The Man Who Spoke Snakish

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he forest has been left empty. These days you hardly meet anyone, apart from the dung beetles, of course. Nothing seems to affect them; they go on humming and buzzing, just as before. They fly to suck blood or bite, or perhaps climb absurdly on your leg if you get in their way, and scurry hither and thither until you wipe them off or flick them away. Their world is just as it was — but it won’t stay that way. The bell will toll even for the dung beetles! Of course I won’t see that day; no one will. But one day that hour will strike. I know that quite certainly.

I don’t go out much anymore, only about once a week do I go above ground. I go to the well; I fetch water. I wash myself and my companion; I scrub his hot body. It uses a lot of water — I have to go to the well several times a day — but it rarely happens that I meet anyone on the path that I might chat to. Not often a human, anyway; a couple of times I’ve met a buck or a boar. They’ve become timid. They’re even afraid of my scent. If I hiss, they stiffen on the spot, glare at me stupidly, but they never come close. They stare as if at a miracle of nature — a human who knows the language of Snakish. This drives them into even greater terror. They would like to butt me into the bushes, give me a wound in the legs, and run as far as possible from this strange freak — but they daren’t. The words forbid it. I hiss at them again, louder this time. With a gruff command I force them to come to me. The beasts low despondently, dragging themselves reluctantly in my direction. I could take pity on them and let them go, but what for?

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