Fear . . .
Fear.
The slither of ice down the spine.
The way the heart seems to stop beating for a millisecond before it begins a frenzied gallop.
The sort of sensation that writers must call upon when creating tension.
Better therefore to have experienced it oneself than to try and imagine it without the knowledge. Not so hard then, if one suffers a phobia of . . . snakes?
This writer has such a phobia; one that as a farmer I must deal with on a daily basis in summer. Let me describe an event for you, but before I do, have a look at this information on the Tasmanian Tigersnake.
‘The venom is a complex mixture of . . . nerve poisons. If enough is injected the nerves controlling the heart and lungs are adversely affected and death may result.’
But . . . to our little event:
A warm day with a strong wind.
The horse needs its hooves tended by the blacksmith.
Myself, the horse and blacksmith take refuge in the barn for the job to be carried out.
The barn has a large wooden platform at elbow height down one wall. Perfect for the storage of large hayrolls and bags of harvested grain. And perfect to lean against with one elbow whilst holding the horse by a leadrope.
Blacksmith straightens, rasp in hand. She has known me and my peccadillos for many years.
‘Prue’, she says in an unremarkable tone. ‘Step carefully and sloooowly away from the platform. There’s a tigersnake by your elbow.’
I look at her and laugh. ‘Yeah, right. Don’t tease.’
The thing is she doesn’t laugh back. Just responds ever so slooowly. ‘Don’t jump, just move quietly.’
That’s the point at which the ice slides down the spine. The heart then stops and starts again at full throttle and I do step away, turning to look, and seeing the end few inches of the snake sliding in between the hayrolls.
Of course panic ensues. I cannot EVER come into the barn again with the snake there, so I immediately call Reptile Rescue (Who in the hell rescues snakes? Its ME that needs rescuing and thank god for mobile phones!) and RR arrive in 30 minutes. This crazy, brave man and my blacksmith start pushing in amongst the hayrolls and bags . . . and find nothing!
Then Crazy Man has the idea that UNDER the platform is the place and he CRAWLS amongst stored fence posts and palings while I dance on my toes, jumping at every dark strip of shadow on the floor.
Finally he mutters, ‘Gotcha.’ And emerges with a three foot snake which I SWEAR was ten foot long before, and whose girth is half the width of my wrist but was at LEAST the width of both my thighs joined together before. He holds the beastie by long handled forceps behind the jaw whilst it lashes its body in tight loops around his wrist.
‘Go on,’ says Crazy Man. ‘Touch it. It helps with the phobia.’
I’m stretched taut as a wire and wonder how touching the thing will help but I reach out my hand . . .
I am confused.
This horrid thing that could kill me feels like silk. Cold to be sure, but smooth – almost delicate. It’s beady eyes, jet drops as big as a pinhead, stare at me and the forked tongue flicks in and out. The mouth is open, Crazy Man’s fingers behind the jaw articulating it so. He then places Joe Blake (OZ rhyming slang for snake) in a bag, knots it, places it in the boot of his car for re-location in bush far far away and I almost bow down and worship the ground he walks on.
***
But that was two years ago and the water holes are full
, the grass is long, the barn stacked with harvested hay and grain. And mice that eat the grain. And no doubt snakes who feast on the mice in barns next to water-holes.
I am just as fearful as we have had two further encounters with ever larger tigersnakes.
My heart jumps when I enter the barn and I swear my head swivels at 360 degrees as I survey every inch of the place. My body is covered in goosebumps and my hands clench.
Fear, you see.
You have to experience it to write about it . . .
That gave me the shivvers!!! (wish I could make the font THAT bold)
They never make it in the house do they? Can’t remember what old movie it was where a snake had made it in the bedroom; in the bed and under the covers too!!
Scorpions would be another big scare but that doesn’t apply to your part of Australia I believe.
I’m happy with the occasional cute little shoelace garden snakes we see.
We do have scorpions and they often come into the house, and whilst they sting and it can hurt, they are NOTHING like the scorpions on the African continent.
