Excerpt: The Adventures of Panda Bear the Magic Talking Snake

The snake was known as Panda Bear. He glimmered in shades of orange, reflecting the sunset and the fields below in the dark patterns along his back and down his tail. For four feet he seemed to stretch, his whole body under control of the brain in the small head at the front of the whole elongated vessel. His beady eyes darted around and his tongue flickered in and out, taking a careful, precise taste of the air before quickly retracting it, making sure not to overdose on the potentially dangerous environment around him. With ease he controlled his body across his environment, the tail swishing back and forth, his midsections moving with a mind of their own to propel him across the world he lived in. Everything about him seemed to come together as he collapsed into a slow spiral, his head coming to rest at the center of his universe, supported by layer on layer of himself. This was the most comfortable position.

He lived on a layer of pebbles, they felt smooth against his sleek, long body. He was perched atop a rock, one where he felt the most comfortable, as he could hide behind the leafy green plants in front of the rock, away from the world. However, if by chance, he was not content with being curled in this position, he had other options. Stretching himself out, he slunk off the rock, in front of the plants, and back onto the pebbles. There were many other plants in his habitat, they hung down and threatened to brush across his smooth head as he slowly slunk by. There was also a small cavelike structure. It was not big enough for the snake to fit his whole body into, but it was bit enough for him to get his midsection stuck in, and himself hopelessly tangled among the rocks. For this reason, Panda Bear tended to mostly avoid this structure. Passing this cave by, one encountered more plants, simply more plants, and then a wall.

And that was it. There was simply a glass wall, and behind it there was darkness, nothing more. Panda Bear would stare out into this black void, and not see anything other than inky nothingness ahead. And this was as far as he could go, and at this point he would have to turn around. To the left, or to the right? Either way, he would turn his head, move it along the wall, not even able to move his long, slithering body until he ran headfirst into another glass wall, joined at the corner to the first one. But here was where left and right did matter. Had he turned left, he would only see along the wall an expanse of white. So strange, the black giving way to white at the corner, just like that, the void of nothingness giving way to another void, of completely different nothing. But, had he turned to the right, all along the glass he would see something completely different. For what was a wall would double into a window until a different world, one that Panda Bear knew very well, and yet did not really know at all.

At this moment in time, the world was empty and still. There might as well have been nothing there. The lights had gone down upon this world, and right now the only organism around that Panda Bear knew of was himself. All that existed was right here, behind that wall that doubled as a window, and as such, there was no sense in attempting to comprehend everything that lay beyond there. Panda Bear moved along past this world, moving his long, flowing train of a body slowly past this wall, over pebbles and plants, until he came across the final wall of the four walls that made Panda Bear's entire world. This wall, too, was a window.

Another world lay beyond this wall, and it was the Third World, after the world where Panda Bear lived (the First World) and the empty world (the Second World). This world was blue and green. Murky patterns rose and fell in the colors, beyond that wall, and all Panda Bear could do was stare at the things that lay beyond. There were plants, and trees and rocks, but what really personified that location were the organisms that lived within. This world was anything but empty, for all over, there were tiny Weird Snail organisms inhabiting the area, crawling up and down the rocks, floating in the murky water.

These were other organisms, which in some ways felt like company. But, truly, they were not company in any sense of the term. As Panda Bear saw it, he was in the First World, and they were in the Third World, and so therefore, occupying a completely different space in this universe, they were completely useless to him. Panda Bear could watch them work, but he felt a profound disconnect with their methods and daily routines. While they preferred to work all day on meaningless things, Panda Bear preferred to curl up on his rock. It didn't seemed like they got anything more than he did done. He didn't really understand them, and that would probably be the way things always were.