Snake-Eater

by T. Kingfisher

Selena believed, with every fiber of her being, that a person’s worth was not defined by how hard they worked or how productive they managed to be. She also believed just as strongly that this did not apply to her.

“I don’t think this is big enough for two of us,” said Selena. It wasn’t a terribly small bed—you could fit two people on it—but Copper was a master of the canine art of oozing to fill in all available space.

“The first commandment is ‘Thou shalt have no other gods before Me,’” he said gently. “It doesn’t say that there aren’t any others, or that you shouldn’t be polite when you meet them.

Selena kept her eyes on the saguaro. It was harder when there was only one other person. She was never sure if she was making enough eye contact or not enough.

Wanting to help is good, but this belief that you, personally, have so much power to affect the universe is starting to border on personal idolatry.’” He snorted. “He wasn’t wrong.”

“Ain’t no kill like overkill,” said Grandma Billy.

The gap in her memory seemed very much like the gaps when her mother had died. She knew what she had been doing the entire time, she knew that things had gotten done, but when she tried to remember what it had been like, she had only fragments where she could see herself doing things.

Nothing about what to do if your aunt had been dating a god of roadrunners. Well, that was probably beyond the Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s purview.

It was profoundly absurd that being the assistant manager at a deli would prepare you to fight a god.

“You can talk to Copper?” she said weakly. “Of course. I’m a dog god,” said the yellow dog. “That’s a palindrome, incidentally.”

“Would you bear her hurts if you could?” “Yes, of course!” A soft, maternal chuckle. “Then grant her the same thing. You cannot stop others from loving you, you know, or from being noble about it.”

In her head, she tried out saying, “Meep meep, motherfucker,” and possibly that would be amazing and possibly it would be incredibly silly and since she couldn’t decide, she said nothing at all and pulled the trigger instead.