You ask if the snakes come into the houses. Short answer yes, on the lookout for water and safety (!) In fact I was talking to a friend today at lunch who said two years ago, a tigersnake went through the back door, down the hall to the bathroom and down the hole where the drainage pipes for the basin went. Reptile Rescue couldn’t find it. I know of a farmer who has a resident (oh God) tigersnake in the rafters of his barn. And another farmer who saw a snake go into the ventilation ducts of his colonial house. All ventilation ducts were linked which meant that the snake could appear in any room at any time. I didn’t want to know any more after that.
Wildlife experts tell us that the tigersnake is essentially shy and will have three modes of presentation.
1. Too slide away rapidly (sounds good to me)
2. If feeling cornered, will lift head and spread neck like the second picture, as a warning. (Sounds frightening)
3. Or if threatened, will attack. (Oh God!)
I’m lucky never to have had a fear of snakes, but I once jumped out of a (slowly) moving car to give a wasp ALL THE ROOM IT WANTED.
This is the vision Americans have of all of Australia: absolutely everything is deadly poisonous. I’ll be coming to visit when I get my complete suit of armor finished.
Beautifully written, by the way.
Thanks Pat for the compliment re the piece. Suit of armour will look fantastic . . . they wear them in Baja Mexico because of the Humboldt squid which can suckered the hell out of you.
You are right of course, Australia does have many nasties: spiders, snakes, crocodiles, jellyfish, sharks, etc etc. And yet, we are all still here and coping (just).
PS: I did run up the back of a VW when a hunstman spider (please Google) dropped down into my lap from the sunvisor. He was biiiigggggg! The VW owners said I was lying!
Hmmm. I do sympathise. You see I’m the same with spiders. Love snakes (but then I live in a country where the most dangerous creatures we have could only give you a mild headache, while you live in a country where even the mice are venemous and everything evil lurks where it can bite you on the bum!) Australian with Ophidiophobia? Sounds like a constant problem to me. Like being English and afraid of rain!
I knew someone would give the phobia a name sometime. I just call it neurosis!
Ooooh, that captured fear so well! I don’t have a fear of snakes–it would be wise to, there are copperheads and the occasional timber rattler in the hills where I live. And here I am trying to poke them out of rafters with a broom (yes, I did that once, and no, it was not successful–obdurate old bull snake). But cave crickets? Google cave cricket. Guh. They give me the willies, and for no good reason–they’re completely harmless. But fear needn’t be wise or rational to be real.
I googled cave-crickets and they look very much like our locusts which are in plague proportions currently in the northern hotter states and devastating the grain harvests.
I think Indiana Jones proved that anything in plague proportions is stomach-turning: snakes, rats, spiders, scorpions!
And HOW brave were you to fight a snake with a broom! Rowenna, do you not think that might be carrying colonial re-enactment that bit too far?
Gosh, Prue, I could identify with this. I spent part of my childhood in an area of the US where there were a lot of venomous snakes. When I was twelve, I was ‘minding’ the first grade class as they played during lunch hour on the lawn in front of the school, which occupied an old country estate. At the far end of the lawn was long, unkempt grass where the land fell away down to the river.
Suddenly I saw a four-foot snake slither out of the long grass, heading straight for where the little ones were playing. Now, I’m terrified of snakes and instinct told me to run, but I managed to line up the smaller children and organise a race back to the school. I ran pretty fast after them! I don’t claim any gold stars for bravery. When I got back inside the building I couldn’t stop shaking for about an hour.
They say snakes won’t hurt you if you leave them alone. I DON’T BELIEVE IT!!
Ann
Isn’t the human capacity to be rational in a crisis amazing? Organising the children, sending them off on their race?
But I do have a very visual image of you Ann, as a 12 year old, streaking past the kids into the school!
Aaaw, I’m going to dream of snakes tonight after your post and the conclusion of http://abrokenlaptop.com/stilettos-and-shirley-temples/!!! 🙁 We only have vipers in Tuscany during the summer, and I managed to escape them all… this looks much worse, though, I understand your uneasiness in entering the barn! 🙁