Long Gallery

The Long Gallery

The serpent was huge, its age measured like that of ancient forests and its girth was a match for the oldest trees within them. Its hooded eyes had seen civilization accelerate from a stuttering crawl to a headlong sprint and it mattered little. There would always be Meat, and that's what counted.

It's in no hurry to devour you. You're wound in coils so thick with muscle they feel like steel cables muffled in flesh. It encourages you to study its scales, plainly proud of them. Every armored diamond on its body bears a portrait of a person, though the quality of the art varies.

"The more time I spend savoring a meal, the better the experience, the better the portrait. Some I regret taking at all, they were so crass or panicky." It flicks a tailtip in a c'est la vie gesture of resignation. Some of the portraits are barely better than a child's scrawl, glaring blemishes upon rank after rank of gorgeous cameos. Cameo is indeed the right term, for upon closer inspection it's clear the portraits have dimension. Some are so life-like it's almost as if the faces of the snake's meals are pressing up through its flesh, just a hairsbreadth from breaching the surface and escaping.

"It behooves me to choose my meals carefully, curating the gallery so to speak," it smiles, forked tongue flickering out to brush your cheek ever-so-lightly.

Despite the danger, the reaper hovering just off-stage, your curiosity is piqued. How can an ancient snake who rarely leaves its stony den afford to be choosy? Was this encounter today somehow orchestrated? It's a flash that shakes you to your core as it rings true; your entire life has led up to this moment.

How much of an influence has this snake had, to bring you here? Were you groomed from childhood to have your wiring crossed, feeling a flush of heat rather than cold fear when faced with jaws dripping with expectant drool? Does it have agents in the media, creating programming intended to mold young minds into perfect, willing prey?

Its eyes hold no hypnotic power but they don't blink once as they study you, acid-yellow with feathery-edged pupils. You feel as if the thoughts streaming through your mind are an open book to this creature, betrayed by your expression and the changing tension in your coil-smothered body.

"You're well-fed, as most in your generation are. After a month deep in the labyrinth of my coils, losing your identity, I'll gain juuust enough flesh to make room for your scale." It tightens its coils around you in a five-second squeeze that's more a pleased hug than attack.

"I believe your portrait will be one of the finest yet." Hanging in this creature's gallery for perhaps the rest of time, pored over in the dusty light that seeps into its den by predator and future prey alike.

You imagine your scale growing clouded and vague just like an aged painting in need of restoration. Then the serpent sheds, and your image springs back to such vibrant life one could expect you to climb right out of the portrait, alive and well.

But this won't be that type of immortality. As the jaws approach, wet gullet muscles flexing with an eager, audible squelch, you know you're ready for your close-up.