Tale 1: The Bush and the Bris

One moment, I am stalking a desert mouse through dry, sun-baked shrubbery, gathering myself to strike, and the next, I find myself in a cave.

Before me is a bush, lit without and within by a blur of shifting flames. They fill the cave with almost-shadows, as the fire dances here and there, obstructed only by burning branches. I flick out my tongue to taste the air; when I withdraw it into my mouth, I detect a sharpness, like the air itself is burning, but no smoke. It’s unlike any fire I’ve ever seen.

How did I get here?

Something moves behind me. I turn; a human! I rise up in a threat display, spreading my hood and baring my fangs. The human recoils away from me, as well he should. I hate all primates instinctively, but especially humans, those most deadly of prey and predators.

A sound rumbles the ground beneath me and the air around me. After a moment, I recognize it as speech, but it’s not coming from the human male before me. The voice seems to come from the cave at large. What’s more, I can understand it. “Pick it up by the tail,” it says.

The human cautiously approaches me, and I rear back, ready to strike. But for some reason, I don’t. He reaches fearfully for me, and with a dart of the hand takes hold of me, lifts me into the air. I want to attack him, but my body won’t respond. Instead I go stiff. His hot hand scalds my scales, his touch unwanted, but I do nothing. Can do nothing.

What is happening?

My body straightens, contracts, as the stiffness takes hold, tail first, then spreading toward my head. My breathing ceases, but my mind doesn’t go blank. My eyes cloud, my tongue hardens, but I can still sense my surroundings. More than sense; I can see things I couldn’t a moment ago.

A presence fills the cave. It emanates from the bush, although it doesn’t originate there; it rather seems to come from elsewhere, and merely enters this space through the bush. It suffuses the air, the walls, the ground. It spreads up through the man’s feet, washing over him.

The voice speaks, and I watch as the man puts his hand into his cloak. A piece of the presence swirls around the hand, afflicting it. The man withdraws his hand, stares at it, at the sores pocking it.

The voice continues to speak with the man, but I am distracted, because it is also talking to me. “Go with Moses,” it says, without the rumble of its speech with the man. “Be for him a channel of my power. Bring my wrath and my retribution against Egypt.”

If I could, I would show my fangs. But my mouth is firmly shut. I find that I have the words to respond. “I don’t know you. Who are you, to tell me what to do?”

A flash of pain fills me, as a rumble sweeps the cave. The voice is rebuking both of us now; to me, it says, “I am your Maker. You betrayed me in my garden a thousand years ago. Now is your chance to prove yourself reformed.”

Its garden? Oh…

Snippets of memory from another lifetime overwhelm me in turn. I am climbing down from a tree… I am talking to a woman, who is biting into a fruit… I am flying through the air, convulsing, bits of me shriveling away like they are dissolving in acid…

A thousand years?

The memories strike me like whiplashes. Hunting vermin to stay alive. The grit of the earth in and on and between my scales. Death, again and again, in raptor claws and badger fangs and beneath human heels. A millennium of fear and anger and hunger and hatred and pain.

“You took everything from me!” I shriek. “I will never help you!”

The voice laughs, deep and self-assured. “Everything you had was mine from the start. All of this world belongs to me. Do you think you can escape my will?”

The air around me trembles.

“My punishment?”

I feel as though I am on fire. As though my substance is glowing coals, as though I have been smoldering all this time.

If I could, I would slither away in shame and fear. But I am still wooden in Moses’s hand.

***

Moses walked out of the cave, supporting himself on his staff with trembling arms. “Shit, shit,” he mumbled to himself. “God chose me? Me? What can I do? I’m nobody. I’m nothing.”

“Take hold of yourself,” sneered a voice.

Moses glanced around wildly, seeing no one. But with the recent experience of God’s disembodied voice, he recovered quickly. “Who’s there?” he called, leaning heavily on his staff.

“Look to your hand,” the voice said.

Moses looked at the hand that had recently been plagued with sores. He splayed it out, turned it about, but it seemed normal now.

“No, stupid, your other hand.”

