Imagining an Animal!

Grass slowly flows beneath the scales of the snake as it slowly slithers across the field.  Wind caresses the soft hills of the plane, leaving the grass to writhe in ecstatic joy as the snake tunnels through its ticklish embrace.  Far away, a small flower watches the snake; it takes in the sun and the wind, exhaling a certain sigh of relief in its safe tree above the world of treacherous animals just waiting to eat from its delectable petals.

The snake recoils slightly and, stopping to view the surrounding terrain, continues on, watching carelessly, unafraid of danger in the slightest.  A white noise hums from the earth itself; an engine idling, waiting, as if in standby between the days of its youth and its inevitable collapse into oblivion.  It is a natural hum, created from the animals and bugs that once ruled the Earth, before the days of Man--the days of creation.  Cicadas chirping and barking their calls to each other, crickets playing their songs for the Earth to hear, like deaf musicians playing their songs for their long dead lovers.

It rolls to a stop, looking out to where, atop a hill, the Earth is smothered; the grass lying in bliss under a blanket of two lovers lazing upon a quilted creation of origins unknown.  The snake hesitates, but pushes on.  The unknown is something to fear, but facing fear is easy enough when one cannot understand the meaning of cowardice.  It nears the blanket, pausing slightly.  Instruments of communication rise from the throats of the lovers as the snake finds its world enveloped in darkness.  Red protrudes into the black, light is muffled beneath the sheathe on the earth; a different world unknown to the snake.  The dark depths of its lair, pierced by the Sun's unforgiving glare onto the Earth, was a home to the snake.  In this darkness, it was an alien.

Screams pierce the hum, the Earth is trampled beneath frightened skin.  Bones crash and push away, perspiration bathes the grass, two figures grasp away and retreat to their own sides.  Light pushes through, darkness falls back, the snake returns to the Earth.

Laughter breaks the hum, skin is alight with the sun.  Far away, a flower sighs with relief.