Meadow Orange

Between the foothills of Hot and Cold, lay a petite young meadow, lush with apple blossoms and peach trees, coated with flowers of all shapes and sizes and lined with streams sweet to the tongue.1

Each breezy blossom spring, creatures from the lands of Hot and Cold broke their daily routines and retreated to the meadow. For in the spring, the meadow bore more fruit and flowers more beautiful than one could possibly imagine.2

One sunny spring day, two serpent families arrived at the meadow. One family came from The Land of Hot, and the other from The Land of Cold. The Cold family was yellow, while The Hot family was red.  Mage and Jib were the youngest of their families. Mage was red and Jib was yellow.3

Late that afternoon, Jib lay peacefully beside a slow stream, sometimes ducking his head beneath its warm water to have a drink and to have the occasional nibble on the plant life that grew beneath the surface. He pulled some up, deciding to finish his snack on land. Oxygen sometimes enhanced plant flavor.4

“How are those greens treating you?” Jib heard a voice say from above. He stopped his chewing, some tasty greens still dangling from his open mouth. He slowly drew his eyes up, and much to Jib’s surprise, a narrow, scaly face quickly met his gaze. Jib smiled slowly, nervously, hoping this bright red snake above him, curled around a great daffodil, was not planning on harming him.5

Jib continued to eat his food with a slow, awkward chew, feeling the snake’s presence above him. Once he’d finished his snack, he retreated back to the stream, hoping the other snake would believe he’d left to have a drink, while he really just wanted to get away from this strange stranger. 6

“My name is Mage!” said the stranger, seeming very happy with his announcement, slumping down from the daffodil and onto the place where he’d hovered over Jib. ”I’m from The Land of Hot! Where are you from? I think I know, though. Would you like to know where I think you’re from? Do you?”7

Jib bit down on some grass along the stream, wondering whether or not he should spark up a conversation with such a strange snake as Mage. Gulp. He swallowed a big chunk of grass and said hesitantly, “Well … okay.”8

“The Land of Cold! Am I right? Am I?” Mage bounced giddily and slithered closer, putting his face so close to Jib’s, they had to look at one another cross-eyed! “I’m right, aren’t I?”9

Jib slithered back. He did not like being so close to others. Now, he was happily farther away; at least the length of three full-grown crickets standing end to end. Yes, this distance made Jib happy. Now, he got a better look at Mage, and he thought … perhaps Mage’s smile and eager eyes were simply showing how happy he was to meet a new snake. Jib knew there weren’t many snakes their age anymore. And so Jib moved closer, accepting Mage’s attempts at making a new friend. And he suddenly thought of a brilliant reply. “Yes,” Jib said with a curious smile, now only two crickets’ length away. “How did you know?”10

Mage was more the happy to explain. It was easy for a snake from The Land of Hot to recognize a snake from The Land of Cold. “You guys come to the meadow, and eat greens and drink from the warm springs, because greens don’t grow in the cold and your streams are never warm.”11

Jib was genuinely surprised at how much Mage knew about his kind of snake. “And you don’t eat greens and drink from warm springs?”12

Mage’s eyes bulged as he began to laugh hysterically at the question. It took minutes for him to calm. “Of course not!” he said, trying to regain his composure. “What a silly question! In The Land of Hot, there is tons of grass and the water is always warm. When we come here, we don’t eat greens and definitely not warm water. If we did, we had might as well go home because we’d be eating the same food.”13

Jib realized how truly different they were from each other, and yet how truly similar. Snakes came from their home to the meadow, to have something different.14

In the days that followed, Jib and Mage spent as much time with each other as possible; fascinated at their differences. But as the time went on, both Mage and Jib liked each other so much that they did not like themselves as much as they had in the past.15

“I want to be more like Mage!” Jib would say to himself.16

“I wanna be more like Jib!” Mage would go.17

And every time either Mage or Jib would see his reflection in the stream, he would simply shake his head and slither off; very unhappy with himself.18

