10 Seconds to Be a Hero

                                            From Basic Iban Design by Augustine Anggat Ganjing

It had been a spur of the moment idea. Dinner had ended and I had volunteered to throw the mussels shells into the sungai (river) which blesses our family by crossing our three acres property right in its middle, a mere fifty meters away from our terrace.

The afternoon had brought some drizzle and left the grass quite wet. I had put on a pair of rubber thongs to walk the stone-slab-path which, lately, had become seriously overgrown with weeds. I had also remembered to bring a torch light, mere common sense after nine o’clock at night!                Here I was, holding the torch while trying not to spill the large glass bowl filled to the brink with half emptied shells and still hot with some of the stock. I was walking confidently, one step behind Caramel's cropped tail ( my devoted Toy Poodle) and I could already hear the river hitting and jumping over the man-made dam and rushing its swollen flow past underneath the belian* bridge that joins the two parts of our farm. While intent on watching my feet, I let a sudden fear fill my thoughts. I stopped still: What if I crossed a snake?

Needless to say, I had just opened a Pandora box of horrors illustrated with some of my very own memories : the viper I almost stepped on while trekking Kinabalu Park; the large brown snake that killed Sunset, my brave cocker spaniel, right in the center of Kuching city; the long grass snake I found casually napping underneath our living room sofa (I never told my husband) or even the more recent colorful visitor that had climbed up the broad arm of my wicker chair to relax on the terrace; not forgetting that chili and so amazing encounter I had yesterday with a King Cobra that gave me a royal salute from the side of the road, before slowly withdrawing into the safety of tall grasses, head up and high, as I proceeded to drive on and home.

Of course I am scared of snake; and living on a farm in Borneo naturally brings the odds of meeting reptiles to a frightening statistical number; yet it is not fear of that kind of reptiles that bothers me. In fact, and to the risk of appearing bold silly, I am not really afraid of any animals but rather of not knowing what to do with them so that I may survive an encounter such as one with a defensive poisonous snake and still let my attacker go in peace. I must confess that, so far, I have been oh, so lucky never to be alone every time I had to face a serpent, so that I have not yet had to find out if, in an extreme situation, I would have the guts to pin a lethal head to the ground with my long stand-by harpoon, as I had seen it done by our gardener. Truly, I often wonder how I will actually react the day I’ll find myself alone facing, let’s say... a python?

I was still holding my step and Caramel was still staring at me, probably expecting an ordre de marche and I remember sensing that together we were creating a surreal scene, as if we had been caught in a sort of time warp: a still picture of us. By then, my mind was definitely working on fast drive, wondering why oh! why I wouldn’t simply seal the shells inside a bag; and what I was doing in the dark of the night, in a Borneo countryside, with my feet and legs exposed... I read somewhere that it takes about ten seconds of thinking to make a person either a deserter or a hero. My ten seconds must have been over by then and I found myself back to present time and action. I looked at Caramel and at last, I gave the order “Let’s go!” as I slapped my rubber soles hard onto the ground in order to warn-off any creature lurking nearby. Who’s afraid now?

• Belian: Hard wood also known as Iron Wood indigenous of Borneo.