The snake is primordial fear. This creature of cylindrical muscle, with no arms and legs, is an emblem of our first reckoning with the terrors that live in nature. As a child, our Zulu housekeeper, Emmarentia, once rushed into the house, pale with fright. She told us she had seen a snake bigger than her arm at the bottom of our garden. We had always thought pythons lived there.
The sacredness of games in the ancient world was connected to the story of Apollo slaying a python to protect his prophetess, his oracle. The Greek games were a tribute to this act of struggle against the dark, constricting heaviness of the snake. Physical struggle was a way of imitating and honouring the god of light. The fight was good. The python was somehow necessary.
I was once convinced by a friend, upon a visit to a theme park in Johannesburg, to ride a rollercoaster named the Anaconda, probably because of the fear it was meant to induce with its twisting path. He persuaded me by saying it was not that bad. After we were locked into our seats, as we inched to the take-off point, high up in the air, our legs dangling, he turned to me and apologised, saying, in fact, the ride was going to be terrifying. I do not like heights. I do not like adrenaline experiences. I quickly formulated a strategy. I told myself the ride would end. All I had to do was hold steady, retreat within myself, and see it out to the end…