The girl entering the olive grove had a shaved head and was dressed in a ragged red ball gown from another century. She carried very attentively a woollen bag of bright colour, swollen with coins that made a heavy fidgeting noise. She stopped suddenly on noting a flicker of movement in the parched grass up ahead. There was a black snake that seemed to be having an epileptic fit. On closer inspection she realised it was two black snakes, entwined, and moving slowly, sometimes in unison, sometimes in conflict, undulating together with sudden whiplash jerkings and leaps off the ground. She saw the open fangs of the snake that seemed to be the aggressor; it made several attempts to bite into its adversary’s sleek black skin just beneath the head. Then she understood that they weren’t fighting; they were copulating. She watched spellbound, following them at a distance as, coiled and lashing together in a fluid double helix, they slithered and gyrated over the bracken and crisp dry grass. There were quiet moments when they were aligned into an almost inseparable writhing unity of wave motion, as if swimming together with their tails gently touching. Then there would be another a sudden thrashing of violent outcry when an electrical charge seemed to bolt through the length of them and toss them up into air, like a rope trick. The girl in the frock spent ten minutes watching them.
Image - snakes mating - www.riverdalefarm.com/
Copyright 1997, COBB Publishing
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