I was walking, deep in thought, without paying attention to the environment.
“Hello there, be aware”, I heard. I looked around, but did not see anyone. Looking in front again, I saw a snake at only 3 meters away. His lifted his head and he made a bow.
“May I introduce myself?”, he asked.
“I’m actually a water snake. During a storm I lost track and I have come ashore, quite far from the water.Now I am a field snake.”
With open mouth I look and listen to the snake. This is impossible.
“What is a field snake?”, I ask. While I know that snakes have no ears…
“A field snake is a snake that keeps itself alive on fields, I can’t make it more exciting than that”, said the snake.
“Actually I am a ditch snake, but that sounds so bad… Field snake sounds better.” I am too astonished to comprehend the jokes of the snake.
“How did you learn to speak and how can you hear me?”, I ask.
“That is a long story”, the snake said, “but now there are more important matters to be dealt with. I am stuck here and I need to get back to the water. Can you help me by bringing me to the Thames.” But how am I supposed to do that? I am already too scared to hold a guinea pig, let alone that I would carry a snake…
Still before I have finished my sentence, the field snake tells me that he has already thought about that. He asks of I have an empty plastic bag in my backpack. “Yes, I do.”
“If we put water in there …..” Although we are having an absurd conversation, I have to smile about his suggestion that ‘we’ are going to put some water in the plastic bag.
“Yes, suppose that I would put water in the bag…”
“Well, then I crawl into that plastic bag and then you take me to the Thames, which is about 2 km away.”
“Can’t you crawl to the Thames yourself?”
“The problem is that, being a water snake, I cannot stay very long without water.”
“Great”, I shout at no one in particular. I take a big plastic bag out of my backpack and fill it with water from the ditch. I keep the plastic bag open and the snake crawls in. The bag is now heavier, I hope it keeps… While I walk we are quiet. I try to give the snake back his freedom as close to the Thames as possible… Before I realise the snake is gone. He appears shortly with his head above the water, and make a bow. I also make a bow,and he disappears into the deep water…
It immediately comes to my mind that I will never be able to explain this, not to anyone. So, I have now told it once, and from here I will never talk about it again, as if it did not happen. Okay, let that be clear.