Snakes and Snails, and Puppy Dogs' Tails

Behemoth strode the Plains one day, the earth shuddering with each thundering step. Trembling in the grass, Rilke the Snail heard someone call his name.

Voice quivering, the snail replied: “Hello there. Who are you?”

“I am the great Behemoth,” the voice said.

“Are you anything like me at all?” the awefilled snail asked.

“In few ways,” the voice said. “Yet more ways than you think. I simply can do many things you cannot.”

“Like what?” the snail asked.

“For example, I am so large I need fear no predator,” Behemoth said.

“That would be nice!” the meek snail exclaimed.

“And while your eyes sit on two stalks,” the voice said, “my entire head looms high on my body, allowing me to see farther vistas than you could travel in your lifetime.”

“Amazing!” the snail said. “What else?”

“Where you crawl, I walk on legs thick as trees, the voice said.

“That is hard to believe,” the snail said. “But I suppose it is possible. What else?”

“I have a voice that can thunder across the Plains and strike awe and terror into all who hear it,” the voice said.

“I noticed.”

“No--I have not yet even begun to thunder!” the voice tried to boom. “And now I bid you--crawl here and bow and submit to me!”

Rilke the Snail pondered the last command for a moment. Then he stammered, “W-w-wait a moment. Why is your voice such a quiet whisper now?”

“Because ... er ... because I choose now not to roar,” the voice said. “Now--come bow to me!”

“N-no!” the snail said, summoning his resolve in the face of his fear. “No--you are a liar and you have gone too far--and I shall not obey your order until I hear the thunder of your true voice!”

Just then one of great Behemoths’s footsteps hammered the earth, making Rilke believe he was about to be crushed underfoot at any moment.

“Did you do that?” Rilke the Snail said.

“Uh huh,” the voice said, smooth and hissing.

Rilke summoned up his courage and said, “I don’t believe you--do it again.”

But just then, the footfalls thundered again, except Rilke realized the tremors were growing faint, moving away from him at a fast, if bone-jarring trot.

The instant’s relief soon gave way to despair, however. He crawled along his path, despondent. All the great Behemoth had asked was unquestioning obedience, and in reward who knew what the snail would have been given? Would he have been brought up to ride upon Behemoth’s head as if on eagle’s wings? Would he have seen the world from the clouds, more world than he could ever travel in a thousand lifetimes?

And Rilke the Snail wept.

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Then the next day, as Rilke the Snail moved along a leaf on a large tree’s branch, the earth started to quake again. Not daring to look, the snail dropped his head and prostrated himself (at least as much as is possible for a snail). And he cried out in his very loudest voice, “Oh great Behemoth, forgive my unbelief!”

Suddenly, Rilke’s entire body was moving through the air! He opened his eyes and raised his head, to see the enormity of the being before him. Even one of the appendages was enormous, holding Rilke and the entire leaf by its stem with amazing gentleness and control.

“What is this? What is this?” the giant face said, one moon-sized eye peering at the snail as the giant creature’s voice made the whole forest shudder.

“Forgive me, Behemoth,” the snail said. “For I see now that your voice can thunder just as loudly as you said, and how wrong I was to doubt your power.”

“And when did you do this?” the great Behemoth said, curious and with humor.

“Why, just yesterday,” the snail replied.

“We had no conversation yesterday,” great Behemoth chuckled, his chuckle like an earthquake. “Little snail, do you have any idea how many serpents hide in my shadow, claiming to be me and enticing their prey to come closer? Little snail, the only way you survived was by being willing not to fall for this trap--even if to do so you thought you were challenging me!”

“But ... if I had questioned you would I not have been crushed?”

Great Behemoth shrugged. “Perhaps. But then, why would I feel threatened by the insult of a pretty little snail?”

And Behemoth placed Rilke the Snail upon His great back. “Come, snail, ride upon me,” he said. “The world is so much larger than even Me, and there are such wonders to see!”