Friday, December 5, 2008

Vociferous

vociferous /voh-SIF-er-us/, adjective:
making a loud outcry; clamorous; noisy

If a snake could scream, what would it sound like?
Or can it scream, and we just can't hear it? What if its slithering were its voice. Its scales so tender that moving across the earth sears them with pain. But they cannot stop moving. And so they go slow. Horribly slow. So slow we call it a
slither. But it's just their way of easing the torture, just a bit. To them, each movement like gliding through fire. Grass just as bad as pebbles, or blacktop. The blades slicing and cutting, slipping between their patterned skin, leaving tiny rivulets of splitting ache that last for days.
Perhaps only the sun heals their wounds. So that is where we find them, trying to catch some respite. They hiss and snap at us for interrupting, but wouldn't you? You who when rudely awakened by a pail full of water in the middle of an afternoon nap will yelp and leap in protest, swatting wildly at your assailants? Can you not understand, then, the unfortunate fate of the poor reptile at your feet, as you move to stomp at it?
And their screaming? Perhaps we should be thankful they have no voice. Imagine the sound they would make. A field filled with the noise of different stages of agony, all of them writhing and wriggling, aching for the pain to stop.
Some say they manifest the devil, but perhaps there is another way to see them. Perhaps instead they embody the devil's punishment. Inescapable, inexpressible: they hold within their bellies the fires of Hell.

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