Snake Dream

Last night I had a dream that I was surfing in some fairly heavy, choppy swell. It was a tricky paddle-out. Lots of surfers strung out in front of me, beating against the whitewater. Green soupy sea, floating wigs of seaweed, the buffoonish faces of dead fish perched high in the oncoming swells.

Someone ahead of me starts yelling. There's general panic in the lineup; surfers paddling left and right, away from a dark, thick line that has made itself visible under the water. It the line moves at a diagonal, both rising and moving toward me at the same time. Now its head comes up, wide as a sewer grate, dirty gray-green scales the size of birch leaves disappearing again into the green water. It wraps itself around my head and shoulders. I reach up and tug with all my might and somehow rip the snake's head from its body.