The Race Home(short story-page 8)

 

          This bazaar behavior from Tara went on for over 10 months, she still awoke me each night growling and barking back into the night, but when winter came Tara’s odd exploits ceased. I was relieved and I finally got some peace and quiet, I was a very light sleeper, I could literally hear a mouse urinating on cotton in the dead of night, so this extra full uninterrupted sleep was rewarding. Tara was hit by a car one morning, and I thought it broke her leg, she limped and grimaced for over three months, and you would figure after being hit by a truck previously she’d be extra careful but miraculously she came around, I loved my Tara. 

          I decided to do some Spring cleaning in the basement one day and we had a huge basement too, as I was moving everything from the walls, and you wondered how so many spiders and bugs could ever crawl in from the cold in one year, this was astounding, and I dusted and mopped up each wall and every nook and corner, then by some weird coincidence, I started in on the ceilings which had that pink irritating insulation, now, it was filled with cobwebs, spiders, and thousands of cocooned spindle of bugs, I managed to dust away the grime, dust and insects, but then removing a slab of that irritable insulation there it was, the most frightening thing I’ve ever seen for quite some time, it was a twelve-foot shedded snakeskin, I was livid with consternation, I had to find this snake and wondered if it was venomous or just a common garter, bullnose, milk, or black snake? I searched and searched that basement when a fine tooth comb and never found that snake. 

     Later on that night sleeping with Tara I finally figured out why Tara barked and carried on each night now, it was that damn snake, I just imagined that thing crawled on every quarter of that basement, it was so unsettling to think the snake was just a hairsbreadth from my bed if not wiggled inches from us while we both slept. This made my sleep uneasy, but I knew snakes are dormant or hibernate in the dead of winter, so I rested and realized if the snake wanted me it could’ve already had me, and doubt if the snake could ever get by Tara, my loving watchdog.