BY chelsea stickle
Your friend’s boyfriend says, “You know how she is.” When you say you don’t, he
sketches an emotional mess who strikes like a snake. But you know your friend, and you know
how to identify a snake. Have classification books and everything. And this boyfriend with his
dry skin and bald head, he’s a pit viper. Very common in Maryland. They tell the truth about
themselves by placing it on others. Don’t handle. Don’t approach. Fleeing is the only option.
The Super Bowl plays in the background and suddenly everyone around the television
can’t hear him. They don’t understand the game. They’re not speaking to each other either.
Simply sitting in silence ignoring what’s playing out. An abuser attempting to plant seeds of
doubt.
But you’re autistic and you know better. Societal norms don’t blindfold you. You’re aro
ace and don’t get blinded by crushes or lust. You can appraise him. See through the human skin
to the snake underneath, and offer a small smile. Anything less places you in danger. He cannot
know that you know about the mice he swallows whole slinking down his thin four foot body,
the lump struggling to get free until the life is choked out of it.
Later when you ask the friend sitting next to you about what she heard that night, she
can’t remember what he said. Agrees that what you repeated is troubling and promptly forgets.
And that’s an improvement. For a second you’re believed. You can tell everyone the truth, the
facts, the future all you want. But no one can remember. No one wants to remember. Few believe
the people they love can hurt them until they’re already bleeding.
You stand there cursed to be disbelieved and ignored. Alone because blindfolds and
earplugs don’t work on you. Always observing and never participating because what would you
even do? Nothing works. Your friends fall, one by one. Helpless, you tell their stories, hoping
someone will hear you. Your words echo out into the still silence that envelops everyone as they
slide down the throats of Maryland’s most common snake. In the end, all that’s left are the
bones.
Chelsea Stickle is the author of the flash fiction chapbooks Everything’s Changing (Thirty West Publishing, 2023) and Breaking Points (Black Lawrence Press, 2021). Her stories appear in Passages North, The Citron Review, Peatsmoke Journal, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency and others. Her micros have been selected for Best Microfiction 2021, the Wigleaf Top 50 in 2022 and the Wigleaf Longlist in 2023. She lives in Annapolis, MD with her black rabbit George and a forest of houseplants. Read more at chelseastickle.com.