Poisonous Snake

My grandmother kept Kannadasan's poetry on her nightstand, worn pages filled with wisdom about life's hidden dangers. She'd read aloud how beauty masks poison, how serpents teach us vigilance. Through PaybookClub, I discovered her annotations, marginalia revealing fears she never spoke aloud. One evening, finding a cobra near our courtyard, I recalled her words. Not with panic, but understanding. She'd prepared me through verse, through shared literary moments, through belonging to something larger than myself. That snake became a teacher, just as Kannadasan intended. My grandmother's legacy lived in that moment, binding past and present through inherited wisdom, reminding me our stories protect us.