I’m in the house where my friend Saimi and her family live, near the kitchen, where Saimi and a couple others are. It’s an old-fashioned sort of kitchen with a fireplace and a pipe through which water is supposed to come—but right now, water isn’t coming in, even though it’s raining right now. It seems that something has clogged it. Nearby, in a living room area, my uncle is lying on a couch. As I stand there watching, a small bird is fluttering around my face, very close. It’s annoying, and I want to wave it away, but that doesn’t seem right somehow. There must be a reason for this. I stand still and let my mind go blank. I can feel vague memories begin to stir—very old memories, stories concerning this kind of bird. And suddenly, it occurs to me that this is how birds behave when there’s a predator nearby. Am I being warned? And where could the danger be? My attention is drawn to the clogged pipe. Slowly, two green heads are emerging from it—snakes. I tell the others what’s going on and run to the foyer, where I see what I’m looking for—an umbrella rack. It is a sort of rectangular cage made of a brassy metal, very much like the one my family used to have. If it had been my family’s umbrella rack, it would have contained an assortment of swords, bamboo rods and a pair of snake sticks, the best possible tool for the task at hand. Disappointingly, this one is mostly full of umbrellas. But my sword cane is here, at least, and I can work with that. I grab it by the cobra head-shaped knob, which seems oddly apropos. I grab another long rod which seems like it could be useful and hurry back to the kitchen. Once there, I hand the sword cane to my uncle and we wait for the snakes to emerge. Two of them do at once, and we go for them—the goal being to transport them outside again. My uncle doesn’t seem to have much trouble with his, but the one I’m wrangling—it’s green with white bands—is proving more difficult because it’s so small and fast. Before I can do anything, it’s crawled up the rod and onto my arm. I tell my uncle, and he pulls it off with the cane—but not before it bites me. It just feels like little pinpricks. Nothing serious—it probably didn’t even inject any venom. I say as much to the others as we wait for the next one. This one is all green, and much larger than the others. I try to pick it up with the rod, but the thing seems much flimsier than before, and is constantly telescoping into itself. My uncle and the sword cane, which I could really use right now, seem to have disappeared. Under the circumstances, my chances of getting the snake safely outside aren’t good. I’ll have to kill it. Through a combination of the rod and my feet, I manage without getting hurt myself—and then wake up. 26.1.18
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