Around that time, prom was only two weeks away, or so. A butter yellow dress hung in the closet. Thailand felt heavy, a wet that settled on our skins and hair. The Songkran painted our bus with super soakers, smiles through running window streams, people in the streets, colors and splashes of balloons. We rode elephants and fed them tiny bananas; they grabbed them with polite, no-nonsense trunks. Please, don’t touch. Please, don’t sit on the crocodiles. The man stared down the long, black danger-noodle, and they danced. The man kissed the noodle on the head like I’d kiss my small cat before bed. He passed the live cobra around. Look at this dark silk rope—here, touch. At home, you were waiting to call me again and cry into the phone with dry eyes. It felt smooth, a flawless dry surface with hypodermic fangs that could kill. Once bitten, the venom affects a person’s nervous system, causing severe pain, vertigo, blurred vision, paralysis. People slip into comas, stop breathing. I was the first to touch it.
Melcontents 