Reptilian Snakes

  © John Ward

Cooder is working on his sci-fi fantasy novella. “It's about reptilian snakes,” he says, “at the center of the earth.”

“What other kind are there?” I ask.

“Huh?” he replies.

“Snakes, all snakes are reptiles.”

“Not so,” says Cooder.

“Oh?”

“These are sewer snakes. They're steel.”

“What are sewer snakes doing at the center of the earth?” I ask.

“Maybe people flushed them down the toilet and they melted there, like the alligators in New York City .”

“I don't think so. Sewer snakes are not biological, so they can't mate and the sewers don't go down to the center of the earth.”

“True,” says Cooder, “but eventually the sewers flow into the ocean and the sewer snakes enter the earth's core through geothermal vents on the bottom.”

“They would have been trapped in the filters at the sewage treatment plant.”

“This was before New York had sewage treatment plants. They just dumped it into the East River or the Bay. I know, because my step cousin on Staten Island told me that conundrums used to float up on the beach and his mother told him they were jellyfish.”

“Conundrums are riddles.”

“My step cousin sometimes gets his words mixed up. It's no riddle how they got there.”

“I can't argue with that kind of logic,” I say, “but the magma and the molten iron at the core would have melted the sewer snakes.”

“It would have,” says Cooder, “if it weren't for the silicon impurities in the steel. Silicon is like carbon and at the high temperature and pressure inside the earth, it became the basis for the biochemistry of the sewer snakes and evolved into their DNA and proteins. That's how they were able to reproduce and control their body temperature and keep their steel exoskeletons from melting.”

“Snakes don't have exoskeletons,” I say.

“Reptilian snakes don't, but silicon based sewer snakes in deep subterranian space do,”

“Ha, but you said they were reptilian. That's what started this whole discussion.”

“That was my first idea,” says Cooder. “In science you have to be ready to abandon your hypothesis and substitute the antithesis as new evidence comes in.”

“So you decided your novella is going to be science fiction and not fantasy?”

“What's the difference?”

“Well, science stems from technology and fantasy flows from magic.”

“Yeah, I know, but what's the difference?” asks Cooder.

“Science fiction is westerns set in space and fantasy is epics from the past.”

“Oh, then this novella starts in the past and ends in the future, so it's both.”

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