When I see the fly-flecked carcass of the snake on the country road, I don’t stop my bicycle to check his scales for a pulse. Slowly riding past those rotting coils, I wonder if a speeding car rolled over the creature in the dark, unaware of the drama under its wheels. Startled by a passing car beeping at me, I shake my fist at the driver. I want to believe if I was a farmer cruising down that lonely country road earlier, I’d scan ahead of my tractor, brake before the fatal moment. Who would fault me for my mercy?
Frank C. Modica is a poet and writer of micromemoir and flash fiction living in Central Illinois. www.frankmodicawriting.net Twitter: @fcmodica53