Fascination

Bhaktapur, Nepal

One dry season evening in the Nigerian bush, I turned the gentle corner of a single-track and startled at a large boa. The dirt road was about four meters wide, and the snake’s broad head was halfway across. The rest of the snake’s body still exited from the jungle to the right. In my Ford Bronco’s headlights, it glistened, bright and beautiful and terrifying. On its wide back, saddleback patterns in stark shades of brown-and-green-tinted hues formed an abstract camouflage. The snake would have been impossible to spot in the bush, but in the bare dust of the jungle track, it was a vivid, unsettling nightmare..

I marveled over its beauty. Though its colors were not bright, they were strong and dramatic and mesmerizing. The boa did not quicken its pace in the harsh headlights but continued its deliberate journey across the narrow bush road. I drove over it in my heavy truck and felt the vehicle rise and fall as each axle passed over the broad, muscular trunk. I reversed, backing over the snake, and as the headlights gleamed again off its mottled back, I saw its head enter the bush on the left. Its tail was still emerging from the thick jungle to the right. I marveled at its size.

I turned off the truck motor and listened as the boa disappeared into the dark jungle. Against the background of singing night insects, I could hear the distinct rustle of dry leaves and the sharp snap of small limbs as the massive snake continued its deliberate journey. I marveled at its power—and I feared. I listened until I could no longer hear it, and I wondered. I wondered why it fascinated me. I wondered why a terrifying beast could captivate me and paralyze me in the same moment. 

Like a moth flirting with a candle, something about danger entrances me. And when I find a terror, I dance around it, inching closer, darting back, knowing I’m alive.