Soldiering On

by Gabriella Brand

Years ago, she would have screamed. Hit it with a rock, the edge of a hoe. Killed it, if she could have, because life hadn’t yet mellowed her.
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Now she just stared at the young, coiled snake that had surprised her in the garden. She had lifted up a cinder block that had fallen off the fire pit—and there it was, pale khaki with thin blue-green stripes, like a military uniform.
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She waited for it to slither away. But it didn’t. Fear glued it to the earth.

She stood there for a little while letting awe creep over her.

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Gabriella Brand’s fiction, poetry and essays have appeared in such publications as The Citron Review, Vita Poetica, Shiuli (India) and Room. She is a Pushcart Prize nominee. Gabriella teaches French and writing in the OLLI program at the University of Connecticut. 

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