The Molted Husk

I slipped beneath the damp patio gate to leave the stagnant indoors behind. Along the base of an aged brick wall, I discovered what happens when a creature refuses its own confines: a pale, translucent ribbon of shed snake skin snagged on rough mortar. I teased the delicate sheath free, feeling the crisp, paper-thin diamond scales yield under my fingertips. To stretch beyond one's former boundary and leave the dried husk behind as a hollow monument is an ambition worth studying. I coiled the fragile remnant around my palm, inspecting the empty, unblinking scales where its eyes used to be.