Sophie Christopher

Sophie’s story takes inspiration from a personal experience to explore the importance of storytelling in strengthening relationships.

Snake Meat

When the waiter walked past carrying a white, ceramic plate, Anna felt her throat constrict as she stared back at the yellow snake coiled on top. Its cold, dry scales tightly wrapped around its long carcass, its tiny black eyeballs and fangs squeezing out through layers of skin. Anna and her grandpa had been glancing at the alien textures being brought out from behind the kitchen for a while now, stuck in a stiff silence at their wobbly table against the wall. The faded, bubbling wallpaper peeled at the edges to reveal glimpses of the grey, rotting panels underneath. Its cheap, light-blue print clawed its way to the lumpy, uneven ceiling sagging down above their heads.

Vinegar and sweat seemed to leak into the air. It spread from the crevices in the roof and seeped up from the matted carpet below. On the table in front of them lay two pairs of chopsticks, a crinkled serviette under each, a bottle of soy sauce from which a pungent, stale fluid slowly dribbled out, and a tattered menu book. Anna reached out to trace the embroidered letters on the front, only to quickly retract her hand, now scraping her palms against the chair in an attempt to rid herself of the greasy, brown substance stuck underneath her fingernails. The dissonant crashing of plates and knives from the kitchen rattled against every surface. Somewhere behind them, a man shouted in angry Vietnamese. Her grandpa flinched.

Anna watched the way his face shifted, and at once found herself back teetering on the edge of the stool with her hand raised to the top shelf. She was nine, and her grandpa’s house smelt like toffee and crackers and his rugs were soft and old and everything was warm to touch. Anna had crept into his bedroom, curious as to what important things were kept in there. She had stood on her tip-toes and reached above her head to open the highest drawer she could. Something cool and smooth was buried underneath a stack of dusty, thin paper. She had pulled it out, holding it up close to her face. The iron smelt metallic, almost sweet, and it glinted in the afternoon light. Softly, her fingers brushed against each point of each star, the letters, the emblems, all inscribed in important capital letters. ‘1970. VIETNAM.’ But the metal fell from her hands. She had been caught. She watched as her grandpa’s small figure bent down, seized the medals, placed them back in the corner of the cupboard, and left, his rigid shoulders framed by the doorway, receding into the hallway.

Now, as Anna looked across the table, she saw her grandpa, still rigid, lost in thought. His eyebrows were tensed, his mouth stiff and motionless.

The waiter came up to their table and stood right against it. He set his elbows down, leaned in so his ancient face was in full vision with all its sunken, oily pores, and smiled. His flaking, crusted lips encased two rows of decaying, yellow teeth entrenched with slimy, green spinach. His wet, raspy breath smelt like sulfur and fungus, heavily wafting into Anna’s mouth with every word he spoke.

“Today’s special is snake meat!”

Her skin crawled. Her grandpa’s face was still blank. Her mouth quivered. She chewed the inside of her lip. She tapped her foot. She searched in his eyes for a sign. There was none.

Anna began to scan the room for an exit, perhaps by the bathroom or the kitchen, she hoped, somewhere discreet. But just as she gripped onto her chair, ready to scrape it backwards against the floor, she heard something.

It was her grandpa’s familiar voice, its husky quality, scratchy and low, saying something back to the waiter.

Vietnamese summers, her grandpa had said, were not like the ones over here. He remembered thick cargo pants shoved into heavy boots, mud-encrusted helmets. Dripping sweat. Trees blocking the sky, the sun so big, it melted skin like it was wax. Bullet casings and shredded fabric lay sunken in the dirt, boot-prints stamped on top. There was a village. Tho Ha Village, he was pretty certain. He had seen many, and this one had not been unique, except until he noticed the child sitting amongst the fallen wood. She was small, her baggy dress bunched up at the floor, its white fabric muddied at the hem. He recalled that she looked up and called out in Vietnamese to him. Called out to him, a tall white man in a military suit with a gun strapped on his shoulder. He said that she had been eating. That there was this greasy, warm aroma coming from her food that reminded him of when he last ate a homemade meal (he had been scraping out soggy oats from his rusted tin can every single day for months now). She gestured to him a bite. He hesitated, but finally, found himself taking a small step forward. He took his bite. His eyes widened. He let out a chuckle. What was this strange food that this strange girl had offered to him that tasted so good?

A pause. And then, “I soon figured out that what I had put into my mouth was snake meat.”

As her grandpa spoke, his warm, flowing words were spilling out in bursts of colour and light and sound. He had taken each sentence and wrapped it carefully in brown paper, sticking the edges down, tying around string, tenderly passing each package to the waiter, who was there, ready to receive each new gift with grace. These were packages her grandpa had never shared before, not even with her. And the waiter could not have known this, yet he smiled gently as if he did.

An idea occurred to Anna which she quite liked. After closing the menu book, she asked to place their order. The waiter asked what they were having.

Two servings of the day’s special, she replied. •