blue

She hated outdoor adventures, unless she could watch them from the air-conditioned comfort of her home theater with a "G & T" in hand. With a fresh slice of lime.

"Well, shit, I didn't expect to go out like this." Blue made his comment as she tried, all too late, to stop the poison.

She humored herself, internally, that things would work out okay. "Around Blue, they always do." Not this time.

She finally attempted a tourniquet that would never work.

She had insisted on accompanying him on this excursion, even though she hated them. No cooks. No bed. No meds. He was insistent on that point. "When you're out in the wild, you need all of your natural senses, no matter how unnatural you might think yours to be." She spilled some water on her scarf, and continued to stroke his forehead, alive like fire. He was becoming delirious.

He had warned her of the snakes so many times. He explained, "Where we're going, your chances of being bitten by a non-venomous snake are pretty damned slim, if you happen to get bitten." He hated snakes, actually, while she had always found them exotic and fascinating. From watching him on TV, you'd never know it.

He had dropped down to rub her foot, and that's when the beast was forced to strike. It got him in the calf, quite deeply. There was no turning around point for them, after that.

She had complained the whole way. "Jesus, I wanted to get out of L.A., not out of the fucking world!" After a while, it became a joke between them, and they would alternate the names of other towns and cities along the way.

"Jesus, I just wanted to get out of Fort Worth, not out of the fucking world!"

"Jesus, I just wanted to get out of Orlando, not out of the fucking world!"

The desert seemed to stretch on forever.

But here was Blue, sweating like a pig, lying on the sand with his forearm over his forehead, repeating the words, "I'm not ready to leave this fucking world."

She delicately applied more water, and it seemed to help, but it did not even approach postponing the inevitable. Her knees ground into the sand, slowly, struggling to support his head.

Out of the blue, he told her, "I think I'm 2000 light years from home." She laughed out loud, for the first time in days.

Looking back at the mound behind her, she remembered his last words: "Cover me up, and keep walking. When they see you from the helicopter, during the scheduled flyover, they will see that you are alone and pick you up."

Years later, sitting in some "hip" bar in L.A., she laughed to a friend and noted, "You know, it takes a lot more sand to cover a body than you might first think." It was hot in the city today, and sleazy men of various shapes and sizes continued to ogle her from across the room. She felt slightly ill.

She rubbed the ice-cold glass against her forehead, finished her drink, and said, "Let's get out of here. Too many snakes around here for my taste."

On the way home, she was mesmerized by the blue sky. Not gray today. She slipped off her shoes, and felt the sand embedded in the carpet of her floorboard rise between her toes. The grit made her feel alive. Terribly alive.

"Jesus, I'm stuck in this world."

She put the key into the deadbolt, opened the door, only to be greeted by "Blue," her Python. She picked him up, and he wrapped himself around her body, like a scaly quilt, while she cooed to him, "Precious boy, how I so did miss you today."

"I think we could both use a gin and tonic after today."

She turned on the TV. The glow was somehow reassuring.

"Jesus, I just wanted him to go away, not to fucking die!"

She admitted to herself that the limes, of late, seemed to be fresher than usual.