Most
people believed it was a legend because the climate was not a favourable one for snakes. Grass snakes had
been reported, but no more. Fact is, there was a big, beautiful, black snake
down the hill. It dwelled under the stone by the birch tree, about halfway on
our way to the local supermarket. Its body was as thick as a human leg and long
enough to bridge both sides of the river. Its eyes were always wide open; the
pupil a black diamond amidst a pool of white gold. Stories went that the snake
had appeared after a giant eruption of the old volcano. At first an
infinitesimal living residue left by an outburst of magmatic energy, it had
remained secluded under a stone, they said. It grew at the infinitely slow pace
of sedimentation, the weight of time accumulating onto its body, leaving traces
of scales behind. Others said that a collusion between the earth and an
asteroid had projected it onto the valley, adorning it with that uncanny
metallic scent and auras of unknowings.
The first time I saw it—it was that afternoon when
Mom had sent me to go get some eggs for dinner—the snake hissed like an old
locomotive approaching the highway. Its hooked tongue pointed in my direction,
swift as lightning, unpredictably sharp. I stopped, freezing, trying to
resemble the stone in the grass. I fixed on the horizon, concentrated on my
upper lip, fearing to feel the air dripping off my nose, scared to release a
sound, to betray the beginning of a motion. And yet I sensed the surrounding becoming
sheer movement, like a waterfall submerging the stone that I had become,
testing me, covering me up with the fluidity of time passing, with the beating
noise of my blood against my chest, moving up my face, knocking at my temples,
fleeing down my spine, numbing my limbs.
I heard it sigh—at least I thought I did—and I
watched it crawl, meandering in the dust, folding and unfolding like a thick
rubber rope twisting under pressure. It came to face me, daring, yet keeping
its distance, and we both stood there. I lost track of all familiar references;
my thoughts disappeared into its black dress. When I roused myself, the snake
had coiled back under the stone, the rhythm of its lungs barely visible under
its spine cage.
I went to the supermarket to get those eggs and came
back home with the sight of the snake fixed in my memory, like those tiny green
beads of goosegrass always sticking on my socks. The next morning, I saw myself
returning down the hill. No sound of a hissing locomotive this time. But as I
peeked at the interstice between the rock and the earth, there where shadows
grow, I saw the round edge of its body, pitch-dark, immobile. And instead of
feeling my blood turn warm and cold at the same time, this time, I felt the
urge to pet it, just like I would pet a cat jumping on my lap. It’s not that
the fear was gone, no, but the fear I now experienced no longer seemed to
originate in the sight of the reptile, but rather in the recognition of its
existence in my own world. Somehow, the mere sight of it gave me a feeling of
homecoming. It was like we shared a deep-seated similarity; like it had
preceded me; like I could have not been here without it lying under its stone
in the field down the hill nearby the birch tree.
Weeks, months, years passed. It became a habit to go
down the hill and check on the snake’s dwelling, peeking under the stone,
holding my breath and yet feeling this urge to see its body curl out of its
hole, to gaze at the black diamond in its eyes, to imagine holding its head in
my hands and whispering in its ears. Most of the times, the snake would lie
like a massive leathery rope collapsed upon itself, its head buried in-between
two lumps. When it was awake, we would stand there, face to face, daring each
other. It happened that it reached me with its hooked tong, jerking me out of
my admirative state. But I soon discovered that keeping my gaze straight into
its eyes would make it coil back under its stone, its wilderness shrinking like
ice in warm water.
It was on one of those mornings that I started to
notice the change. The scales around its neck had lost their metallic quality,
now lying soft like down with hints of coniferous patterns, like feathers. I
went back home, made tea, drunk water instead, started to make breakfast but I
was not hungry. I sat there, confused and mesmerized, listening to the wind
passing by the window, waiting.
It
was twilight when the sound of its whinnying made the entire valley quiver and
I saw it rise: a giant black, winged horse, reaching for the stars.
Amsterdam, Spring 2019
