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A Serpent in
the Dust
Something
happened today that bummed me out. I was walking down the length of the
parking lot, and I saw, in the dirt, a snake that had just been run over by a
car. It was still moving, and at my first peripheral glance, it looked like a
healthy snake, crawling in the road. It only took a second, when I looked
right at it, to see how obviously broken it was.
I dig snakes.
I think they are the coolest animals on the planet. Fantastic feats of
evolutionary and biological engineering. They are beautiful. Even the
poisonous ones. They move with the slow and vaguely sexual dark synergy of
satin and scales, static poetry and kinetic vibration, divine creation and
demonic sensuality. Like Mark Knopfler’s guitar, alive and electric with
peristaltic energy and freudian tension and form. Forked tongue, fiery eyes,
and feathery motion. Roamers of the earth. Dwellers of the underworld.
Unblinking sentinels of the holy of holies. Friend to good vibes and pure
hearts, formidable foe to fear, disrespect, and the furry mammals on the
smaller end of the food chain. But no match for a Michelin.
This one was
writhing in its death throes in the dusty dirt. It was only about a foot long.
Small, nonpoisonous, beautiful. But bleeding and broken. Suffering. Putting up
a heroic fight against its own severed spinal vertabrae. Not going gentle into
that good night. I don’t blame it.
I knelt down
beside it and was sad. I wanted to lay my hands on it and make it alright
again and let it slide away back to its opiate slitherings in the forest
floor. But I’m not a healer or an angel. I’m just a guy with a residual
hangover, a soft spot for my fellow life-forms (especially those in pain), and
a mourning for man’s careless indifference. I wanted to ease this
creature’s suffering, and the only way to do that was with a large stone.
I found one
about the diameter of a softball and the thickness of an axehead. I knelt back
down beside my terminally injured friend, and tried to work up my nerve. I
wanted to end its pain and this was the only way to do it. But it went against
every instinct in my body and neuron in my brain. My purpose on earth is to
create beauty, and bring joy to life. Smashing the skull of a living creature
does neither of those things. I thought about the fact that there are grown
men right here in this county that kill on a regular basis beasts of equal or
greater magnificence purely for the fun of it. I might feel less wretched if I
could bring down the rock on one of these ignorant ruiners of all things good.
But in this universe, these guys get to live and reproduce, and this hapless
garden serpent of beauty has to die. Maybe one day I’ll understand this. But
I doubt it.
I brought the
stone down, twice, with force enough to sufficiently snuff the screaming
synnapses of pain in the serpent’s brain, and extinguish its earthly
consciousness. As I did, I laid my open hand on its body, and whispered to it,
“Thank you for living and existing. My humblest apologies on behalf of my
species. May your suffering end. May your molecules return to the earth. And
may your consciousness return to the universe. I wish I could have known you
unbroken and well. Thank you for your beauty.” I carried it off the road and
laid it in the woods. Then I continued on to where I was going, slowly, in a
daze from the knowledge that I had just willfully killed a beautiful creature.
Was this the
right thing to do? Did I give the snake the one thing that it most needed at
that particular time in which our paths crossed, and make things better in the
only way that I could? Did I lessen the overall level of pain and suffering in
the universe, if only by a microcosmic amount? Or was this just another
example of Man’s anthropomorphic meddling with the course of nature? I
thought it might be both.
I’m going
to sleep tonight with the feel of the thud of the stone on reptile flesh
hammering through my brain. The next time I see a snake basking in its
stone-baked temple of the sun, or stealthily patrolling its organic forest
fiefdom, I’ll gaze upon its divine motion and satanic beauty, and give
thanks for all snakes everywhere. I’ll think of my unfortunate friend. And
I’ll wish for fewer cars in the world.
July 2001
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