After the sun has set you notice that the noise in the swamp increases as the twilight fades. There are all sorts of animals, birds, frogs, toads, mammals, and whatever else. Most of them are entirely invisible, and perhaps that's the reason they are loudest when the sky is darkest.
A rather quiet fellow is the snake. And there are many of them, many different kinds, most are venomous in this part of the swamp, the center of which is a lake, full of crocodiles. This is the image I was given many years ago when a woman I was dating told me about this place. She said there is a special flower in the northern opening of the lake. The local Indians believe that if a couple sees the flower in bloom, they will surely stay together forever. She said she had gone there before knowing this myth, and she and her boyfriend at the time had seen the budding of the flower, but whether that was considered blooming, she thought, probably not, since they were no longer together. I said, "Maybe you would get back together." She shot a look at me, knowing I was trying to push her button; she knew that I felt she talked about that guy too much.
Perhaps that's the reason, one of many, we are no longer together. Now I sit in stillness listening to the symphony of the early summer swamp orchestra. I sit in the safety of my tent with the vent open so that fresh air comes in but not the mosquitoes, of which there are countless. I went to the northern opening today, in the early morning, around the time the sun was rising, when the sky was already very bright. I didn't find any flower, at least not the giant one with fiery red petals and golden orange center that has no smell. But it didn't matter. My lover wasn't with me. She was asleep. I was alone. The morning mist was fast disappearing, but a lot still remained near the river. I stood at one spot for some time, filling the chill of the fog invade my marrows.
Then I heard a noise, a noise that, if it were to exist now I wouldn't be able to hear, not with all this other noise. I turned my head slowly, and in the gray landscape of this otherwise verdant world I saw something moving, very close to me. I froze and saw a colorful snake with black and red and white bands. It was a coral snake, one of the deadliest in the world. It stopped when I saw realized what sort of creature was moving. I felt we had a connection that I didn't quite want. I didn't know anything about snakes, though wanting to see snakes was my strongest motivation to come here. I didn't know how soon I had before my heart stopped, if that was how the coral snake's venom worked. I didn't know if I should run. I didn't know if that snake could actually see me, as different snakes use different sensors to detect their surroundings.
It was beautiful. There was a part of me that wanted to grab the camera I was hauling to take a picture, but the more sober part of me kept my body still, as if already in rigor mortis. That says something about death. It can come in a beautiful form, attractive, almost tantalizing. In this foggy environment where colors have been drained but slowly returning, the brightest object has a heart beat, a slithering tongue, a conscious mind, and a pair of deadly fangs. After some time, when my legs started to complain, the snake resumed its movement towards the river hidden in the fog. I saw its bands moving like a movie, its scale in such detail, with some glitter from the ambient light. Then it stopped again. I could not only see a few inches of its tail. There was no other sound, no other movements, not even a breeze as the fog sat still. I wonder if it was having second thoughts about leaving me alone. My heart started beating fast, I wondered what I could do, or worse, I wonder if it would find a different way to approach me.
But it disappeared at last and, until now at least, while I was sitting in the safety of my tent, I didn't see it again.
Surely there were more of them. But not too many more. While this is a protected area, many snakes have disappeared over the decades as more and more swamps have been drained. And I sat here, quietly, while the current woman of my life was reading just as silently, I wondered what else life had in store for me. What little steps of fear awaited me and would inevitably surprise me, if not with anything else, but the beauty of its colors.
