The Terrarium

Recalling a memory that came back to me as a dream…

It was back in Jr. High School.  It was after classes were through.  A bunch of us were in one of the science classrooms.  

Someone has brought a terrarium to the classroom.  We’re gathered around it to look inside.  There are two creatures currently alive in there.  

One is a baby rattlesnake.  It’s on the right side of the terrarium from where I’m standing.  It’s slithering about.  Going in circles.  Ever expanding circles.  Moving steadily.  Constantly.  Not going fast, but not slowing down.  As if there is no time in its world.  It will get to where it’s going when it gets there.  Its little black tongue is flick, flick, flickering out as it moves.  Its eyes are like a doll’s eyes.  Two shiny plastic spots, absent of emotion.  

As we watch, the snake begins to stretch itself out.  Elongating itself toward the left side of the terrarium.  Across the twigs and rocks spread out to make the terrarium resemble a little patch of desert.  Toward a half a styrofoam cup set into the sand on the left.  With a leaf of lettuce covering its entrance like a curtain.  

The rattlesnake stretches out like a piece of taffy, getting longer and longer as its tongue flicks, flicks, flicks in the direction it is going.

As it crosses the terrarium, the lettuce curtain begins to shake.  

This is from a little white mouse, the other occupant of the terrarium.  It’s barely visible, hiding in its styrofoam den.  Behind its lettuce curtain, which I supposed doubled as food as well as cover.  You catch glimpses of it through the gap between the leaf of lettuce and the edge of the cup.  

As the snake continues its glide, raising its head above the sand, the cup and the lettuce both are shuddering.  Moving as if a tiny desert storm is swirling about in the terrarium.  The snake reaches the lettuce leaf.  It flick-flick-flicks its tongue out, then pushes its head past the screen of lettuce.  

“SQUEAK!”  

I jump back from the explosion of motion that came with the mouse’s squeak.  I got a glimpse of the mouse bouncing off the plastic cover of the terrarium.  The cup and lettuce leaf are scattering, knocked away by the mouse’s sudden leap.  I see it land in the sand, halfway down the length of the snake’s body.  It scrambles to the other side of the terrarium.  It dives into a corner, into a little depression behind some twigs with leaves on them stuck into the sand like a miniature forest.  That’s as far as it can go.  It huddles there, the leaves shaking and trembling like the desert storm we saw before.  

The snake, now on the left, continues its glide.  It makes circles, counter-clockwise this time, on the left side of the terrarium.  Neither startled nor concerned.  Its little black tongue tasting the air with the flick-flick-flickering it makes.  

This dream came to me after something happened in the middle of the night.  

I woke up.  I needed to pee. This is a regular occurrence at my age.  Still new enough that I remember with longing regularly sleeping through the night.  

Hoping to fall asleep quickly once I’m done, I leave the lights off.  I slide my hands along the walls of my tiny bathroom to position myself.  With one hand on the wall, trying to aim in the dark, I let my roam as I do my business.  

From somewhere, push itself whatever screen exists being sleeping and waking, comes the thought, “What does it feel like to die?”

I shake myself.  I hear my stream splattering about in the toilet.  I’m awake now.  More awake than I want to be.  I wonder just where such a thought came from.  I can feel the darkness of the night, like cold, wet sheets clinging to me.  I can feel just how small the space is now.  

I take my hand from the wall to wipe my face and wave it in the air around my head.  Waving the thought from me.  I feel a shiver go through my body.  From the cold of the night, no doubt.