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