The Snail
Once upon a time in a garden there was a big and very old snail. It had lived a long and dissatisfying life. It had spent many hours in deep contemplation of this perception, standing on the cold wet stone of the garden path in the shelter of drooping hosta leaves.
It had discussed at length, with a large brown shell-less slug, the possibility of there being other gardens of more beautiful aspect and of greater rainfall than that in which they dwelt. It had taken counsel of the ladybird who had flown far and wide. She said that though there were indeed other gardens where the views were beautiful and great cloudbursts of rain fell, they were no more beautiful, and the rain no heavier, than in the garden where the snail dwelt.
So the snail began to think that if the garden were not the source of its dissatisfaction it must be something in itself. It wondered what it could be, curled up, safe inside its shell, upon which the rain drops, dripping from the drooping hosta leaves, spattered with a sound like tiny hammers.
Then one day, as if by accident, if there are such things, the snail caught sight of its own reflection in the pond and was amazed, for there, shivering upon the water surface, it saw clearly for the first time its own whorled and ridged shell. How enormous it looked, towering above the small single foot of the snail. The snail’s eyes stood out on stalks as it marvelled at the full enormity of that shell. How heavy and thick it must be. How overpowering; how burdensome; how overwhelmingly tiresome and exhausting, merely to support such a colossal, forbidding exterior, let alone to drag it from one end of the garden to the other day after day.
And what for, the snail asked itself? Why did it need such a ponderous appendage? There was nothing in the world that the snail had ever noticed that called for such a massive fortress of a shell. Even the hardest raindrops, which sounded like tiny hammer blows upon the brittle surface did not require such heavy defences. Why, the Ladybird’s wing-cases kept such raindrops out, and they were thin, and fine and not in the least heavy. And the slug seemed perfectly happy without any shell at all. When it needed shelter it squeezed itself into fissures in the rock, or crevices in the bark of trees, or into hollows in the crook of other plants.
The snail decided that if it could get rid of its shell altogether all its problems would be over. That sense of vague dissatisfaction would vanish. It would be able to experience life to the full. But how to slough off the stultifying, restricting, dead-weight of the shell?
It tried pulling, and prizing, and stretching, but all to no avail. The slug was no help. It had been born shell-less, and had no idea of how to get rid of one anymore than it had of how to grow one. The Ladybird too was flummoxed, but made one suggestion. Why not try breaking it off, by banging it against something very hard.
The snail thought that this was an excellent idea, and began throwing itself off the rockery onto the hard stones of the path, but it was no use. No matter how hard it threw, no matter how far it rolled, it could never generate sufficient momentum to crack the shell, let alone break it.
Then one day it heard a tap tap tapping from the path, and peering from beneath the drooping hosta leaves it saw a thrush, banging the hard shell of another snail against the stones. So, it thought, I’m not the only one who wants to be rid of this burden. I wonder if the thrush would perform the same service for me, when it has finished helping my colleague?
And of course, it would.
Brindley Hallam Dennis mostly writes short fiction. His stories have been published, broadcast and performed. He currently teaches Creative Writing at Cumbria University. He has a collection of monologues in the voice of one Kowalski (That’s What Ya Get!) due out from Unbound Press, and a novella accepted by Pewter Rose Press. He lives in Cumbria within sight of 3 mountains, and a sliver of Solway Firth. His blog/Website can be found at: Bhdandme’s Blog.
