The Trial of a Murderer(Geraldine Vesper) "Thomas, remember to be careful of snakes in the woods," his mother called. But Thomas was too distracted with his worn out baseball. Practice was adequate if he wanted to redeem himself on the baseball team. With a flick of the wrist, he had expertly tossed the ball into the air. Though he had expertise in pitching, he was a terrible catcher. He lunged for the ball, but he only entangled himself in his older sister's chemistry project. "You little twerp!" Susie growled, striking Thomas with the back of her Silly Bandz shrouded arm. Susie continued to holler about how little brothers ruin everything as she rummaged through her ruins of a DNA replica. "Sorry," Thomas whimpered, crawling away from his furious sister. Two year-old Mackenzie toddled over to his sister with two chubby fingers shoved into his teething mouth. His blond mop of bangs half-covered his glistening brown eyes. "Brothers are stupid!" Susie howled. Mackenzie, thinking the insult being directed at himself, began shrieking protest. Thomas crawled away from the entertaining scene of older sister cursing and little brother wailing. "Bye, Mom," Thomas called, scurrying out the front door. "Thomas," his mother said, cradling a wailing Mackenzie," watch out for snakes in the woods. You are allergic to snake venom." But he was gone, forever.

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Thomas sauntered up to a gravel strewn road. He smiled as he was greeted with the familiar crunch of gravel. But the singular crunch seemed hollow to him. It seemed almost lonely. The hollow crunch called out for an echo. But that echo would never answer or be answered. Julienn had once been the joyful echo. She had also been Thomas's best friend for six years. Thomas had never been worried about Julienn turning out to be a snooty, prissy girl who flounced about in pink sundresses. She was more the worn out overalls type of girl. That was Julienn, until Erica, Julienn's fifteen year-old sister, "talked to her about womanhood." Julienn was never the same. She seemed to have forgotten how to handle a fishing pole and refused to walk on any type of stone strewn pathways. "They would penetrate my pink pumps," she whined. She soon became bored with Thomas. She began spending more and more time with Jennifer Wilson and Olive Vyner. "I need to relate to other people more," was her only and last explanation to him. Thomas missed Julienn. Not the prissy, pink-puffed brat. He missed overall clad, sloppy ponytail Julienn who could beat him in a tree climbing contest any day. Thomas knew she was out there. He just had to look real hard to find her. Lately, he had not been very successful in that scavenger hunt. Thomas strolled under a canopy of red and golden leaves. Autumn was dawning on them. And with autumn comes baseball season. Thomas flicked the ball into the air, determined to catch it this time. He pounced forward with anticipation. But the only thing he accomplished was a skinned knee and a soiled shirt. He winced as he remembered his nickname from the last baseball season. Butterfingers, wasn't it? He shrugged his shoulders. He decided pitching practice wasn't the best idea, today. Perhaps a fishing trip would be nice. A sudden thrashing in a shrub startled him. A spine tingling hiss like that of bacon in a sizzling skillet at breakfast echoed in the former silence. Thomas drew backward. Part of him wanted to gallop home and crawl under the covers in his warm bed. The other part of him wanted to determine the source of this mysterious thrashing. The deductive side of him won out. Poor Thomas. Doesn't he know curiousity killed the cat?
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The snake eyed his prey cautiously. Which way could he strike the human for a faster kill? "Hmm," the snake mused, "this prey is awfully smaller than the regulars." The snake stared at his prey once more. "Ah," he hissed wickedly," a mere child. This certainly will not earn me any honors in my village." This particular snake was bred in a village where killing humans was like a sport. Whoever could finish a large human off was an honorary snake who would have a larger portion of field mouse at supper than the other weaklings. The snake had been eating milkweed in shame for years upon end. If he killed this child, he could possibly get promoted to a blade of Sparrow grass and a mouse shoulder blade with a few flecks of meat. No, he decided, this child is as worthless as a rotton snake eggling. A sudden sharp pain in his torso area jerked him back to reality. The insolent child was piercing his leathery coat with a wretched stick. The snakes despised it whenever someone poked them with a worthless stick! He glanced back mischievously at the boy. What harm could be done to just bite the boy a few times. Teach him a lesson. After all, child or adult, they all wailed for mercy whenever he struck.

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Thomas cautiously approached the shrub. It had stopped thrashing when he jabbed at it with a dead bough of a tree. His hand paused before he parted the green curtain that concealed a deathly secret. Would this slake his curiousity? "Of course it will," he assured himself. He slowly parted the leaves. A brownish snake with wicked oval eyes was curled into a bundle. It held a devious grin on its murdurous lips. Thomas drew back a tad. "What harm could a snake do?" he thought to himself. He glared at the snake. He could hear a faint chuckle. "Who is-" Thomas's throat tightened. A searing pain throbbed in his left ankle. The snake was coiled around his thigh. Drips of red blood stained its fangs. He sunk his cruel fangs into Thomas's thigh. The color drained from his face. His blood curdling wail broke the shocking silence. He crumpled to the floor. Dead...

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The snake slithered out of the yellowing grass of the local cemetary. He stared proudly at some of his clan's work. But he didn't come to admire the battle scars of his kin. He came to witness the work of his own fangs. A small group of mourners were gathered around a coffin. A middle-aged woman with tears streaming down her age-worn cheeks held a toddler gnawing at its fore and middle finger. An teenage girl hung her head in shame. "I got an A on my project," she whispered to the lifeless figure in the coffin. A much younger girl clad in worn out overalls and mascara stained cheeks clutched a handbag. "Good-bye, Thomas," she sobbed. The snake recoiled in aghast. Had he done wrong? What was the use of a worthless life of a human being? He could not ponder that thought any longer, because the mourners began to mill away from the coffin being lowered into the earth. Soon, the hole was filled to the brim. The snake stared at the hollow in the ground. This boy had died at his fangs. For the first time in his lifetime, the snake felt ashamed about murdering a human being. It was suppossed to be an honor. The tombstone stuck in the ground was his trophy. But it didn't feel that way. He felt so uncertain about his all. He was about to slither away in shame when a giant boot pinned him to the ground. A human had died at his hand. He had died from a human's hand.

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"Blech!" Marty howled shaking his foot to rid of the snake inards on his leather boot. "Marty, what happened?" called another gardener. "I squished a snake!" he grunted in disgust. "What do I do with the thing?" The other gardener chuckled. "Leave it there. I heard it's good fertilizer." Marty shuffled away from the scene he had just created. A murderer who had been executed for his crime was lying next to his victim in shame.

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