The mouse was hungry, tired, and smeared from head to foot in filth.
She had made a long and perilous journey to arrive at the foot of the old fig tree growing alone at the top of the land’s highest peak.
To get here, she had been forced to crawl through narrow cracks in the stone, scraping away her fur and cutting at her skin, and then, for the last few meters, she had had to expose herself to the raptors above and make a mad dash to the entwining roots at the base of the enormous arbor.
But she was almost glad, for the fruit here could be attained nowhere else.
Mere sustenance could be found far below amongst the forests and woodlands filled with nuts and berries, but the mouse no longer had much taste for food. It is hard for even rodent mothers to eat with the knowledge that their children had been killed before their time.
Instead, she sought a different fruit, the kind that lay inside the mottled head and flickering tongue that hung high above her, its coils wrapped like a vine along a branch of the old misshapen tree. Slitted pupils of endless black turned within their yellow orbs to fix on the little morsel of fur down below.
“Oh, wise serpent, devour me if it pleases you,” she moaned. “For I am at my wit’s end, and I have nothing left to live for.”
The serpent slid warily along the branch, flicking his tongue out three or four times, trying to taste whatever was in the air that would bring about such a strange event.
All predators know of that moment when the prey, tight in its captor’s jaws, windpipe crushed or body broken, gives up and goes completely limp. Or, ill and unable to go further from exhaustion, lays down and waits to be devoured. But the snake had never met an animal who would so brazenly refuse to play the game as to walk up to his abode and offer itself for destruction.
“And why should I eat you?” asked the serpent. “Whatever ails you, little mouse, is bound to make me sick also.”
“Oh, sir serpent!” cried the mouse. “My children have all gone before their time. Cats ate my two youngest, a hawk ate my eldest, and the last succumbed to the cold this winter. Our burrow flooded in the spring rains that followed. Their fathers have all long since left, and I am all alone.
“When I lay down to let the melting snow reclaim this wretched body, a great realization struck me: that of all the beasts of the forest, the great serpent atop the highest peak not only lives closest to the heavens but has also traversed the earth’s deepest depths.
“Then came a phrase remembered from long ago, that heaven contains all answers. So here I am. Swallow me whole if you will, for that would be a solution in itself to my sorrows, but tell me before you do what’s to be done about my suffering.”
And then the mouse broke into sobs and wept for her miserable existence while the serpent looked on with a cold smile. After a moment, he spoke.
“Calm your sniveling, little mouse,” he said. “And know that I will not eat you today. Happy prey is sweet to my taste, and fearful food is savory. But sadness is bitter and anger sour, and though you pour out your tears, both have seeped into your bones.
“Unfortunately, there is nothing anyone can do for you besides this one thing, for even heaven only helps those who help themselves.”
The mouse gazed at him without comprehension.
“Dear mouse, it isn’t how, but what could have prevented all this?” He asked, and when she continued to gaze at him questioningly, he flashed his fangs. “What would you need in order to avoid this?”
“Well,” she hesitated. “If we could build dams like our neighbors, the beavers, then perhaps our home would still be standing.”
“A good start,” said the snake. “What else?”
“And if our fur were thick like the bear,” she said, brightening. “My youngest would have survived the cold and still be alive.”
“Excellent,” said the snake. “Go on.”
“And if I had teeth like the cats but greater strength, then his two siblings would not have been eaten! And if my claws tore at a distance or could strike through the air, then no hawk would dare come near.”
“Anything else?”
“If I had some dependable mice to sire my children,” she said. “Not these deadbeats with whom I hurriedly mate every spring in the bush for fear that some predator might come upon us… I’m not saying an extra mouse will make much difference against a wolf, but it would give me an extra set of hands.
“If only I could take my time in selecting a mate. I could take time to please him, and we might actually enjoy ourselves, and he might even stay.”
“If only I had someone to lighten this heart that’s become too heavy to bear alone. Somebody else to listen to me!”
“You and me both, sister.” The snake crinkled his nostrils slightly.
At this, the mouse burst into tears as the snake watched impassively. He let the mouse finish her last hiccup and a long silence ensue. When the mouse could stand the awkwardness no longer, she asked, “So, can you petition heaven to make this happen?”
“Oh, I have no sway in heaven,” said the snake. “I’m a legless reptile cursed to slide around killing things with my face. But all these things will come to pass because you’ve set them in motion yourself.”
“How is that?” the mouse asked.
“By giving you the question, you have given yourself the answer,” said the snake. “By even considering that things could be otherwise, you turn the undefined yearning you feel into words. And the more desperate you become to realize your wants, the more you will find a way to make them happen.”
“You wished to be like other animals, and in that desire, you will soon find the ingenuity to bring it about. Your will is that your sexual appetites be with you all year long, and you will find the food or substance to change you likewise. For you have just outlined to me all the things you do not yet have, and it is this wanting that will drive you.
“Go forth, little one! May you fill the hole you’ve dug inside yourself, and in the constant filling grow so that others call you rat. Now that you are aware, you will never cease to see what you lack. Not even the powers of beasts and gods will be enough. Better get started, human!”
With that, the snake laughed. and slithered into the shade between two branches. When the mouse went around to see him emerge from the other side, he was gone.
That night, the mouse dreamed of her children. Startled awake in the middle of the night and unable to sleep, she remembered her faithless husbands. Then she concocted a plan to teach them about want, and left her lair that very morning in search of a good symbol.
Eons later, an archaeologist would come across an alcove so tiny as to escape the notice of his discipline. In it lay small, sharpened rocks and nut shells roughly scratched and marked so that they resembled the heads of small mice. Behind it was a winding indentation rubbed into the wall. Dried blood could just barely be detected, smeared over the indentation to give the impression of a serpent.