Her Solitary Domain is a short story by Jenny Bhatt. You can read it online here. It begins,
Messages had been sidewinding their way to her till she could no longer ignore them. The old hill-bound boarding school was shutting down because of “an epidemic of snakes.” Local Hindu authorities, believing it was ancient Naga ground, would not allow any killing. They had proposed buying the premises for loose change to develop a temple complex. The longstanding Board of Trustees, which had replaced the school’s colonial British owners a few years after Independence, had accepted with the relief of a prisoner escaping a harsh sentence.
On the school’s Facebook page, familiar names shared nostalgia-drenched memories of precious childhoods. After they had all scattered across the world, she had remained in her separate orbit. Even now, the excited chatter and uploaded photos meant little.
In her present life, many dues were demanded: love, duty, responsibility, desire, ambition, compliance. They all grabbed at fragments of her constantly so that she never managed to gather herself whole together. Only in the midnight’s deep stillness, with the precision of a preying bird, she was able to claw out one careful recollection from her mind’s shattered mosaic.
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...an epidemic of snakes is enough to keep me away!
ReplyDeleteIt'd be hard to keep a boarding school open with all those snakes!
DeleteI can just hear Indiana Jone, "Why does it have to be snakes?"
ReplyDeleteHoly Snakes!
DeleteI love it - this comment from Indiana Jones really made me smile, so funny and so true ...lol 😉. An epidemic of snakes in a boarding school, what a unusual storyline! Happy Sunday! Hugs, Jo x
DeleteIt intrigued me, how the story began.
DeleteThis is definitely one I'll pass on. I used to hunt rattlesnakes in OK, but I have no desire to do so ever again, since the town that sponsored the event has nearly eradicated the poor beasts. I was young and dumb, what can I say?
ReplyDeleteI remember not too long ago that was still a "thing" that people did. Rattlesnake rodeos, I think they called them, but I think the snakes were released afterwards.
DeleteNot in Okeene, OK. They are captured and killed. The town gives prizes (or used to, at least) to the longest, the most captured in a day, and one other that I don't remember. Once they are turned in, the rattlesnake is killed and all parts of the rattlesnake are used. Nothing goes to waste. They even had demonstrations of how nothing was left over as and after the rattler was processed. It's been a tradition there to get rid of the snakes in and around the town for more years than I've been alive.
DeleteI don't how they organize these things. There can't be that many rattlesnakes in that area any more I wouldn't think. Some places in the south have quit hunting native species and started focusing on invasive snakes instead. https://www.popsci.com/rattlesnake-roundup-ecology-gassing/
DeleteI don't like snakes. They are the one animal that scares my pants off.Guess this one is not for me! Happy new week. Hugs-Erika
ReplyDeleteI've always liked snakes. Spiders on the other hnbd...
DeleteCool storyline!
ReplyDeleteHappy New Year to you my frined!
Susi xxx
Happy New Year!
DeleteI would read it but I am having wonky eye issues for reading lately. Such is life. :)
ReplyDeleteI need my reading glasses now, but I'm fortunate that otherwise I still find reading easy. It'll be hard when that's no longer the case, but I'll still have my patio birds to keep me happy :)
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