STORY: Herpetophobia
A short, quiet story. No objectionable content.
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On the day after mum died, Emmanuelle drove from the hospital to the cottage by Lake Siljan. It was March, a time of year when she'd never been here. The sky and water were silver. She walked past the main house with its unlit windows and down the path to the lake. The slope was steep enough that she had to walk more carefully so as not to slip on the grass. The path was lined with drifts of withered brushwood that had been clumps of dittany when she'd been here - and other flowers? It had been so long ago she couldn't remember their names.
Their beach was a little crescent of rough sand. She took off her trainers and left her socks in them before going out on the little water-breaker that grandpa had built. You couldn't climb on rocks wearing shoes. The stone was cold, but not cold enough that it would harm her skin.
The water-breaker ended in a pointy rock that might have come down with the ice sheet, with an orange reflector post stuck in a bore-hole at the top to warn boaters at night. She held on to the post as she clambered up, and ended up standing for a while with her hand on it until she was sure she'd regained her balance. Whatever had happened, she didn't want to die. She sat down on an uneven and somewhat sloping plane that felt chilly through her jeans as she shuffled closer to the water. She'd come out to sit here once after she and mum had had a fight, and when she came back up to the house mum had hugged her and said she was sorry. A faint wind blew across the lake. She felt the cold, but it didn't affect her.
Below the iron-grey reflection on the surface the water was dark and almost reddish, like black tea. When she was a kid she'd wondered why it looked so different from sea-water.
She'd dreamt.
It had been years ago. She'd dreamt that she was standing here on the rock. The black water had been so transparent she could see all the way to the bottom, and the lake had been swarming with snakes, some big enough to swallow a human. Maybe there had been other things down there, tentacles. Some had washed up on the shore.
Something splashed behind her, and she got to her feet as if it had been a snake. It was Alex making his way along the water-breaker. His dark hair hung down on both sides of his face as he looked where he put his feet.
“Emmanuelle,” he said, clambering onto the rock. “Your bro said you were here... I was a bit worried you were going to kill yourself.”
“That wasn't why you came here, I hope?”
“Nah. But I thought you needed a bit of company.”
“Thanks. It's appreciated.”
He sat with his gaze focused on the horizon and didn't say anything, so she was the one who spoke next:
“I dreamt about this lake... when I was in my teens. I dreamt that it was full of snakes.”
He chuckled.
“Freud would have said that was a sexual dream,” he said. “On the other hand he said everything was.”
Her hair slid across her cheeks as she shook her head.
“It's probably the one dream I've had that wasn't about sex. I think it was about death.”
Alex made a little noise to make her go on. She scraped at a spot of white lichen with a fingernail as she spoke:
“We're afraid of snakes... not everyone, perhaps, but I'm bloody terrified of snakes. It's not because they're dangerous. I thought about why I was, and came to the conclusion that it's because they're so different, alien. They don't have limbs like mammals, they look like something that shouldn't be able to move. They slip instead of walking. We're afraid of them because they're outside our experience. And I think it's the same thing...”
It came slower. It was hard to find the right words.
“I think it's the same thing with death. We have to die, just like all other animals, because we consist of organic matter. But a rabbit doesn't know that it's going to die. It lives, all the way up to the point where its brain stops working. Since we're sapient, we know that we're going to die, but we don't know what's on the other side.”
Alex sat silent. She looked across the lake where the clouds had started unravelling and letting yellow light through.
“We die like animals,” she went on, “but we have to endure it like humans.”
After maybe fifteen minutes they turned away from the lake and went back up towards the road.
THE END
If you enjoy my writing, consider supporting my Patreon. That's how you get me to write more!
On the day after mum died, Emmanuelle drove from the hospital to the cottage by Lake Siljan. It was March, a time of year when she'd never been here. The sky and water were silver. She walked past the main house with its unlit windows and down the path to the lake. The slope was steep enough that she had to walk more carefully so as not to slip on the grass. The path was lined with drifts of withered brushwood that had been clumps of dittany when she'd been here - and other flowers? It had been so long ago she couldn't remember their names.
Their beach was a little crescent of rough sand. She took off her trainers and left her socks in them before going out on the little water-breaker that grandpa had built. You couldn't climb on rocks wearing shoes. The stone was cold, but not cold enough that it would harm her skin.
The water-breaker ended in a pointy rock that might have come down with the ice sheet, with an orange reflector post stuck in a bore-hole at the top to warn boaters at night. She held on to the post as she clambered up, and ended up standing for a while with her hand on it until she was sure she'd regained her balance. Whatever had happened, she didn't want to die. She sat down on an uneven and somewhat sloping plane that felt chilly through her jeans as she shuffled closer to the water. She'd come out to sit here once after she and mum had had a fight, and when she came back up to the house mum had hugged her and said she was sorry. A faint wind blew across the lake. She felt the cold, but it didn't affect her.
Below the iron-grey reflection on the surface the water was dark and almost reddish, like black tea. When she was a kid she'd wondered why it looked so different from sea-water.
She'd dreamt.
It had been years ago. She'd dreamt that she was standing here on the rock. The black water had been so transparent she could see all the way to the bottom, and the lake had been swarming with snakes, some big enough to swallow a human. Maybe there had been other things down there, tentacles. Some had washed up on the shore.
Something splashed behind her, and she got to her feet as if it had been a snake. It was Alex making his way along the water-breaker. His dark hair hung down on both sides of his face as he looked where he put his feet.
“Emmanuelle,” he said, clambering onto the rock. “Your bro said you were here... I was a bit worried you were going to kill yourself.”
“That wasn't why you came here, I hope?”
“Nah. But I thought you needed a bit of company.”
“Thanks. It's appreciated.”
He sat with his gaze focused on the horizon and didn't say anything, so she was the one who spoke next:
“I dreamt about this lake... when I was in my teens. I dreamt that it was full of snakes.”
He chuckled.
“Freud would have said that was a sexual dream,” he said. “On the other hand he said everything was.”
Her hair slid across her cheeks as she shook her head.
“It's probably the one dream I've had that wasn't about sex. I think it was about death.”
Alex made a little noise to make her go on. She scraped at a spot of white lichen with a fingernail as she spoke:
“We're afraid of snakes... not everyone, perhaps, but I'm bloody terrified of snakes. It's not because they're dangerous. I thought about why I was, and came to the conclusion that it's because they're so different, alien. They don't have limbs like mammals, they look like something that shouldn't be able to move. They slip instead of walking. We're afraid of them because they're outside our experience. And I think it's the same thing...”
It came slower. It was hard to find the right words.
“I think it's the same thing with death. We have to die, just like all other animals, because we consist of organic matter. But a rabbit doesn't know that it's going to die. It lives, all the way up to the point where its brain stops working. Since we're sapient, we know that we're going to die, but we don't know what's on the other side.”
Alex sat silent. She looked across the lake where the clouds had started unravelling and letting yellow light through.
“We die like animals,” she went on, “but we have to endure it like humans.”
After maybe fifteen minutes they turned away from the lake and went back up towards the road.
THE END