Birth of the Avant Garde

(The Moment)

Snake was proud of many things, chief among them, his ability to take off his shirt, cast it into the leaf litter and underneath it, find a new one already sewn into place.

Snake was unlike any of the other party goers on the planet. He had loose affinities with worm. Yes.  But he would not shove soil into his mouth and swallow, not push soil out his backside, to get from here to there. No.

He had an eye for fashion

Snake, though legless, climbed trees. Trees, of a certain height and no larger. They gave a vantage point and yet did not place Snake into the belly of heaven. 

The Woman Called Evening, she sees this Snakemanfellow, this Newoutfitmaker, and she notices that he is dressed in a fashion as no other being she knows does dress. He is legless and armless, and he reminds her of the waters. She watches at him in his knotted flowing coil, the surface of his back, an assembly of endless small worlds, an infinity of small tiles on the floor of a palace turned inside out. He is a long road, this one. In the glint of his eye, the light of an oil lamp, glowing in the dark. Long and lean and longer still is this Serpentmanfellow.

She looks at the serpent and the oil lamp flame in his eye and she thinks that he is not water, he is slippery oil. And then, she thinks, no, he is incense smoke that could, curling up her arm, wind its way into her nose and fill up her throat and lungs with something spectacular that would addle her head. It is strong and powerful like the words of an oracle, but also like the words of an oracle, she doesn’t not quite understand the meaning. She thinks the exotic dancing quality of smoke, of this Serpentmanfellow could make her feel so good, also, that it would make her want more.