Moses passed the staff to his left hand and looked at his right in the same manner. “Hello?”

The voice sighed. “The staff, fool, the staff.”

“Oh,” said Moses. “What?”

Before his journey into the cave, the staff—a gift from his father-in-law—had been a plain, unadorned length of mostly straight wood a head taller than Moses, worn particularly where the hand took hold of it. The head of the staff curved over to form a hook, useful for catching a straying sheep by the neck or leg.

Now the staff undulated gently from its pointed bottom end to the still-curved head. Its whole length featured intricately carved scales like a snake’s, down to the wide, flat belly-scales. The head was now a cobra’s, hooded, curving over severely until the neck pointed straight down, with the snake head raised, pointing out almost horizontally.

“Did you talk?” Moses addressed the staff.

“Obviously,” he heard, though the staff was still. The voice seemed to come directly into his head. It was quieter than God’s voice in the cave, and rather sinister.

“How are you talking?”

The staff chuckled mockingly. “Aw, is the poor human confused? Are things not making sense to him?”

“Hey, shut it,” Moses retorted. “It’s a lot to take in.”

“Indeed.” The staff turned toward him, his own hands moving it as though without his volition. “Can you really think God has chosen you?”

“I mean, I know I don’t deserve it—”

“No kidding.”

“—and I told him that, but he insisted. So, yeah. I guess he has.”

The staff tsked. “For now, perhaps. But he’ll discard you as soon as you are no longer useful.”

Moses hesitated, but shook his head. “He’s the God of my ancestors. All of our men are circumcised to him. We’ve stayed loyal, and he’s come back to save us.”

“How long have your people been slaves? How many hundreds of years? Why wait until now?”

“Well…” Moses’s mouth twisted, but he shrugged. “I don’t know.” He started walking again, making his way down the stony hill toward the desert plain. “But he must have his reasons.”

The staff scoffed. “You’re too trusting. Can’t you see that he’s manipulating you?”

“But why?”

“It doesn’t matter. It’s never good, with him.”

“You don’t know, do you? You’re as clueless as I am.”

“Be quiet,” it snapped. “You’ve no idea what I know.”

Moses burst out laughing, surprising himself. “You’re a wooden staff! What could you possibly know?”

The staff chuckled darkly and seemed to vibrate in his hand. “I am far older than you can fathom. I walked with your God in his Garden before the first of your kind spoke his first word. I knew him as you never will.”

“A piece of wood? Walking?” Moses’s hand was going numb from the vibration. He clutched the staff tighter.

“Fool. I was a snake before I was a staff.”

“And walking?”

The staff stopped vibrating and made a disgusted sound. “You know nothing.”

“I know God said to go to Egypt. Who am I to argue?”

“No more of a man than you seem.”

“Are you insane? I’m going!”

The staff didn’t say anything, but the way the sun glinted across its face, it seemed to roll its eyes.

Moses shook his head. “I’m talking to a stick,” he mumbled. “What do I expect?”

***

Moses’s wife Zipporah looked up with horror from the sleeping baby in his swaddle. “You want to leave now? Are you nuts? I’m barely up from the delivery bed!”

Moses winced and looked around their tent, abashed. He had just told his wife that they would be traveling to Egypt tomorrow. To say the look on her olive face was stormy would fall well short of the mark.

“It’s a mission from God,” he insisted. “To save my people from slavery.”

“I don’t care if it’s to save the entire world from demons!” Zipporah snapped. She advanced on Moses, the aggressive gesture hobbled somewhat by her wincing, swaying walk. “We’re not—” She sighed in discomfort. “Pass me your staff, would you?” she said tightly.

“Um—” Moses glanced at the staff, leaning against the heavy fabric of the tent wall; facing Zipporah, it almost seemed hungry. He didn't trust the staff himself, even if God had blessed it. It might not be safe for anyone else to handle it. “I don’t know if that’s a good idea.”

Zipporah stood with her mouth open. Her expression passed through anger (“Not a good—” she began to exclaim) on its way to an ashen exhaustion. She teetered. Moses rushed forward to support her.

