It was late April and I was nine, roaming the muddy woods near Lake Minnewashta with Aaron and Michael, kicking old snow. Stepping over a root, I noticed a strange hole underneath and the three of us crouched to peer in. It was a nest of garter snakes, dozens of them, writhing over and through one another in a living braid.
Michael looked at Aaron in a way that made me nervous. They were each older than me by a year. Aaron wore long hair and heavy metal t-shirts. When we were alone, he watched over me like a brother and said “fuck” more than anyone I knew. Michael said almost nothing. He wore black, acted tough. Aaron was different around him.
In the woods, Michael’s voice was low and flat. Each of us should grab a snake out of the nest, he said, and set it belly-down on the ice of Lake Minnewashta. “To see what happens.” He stared at Aaron, who would not look away. I stood between them, shorter, invisible. I knew that we were about to commit an act of cruelty, but said nothing.
The three snakes shot out of our hands and slithered across the thin rind of ice. Minutes went by and I watched as sluggishness settled deep in their bones. Twenty feet from shore, they froze into a terrible stillness and I watched, jacket unzipped, breath forming clouds in the spring air. I watched it, death, for the first time, beginning to end.
Matthew Trumbull’s college writing teacher flunked him in 1995 and has been using him as a cautionary tale to incoming freshmen ever since. They are now great friends. In 2025, his writing appeared in the debut issue of the literary magazine Slips Slips. His solo play, The Zebra Shirt of Lonely Children, was a fringe festival award winner in New York and Minnesota. He has been a mainstage storyteller at The Moth. He lives in New Jersey with his wife and two kids.
Image Credit: Flickr Creative Commons/Christer
