Free Gutshot by Amelia Gray Page A

climbed, pad and pen in hand, to take measurements of its venom ducts. The snake allowed Swale to span its eye sockets with her tape, heaving what the onlooking farmers described as a resigned sigh. Indeed, she found, the creature had the same proportions of a standard snake, only larger by an exponential degree.
    Back in the town square, a team of engineers examined the damage done. The snake was so wide that the front façades of some of the buildings were thoroughly crushed. The creature had become load bearing where it was wedged under the schoolhouse’s roof and against the bank’s pillars, preventing their collapse. As long as the snake didn’t move, the structural damage was not the type that threatened either building’s integrity. One engineer patted the reptilian flank and remarked that the poor girl was stuck. Nobody questioned his determination of sex, as the engineers were perceived as simultaneously knowing everything and nothing at all.
    Time passed, and the people grew bold. No apparent clues arose in the mystery of how the snake had come to be, or where, or why; as generations before had found, there was little utility to questioning the unknown. Children made one flank into a climbing wall by leaning boards against its body. Down the way, they used their bikes to section off a court for their handball games. The mothers stood by nervously, but when no harm came to their babies, they went on with their daily work.
    Even Swale found herself more interested in the physical presence of the animal than in its origin. As with any bridgeless river, it was difficult to traverse the snake, and so the town was split in two. People started referring to landmarks and locations in terms of the new barrier; the school, church, and nicer homes were in North Snake, while the bank, movie theater, and poorer homes fell within South Snake. Children in South Snake couldn’t get to school anymore, and instead played handball games all afternoon. The children formed rowdy gangs and roamed the area, knocking down mailboxes. In North Snake, people started spending more and more time in the church, until a group of a dozen or so individuals held a constant vigil there, praying all day and night at turns for the health of the snake and for the death of the snake.
    A devastating insomnia settled over both sides. The snake’s presence had thrown off the whole town’s biological rhythm. People stayed up late, watching from their porches. They took shifts and acclimated to fewer hours of sleep. Nobody wanted to turn away in the event that it might continue its silent progress, or—God forbid—eat a child, though the snake hadn’t budged in months and one had to travel into the orchard to even see its fangs. Still, nobody wanted to wake and find they had missed any major event, and so they slept less and less. Soon enough, everyone could stay awake for weeks at a time. Schoolteachers rubbed their eyes as the children before them multiplied and vanished, turned sepia-toned, and spoke in tongues. Butchers forgot to log deliveries and had to throw out pounds of spoiled meat.
    Swale, who lived in a small apartment in South Snake, observed the darkening circles under the eyes of her neighbors. She suffered a very bad haircut from a woman who paused during the experience to lean against the wall and weep. Watching the woman slide down the wall, Swale realized there was a need. Though she was born and raised to research and she made quite a good scientist, she also aspired to invent and produce a product. Her mother had inspired this dream when she made the very good point that since Swale was unemployed with neither prospects nor money, she would soon have to move back in with her parents—and she didn’t want that, did she? She did not. And so, one afternoon, she brought her kit to the snake.
    Children played handball around her as she worked. First, she took a rubbing of the scales and examined their feathery tips on a page of