| Letter from the Editor: Adventures Begin |
| Featured Artist: Storyteller Murray Dunlap |
| Featured: Original Fiction "The Black Oyster" |
| Recipe: Tortillas! |
| Rooting for Rubyeyes |
| Welcome to the Ptero Heart of Luna Taylor |
Rooting for Rubyeyes
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Rubyeyes is my corn snake. She is 3 feet of strikingly beautiful
orange and red muscle.
When I feed her, I feed her live mice.
It is somewhat disturbing to watch her feed, but I believe it is
good for me to see snake life and mouse death fold and unfold
in the enclosure in my kitchen. I watch each time to make sure
that Ruby wins. I am definitely rooting for my snake.
Yes, the mice are cute. They have soft little faces and pink
twitching noses and scratchy rodent paws. I try not to look too
closely at each mousy morsel in case my inner poet tricks me into
falling in love—which would not be beneficial in my role as fresh
food provider to this reptile who was fated to be born in
captivity, and kept as a novelty by the fascination-stricken
human species to which I proudly belong. So you see, I'm
wearing Ruby's colors. I want my snake to win every time.
Typically this is what happens. Ruby smells the mice as soon as I
set their cardboard cage down in the kitchen. She perks up her
head and comes slithering out of her little basket hut, with a
clear distinction in her body language from her usual passive
state. I clear everything out of the enclosure except for the
snake, and shake the mousy morsels, usually 2, out of their box
and into Ruby's.
The mice demonstrate to me at this point how they think about
things differently than, say, me-the-fascinated-human, or say,
Ruby-the-hungry-snake. They just go about exploring through
the shredded paper twitching their undeniably cute pink noses,
showing no precautions about the three feet of sold, constricting
monster with whom they have fatefully found themselves
roomies.
Watching the constriction process in action is always difficult for
me. Ruby, arching her skeleton into a position to attack, chooses
and focuses on one of the mice. She flicks her forked tongue and
strikes. Sometimes she misses, or halts for a moment, changing
something in her posture. But within a minute she sinks her
teeth into some soft part of the mouse, coiling her body around
the little animal like an instant spring, and squeezing until the
mouse goes limp. I am still surprised by my feelings in this
moment. The mouse looks dead because he is. Because he is
dead I do not feel pity.
Meanwhile, the other mouse pays no attention to the demise of
his fellow. He just continues exploring the two millimeters in
front of his face, showing no sign of fear. But Ruby has already
focused her calm red eyes on the second mouse. She strikes
again. I hold my breath until that mouse life is gone, too.
Now that the hunt is over, Ruby separates her jaws and
swallows each mouse, one after the other, head first. The last
you see of every rodent is the tip of his tail.
Then those lives turn to energy. Ruby's life is nourished, and
although I have heard corn snakes are unusually private when
they drink, she moves right from her meal spot to the water
bowl and takes long gulps in between puffing her cheeks and
stretching her jaw.
She is calm. This is what I seek to learn from her most. Her
meter. She just goes on about her next businesses: digestion,
purging, resting, shedding.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Rubyeyes is my corn snake. She is 3 feet of strikingly beautiful
orange and red muscle.
When I feed her, I feed her live mice.
It is somewhat disturbing to watch her feed, but I believe it is
good for me to see snake life and mouse death fold and unfold
in the enclosure in my kitchen. I watch each time to make sure
that Ruby wins. I am definitely rooting for my snake.
Yes, the mice are cute. They have soft little faces and pink
twitching noses and scratchy rodent paws. I try not to look too
closely at each mousy morsel in case my inner poet tricks me into
falling in love—which would not be beneficial in my role as fresh
food provider to this reptile who was fated to be born in
captivity, and kept as a novelty by the fascination-stricken
human species to which I proudly belong. So you see, I'm
wearing Ruby's colors. I want my snake to win every time.
Typically this is what happens. Ruby smells the mice as soon as I
set their cardboard cage down in the kitchen. She perks up her
head and comes slithering out of her little basket hut, with a
clear distinction in her body language from her usual passive
state. I clear everything out of the enclosure except for the
snake, and shake the mousy morsels, usually 2, out of their box
and into Ruby's.
The mice demonstrate to me at this point how they think about
things differently than, say, me-the-fascinated-human, or say,
Ruby-the-hungry-snake. They just go about exploring through
the shredded paper twitching their undeniably cute pink noses,
showing no precautions about the three feet of sold, constricting
monster with whom they have fatefully found themselves
roomies.
Watching the constriction process in action is always difficult for
me. Ruby, arching her skeleton into a position to attack, chooses
and focuses on one of the mice. She flicks her forked tongue and
strikes. Sometimes she misses, or halts for a moment, changing
something in her posture. But within a minute she sinks her
teeth into some soft part of the mouse, coiling her body around
the little animal like an instant spring, and squeezing until the
mouse goes limp. I am still surprised by my feelings in this
moment. The mouse looks dead because he is. Because he is
dead I do not feel pity.
Meanwhile, the other mouse pays no attention to the demise of
his fellow. He just continues exploring the two millimeters in
front of his face, showing no sign of fear. But Ruby has already
focused her calm red eyes on the second mouse. She strikes
again. I hold my breath until that mouse life is gone, too.
Now that the hunt is over, Ruby separates her jaws and
swallows each mouse, one after the other, head first. The last
you see of every rodent is the tip of his tail.
Then those lives turn to energy. Ruby's life is nourished, and
although I have heard corn snakes are unusually private when
they drink, she moves right from her meal spot to the water
bowl and takes long gulps in between puffing her cheeks and
stretching her jaw.
She is calm. This is what I seek to learn from her most. Her
meter. She just goes on about her next businesses: digestion,
purging, resting, shedding.
| ________________ |
| Ptotem: Ptero-soar |
