Slithering...

Mike and I have started taking long strolls in the evenings before we hunker down into our feathery cocoon for sleep. The sun has generally set and its last rays gleam just barely over the western mountains, leaving us in the cool, purple haze of dusk. The other night as we were coming around the home stretch, I stopped dead in my tracks. In our path lay a large snake, still as sin, watching us. Mike, oblivious to my sudden stop, continued walking into the fiend's deadly lair. With a flick of his slick tongue, the snake revealed his lurking, causing Mike to yelp, run 20 feet into the road and hunker down into a kung-fu chopping stance. I remained still, then ran like a banshee around the slithering beastie. Mike later asked me why I didn't care to mention the fact that a serpent, nay, Satan himself, lay in our path. I have no idea. Perhaps I was hovering in the breath of metamorphosis: prey or huntress. I told Mike that I was talking to the snake in parseltongue about vacating the premises or suffering the cruel crush of his mighty blows. We felt skittish the rest of the walk home. Every branch, crack in the sidewalk, or stir in the bushes nearly revealed a legion of slithering villains surreptitiously plotting our deaths (we've watched too many utube videos of animals the size of Back Street Boys being swallowed whole). As my protector, Mike gallantly walked on the side of the wilderness, sending his beady glare and his Crocodile Dundee animal charm into the darkness to inspire proper fear in their chill, death-like hearts. The beasts stayed at bay, whispering along the edges, and we returned safe and unscathed to our apartment.