Snake, with My Name

Before I was born, my mother says, there was another boy. My brother. One day, half-asleep during lunch, he turned into a snake, just like that. Shed his human skin. They said something in him snapped wild, and he slithered away. Never came back. That’s why I’m told to sit up straight when I eat, chew properly, and don’t play with my food. I never believed any of it. But one day, coming home from preschool, my father pulled a small photo from the old family album. Pointing: a tiny snake, grainy and dark in the black-and-white frame. That’s him, he said. Your brother. He would’ve been your age when it happened. That’s why we had you. Started over. So lucky you’re here, eating carefully, staying human. Mother looked sad. She said he had my name. That it was passed down from him. In the photo, the snake isn’t clear—just a smudge of shadow, barely a shape. Small enough to believe it once was a boy. A five-year-old like me, maybe. Sitting outside our house. Among plastic toys, little cars, and a broken tricycle. The picture is still, but I could feel him moving. Pulling away from his place in the frame, inching toward somewhere else. That must be how he left our lives. Quiet and slow, but already on his way.