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One of the movers hauling furniture into my living room asked me if the little white balls beyond the patio’s glass door were snails. I told him they were. 

Wow. 

Yeah, they were there when I got my keys to the place. 

That’s amazing. You’re kinda lucky. You know, to have that. 

I knew.

A modern fence enclosed the small patio. Its horizontal wooden planks had gaps that allowed a view of the lush green backdrop bordering the apartment property. The wood looked as if a pearl necklace had burst open all over it; almost every joint and corner had constellations of cream shells stuck to them. I couldn’t wait to show my son, Julian. He finally had his own room, and we weren’t repeatedly tripping over our sweet fifteen-pound dog anymore. The space was the largest we had occupied, almost twice as big as our last rental.

It took a while to nail the cozy rustic aesthetic I wanted for our home. I was replacing my old couch and dining set and needed the new pieces to look like they were married to the interior color scheme and hardwood floors. The first two weeks were a blur, and soon my morning routine included marveling at the snails with a cup of hot coffee in hand. It was like relaxing in a magical garden. At any moment, they might come out of their shells and start scooting about, leaving adorable tiny slime trails. But week after week, they failed to drift from their positions. We tried encouraging movement by misting them generously with water, hoping to also cool the surface under the summer sun. Julian would put his toy locomotive down, grab the spray bottle and make sure to mist every shell in sight—still nothing. I couldn’t imagine them surviving almost two months motionless in the heat. A quick Google search told me they were either escaping toxins on the ground, extreme heat, or predators. I was sure they were dead after examining a few on the floor. Their shell openings looked dry and tinted with a sanguineous color. My god, were these refugees? This was a death march we witnessed. I thought about putting in a work order to have them collected. It's an odd maintenance request, but I didn't sign up to have a patio decorated with scores of gastropod corpses. Maybe I'll just scrape them off myself. I really didn’t want to be struck with suffering and tragedy each morning as I tried enjoying my coffee. There were even baby snails among them. I felt like an asshole. To move in and enjoy the snails—deny mentioning it to the leasing office for months—but now that they didn’t fit into our perfect world, into Julian’s childhood, I wanted them out. I wanted to remove them all. I allowed myself only a small measure of grief for a deathly scene of that caliber. On with life.

Early morning rain always put a little spark in my step. Waking up is painless when grumbling thunder promises a gray sky and a glistening parking lot outside my window. Even better than that is the sound of rain dripping off tree branches and roofs then splashing onto puddles in the earth. On one of these mornings, Julian stopped brushing his teeth to ask me if I’d promise to help him build a train when he’s all grown up. Part of the deal is joining him on his first cross country trip. I promised. As I opened the living room curtains, I pictured this venture whimsically in my mind. Of course, the precious vision vanished as soon as my self-preservation reminded me that chances are he’ll change his mind when he’s older. That thought settled into my chest like a feathered thorn. 

            New snails appeared on top of the wet fence. I peered closer and saw they were almost entirely out of their shells, stretched over the ledges. Their upper tentacles extended far from their heads and spread wide apart, surveying the small areas around them. Raindrops agreed with their bodies and cooled the floors beneath them. Almost all the snails were pulling themselves forward and turning different ways. They moved on their terms and responded only to nature’s laws, humbling a human who had grown so in control of her life and home. As I witnessed their rebirth, I imagined if they had voices they’d probably say something like, We're not here to entertain you. We don't know or care that you're enchanted with us. We aren’t your souvenirs. We need something you cannot provide, and your presence here is inconsequential.