"Laura Resnick - Ever Since Eden" - читать интересную книгу автора (Resnick Laura)

flops at my feet like a dead fish, trying to turn over and strike me. A garter
snake twines around a branch in its cage and slowly extends its head toward
me, as if curious.
I back up, gulping, shaking, trying to call for help.
They start escaping in droves, slithering along the walls, in and out
of each other's cages, along the floor. They are everywhere. I cannot move
without touching one. I cannot escape.
A sidewinder comes for me. I step back and trip over a rock python. It
twines around my ankle. I shake it off and nearly fall. I put a hand out for
balance. My fingers brush across a water moccasin. It looks straight at me and




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opens its mouth to display its poison sacks. I am paralyzed as I watch it move
to strike.
****
"And I wake up screaming," I tell my analyst.
"What do snakes mean to you?"
"Sheer unadulterated terror."
"Why?" Dr. Seltzer asks.
"I don't know."
"Think about it."
Ninety-five dollars an hour this is costing me.
"Look, Doc, I've read that this is the third most common phobia in
America. You must have read some literature on the subject, heard a lecture or
two. What do you think snakes mean?"
"The question is: what do they mean to _you_?"
"I'm way ahead of you. I know what Freud said. But when the grass
rustles near me, and I jump sky high and go white as a sheet, it's not because
I'm afraid a penis is creeping up on me."
She chuckles. I wonder if I can get a rebate for entertaining her. I'm
spending more than a dollar a minute to resolve something which is so deeply
buried in my subconscious I can't explain or control it; yet it is so powerful
it has affected -- occasionally even ruled -- my life.
****
"What do you mean, ruled?" Dr. Seltzer asked me about twenty-five hundred
dollars ago.
Here's an example. I will never again set foot in Texas. While this is
not in and of itself an aberration (I know lots of people who will never set
foot in Texas), I should add that I once had a decent job and very good lover
there. I left them both one fine summer's day; and given the same set of
circumstances, I'd do it again.
I had a teaching job near San Antonio. Jake was a mile-high cowboy who
didn't like to talk all that much, but he loved good music, had a dry sense of
humor, and knew exactly what to do with a woman when the curtains were drawn.
I got off work late one Friday afternoon and stopped at the corner store to
get gas and a six-pack before meeting Jake at my place.
I was still at the pump when a pick-up truck pulled up right next to