Mage is just so outgoing and fun, Jib thought. I should be more like him.19

Jib is just so darn quiet and calm, Mage thought. I wanna be more like him!20

Mage and Jib told themselves this so often that their wishes finally came true! Jib began to act more outgoing and talked much more, while Mage learned to calm and talk less.21

They had both gotten stuck in between who they were. They were both less like themselves, more like the other, yet still a bit like their old selves.22

Needless to say, Mage and Jib were in a bit of a pickle and were terribly confused. Both their families were beginning to get concerned at their behavior. The little snakes had even changed their eating habits! Mage ate greens and drank warm water from the stream, like Jib; and Jib avoided greens, eating everything else, and drank the cool dew from the grass, just like Mage.23

Each of the families took time to express their concern for the boys but neither of them were impacted. Both of the boys were pleased with what they had accomplished. Mage was in fact so pleased, that he decided to take this one step further. Jib had told him of the small dye brooks, created to keep color in the meadow. Mage thought up a plan to use them. But where could these brooks be? What a dilemma. He pondered and pondered, just was Jib would have done, and finally decided where he would go. The center of the meadow! And so, Mage took off to find the center, which was much more difficult than expected. On his way, he saw many creatures; mammal and reptile both, all eating the meadow’s famous fruit or simply enjoying the scenery.24

And finally, as Mage pushed past a large patch of green and purple carnations, there before him were two extremely long brooks of color, both stretched out on either end as far as the eye could see. One brook had dye of the darker, more serious shades; each shade aligned side by side, seemingly unchanged by the colors beside it. The brook beside it had thousands of colors, all bright and fun.25

Mage had to slither along the bright brook for the longest time until he finally found the color he’d been searching for. He was very surprised to find the brook previously disturbed, with ripples shrinking as they aged. Nevertheless, he had to do what he had to do, and slid into the dye, resting within it patiently until he felt ready to get out. And as he slithered out and looked down at himself and looked back at his tail, he could not speak. He was in shock … to see his beautiful bright red scales turned into a rather sickly orange tone. What had happened? It was much to horrific for Mage, but also much too obvious. The dye had not set in as he would have hoped, and fused with his natural tone.26

He had tried looking like Jib officially; he had tried to get the beautiful yellow look Jib held. But now he simply looked disgraceful. No serpent in the history of his family had been orange. And in that moment, Mage suddenly realized … he so wanted to look and act not like Jib … but like himself. It overpowered him like a fatal wind; no longer did he feel the need to be Jib, no longer did he feel the need to be calm and quiet, he wanted himself back. But he had no idea as to how he could possibly reverse this mess.27

“Mage! Mage, is that you?!”28

Mage recognized the voice immediately and went off to locate it. It led him behind a tall, dark apple tree. There, he found a small snake, hidden within the height of the grass. The snake looked just as he did, with the same unattractive orange color.29

The snake slowly lifted its head from the grass, but his eyes never left the ground in shame. “Look at us, Mage,” he said with a shake of his head. “I wanted so to be like you. And now look at us, we’re the same … we’re ugly.”30

“You wanted to be like me?” Mage exclaimed in shock. “I wanted to be like you!”31

“Well, Mage,” Jib said with an exasperated sigh, “we’ve gotten what we’ve wished for.”32

Yes, suddenly Jib and Mage were living what they’d been dreaming of. No one could tell them apart; their shades were no different, and all the time they’d spent perfecting their imitations of one another had done its job, they could not decipher their personalities any longer. Jib was too much like Mage and Mage was too much like Jib to decide whether or not anything they said or did was what Jib would have done, or what Mage would have done. They eventually parted ways, and took time to learn who they were, and no longer would people label them Jage or Mib.33

Their skin did shed, but their shame took longer. Never had they appreciated themselves as much as they did after their trip to the meadow, and never again would they attempt to be anything besides who they really were.34