Thougths based on the work The Serpent
Where are you? I often think of you. I imagine you swimming alone in your liquid kingdom. You let me in and look for you. In doing so, the coldness of the water surrounds my whole body and makes me shudder and that is when I make the decision to fill my lungs to the painful limit and immerse myself. I just have a few minutes, I can’t lose a moment. My eyes open emphatically and explore the wall of the rock that shapes your home. I can’t stand it anymore, I have to go to the surface and refill my lungs again. I feel fear; the bottom of the puddle is dark, is the unfathomable bottomless black and you can emerge from the depth or you can also appear silent for some nook of the rock. I dive over and over again. I inhale air insistently. Even though I don’t give up, I don’t see you. I sense your gaze, your presence, your being. But I never find you.
Is then when reality and dream are confused in my mind. A reality shaped by the beams of the sun that cross the water as foils and they are driven to the bottom of the puddle, illuminating the abyss. A few bundles of light that create ethereal and subtle reflexes. You dance with the light. She is the ideal dance partner, which allows you to exhibit your flexible and curved body. Actually, you don’t exist. I’m the one who dreams about you.
I decided to stop immersing myself intentionally. My only purpose is for my lungs to be emptied of air, in this way I will sink into your abyss. In doing so/on having done so, a foil of light crosses me and illuminates that hollow for which I have finally decided to enter. The lack of oxygen oppresses my skull and chest. When I open my mouth the water gushes into my body, flooding it and the silence of the pool take over my mind. That’s when I feel your rubbing on my feet, on my ankles. I feel like you’re entangled in them alternately. Now one, now another, slowly. I am aware that you no longer dance with the light; now you do it with me. You’ve noticed me, finally, I have captured your attention.
Your viscous body climbs for mine. You get entangled between my legs and force me to separate them. Now you press my waist and continue in your dangerous ascent. You finally surround my neck, embracing it, without oppressing it. You lose it, and you begin playing with my hair in the water that has turned into a black cloth formed of fine threads. But soon you get tired of it, and that’s when you go back to my neck with the determination of a murderess. Now, yes, you wrap it with bluntness, and while your rings tighten it, your head of the snake is facing mine, and your little black eyes observe my agony. I scream your name, begging you to release me. Panic’s taking hold of me. I see the certainty of your wickedness in your little, inexpressible black eyes. I observe how you enjoy my pain, my fear, and you keep squeezing and squeezing/pressing, oppressing, nullifying my will.
Finally, when you know me defeated, you start to lighten your deadly embrace. You totally detach from me and in the distance, you observe your work. I see the pride in you. That’s when you decide to return me to the world I belong to. Not knowing why I put my hands together so you get tangled up in my wrists and slowly pull me towards the surface. You leave me exhausted on a rock. The light blinds my vision, the stone is stuck in my skin and the air, on having enter again my lungs, turns into thin painful needles. Is then when the sounds of my world begin entering my ears. When the silence ceases to be real.
Montserrat Gual