The Voices of the Snakes
"Hello poison, hello grave-specter, hello nightmare," the little green grass snake called, his tiny voice high and all his sibilants hissed. He flicked his tongue and uncurled his sleepy coils. "Hello dung heap, hello monstrosity, hello ruin."
It was his morning ritual, and all his greetings were for her.
"Hello snake," she replied through swollen, blackened lips. The others laughed, thin sounds like leaking breath; they never failed to find her amusing.
"The Voices of the Snakes" was a story I originally wrote around the age of 17 or so -- perhaps a bit younger. It was my first -- and to date, my only -- myth retelling, and I thought it dreadfully clever. What if, I thought, all the snakes on Medusa's head were not only alive, but conscious, sentient, each with their own thoughts and desires and personalities?
Of course, the version of the story I wrote then read much as you'd expect the story of a 17-year-old who thinks herself dreadfully clever to read; in short, full of angst. Oh, the pain of being Medusa! The horror of the snakes! The torment, the torment!
The story was rejected and rejected and rejected. Eventually, I trunked it. (Oh, the pain of being me.)
Fast forward to 2005: I am now 24, and still dreadfully clever, and attending the World Fantasy Convention in Madison, Wisconsin, where I manage to screw up my courage and go talk to Sean Wallace, editor of new magazines Fantasy and Jabberwocky. I hope to be invited to submit something, sometime. Instead, he asks me how many stories I have to send him right away.
"Uh," I say (still dreadfully clever), "um ... a few."
This was not strictly true. I had exactly two: a science fiction story, and a slipstream/science fiction story. Neither appropriate. But when an editor asks for stories, stories there must be, and so I desperately tried to think of something new to write. Which is when I thought of "The Voices of the Snakes."
After a full rewrite, the story is much leaner (1500 words instead of over 4000) and filled with much less angst. But the idea is still pretty clever, if I do say so myself.
Published in Issue #2 of Fantasy Magazine, February 2006.
