Verdigris Ravine Three snakes are beginning to nest in your voicebox.

She’d climbed out of the water eventually, though she hadn’t strayed far. She languished at its edge, alternating between panting and shivering as day waned into night, then waxed into day again. Towhee cramped now and again, though there were no more grotesque discharges. She tried to lay very still, putting all her energy into fighting off the internal infection.

By her third day in the ravine, she felt wrung out but less feverish. She woke from a restive sleep and blinked groggily when her elbow touched a dead fish. Whether it had simply washed ashore or someone had left it there, Towhee didn’t know. She gobbled it quickly, then crawled into the shallows again. She drank as she soaked, letting out a long sigh.