Snake preview - Excerpt

Cross Currents, Spring, 2002 by Catherine Madsen

"Speak not so lightly!" it said. "These are mysteries. Dare not to search God's purpose." It grew less bombastic; its tone was almost hushed. "He it is alone forms light and dark, makes good and ill--no evil in the city but is his -- and storm and wind, and Hell, fulfill his word." It stretched its head up, proud and cobralike; a quaver of emotion came into its voice. "I his left hand, his mightie arm outstretch'd, do without thanks what yet his right knows not; and will while this earth lives, till he my author look from high heav'n on me so long estrang'd and say, 'Well done, thou good and faithful serpent!'"

Sarita flung back her head and laughed. "Oh, that was worth the wait. I've always thought there was more to 'Evil be thou my good' than met the eye." But quickly she sobered. "I suppose that's my answer, isn't it? The zealots are yours and God's; they can't lose. And in another sense Mim and Bob are yours and God's too. It's a sort of dual sponsorship, or else no sponsorship at all; as if you're both just waiting, as if all heaven waits quite passively to see what poor mortal flesh will do next."

"The earth hath he bequeath'd to Adam's brood," said the serpent with a moping shrug of one coil. "And much luck may they have of it. For me, I will retire -- if you are answer'd now -- and think on him in contemplation calm whose mightie works sustain and taint the world." It flowed gracefully down a leg of the table and toward the anteroom, beginning to chant something inaudible to itself.

Sarita started up in alarm: what would it do if it got outside the shop? Could it open the door? Why hadn't she locked the deadbolt? It was in the anteroom before she was out of her chair; she seized her shears and ran after it. The doorknob had delayed it only briefly: its head was already through the door, and the chanting was louder. "Plague, inquisition, warfare, woe, pogrom," it was saying in tones of uncontainable worship, "bomb, gun, grenade, blind hatred, ignorance. Apartheid, empire, revolution, rape, Sonderbehandlung, gulag, torture, lies." It undulated in rhythm with its words.

Sarita sprang after it. The tip of its tail was just going through the door; she snipped it off, and the serpent went coiling down the hail, scattering beans from side to side behind it. It was shouting hysterically now: "A kinder, gentler nation! Right to life! Diet delight! You've come a long way, baby!" But when it got to the head of the stairs its strength failed; it lay limp, depleted, moving ineffectually on the grey linoleum. She caught up with it and knelt by its head, uncertain what to do. It raised its head with great effort: the opals were milky, their lights hidden, its voice was a hoarse gasp. In spite of herself she leaned closer to hear it. "Trust me," it said, and died.

"Oh, Lord," she said. Then, against a certain distaste, she took hold of the wrapped wire and yanked it from the mouth. With the shears she tore the length of the satin body, wadded it into a ball, and took it back to her trash. She brought a broom and swept up the three pounds of beans it had taken to stuff the creature. What could she do with the beans? They were probably contaminated with floor wax, or for all she knew with cockroach spray; they couldn't be eaten. A waste entirely. Tears sprang to her eyes. Perhaps if she washed them carefully -- but with what? -- her assistant Todd would take the beans for his compost; they could sprout there and be turned under, and surely whatever had spoiled them would be dispersed there and not do harm. She tipped the dustpan into a paper bag. And then she sat at the top of the stairs and wept, for her failure and for her loneliness; for the impossibility of protecting any friend against danger; for her first memory of Mim, magniloquent and so strangely fearful, and f or Mim's new courage. And because Mim had a lover, because she was giving the best of herself elsewhere, because anyone but Sarita herself should have the enjoyment of her body and of her mind.