SNAKE!!

I dreamed about snakes last night.
And the night before.
Highly unusual, I don't dream about snakes. Horrible people whom I already know are going to do horrible things, or people I like turning into horrible people, or dying, or disappearing into the mist; that's what I dream about. At least twice a week, ever since I can remember, I have awakened gasping for breath, clawing at nothing, falling... Sometimes, not often, the nightmares come true; I have seen this blood before, I have grabbed my friend's arm like that before, in the nightmare I had...

But no snakes. Wide awake and in the daylight, I don't like the poisonous ones, kill them as soon as I see them; but I'll play with the pretty grass snakes when I find them. Or chase a black racer through the yard for fun. Or watch a bull snake swim through a ditch. But I don't dream about them.

Maybe it was the rattler I saw, in real life, the other evening. Curled up, dead, right in the middle of the road. Head crushed a little, like he'd been run over and twisted up to defend himself. About three feet long, he was; that triangular ( and flat) head very obvious, the buttons on his tail visible even between the coils. Didn't bother me to see him. But it did get me to thinking.

We keep our yard grass cut, of course, like everyone else, cut it close and keep it wet too, against fire dangers. Even keep the corral cut and the gardens too; trying to dissuade snakes (and bunnies and raccoons and gophers and skunks and all those little varmints) from coming too close to the house. But - we do have a garage, a big wooden one with big swing-out double doors - and lots of gaps in the old wood. We have a shop - it is metal sided, just as the barns are. We have the raised verandah, with the basement underneath, but there's some open space there. Lots of dark, cool nooks and crannies all around the place, where a snake just might wriggle into and feel at home.

Most importantly, there is the backyard, outside basement door - a BIG wooden behemoth that used to be the door to the cooling room in the basement for the dairy that used to be here. There's a dark little corridor with five cement steps that leads down to an even bigger door inside the basement.

And twice in a row that is where I dreamed the snakes came from.

In the basement, slithering on the shelves, their dry skin whispering in the dust. Slight clinking of the jars that hold all sorts of things as they slide by. The rattle of the boxes on the other shelves. The whisper of the paper wrapping I keep in the ceramics shop as the snakes (more than one) slide over it. The quivering light thump of the dryer vent as something crawls into it. I hear it all, as in my dream I go down the stairs. And then something dry, ropelike, brushes the back of my head; I swing my arm up to brush it away...

I wake up in a cold sweat and go downstairs, turning on all the lights at 2 AM, all the way down the second flight into the basement, looking for movement, listening, listening.

Granted I'm on my twice-yearly antibiotics run, which for some weird reason makes me have even more intense nightmares than usual. Granted it has been a long time since I've dealt with a house with so many apertures, entrances, exits, places to hide or be hidden. It has been a long time since I have been in a place so quiet, so remote, so unoccupied, so unbusy, so uncrowded. As much as I love the wide expanses, the peace and quiet, the billions of stars, the acreage around us, I have always been taught since childhood to be aware of sounds, of smells, of anything different or off-kilter.

And yet I know there's no snakes down there. I know it. The doors are closed, entrances sealed, even old holes are plugged with the foam and blocked with boards - they have to be, with the snow that comes. Everything is tight and cozy, well-lit and cheerful, once I flick the switch. So twice I have trudged back up the stairs, swearing at myself for my own stupidity. I mean, I HAD to check, so I could go back to sleep. But how stupid. I know it's safe. I didn't even take anything sharp or heavy with me down those stairs - I knew there were no snakes. But nightmares aren't reality, aren't brightly lit, aren't infused with common sense and rationale.

I hope I don't dream about snakes tonight.