home burned down and snakes

I was sitting on the ground beside a very shallow stream. I was facing the stream, my back to a dead-end area - a small open space flanked by rocks. I was aware that something seemingly catastrophic was about to happen, that a building or a place was about to die, to burn or some such thing, and that the hundreds and thousands of snakes that had inhabited the place needed to flee and that they would be travelling down the stream. I held a stick in one hand and waited for the snakes. They began to appear. First, hundreds of small sandy-coloured snakes swam downstream, following the course of the water. I brushed my stick across the ground at the shore, hoping the vibration would shepherd any stray snakes back into the water, so that they would pass safely by. The snakes doubled, then tripled in number and variety. Striped snakes, green snakes, pythons and more swam down the stream, travelling somewhere. I continued to brush and tap my stick on the shore until I noticed that there were simply too many snakes, that their perpetual writhing motion had caused a rivulet to form that branched off the stream and wound around into the dead-end space in which I sat. Some of the snakes continued to pass by in the larger stream, and some now followed the rivulet and became trapped in the cul-de-sac. I had to leave and the only way to go was up or down stream. I decided to go back to face the disaster, or whatever had occurred. I was grateful that I was wearing high black boots as I stepped into the stream. I waded up-stream, stepping with great trepidation but also a certain calmness, as the snakes passed by me. I was alert for poisonous snakes - brown snakes, red belly black snakes and more - but I did not see any. Most of the snakes appeared quite innocuous, and some were barely snakes at all, more like long leeches. Indeed, some of the leech-like creatures darted out of the water at my legs, most slipping off the wet, black suede of my boots. Again, I was grateful. As I climbed further up the hill, wading through the water, I passed increasingly frightening-looking snakes: huge black snakes with pronounced heads and flared nostrils, snakes with visible fangs and canny eyes. None, however, struck out or bit me. Finally, I reached the top of the hill and stepped out of the stream. I lifted my skirt to check for leeches and, sure enough, there were plenty, attached like barnacles to the area behind my knees and further up my thighs. I set about plucking each of them off, their long green bodies coming away but leaving their mouths still attached to my skin, which I then, with a little more difficulty, pulled off. Their must have been about fifty or more leeches, but, finally, I had removed them all. I looked around me and took in the nature of the disaster: I was standing outside the shell of my first school, which I also understood to be my family home, the place of my roots and my foundations, which had burned down. It was destroyed. I prepared to go inside and salvage what I could, if there was anything indeed that needed to be saved. I was not sure if I felt utterly devastated or greatly relieved, as though now, at last, I could enter a new phase of life. My phone rang. It was my brother, calling to check on me and to tell me that the only thing he wished he could have saved was his music. I told him that I was going in and that, if his music was still there, I would save it for him.

not as daunting as it seems

As I sang, my friend accompanied me on the clarinet; a striking and spare rendition of a well-known song. 

Next, I was walking down an urban street with another friend, and, as we walked, I told her about my musical experience. I felt convinced that singing was something that I had to pursue. The street changed and narrowed and soon we were walking along a lane, flanked either side by tall stone walls, heading toward the harbour. We could see the water at the end of the lane, which was rising at an alarming rate. The water - bright blue and very clear - towered before us, creating a third wall that was growing with each step closer. We were now wading through thigh-deep water. I caught sight of a whale's tail, disappearing into the king waves. The tail was frighteningly huge, and, judging by its size, the whale would be truly enormous. We stopped walking, afraid to go any closer. We watched the water and saw the whale's tail again. Suddenly, a man standing on one of the stone walls, reached into the water and pulled out a dolphin with a very strange shaped head. He placed it atop the wall. It was not a whale after all; what had seemed to be so terrifying and so large, was not so. The dolphin leapt off the wall and into the water in the passageway, swimming swiftly up the lane, past our legs. I wanted to touch him. As he turned and swam back toward the harbour, he brushed against my legs. I was delighted.

dismembered

I had a premonition and ran into the bedroom. I could see that my friend was lying on the floor under the bed, and that she was bleeding. I knelt down, trying to see how she was hurt. With horror, I realised that she had deliberately cut off both of her big toes and both of her thumbs. She simply lay on the ground, staring up at the bottom of the bed, blood pooling around her. I pulled her out, cradling her, and pleaded with her to tell me why she had done this. She looked dazed.

car crash and miracle

I was driving up the mountain, climbing the curling roads. The car seemed unfamiliar and I was trying to drive while doing up my seatbelt and fiddling with the radio. I could see another car coming toward me, swerving and winding. I realised that I was going too fast to handle the sharp bend coming up. I couldn't control the car and, as I swung around the bend, the car slid, screaming across the road, crashing through the fence and suddenly I was flying through the air. For a moment, the car seemed to hover before plummeting down the enormous drop to the bottom of the mountain, and, in that moment, I had time to realise that I was most likely about to die. I wondered how the other driver felt, having witnessed my car drive off the mountain. I thanked God for my life; asked forgiveness for anything I may have done that was not yet resolved; felt a little disappointed that I had lived for so few months on the mountain as I was looking forward to spending much more time there; prayed for my family and B; asked God for a miracle so that, if I survived, I might be physically and mentally whole, and then plunged to the ground. I do not remember the impact, only that, a short time after, I was alive and well, that, somehow, I had survived.