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There – where pines let out on to the open hill, where sunlight and shadow slid across old ant tumps – a stick? No, not a stick; something altogether different, softer, earth-coloured, a thing which could be live, could be lithe – a slow worm. I had stepped over the slow worm lying across the path before realising what it was. It was still, soaking up a puddle of sunlight, the ground knuckle-hard, the air dry but cool with a wind shaking across the hill; it was gathering light and warmth and its body glowed.
Without a second thought, I picked the slow worm up. Living up to its name, it slid and coiled around my fingers very slowly and without panic. I could feel the strength of it, not much longer than a hand's span or thicker than a pen; the power of its grip and the push of its purpose were electric. Somewhere between silk and metal and in colours of bronze and clay, it became a slow-motion, coiling-uncoiling history in this place.
The slow worm had been basking on Wenlock limestone formed from a fossil seabed and reef made of molluscs and polyps – a spineless lot. Here now was the perfect backbone: not a snake but a lizard which no longer needed legs but kept that sprite-like face, benign smile, jet eyes. It had no bite or venom or darting speed or hiss. Its only defence: a detachable tail and a seemingly imperishable belief in its own being fixed in that mind which was fixed to that spine.
I know I should have left it alone but to pick it up was an instinct. What if the next walker on the path trod on it, what if their dog attacked it? I put it down, away from boot reach, and it moved slowly into an undefended world of light and motion.
