Snakes in the Material
Season Harper-Fox

Nothing, really, I kept telling Eugenie and Lila. I felt nothing. Mescaline was no big deal. In home ec., I cut my material with pinking shears. A little bit of thready material seemed to dribble, liquid-like, and Mrs. Jessup mellifluously instructed us on cutting with the bias or against the bias or some other information we probably all forgot the moment it was uttered.

Mrs. J, with her fancy updo and graceful dinner-party ways. With my not-so-deft scissorings the thick floral cotton parted. More fluid escaped. Then it hit me: the dope was kicking in. And right in Mrs. I Want You All To Be Proper Young Ladies’ class. Shit, shit, shit.

Rivulets of blood dripped from the table, morphed into living snakes. I laughed. Said something out loud, pointing to my writhing project. Snakes, probably. Snakes over here. Snakes in the material.

Eugenie glanced. Laughed. Uh huh, she was probably thinking. No big deal.

Mrs. Jessup hurried over. “What’s going on?”

Lila laughed. “Oh, she’s always messing around.” And then my friend pushed me toward the door, and Mrs. J followed, and the bell rang, and somehow Lila and I ended up laughing down the hall, and out the main doors, and into the sunlit afternoon.

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