blog/enigma

Saturday, December 15, 2007

2:50 AM

Once upon a time, there was a snake called C. C was your average snake - he liked to spend most of his time basking in the sun when the weather was too cold for him, and occasionally caught a few mice to eat. He was a small snake, certainly not of anaconda size or anything close. Therefore, he usually killed the mice with a little poison from his venom sac, which he was proficient at. One squirt and a bite, then the mouse would stop struggling and C could take his time to swallow. Then he would take a sunny nap, showing his green glossy skin which he was very proud of.

One fine winter day, C poked his head out of his warm burrow and tasted the air with his tongue. C did not like the cold. But the snow had stopped at night and now it was sunny. The sunlight reflected off the snow like a diamond's glitter so C decided to slither out and lie around for a while.

As C was snuggling into some twigs, suddenly, he heard a noisy chattering. C raised a lazy eye upwards. He found that he was under a tree and there were sparrows on the branches directly above him. That surprised C because it was winter and he knew that the birds wouldn't return until the climate got warmer. C did not like birds because the bigger ones could poke at him with their nasty beaks and carry him off as prey. But sparrows were alright. They were small birds.

Thus he greeted the sparrows, with some caution, "Good morning, sparrows. What are you doing in the winter?"

The sparrows at first seemed uncertain where the hissing was coming from, until one of them pointed downwards and the rest excitedly started in a bubbly conversation.

"Ooh, a snake!" one of them said.

"What's your name?" another was curious.

"We could be friends!" the third one, who had spotted C first, declared.

C found it difficult to crane his neck towards the sky for too long because it was getting stiff. Being a snake, having a stiff neck was very uncomfortable indeed.

So he said, "My name is C. Could you guys come down? You could perch at these fallen branches."

The sparrows debated this in friendly banter, and within a minute all three of them flew down in a flurry of brown wings and black specks. C still held some doubt, but was getting more delighted by the second for the company. Being a snake was lonely business. A snake didn't get many friends because they were solitary hunters, and the only conversation they usually had comprise of screams from their preys, which didn't provide much opportunity for continuation.

"What are you sparrows doing in the Winter here? Shouldn't you fly to the South?" C was still puzzled at their presence.

"Oh, oh, we were going to," the small one with dark spots over his wings chirped up.

"But a strong gust of wind separated us from our family," the other sparrow which was slightly plumper added sadly, his features a little funny with his melodramatic expression.

"We're learning to survive though. It's not that bad. And everything is so white." the last one was the biggest sparrow of all, though being a sparrow, was only a little wider than C.

C pondered this while flipping his tail in the snow. The three sparrows pecked inquisitively at the blinding-white ground, searching in vain for worms, but even after they brushed away the shallowest part of the snow, their beaks couldn't break the frozen ground.

C felt sorry for his new friends. Then he thought of an idea. He knew of a wise toad who lived nearby in a pond. The toad probably stayed in the rocks beside the pond because the pond water had hardened to glass and C could slide on it. The wise toad might know what to do. He conveyed the idea to his feathery friends.

"Well, no harm trying!" The biggest and most prudent one said, "Show the way!"

C slided in the unique way that snakes travel - sliding in an S shape. The snow sometimes hindered his movement, though, and once in a while a stone blocked his way. But still he slithered fast, with the sparrows in the air. They beat their wings hard, partly to make more heat for themselves to guard against the cold.

"Are we there yet! Are we there yet!" The two smaller sparrows were cheerfully singing.

Finally they reached the pond. C motioned for them to approach the stones. Some snow had fallen on the rocks, but mostly the gray could still be seen. C called out.

"Wise Toad! Oh Wise Toad! Are you there? We have a question for you," C could not see the toad.

But there was no movement. C crawled in between the maze of pebbles, and was surprised to find the Wise Toad in deep slumber. C nudged the Wise Toad with his head. Still the Wise Toad did not stir from his sleep.

"Oh, he's hibernating!" C thought.

C was disappointed to come out of the rocks to tell the sparrows the bad news. However, as he poked himself out, he found his friends gathering at the opposite side of the pond. As the pond wasn't big, C slithered across the frozen water.

"What is it?" C cried out as soon as they were in earshot.

The sparrows were strangely silent. They seemed to be fascinated with some object that C couldn't see from his angle. He pushed his way gently through the feathers.

