfishness.
And now Paul, he ...
Then the flash of danger in her mind, her heart suddenly alive and her ears buzzing. She'd seen it in the split second before it happened: her foot descending toward the thick, diamond-striped body. But she was powerless to stop it.
She didn't scream straight away, She screamed only when she looked down at her feet and saw the new hole in the calf of her Wellington boots and realised how close she had come.
***
'Laura,' said Paul with some surprise.
'Paul, thank God. I've - that is.'
Paul stepped forward, pulling the door to behind him. 'Are you ok, Laura?'
She looked at him, collected herself.
'Thing is,' Paul said, his eyes glittering.
'Oh, no. I'll. Sorry. I'll ... call you, later.
'Good, good,'
'See you then.'
'Yes,' he said, and then he turned and went back into the house.
After a moment she walked away, her cheeks flaming. Perhaps she had overreacted.
It was only a snake, after all.
