I can compare that moment in the snow to my encounter with the snake. It was as if the dark held a primeval terror, and upon encountering it my only possible reaction was the limbic response of flight. I ran away, stumbling madly through the snow, unseeing. I did not stop running until I reached our dorm, and it was only after I flung the front door open, clutched a cup of hot tea, and spoke in anxious murmurs to our house mother that the feeling that something hungry and dangerous lurked outside began to fade away.