She neglected to thank him, but leaned against him, panting, for a few seconds. She looked up at her husband. “How are we supposed to travel? I can barely walk. You were going to circumcise the baby tomorrow. Do you propose we care for a weakened infant on the way to Egypt, and a lively toddler?” The unnamed boy fussed in his sleep, as if to illustrate her point. The toddler, fortunately, was with his grandfather.

“We have donkeys,” Moses pointed out. He led her past the pile of pillows on the rug to a cushioned stool. “Besides, we can—”

“No, something with a back,” Zipporah pleaded.

Moses leaned down to grab a pillow. “We can wait to circumcise him until we get there,” he continued, bringing her to a different seat and padding it. “I think God would rather we get a move on.”

“My father has donkeys,” she shot back, as her husband helped her into the chair. She took a moment to catch her breath. “And you won’t catch me riding for another week.”

“Zipporah, we have to go,” Moses said. “God chose me, specifically! I have to do this!”

“Then do it!” She waved him away. “Go!”

Moses knelt before her. “I want you with me.”

“Then wait a week!”

“When God says do something, he means now.”

She scoffed; he took her hand. “Zipporah, please. You’re my family. The Israelites are my family. Do I have to say any more?”

She shook her head, disbelieving. “Moses… I just gave birth.”

“You gave birth to a boy. I have to help God give birth to a nation.” Moses bit his lip. “Look. Can you imagine how important this is? We have a chance to be a part of something truly great. To do God’s will, right from his own mouth.”

“God can wait a week. We can travel when I’ve healed. When our son has healed from his circumcision.”

Moses shook his head. “We’ll circumcise him later. My first duty is to follow God’s command.”

“But why now? God has nothing but time.”

“Zipporah—”

“Your first duty is to the family you’ve created, Moses. We’re waiting.”

***

“To have spoken with a god! How I envy you!” Moses’s father-in-law was ecstatic. “Of course you’ll go at once! Take a donkey. Take two! And provisions! Enough for your whole family!”

***

We’ve been traveling for days now. Moses’s father-in-law Jethro saw us off, Moses and his small family, despite Zipporah’s objections. Jethro took an interest in me. He tried to use his powers to examine me, but I was able to repel him. I’m not sure how. I can feel my own powers growing, as though they are returning, like a regenerating limb.

We’re at a communal camping site for the night. Moses is sleeping now. He and his wife are in their tiny traveler's tent, huddled with their children for warmth. One of their donkeys is tethered at a tree nearby. Moses has leaned me up against the tree like a simple tool.

I hate this man. There’s nothing special about him. He’s just some shepherd. On what basis has God chosen him? How dare he command me?

I’ve been remembering more about my past. I remember the garden. I remember the humans there, who betrayed me, who cost me my legs. Who reduced me to a common animal.

I will not allow Moses to use and discard me.

I must be free of him. But I am stuck in this form. Or am I?

It’s an interesting sensation, being a piece of wood. There’s a stasis, a suspension of being. Yet I am still of a living thing. There’s a memory of treeness in my grain. A memory of growth, of flexibility and change.

Concentrating, I try to tap into that feeling of growth. That feeling of extension, of becoming more than I have been. I can feel it working. The tip of my tail twitches, my jaw flexes, my hood ripples.

Starting with my head, my flesh loses its stiffness. I lean more and more against the tree, as my suppleness spreads downward. My muscles creak as they change from plant to animal, as they expand and lengthen, then they go silent. It takes some moments before I am limber enough to move about.

First I coil on the ground, resting. Gathering my strength. I’ve been a staff for days. I spend a few minutes remembering how to be a snake.

The ass has been growing agitated, stomping, tossing its head, braying. It’s going to wake the humans. I bare my fangs and strike it in the throat, pumping it with venom before I release my bite. The animal staggers, its call hoarsening and going quiet as its throat swells. It gasps airlessly and falls to the ground. It will struggle to stay awake, now, as the venom spreads through its veins. It will take a while to die.

