Aaron Walters had it all; lived very comfortably in an expansive luxury penthouse atop one of those desirable downtown glitzy condo towers, possessed the right education credentials to get to know influential people who willingly opened those invisi...
The drone incident a few days earlier was still fresh in my mind and a troubling wake-up call that made me realize how much more challenging keeping Serpentina's existence a secret would become, because outdoors she'd always be an easy discovery for prying eyes in the sky. Too, I'd been shaken out of my smug complacency in thinking I had everything all figured out, (excepting of course a certain reptilian puzzle) but time and opportunity weren't bankable for some day in the future, as I would soon be reminded.
When August 30th rolled around a few weeks ago we didn't do anything different or special to mark the occasion. At that time annual cycles didn't mean anything at all to Tina but I knew differently, so in hindsight I wished I'd done something to celebrate her first year with me. Wanting to make up for my error in judgement, not that she was bothered by it, yesterday I broke with routine and took a needed afternoon break from the harvesting for no other reason than to spend a few hours with her to do something different.
Anyway, with Tina looped on and around my shoulders, I drove aimlessly over the lesser travelled rural back roads with no specific destination planned. Since settling our last falling out when she disappeared those several days, she no longer mentioned having a desire to leave here, so this was my way of enabling her to get out and see a small part the world surrounding our farm that she'd otherwise never get to see.
While passing by the expansive Lantzgraaf Estate, home of a billionaire who raises Triple Crown contending race horses, Tina mentioned that she'd seen something like those grazing horses we saw being exercised out in the paddocks, and then claimed that she'd been on that once.
Wishful thinking is what I thought, so I laughed and quipped, "Well at least you've got me to ride around on for the time being."
"But you're a lot smaller."
Aware that she'd been growing longer (adding almost two feet since early April) and gaining close to ten pounds this past summer, those sixteen or so pounds of reptilian tube now resting on my shoulders were noticeable, and I was wondering too how much longer we'd be able to do this even while at home.
A while later and about ten miles further north in a sparsely populated more rugged treed area, I stopped and parked my truck adjacent to a bridge over a large stream. No other vehicles were parked here so I figured now would be an okay time.
"Why are we stopping here?"
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Lifting Tina off my shoulders and setting her down on the passenger seat, I eagerly suggested, "Let's take a break and go for a short w... side trip."
Looking up at me she right away challenged, "Why didn't you just say walk like you were going to?"
"Because you can't walk."
"Cog... I know what you meant and it's okay to say walk... because I know you're including me in wherever it is we're going."
"I don't want to hurt your feelings or upset you by saying things like walk, run, and so on."
