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Michael Crane |
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Postcards from the End of the World |
© 2001 by Michael Crane and gangan books australia |
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Serpent To the hero who lies dying in the seaweed, My mother and I have just returned from Bali. She paid for my trip to help me get over my divorce with Gary. One of our days there we were in a remote village and one of the old ladies saw the small tattoo of a snake on my wrist and she grabbed my arm and made me sit down with her. She told me of the Serpent Woman who terrorised the village for two centuries. She had the body of a gigantic snake and the torso of a beautiful woman with long black hair and green eyes that put you in a trance. Spears or fire could not kill her. She came to the village twice a year to kill and eat one of the young men. Women and children did not interest her. The old lady told me that she had three sons and was worried that she would lose them. Her anguished tears worried her oldest son and one night when the Serpent woman was due to come to the village he went to the beach to wait for her. A few hours later he saw her form in the waves a few yards away. He began to sing a song as she got closer and when he was only a few feet away he looked into her deep green eyes and told her that he loved her. He walked up to her and put his hands under her chin and kissed her and he heard her give out a long sigh. He got on her back and began to sing again as she returned back into the ocean and carried her lover to her island far away never to return. I don’t know why but for the first time I stopped thinking of Gary with a feeling of regret and sorrow. From
the girl
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