While driving away from a protracted and unfortunate situation, I asked for guidance.
A moment later I came to a snake crossing the street in front of my car. Instinctively I swerved to avoid hitting it.
As I drove onward, I felt a pang of rage overtake me.
The reptile had suddenly embodied all the negative energy I was experiencing.
It was clear and imperative that I choose.
Either I needed to interpret the snake’s crossing as a symbolic offer, a catalyst perchance, or accept it as random coincidence of mundane relevance, and switch the channel.
I stopped the car and reversed.
As I passed the snake once again, I paused, and watched it continue its slither across the asphalt, lit by the car’s headlights.
A tinge of regret briefly washed through me but I let it fade. I frowned, and drove forward, intent on running over the snake.
The front passenger tire registered a harsh muffled bump and it sent ripples through my bones. The sensation had an immutable finality to it.
Once more I reversed the car, got out, and stood there, spiritually naked and defenseless, stealing a couple irreverent snapshots from the unexpected churn of an irreversible event.
When I got back in the car, my mind was reeling with the consequence of my action… and that’s when I saw….
I saw with the snake’s eyes.
A plume of dark remorseless conscience welled inside me. It blackened and dilated my pupils, and the world lost its balance…nothing mattered, nothing but a cold calculated will to affect conquest… It felt exhilarating, unhinged and raw, self-contained, devolved and base, and absent of soul… It was powerful and empty, linear in its directive and pointless and self-consuming in its ambition.
It was shuddering and chill.
I closed my eyes and listened to my boy’s voice echo in my mind like crystal bells, a child’s voice, the elixir of evolution.
When I opened my eyes I had received the snake’s poison and its antidote.
-Iliad Alexander Terra
portentous copperhead
