Snakeskin

It had become too much to carry.

The girl burst into the garden, the chains trailing behind her, yanking her down, pulling her back, scraping her flesh, rotting her bones. The ache was deep and sickening. Her lungs burned for breath, her eyes blurred with tears.

Of course there were no chains, not really. The girl carried a heaviness she could not unburdened. Her skin crawled with it, itching like it was becoming desert sand and she was drying up and floating away on the wind.

Desperate for answers on how to free herself of this pain, the girl searched the garden and found a young rabbit munching on a lettuce leaf. The girl knelt beside it.

“Excuse me, dear rabbit? Can you help me?”

The rabbit twitched its nose. “If I can.”

The girl brightened. “I have been feeling so heavy and sad. I’m so tired of carrying all these memories and feelings. You seem like such a pleasant creature. Do you know how I can stop it?”

The rabbit thought for a moment. “I am not sure. Try to remember a happier time and think of things like carrots and sunshine.”

The girl nodded. She had already tried that. She had thought of daisies and sandpaper kisses from her kitten day after day. It helped sometimes but the sadness always came back.

She thanked the rabbit and set off down the garden path. She came across a robin perched on a branch of a rose bush. Surely a robin would know what to do. They come at the first sight of spring and are always happy.

“Dear robin, can you help me?” the girl asked. The robin chirped and cocked its head. “What do you do when you feel it is all too much? I want to escape but I don’t know how.”

“Fly away! Fly away! Just rise into the sky and your problems will stay on the ground!” the robin sang.

Her heart sank. “But I don’t have any wings like you do.”

“Use your feet!” The robin lit from the branch, its red belly bright against the blue sky. The girl watched until the robin was only a black speck far off in the field. Then she took off running.

She ran until she could not breath and her legs turned to jelly. Her limbs tingled and for a moment, she thought it was over and she was free.

But the sadness returned.

The girl spotted a frog squatting on a sun drenched rock, its neck filling and falling.

“Frog!” she cried out. Desperation was choking her, tightening around her throat with hot fingers. “Are you ever so sad, you want to change everything you are?”

“Sometimes,” the frog answered. “But a good scream takes care of it!” He bellowed out a vibrating cry. The girl opened her mouth and let out a wail to equal the frog’s. He nodded in approval. “Don’t you feel better now?”

“No, sadly I don’t,” the girl admitted. “Thank you for the suggestion.”

The girl wandered off to the edge of the garden, dragging her feet and kicking up dust. She knew there was an answer out there, somewhere. Something in this world had to know how to rid yourself of everything that was causing such agony.

“Hey, watch out!” a small voice cried. The girl froze and looked down to see a worm sliding through the dirt.

“I am so sorry! Are you hurt?”

“Nope! I am fine. Thank you for stopping!”

“May I ask you something?” the girl said.

“Yes.” The worm kept moving, leaving a twisted line behind.

“What do you do when you feel awful and just want to forget everything that is making you sad?”

The worm stopped. “Bury it!”

“Bury it?” the girl questioned.

“Yes!” With that, the worm dove his head into the soft dirt and began to dig.

The girl followed the worm’s lead and dug a small hole. She closed her eyes and put every memory and experience that was causing her pain into the hole. Not really, of course, but enough that she believed they were buried as she pulled dirt back over them. She blinked her eyes open and waited.

The weight was still there.

Sighing, she stood and continued onward. She spotted a black snake coiled on the path, a pale version of itself beside it.

“That’s it!” the girl cried out. “I have to shed my skin! Dear snake! Can I ask you a question?”

“If you must.” The snake lifted its head, flicking the remainder of its old skin off its tail.

“Well, you see, I have been having a terrible time. I am always tired and sad and I want it to stop. You see, several things have happened to me and made me hopeless. I want to forget everything that is making me sad so I can have hope again. I want to start all over.” The girl began to cry. “Can you show me how you shed your skin? I think that is what I must do to be rid of it all.”

“I can show you,” the snake replied after pausing for a few moments. “But it may not work.”

“Why not?”

“When I shed my skin, it is because I have outgrown it. I am ready to move onto the next version of myself.”

“Please, can we at least try?”

“Of course,” the snake hissed. “You need a rough surface. Like that tree over there.”

The snake showed the girl how to rub herself against the trunk to get the skin started.

“It can take a while and a lot of effort but eventually, it will come off,” the snake explained.

The girl scraped and pushed and writhed against the piercing bark. Her skin began to peel off slowly in thin scratches and then more in thicker strips. The sun was burning low in the sky when she finally finished and her skin was raw and red. She had torn herself to pieces.

Still, the weight was there.

The girl collapsed to her knees, her fingers brushing her tender flesh and tears stinging her eyes.

“Why didn’t it work?” she sobbed.

The snake slithered beside her. “You are not ready to grow from this yet. You have to wear it until it dries out. Until it is ready to be removed. Forcing it does not help you grow from it. I tried to tell you.”

“Yes, you did warn me,” the girl whimpered. “So what do I do now? It is so heavy and I can’t carry it anymore.”

“You can. It is a part of you now that will shift and change as you shift and change. Eventually, it will peel off as easily as mine. And you will find yourself healed instead of bleeding.”

“Thank you for your kindness and for trying to help me.” The girl stood to go.

“Wait, take this.” The snake flicked its tail towards its skin. “That way you can remember what is to come.”

The girl tenderly plucked the snakeskin from the ground.

“Thank you so much.”

The snake slithered into the grass, its scales glittering in the fading daylight.

It took a long while but eventually the girl began to heal and have hope again. Her weight lessened each day and though she still felt it, it had begun to crack. She kept the snakeskin on her window ledge and over time, it too began to decay and crumble. Without knowing it, the girl shed her skin, revealing a new version of herself. She still remembered everything that had almost destroyed her but now, the wound was only a thin scar, barely visible unless you already knew it was there.