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Short Fiction - Dialogue With Snakes pg 8[1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11] But something, a little spark, deep inside Kit, something that had been kindled years before, flared into a bright tongue of flame. No! it screamed. Something else, you want something else. You'll never get it if you stop now, if you compromise again. Don't be afraid, any more, not ever. Before she could say anything else, Al's hands opened and spread themselves on her shoulders, his fingers digging in. "Don't you say you're going to tell Khala, or try to force me to anything. I know you don't have the balls to talk to her, or to anyone else, so don't even imagine you can blackmail me. What do you want, little girl, or is this just another one of your moods? Don't be coy with me, Kitty. I'm not about to let you ruin my life with your `inspirations'. Don't tell me about taking your life in your hands. What you mean is trying to ruin my life. Well, whatever your game is, I'm not playing." Then softer, the old cowboy's face wrinkling into gentleness, "Come on, Kit. Don't go away like you do. Let's go back and get something to eat." Stung, Kit felt tears welling into her eyes. Let's float some of those parasites out. She yelled, "You bastard. What makes you think that my life should revolve around you? Talk to your precious Khala if you want devotion. I'm through. Besides, baby," nastily, it felt good to get to say what she wanted for once. It was no holds barred in these woods, "Didn't you hear? I'm charmed. Nothing hurts me for good. I don't care about revenge. I just want to continue with my life alone if there's no place in yours for me. I don't - " She stopped dead. Al waited. "This is unreal." If I were the Forest, what would I be doing to get rid of me? Well, here's Al, and now Kit can do her usual trick of apologizing for everything, not just what should be her fault - and she can listen to Al and follow him back to the motel, satisfied that the Endless Forest isn't worth dealing with. What does she need with challenge when she's got contentment? All it would take is Kitty's usual trick of making herself responsible for maintaining order, so useful in making sure waves don't get big enough to capsize this fragile little boat of a theatre company on the road. Well, it was time to stop making those famous compromises and start deciding in favour of herself. Snakes, in the corners of her eyes, writhing in the leaves under the trees, and she knew she was right. "Al," she said. "You're not here anyway - but if you were, I would have one thing to tell you." She pulled her hands away from his, which were cooling rapidly to the temperature of stone. "I reject you, now and forever, like I could never do before, because your little kindnesses are not worth the anguish I force myself through for you. Goodbye, goodbye." She looked, and saw that behind Al, the grassy slope had vanished into the long hall of canopy-roofed path. And Al himself was changing. In the stones around his feet, there was movement, and Kit saw she had been right all along about there being a pattern in the cobbles, and about the snakes. They seemed to be made of stone, part of the path itself, winding up and out of it around his legs. Kit watched, fascinated, as Al's skin colour deepened to yellow-pink, his clothes turning the same shade, until he was completely made of stone. The snakes, blending perfectly, moved up, their jointed jaws dropping, stone tongues flicking out, hissing. They wrapped themselves around the statue that had once been Al - and began to consume it. She wasn't sure how they accomplished it - remembered a video she had seen once of a snake swallowing a goat - She didn't watch the end. It wasn't Al, really, just a creation of the Forest. But the conversation mattered. She had put him aside, behind her, and that was real. She had given him up, and it had been easier than she had imagined. It had been good, it had all been good, but it was time to move on. So it was time to move on. Now, as she walked, she could hear whispers all around her. The snakes were pretty vocal, she thought, and soon she got accustomed enough to what was being said that she could answer. "Your carpet bag - " they would whisper. "I reject it," she would reply. "I give it up." Not I'm not really attached to that, but it doesn't matter to me, and never did. Your job - your clothes - your apartment - your diary - your memories of family - your childhood - I give them all up. Your face - your hair - your arms - your legs - your chicken pox scars - It was a game, to see what they could think of, and for her to reject it, to see what she would decide suddenly she couldn't do without. She had meant it, after all, she saw, when she embraced the woods. Her physical form slipped away, like the sloughing of a second skin leaving the substance underneath. Nothing mattered to her but whatever the essence of her was, and with everything she gave up, every trapping she threw away, she sensed she was getting closer. Your knowledge of the world, the snakes whispered. Your senses. Language. Take them, she laughed, and at that moment, transcended speech and conception. The woods developed a thousand new colours and scents, a million new experiences all at once. She cried out for joy and whirled down the path as the path disappeared further and further into wildness. How am I communicating, understanding? she asked, but the snakes were feeding her again, more things to reject, more to give up. Everything! she trumpeted, triumphant. Everything? they said, and gave her images of people she had loved, favourite pets, places that held memories. Teach me! cried Kit. Then run with us, replied the snakes. I can run much faster than you, she said, laughing and nervous. But only in straight lines, hissed the snakes. We go side to side, but always somewhere. We sit inactive for long periods, but our inactivity is always precursor to purpose. Can you say that your straight lines always take you somewhere, or that your inactivity is more than laziness? Kit threw her arms wide, darting back and forth in the woods, where the path would have been if there was still a path to follow. Teach me! she cried again. Stay and teach yourself, said the snakes, invitingly, kind and wise. From the beginning of the wood from the beginning of time we have waited for you. You have given up your heritage, your roots, your world, and now, the secrets of all worlds will be yours. We have waited an eternity to share them with you. Kit felt a billion things, each more wonderful and exciting and new than the next - and the snakes slid up to her and up her, like they had done to the Al-statue and clothed her with their bodies until the old Kit was gone, hidden inside a gleaming cocoon of the living bodies of snakes. I leave it all! laughed Kit, a new Kit of joy and possibility. The snakes bent with her, following the lines of her thoughts. Let's. Look! This... Happiness bubbled over her. Can I share? Can I try? The snakes hissed. You can try.  Khala was waiting when Al got back to the motel. Sitting with Sally on lawn chairs, she tapped her watch as he came up. "Where've you been?" she asked. "I went to find Kit so she wouldn't miss the food. Then I just went walking, all over. How long have I been gone?" "Three hours. I was worried." "Sorry," he said, and gave her a quick hug. "Where's Kit?" "She's not back yet either." And there it was, the first suspicion in Khala's voice. Kit, and Al, both gone for hours. He'd as much as admitted he'd been with her. back to jenstuff
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