The sparrows were gathering around a clump of moss which had fought against the cold. But the moss itself wasn't interesting - something in the middle was. It was a small yellow bud, petite and weak. It swayed dangerously in the wind, as if it could break off without a sound, but it held on. C didn't know how long they had been observing the bud, just that it seemed like a short while, yet in that fleeting moment was an everlasting eternity. Nothing moved, until...

The bud slowly opened. The world itself had stopped, and the only things moving were the pale yellow petals, pushing slowly away. Then it stopped, and at the center of the flower was an intense black contrasting against this world of white. In a fateful encounter, the snake and the sparrows had just witnessed the blossoming of a beautiful flower.

"I've never seen something so pretty," C thought to himself. He knew the sparrows must be thinking the same.

Suddenly, a voice spoke behind him. It frightened the sparrows briefly, sending them up into the air in a fluster. Even C ducked away instinctively. But it was the Wise Toad. The toad said in a raspy voice, like that of a toad which had just woken from its hibernation.

"Ah... The First Flower of Spring..."

***

And indeed, Spring came very quickly. It came with a mad rush of lush green grasses, racing all over the ground until there was no snow left. It came with trees regaining their vitality and sprouting their leaves and flowers to exude the most refreshing of fragrances. Last but not least, it came with the return of the birds.

C was sad to see his new-found friends leave. But they did not leave at all. They perched at the very same tree where C made his burrows, so C always woke up to the melodious calls of the sparrows. When C searched for mice, the sparrows kept silent to not spoil his hunt. But as C basked on the ground, the sparrows would surround the skies above him and chorus a happy song. Their friendship survived the seasons.

In summer, when the sun grew unbearably scorching, C would slip into the pond where the Wise Toad lived. They would talk about all sorts of things and C gained significantly more knowledgeable through these discussions. The sparrows sought shade in their tree and ate the sweet fruits which the tree grew plentifully. Sometimes, in a fit of mischievous playfulness, the sparrows would drop a fruit down, plopping down right onto the snake and waking him from a fitful nap.

But soon the weather grew cold, and autumn was imminent in the browning of the leaves. Very quickly, the leaves on the ground thickened into a rustling blanket. C had fun hiding in the layers of leaves and with his green body he looked very much like a freshly-fallen vine. The sparrows wouldn't be able to find him and for that he giggled, shaking up the neighboring leaves and exposed his hiding place.

However, their fun could not last. The biggest sparrow related the bad news.

"C, tomorrow we shall have to leave for the South. It breaks my sparrow heart to tell you this, but we won't be coming back."

"Yeah! We'll going to far far away place! And this time we won't get lost!" the other two sang happily, oblivious to the grief.

C was a snake, and snakes don't usually show their emotions. He blinked passively, and crawled back to his hole without a word.

***

The next morning, the sparrows were utterly shocked to find that two of their eggs were gone. They had planned to leave the eggs in the warmth of the tree hole so it would hatch in the following Spring, but now they were gone.

Who could have took them? Not many animals knew of the sparrows' nesting place. The biggest sparrow had a bad feeling, and flew to C to tell him the bad news.

C was initially as shocked, but he did not show it. Instead, he felt a great sadness overcome him as he heard himself said, "I ate them."

A look of confusion, then anger flashed across the biggest sparrow's face.

"How could you?" the sparrow spat out every word, "We trusted you!"

"There were no more rats," C bled inside. He was stabbed by the sharpness of his own lies. But still he did not show it. "I was hungry."

Tears dripped down onto the cold, fallen, rotting leaves. The sparrow said no more. It was time to go. So he cried out an assembly cry and each and every sparrow on the tree flew behind him. Soon the tree were empty, devoid of the happy chirps that C was so accustomed to. The silence was deafening.

C watched the black spots disappear into the horizon. The Wise Toad crawled slowly towards him.

"Are you sure you made the right decision?" the toad licked its dry lips. Soon it would go to sleep again.

"No," C replied. He circled the old tree's trunk, around the bends of the roots. C slithered slowly and surely, but then something blocked his way. At first he thought it was a stone, but they were two hard objects.

The sparrows' eggs have fallen, but they were cushioned by the leaves. C wrapped himself around the two eggs, keeping them warm. That was the end of the curious friendship between the sparrow and the snake. The sparrows were gone into the unknown skies. And rested with the eggs snuggled in his burrow, the snake finally wept.

signed, jiasheng