Another Snake Story!

The other day I told you the story about how my German Shepherd, Duke, once rescued me from a deadly and dangerous Western Brown snake, and remembered last night I have another entirely different Western Brown story.

It happened, gosh, about 11 years ago, in Outback Australia.  We were at Lady R.'s place deep in the desert upland, hundreds of miles from anywhere, and ... well, what happened was I had just finished writing my film script "Like Fisherman!" and had given it to Lady R. for first read.  And she was exactly half-way through when she got very angry and refused to read any more.

Seeing someone toss your script away with great force is NOT the hoped-for reaction from your first reader. Naturally I asked her why:

"You kill a snake!" she said.

"I had to.  It's threatening her son and the kittens!"

"No excuse.  She didn't even check what type of snake it was first!"

"I don't think it's psychologically valid to go looking for a copy of "What Snake is That?" when your toddler's life is threatened!"

"That's no excuse.  She just dives in and hacks off its head with a spade!  It could have been harmless.  It could have been an endangered species.  She doesn't even bother to check."

"She wouldn't check!  It's not psychologically valid!"

"I don't care! And I especially don't like that you had her kill it when it was simply in its own space, doing what snakes do.  The boy was the trespasser and you just have her kill it like killing a snake is nothing! Like it's no big deal to kill native wildlife. Australia has never shown enough respect for their native animals. Do you really want to perpetuate that sort of thinking?"

"Her son's life is threatened! She's a mother! You don't have deep thoughts about ethical behaviour when you think your young son is about to die!"

"That's just wrong-headed of you! You need to get rid of that scene!"

"I can't get rid of it.  It's structural.  It's the set up for the end."

"No excuse.  Unless you take that scene out, I'm not reading any more."

"NO!  I WON'T TAKE IT OUT!!!  It's STRUCTURAL!"

"Then I'm not reading any more!"  and she stalks off in a snit!

If you know anything about scriptwriting you'd know that you can't just remove structural scenes. In most of any script, bits can be dropped or changed or moved around on a whim, sure, but NEVER those scenes that set up, spin around, motivate or foreshadow the action, and I'm always so angry when even film producers, who supposedly know about film, ask you to get rid of important structural scenes, particularly when it's for some ridiculous and whimsical reason, like because, say, those scenes don't gel with their own views.

But that's all by-the-by.  Getting back to this story, Lady R. has stalked off, very cross, and I'm skulking on the veranda because I'm cross too, although respecting her views enough to think about if that scene can actually be removed or changed or something, and deciding that, NO, it has to stay exactly as it is because it foreshadows and explains the climax of the film and the script doesn't work without it.

And I'm thinking all this and sulking and entertaining mean thoughts when I hear a tiny frightened little voice, practically a whisper, off in the distance,  "Denise! Denise!"  so I go to look.

Lady R. is in the garden, holding a laundry basket, standing next to the clothesline, and is very ashen-faced and shaking. "Am I standing on a snake?"  she asks.

Yup, she's indeed standing on a snake.  A huge brown one. Her foot is right on the neck so she's not in any danger at that exact moment, but she can't see and doesn't know that and so, undoubtedly expecting it to swing around and fang her any second, is frozen with fear.

"Yup!" I say cheerfully. "You are indeed standing on a snake."

She can hardly breathe and in a tiny whispery little voice says "Can you kill it?"

Ah, life is good, isn't it!!! 

"Nope!  I'm sorry. I can't.  I have now realised the error of my ways and have promised myself I will, at all times, live in harmony with all native wildlife in this country, so I can't help you.  Sorry! You'll just have to live there for the rest of your life."  and I walk away.

Little whisper behind "Please, Denise!"

I'm a nice person at heart and she's so frightened I relent, but I don't know the first thing about killing snakes.  "How?" I ask.

"There's a spade right there."

Such wonderful irony!  "You want me to hack off its head with a spade?"

"Please!"

OK, I'm not a nice person at heart because I can't resist.  Standing there, rubbing my chin thoughtfully, "Mmmm, no, I can't. It's not right! This snake is simply in its own space, doing what snakes do.  You're the trespasser here and now you expect me to kill it like killing a snake is nothing! Do you really want me to perpetuate that sort of thinking when we all know it's not exactly ethical behaviour!" I say.

That's when the screaming began! "Just do it, you *&^%((%%(%#)(@@%^#" says Lady R.

"Oh, OK! But this hideously unethical behaviour is on your head, not mine!"  I say and in a grand pantomime of sullen reluctance, and with a barrage of  angry "*&^%((%%(%#)(@@%^#" behind me, I moonwalk over to get the spade.

But standing there, spade in hand, I suddenly realise what a precarious position we're in.  There's only a nano-width of neck between the head and Lady R.'s foot and I have never done anything like this before and have no faith in my aim so I know if I bring down the spade with enough force to hack off the head, I'm just as likely to take off part of her foot and then ... I see it all in my mind's eye ... she'll jump off the snake and it will turn and seriously fang her and then the race will be on to see what kills her first: snake venom or bleeding out from a lost foot!

Or, alternatively, it would fang me and the race would be on to see who died in agony first!

"Mmmmm, I think I need to find your copy of "What snake is That?" I say, pretending sang-froid but really stalling for time because I'm now seriously frightened because I seriously don't think I can do it!

"*&^%((%%(%#)(@@%^#"says Lady R.

So I bring down the spade, but without a lot of force, and, can you believe it?, it's the exact place I wanted it to be, but only a quarter of the way in.  I hold the spade there and "Go!" I shout and she jumps off and runs well away.  But the snake is still alive and very angry and I can't risk lifting the spade for a death blow and so that's when I do the cruel jumping down repeatedly on the spade as the snake dies in horrible and writhing agony.  I feel so awful I'm crying, and Lady R. is crying, but eventually the writhing turns into death throes until it's all over!

"Gosh, do you think it's really deadly?  Do you think we've killed a harmless snake?  Maybe even an endangered species?"  I say.

"*&^%((%%(%#)(@@%^#" replies Lady R. and she stalks off.

I follow but can't find her anywhere around, so I rifle through her library until I find "What Snake is That?" and I take the book outside to check, poking it with sticks to turn it over to look for different features.  Then, with a positive identification and knowing exactly what we killed, I gingerly pick it up on the spade and take it over to the rubbish dump to be eaten by crows.

"We have two choices here." I told Lady R. when I finally track her down, my finger inside the appropriate page of the book.  "You either made me kill a rare and endangered species OR you were a hairsbreadth away from an excruiciatingly painful death. Which scenerio do you prefer?"

"*&^%((%%(%#)(@@%^#" replies Lady R.  but then she calmed down and said "We have a third choice.  That you never ever tell me what it was!"

And I never ever did.  And I won't tell you now either because she's likely to read this and I did make that promise.

(If you're not Lady R. ... psst secret! ...  we're talking about the latter because it was a Western Brown, a totally deadly and nasty one.)

But the upshot of this story is that Lady R., always a gracious soul, finished my script but nonetheless hated it because it was so nasty and bloodthirsty and was full of characters forever indulging in completely unethical behaviour and on so many levels too and thus she had no choice but to really, really object to a lot of it.  And, yeah, yeah, she was also in serious hate-Denise mode so wasn't willing to like anything I did!

She did however, later on, make me some of her special pancakes in the shape of my initials, so all was again right between us.