The world is changing


Tom roamed the beautiful outdoors. He slithered across the pine needle ground and took deep breaths of the clean air. He loved everything about the outdoors. The way the fresh clean air rushed through his scaly snake body. He loved to glide through the wide open forest and be one on one, just him and nature; but just like every other snake, every half a year, Tom had to go into his hibernation, this year was his first, and he was terrified. Also he had to say goodbye to his one love, the beautiful outdoors.

Tom followed Sally to the safe spot that they had found months before. He felt like it was the death walk, and shook with the fear of sleeping what seemed like forever. Sally finally stopped slithering along and joined up with her other friends.

“Well this is it,” Sally said with a grin, well what would be a grin, if snakes could grin.

Tom uttered the word, “okay.”

Sally and the other snakes were asleep in less than an hour, but it took Tom almost three.

Tom took one last glare at the sparkling blue sky and one last sniff of the freshly dropped pine needles. Then Tom closed his eyes and surprising to him, his first hibernation was off to the long and sleepy races.


Tom woke up with a colossal yawn. He quietly slithered away from Sally and the other snakes. Tom took a deep breath, but the air smelled weird. Tom didn’t take too much notice to it. He just thought that it was just the giant pit of snakes he had hibernated with. But when he at last slithered out of the pit everything had changed. When he saw the forest he once loved, there was no more forest. Trees had been chopped down just so that rich millionaires could build their giant houses. The air now smelled of gas from the busy street that went straight through the forest. Tom decided to turn around and see what else the helpless snake had lost.

Everything was lost. Trees were gone and houses were built were trees once stood. The air lost the crisp feeling and now smelled old and dirty. Tom felt terrible and just wanted everything back. He felt anger flow through his body. He saw the spit were he would take his afternoon naps and there was now an enormous gas station right on top of it.

He thought I am not a human, but I do still have feelings. I deserve as much rights as a human, Tom gave up. He rolled over on the safest spot he could find and tried to clear his mind from anger. After half an hour Tom avoided his furious thoughts and silently closed his eyes.

“Tom,” said Sally, “is that you?”

Tom woke and replied to Sally.

“It’s terrible,” said Tom, “everything has changed.”

“I know, it happens every year,” replied Sally. “Whether it is the school kids that used to love us or having to find a new spot to hibernate because it is never safe, the world is moving at a pace us snakes just can’t comprehend.”

“I just want everything back,” said Tom as he fought his tears from sliding down his rough body.

“We all do,” Sally said with assurance, “I wish the world would just stay the same.”

“Let’s go find the others,” Tom demanded.

Tom and Sally did find the others, and Tom is now used to hibernation. Every time he closes his eyes for his long and deep sleep he knows what will be coming when he wakes up. Tom is still waiting for him to wake up and see floating cars or aliens walking around like they were normal human beings, but that is yet to happen. Tom almost enjoys change; he likes to see what has happened to the once clean and fresh air. Tom is an old snake now and waits to see how the snakes that go through their first hibernation will react to the rapidly changing world. Tom never did quite get over how spontaneous the world was before his first hibernation, but he still remembers the delightful sniffs of fresh flowers or scents and the sights that could never be forgotten.