Aubrey ¬

Southern, slow moving, slow talking, and not a remarkable man. He was tall, bald, and his color—a greenish-gray. Driving home from the pet store with two fat rabbits in a little wire cage in the back seat, he looked forward to the upcoming long weekend, and time with his pet, Charlotte. He took the cage into his modest house, showered, and changed his clothes. He and his wife had a meal of lamb chops, biscuits and gravy, and then he went out into the garage with the caged rabbits.

Charlotte was waiting for him. He turned on the lights that illuminated her cage, and the light brought her out of her slumber. Her pupils grew larger, and she came awake. This would be Charlotte’s last meal of the winter, so Aubrey was giving her two fat rabbits. A seventeen foot python uncoiled itself from the heavy, bare limb in her enclosure, and waited for Aubrey to drop the rabbits into the cage. Charlotte was motionless for several minutes, then she struck. The rabbit screamed. It was a loud, high-pitched, who-waa,who waa, who-waa—like the sound of a baby. Charlotte grabbed the rabbit in her jaws, then threw the coils of her body around it. She tightened her hold and the suffocated the rabbit. Nudging the dead rabbit into position with her snout, she swallowed it head first. A few minutes later, she killed and swallowed the second rabbit.

Charlotte was a thick tube of muscle. Aubrey admired her strength and her majestic beauty, as he witnessed the whole feeding a few inches from Charlotte’s cage, eating a piece of pumpkin pie as he watched. He was hypnotized. His wife never watched Charlotte feeding, and since the garage was kept very warm, she didn’t like to go out there. Aubrey loved Charlotte more than his wife. He thought Charlotte was more beautiful.

He bathed Charlotte in the family tub, but only when he was alone with her. Aubrey’s wife knew that the snake had to be kept warm and clean, so she didn’t fuss. Aubrey’s wife didn’t like the snake, and Charlotte didn’t like her because she would sometimes tease her by going into the garage when Aubrey was at work and making loud noises, banging a heavy spoon on a pan, blowing a tin whistle, or turning the lights on and off. After feeding, Aubrey left Charlotte to digest her meal and he left for bed, not double-checking the latch on her cage, as he always did.

The next morning, Aubrey missed his alarm, so he hurried for the door, grabbing a paper cup of coffee and a strawberry donut. When his wife got up, she dressed, made breakfast and decided she would give Charlotte a little “extra attention” this morning, feeling more resentful than usual about the care and attention her husband give the snake. When she opened the door between the kitchen and the garage, she put the tin whistle to her lips, ready to blow it as loud as she could. She took a deep breath, ready to blow, just as the snake slid from the shelf above her head and quickly coiled itself around her neck. She struggled, and seemed to make the same high-pitched scream as the rabbits. The snake tightened. Her breath was squeezed out of her as she fought for another. As she was falling unconscious, she could hear bones in her neck cracking.

Charlotte had taken her revenge. She had dispensed pure and true justice. She nudged the woman’s head a few times, but since she had eaten last night, she only flicked her tongue near the woman’s face to be sure she was not breathing.

[Pub. at Flash Fiction World, 11-14-2011.]