Your turn, Moses.

I turn away from the dying donkey and wend toward the humans. I don’t care about the woman and children; I hunger only for my enslaver. I hunger for Moses.

Fitful cries escape the tent as I approach. The infant has woken, and is demanding something from its mother. Humans are so weak in their youth. Snakes are independent as soon as they hatch, but humans spend months completely immobile, unable to do more than cry for help.

Patience, little one. I’ll give you something to cry about.

I slip my head in through the tent flap. The two adults are facing each other, feet toward the opening, with their children between them. The woman is stirring as her infant cries. I ignore them, rear up above Moses, against the fabric of the tent roof, and tense to strike.

But I don’t. Just like in the cave, when I try to attack Moses, I can’t. I hiss in frustration and try to whip myself down on him. But my body refuses.

Fine. If I can’t hurt Moses, then I will destroy his offspring. I eye the older child, sleeping soundly in his father’s arms, and move to strike.

Again, nothing happens.

Gah! What is this impotence? I am powerful, my very body a weapon, and yet I cannot so much as touch these people! I lash out at the tent itself, pierce the fabric with my fangs, and rip a hole in the roof.

Zipporah lay still, eyes wide, clutching her unnamed babe, as the serpent reared over first Moses, then her eldest Gershom, without actually attacking them. Only when it tossed in rage and struck the tent did her throat unstick and her cry escape.

A woman screams. Moses’s wife has come awake, and flees the tent, the fussing babe in her arms. I turn and pursue them, winding between the tents of other travelers, following the limping woman out beyond the circle of torches.

I gain steadily. She is only a few cubits ahead of me when she trips, falls to the ground. As she hits, her infant slips from her grip and rolls an arm’s-length or two. She reaches for it and shouts in horror, matching its heightened squall. How terribly annoying.

I pass the woman to strike at the child, and finally, finally, I succeed. I latch onto its head, my fangs sinking into its cheeks. I don’t bother to wait for the venom to take hold, but proceed to swallow it at once.

“Let him go!” the woman yells as she beats me about the head with her fist. But I ignore her. What can she do to me? Her other hand clutches the child’s skull, trying to keep me from advancing, but I pulse my mouth forward, bit by bit.

“Zipporah!” comes a shout from the tents. “Baby boy!” Moses rushes at us and falls upon me, grabs me by the tail. He smacks it against the ground. “Be you wood again!”

I want to laugh him off, but a force pushes into me where Moses holds my tail. Against my will, I can feel myself obeying. My tail flicks once and goes still, the stiffness again traveling toward my head, my body shrinking as the wood hardens.

“Moses!” the woman screams. “The baby!” For the child is entirely within my jaws. Her arm, too, is in my mouth, just beyond the elbow.

“By he that was, is, and shall be,” bellows Moses, “let him go!”

With that shout, I can feel his will pushing against mine. My lower tail, already returned to staff stuff, conducts his command into me. I stop swallowing the baby and its mother’s arm, but I dig my fangs into her bicep and begin to inject—

“Stop!” I freeze at the iron in Moses’s cry, unable to envenomate her.

“Let me go!” I protest. “Unhand me!”

“Release my son!” he shoots back.

Nothing doing. I’m taking his offspring with me. The woodenness continues to spread up my body.

“Moses! Do something!” Zipporah wailed.

Sharp pains tugged at her arm where the snake’s fangs entered it, as her husband beat the wooden lower part against the ground. “Leave! My! Son! Attack! Me!”

“It tried! Moses, it couldn’t harm you! Or Gershom!” Zipporah gasped. “The circumcision!” Her eyes jerked about, and her gaze fell on a sharp stone. She grasped it. “Open its jaws!”

My vision is obscured as Moses pries my jaws apart. My fangs leave the woman’s arm. I would thrash my tail, but the best I can do is twist my lower staff to clank upon the ground. I feel her reach inside with her other hand. Moments later, blood trickles into my throat.

“Join your bloody covenant!” she cries.

