Serpentina's Story

A Fateful Encounter

If a picture is worth only a thousand words then I shall never believe that a mere thousand words could ever adequately paint a picture of this unique and strange beautiful creature that I encountered and eventually named Serpentina.

Here's a picture of her that she gave me about five years ago on her twelfth birthday; this said, she's always regarded August 30th, the date of our very first encounter as her real birth date but we both know it wasn't. Anyway, Serpentina added her name to this remarkable image of herself and then in very serious sounding tone informed me that she didn't want me ever to forget her. Of course my immediate response was to laugh at her explanation and then question if it was even possible not to remember her. In retrospect, my thoughtless but unintentional remark had probably hurt her feelings, but I hadn't intended that.

Although I am titling these scribblings as Serpentina's Story, these vignettes about her are in fact perhaps nothing more than the demented ramblings of this old man she named Cog.

Thus having made this awkward stumbling start in an attempt to recount her story, I really do wonder where to begin. Of course the only obvious logical answer is to start at the beginning, but that term too is rather cloudy because her origin truly isn't fully known to either of us.

Nonetheless, let's briefly step back about a dozen years to that particular day when she... I certainly can't say she walked into my life... when she slid into my life... on one of those comfortably cool and dry mid-mornings toward the end of summer that made working in my vegetable garden more pleasant.

Gardening wasn't a hobby but rather a necessity because I was eking out an austere and uneventful existence by semi-subsistence farming; not from any desperate need just to survive but from that innate drive to do something to occupy my days. Farm work kept me very busy at times but in exchange life had become tranquil.

Without delving too much into a long-winded distraction of a side-story here, I shall at least reveal this much about myself: farm living wasn't always my life or lifestyle. I once dwelled in one of those major world-class cities and very comfortably lived in an expansive luxury penthouse atop one of those desirable downtown glitzy condo towers, possessed the right education credentials to get to know influential people who willingly opened those invisible doors, zealously pursued a most promising career in the financial world, quickly and successfully climbed that proverbial corporate ladder, was on and off dating a stunning head-turning rising-star model, earned more money in a year than most people would ever dream about earning in a lifetime, and then... yes, that particular "and then..."

In an instant everything came crashing down and me with it... a cleverly orchestrated betrayal, those trumped-up false charges, that instant dismissal from my employer and then the wider ostracization that came with those totally insincere but very apologetic excuses of promising to call back later to arrange a get-together, which of course never happened, and then those expensive resource-draining lawyers that came with seemingly endless court appearances... until acquittal. That vindicating, innocence confirming not guilty verdict aside, the damage was well done and my reputation destroyed.

So I'm living here today because of two fortuitous circumstances; while working I'd been smart enough to squirrel away funds in an offshore tax haven, and purely out of greed for expected quick investment returns, I had like a circling vulture bought up farmland on the cheap from financially distressed farmers. Yes, I'm now living on one of these sneered at tracts of country bumpkin land that I'd never expected to see let alone dirty my feet upon.

Anyway, that particular mid-morning, instant too-close-for-comfort familiar dog yapping grabbed my attention and I looked in that direction.

"Stupid mutt." I muttered in annoyance upon confirmed recognition of the noisy source.