My brother\u2019s in the field with the snakes. I kicked up dirt chasing after him, but now I hesitate at the edge. He\u2019s jubilant. The sun crests over him. I watch the brown-gray body as it shifts tall grass. The raised head. Dad\u2019s on the porch with a gun in his pocket and whiskey riding his breath. He tells me to go on already\u2014the field is safe.<\/p>\n
I step in. Walk, then run, though the grass won\u2019t bend way for me like it does my brother. I pretend at being carefree, but the sun bothers my eyes. I worry about what I can\u2019t see.<\/p>\n
When the snake sinks its teeth into my brother\u2019s foot, he doesn\u2019t make a sound of protest. He yanks it out barehanded. Later, I\u2019ll admire him for acting through the pain. I\u2019ll consider him brave. I won\u2019t question the instinct to repress.<\/p>\n
Dad bulls through the field. His pistol\u2019s in his hand. The gunshot is both too loud and too quiet. My ears ring. My brother flinches. The snake\u2019s body ceases. Its blood spills into the field. At night, I\u2019ll dream of snakes bathing in sun.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The sun crests over him. I watch the brown-gray body as it shifts tall grass. The raised head. Dad\u2019s on the porch with a gun in his pocket and whiskey riding his breath. He tells me to go on already\u2014the field is safe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":182,"featured_media":25575,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3530],"tags":[1201,851,4990,1596],"class_list":["post-24688","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-flash-fiction","tag-boy","tag-father","tag-sister","tag-snake","writer-haley-souders"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24688","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/182"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24688"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24688\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25574,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24688\/revisions\/25574"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25575"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24688"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24688"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24688"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}