I spasm. Suddenly my prey is choking me. Snakes cannot cough to expel a faulty meal, but I do my best to pull away from the woman. Still held along its mother’s arm, the child slides from my jaws.

“Join your bloody covenant,” she gasped again, clasping her silent baby to her chest and slapping him on the back. She pulled him away to look at him, and gaped in horror. His face was purple, marred with bite marks upon the cheeks. “Moses!” she screamed. “It bit him!”

Moses lifts me to his face and shakes me. “Help my son!”

What an idea! “Do you think venom heals venom?” I chortle at him.

He stares at me as the madness drains from his eyes and his gaze bores into mine. His hands shift along my shaft, one just under my head, the other halfway down my length. His eyelids slide closed, squeeze tight.

I can almost see his thoughts as his eyes swivel. Impressions of the cave, of the leprous rash on his hand. “Not by your power,” he whispers, “except that which God has given you.” His eyes fly open, and he thrusts me at the child. “Heal him!”

For the first time, I don’t want to resist. I don’t want to disobey. For the first time, Moses’s desires seem to make sense to me. His will is mine.

“Heal him,” I respond.

My wooden mouth opens, baring my fangs. The bite marks on the baby’s cheeks begin to glow with a soft white light. The swelling goes down, the purple fades.

Zipporah’s arms trembled as her baby’s face lit up. She held her breath until he began to cry again. Then she clutched him fiercely to her breast. “Oh, Eliezer,” she murmured, naming him: “my god is my aid.”

***

Moses walked along the foothills of a small mountain, leading their remaining donkey. His wife and children were piled on its back, along with the bulk of their provisions. The rest Moses carried on his person, for want of the donkey the snake had killed. They would arrive in Egypt tomorrow.

Moses worried what his brother Aaron would say. Would he be glad to see him? God had promised he would, but it had been so long since Moses had fled, and he had barely known his brother. Moses had grown up in the palace, free from the suffering of his kin. Would Aaron resent him? Would they even recognize each other?

“Oh, stop worrying,” the staff said. Its voice was tired and raspy. “You’ll be fine.”

Moses regarded the staff warily. It hadn’t said anything since its murder attempt two nights earlier. Zipporah had wanted him to destroy it, but he’d told her it was part of God’s plan. “You’re talking again.”

It made no reply.

He glanced back at the donkey; Zipporah seemed to be dozing. “What’s your angle?”

“What do you mean?”

“First you try to kill my infant son, and now you’re offering reassurance. What gives?”

It sighed. “Don’t take it personally. It’s not your fault you’re worthless.”

“Gee, thanks.”

“No problem.” The staff was silent for a while. “God put us together for his own reasons. Remember that. He doesn’t care about any of us.”

Moses shook his head. “He’s sent us to free my people. Clearly, he values us.”

“A goat kid may be valued at two shekels, all the while it is bound for slaughter.”

Moses shook his head, but didn’t answer. A figure had appeared in the distance. Moses shaded his eyes. “Do you think that’s Aaron?”

“Point me toward him.” Moses raised the staff. After a few seconds, it said, “I don’t know what he looks like.”

“Oh, haha.” Moses dragged the base of the staff lightly for a moment, letting it catch and bounce.

“That doesn’t hurt, you know.” The staff’s tone was conversational.

“I figured,” Moses replied. “We’ve got things to do.”

Things to do. Indeed.

I told Moses he’s worthless, but I’m no longer certain of that. He was able to access a power I didn’t know I had, overwriting my will, undoing what I’d done to hurt him. Protecting his child.

Maybe there’s more to this man than I judged. A family man, a man of the people. And able to command me. Maybe he can rise to his task. God thinks so, anyway.

Humans aren’t all bad. After all, wasn’t I trying to help them in the garden, expand their horizons? Maybe I won’t kill Moses after all.

But God is another matter.

Artwork by Emily Kruse

Yossi Katzin grew up religious, and struggles to find meaning in an existence with a missing meaning-giver. He hopes you have a good day, but would like to remind you that if every moment were good, we'd never grow.

The Rod of the Sons of Amram