Earth Snake

Lunar New Year fell on Feb 15. Anyone born before that date belongs to the previous year (Loong).

Snakes do not explain themselves. Quietest in the meeting and busiest afterwards, they can cut to the point in one sentence if you ask, and they usually wait for you to ask. Small shifts in a room register fast, sometimes before the person involved notices their own change of manner. They read as cool and slightly apart. The truth is that the distance protects their attention: inside is livelier than it looks, and once they open the door for you the conversation runs past midnight. They are not being mysterious for effect; being read too easily feels like being handled.

The sun has baked the ground through, the surface dried into plates, and a footstep breaks them. Such people seem gentle, but the inside is dry and the patience thin. Press the same question twice and they come apart, stopping halfway through a sentence. They know a lot, listening along the ground like something low and quiet, but they dislike being pressed into a shape. Say it once, clearly. Go over it again and they withdraw, leaving crumbs.