Ouroboros PARTING

The question left unanswered: Why did Serpent Ouroboros pass up Templeton the Rat? I know all of you were rooting for the rat, but with the healthy new respect for snakes we are gaining, don\’t you think he deserves a HEARTY meal? Our TAIL continues…

I’m HANGING out in the hammock, when a movement catches my eye. There is a field mouse jumping along my wall, come in from the winter cold. With one quick swing of my arm the python is served a sweet snack! Only problem is, snack attack is bouncing all over the tank like a base-jumping maniac, while the serpent sits in utter disregard. The mouse dies of fright or starvation by the end of the day, ignored all the while.

But he is not the only one. Dad\’s most recent project is to eradicate the winter vermin attempting to hibernate in our kitchen. I arrive home to find four field mice bunking with Serpent Ouroboros. We sacrifice their lives for the benefit of another. Or at least that is our intention. I am optimistic despite the fact that Ouroboros has refused food for almost a month now. These guys are a nice little treat, and he’s bound to have an appetite worked up by now! So we wait…

This rowdy bunch not only survives – they begin to thrive! They have made their own private nest: moss stuffed beneath a log. I wake in the middle of the night to find that these acrobatic mice are flyin’ – not dyin’! Their nightly activities include collecting bits of fabric from the blanket that covers the tank. Up-side-down, they do laps by ceiling – MacGyver Mice! It feels like they are burrowing into my brains with their incessant scratching! When day finally breaks there is peace. But now, with Obie on the prowl & silence in the air, I wonder their fates. Ahhh! The silence makes me crazy! I can\’t win! What\’s going to happen next!?

I try not to think about it. When I spy a mouse, I drop in more pistachios.

To top it off, a CAT & MOUSE game has developed. My feline friends carefully monitor rodent activity & avidly paw on the tank’s glass wall. They are just another aspect of the circus that surrounds me daily. I am the ringleader for these little lions.

AT LAST! There is peace tonight. My patience has finally run up and pity set in, so the mice are released to continue their twitterpated ways in the forest. Dispersed into a new log far from here, they remain survivors, living on the god given instinct that sustains them.

In the cycling & recycling of
life – patterns of
aliveness in each segment –
this transition is full of
excitement, passes
the torch, in love.

ADOPTED: AN ENDING

Since my cross country farm escapades, Serpent Ouroboros had to be babysat by a friend. In anticipation of my cross cultural escapades, I search for a permanent adoptive home for my serpent friend. When he returned to me from the baby-ball-python-sitters in October, he was due for some dinner. But the Serpent, Ouroboros, wouldn\’t eat a thing! Lives were spared (as you have read). Templeton appreciated this new state of mind, as did four field mice. After all this, I gave up on feeding and just started trusting that he was fine.

I get a call – someone responding to the ad for adoption I posted at the Pet Pantry. J comes over to check out Ouroboros. He shows up proudly wearing his fire dept gear and I learn that he works alongside a longtime friend of mine from high school. He is also well acquainted with the owners of my part time job! This coincidence paired with J\’s knowledge reassures me that his is the home I have hoped for.

Upon inspecting Serpent Ouroboros, J tells me that he is a male and then extrapolates that most males of sexual maturity stop eating around November for breeding season. Ouroboros must have just come of age, since he ate straight through last year! Oh what a relief to know that Ouroboros is exhibiting perfectly normal behavior (although the fact that I have been through all these gyrations for my own peculiar entertainment is somewhat disturbing!). Wonderment! I am given answers and a resolution at last! The serpent, Ouroboros, is in a safe new home and there are no more mice scratching about my brain as I sleep! Woo-hoo! Cheers!