We were walking in the Noanet Woodlands in Dover, MA early Easter afternoon, in gusty winds tempered by strong sunshine. I was babbling about how OJ Simpson’s double-murder trial whet the media’s taste for delivering constant live news about a single inconsequential story when suddenly, my eyes glimpsed a snake on the path at my feet, twisting itself wildly in an undulating sine wave.
I immediately screamed. It wasn’t like I tried to scream, or was even aware I had screamed. All I knew was that I may have stepped on a snake and it was obviously disturbed. So I grabbed onto Mr. Pinault’s shoulders and tried to use him as leverage to launch myself into the sky. Having completely rattled the poor man, he shook loose of me and ran about ten feet down the path, then yelled at me for freaking both of us out: “What is wrong with you?” he asked. “It’s just a snake.”
Yes, just a harmless garter snake, like I’ve seen dozens of times before. I grew up with an awareness that snakes were everywhere: In the garden, in the woods, in the lakes and rivers where we swam. I petted snakes at zoos and museums. And I pride myself on having respect for nature and an acceptance that it is filled with creepy, crawly, and slithery things, most of which cannot really hurt me. So I can only blame a primordial instinct for causing me to scream. As Emily Dickinson wrote “I feel for them a transport/ Of cordiality;/ But never met this fellow,/ Attended or alone,/ Without a tighter breathing,/ And zero at the bone.” It wouldn’t be very poetic, but what Emily means is the sudden appearance of a snake makes her scream like a sissy, too.
The snake is one of the most allegorical animals ever; it’s ubiquitous in mythology, symbolizing everything from renewal, immortality, fertility, and the totality of existence, to trickery, death, and Satan. In Hindu, snakes are second only to the cow in sacredness. Serpents also make appearances in Greek, Norse, Egyptian, Germanic, Mayan, Yoruba, and Buddhist myths. Even Ireland, a country that never had snakes because of regional and evolutionary quirks, honors St. Patrick for his alleged vanquishment of the species from the Emerald Isle. Despite being revered in many legends, the snake is the most despised animal of Christianity for introducing Adam and Eve to sin and therefore damning mankind to a life of drudgery and, eventually, hellfire, unless salvation is found in Jesus Christ.
These days though, if you say “snakes,” chances are someone will say “On a Plane!” Hollywood is stunned by the frenzied anticipation of Snakes on a Plane, a movie staring Samuel L. Jackson that is solely based around: Snakes on a plane. The title has piqued the interest on people worldwide, and the studio even re-shoot scenes to include lots more gore along with Jackson yelling “I want these motherfucking snakes off the motherfucking plane,” mimicking an internet parody. What is it about the title “snakes on a plane” that has captured people’s imaginations? Is it somehow connected to mankind’s ancient urge to pay tribute to the snake’s elusive physiology? Any other animal – Bats on a Plane, Bees on a Plane, Wolves on a Plane – doesn’t promise as much struggle, terror, and hilarity as Snakes on a Plane.
Back to the path in the Noanet Woodlands… we walked on. I stared at the ground in front of me, keen to spot another snake before it scared the daylights out of me. Ten minutes later, my eyes detected an aberration in color: Two long strips of bright yellow amid the green and brown hues of forest debris. I stopped and calmly told Mr. Pinault, “Look, it’s another snake.” We stopped moving and stared at it, and Mr. Pinault took a picture, and we moved away, leaving it to bask in the sunshine. I felt at peace with snakes on a walk, but snakes on a plane, ain’t shit you can do about it.
A Narrow Fellow
