车库里进了蛇，怎么办！

》》》》》》》》一键领取入口《《《《《《《

My wife shrieked in terror from the front porch.

我妻子在门外尖叫起来。

I hurried to find her, aiming for the sound of distress. I flung the door open and my wife rushed in past me. A large man was approaching, and my first thought was that he had frightened her. 

我赶紧过去找她，打开门让她跑进屋。一个身材高大的男人正在靠近。我猜我妻子被他吓到了。

But it turns out he was not the boogeyman. He was just delivering a package, and he set it on the porch with a smile.

然而他并不是坏人，而是一个快递员。

“Snake in the garage,” he said.

他说：“车库里有蛇。”

 “Huh …What?” I had left the large roll-up garage door open for a minute while I carried something into the house.

“什么？！”我刚才确实开了一下车库门，为了把东西搬进屋里。

“You got a snake in your garage. I saw it go in there.”

“我看见一条蛇钻进了你家车库。”

I stepped quickly to the entrance just in time to see my slithery visitor — shiny black scales and a gray belly — disappear like lightning behind a large cardboard carton next to the wall. This guy was fast!

我赶紧跑过去，看到一条黑鳞灰腹的蛇闪电一般消失在墙边的纸箱后面。它的行动真迅速！

I think most humans naturally respond to snakes in a negative, visceral way. We’re afraid of them. Nature has implanted some sort of enmity between us — creatures who walk upright on two legs and those that glide forth on their bellies. The fear is rooted in our differences. I won’t say I wasn’t a bit nervous (I’ll use the word cautious) as I ever-so-slowly peered behind the cardboard carton.

多数人见到蛇的本能反应肯定都不好。人类怕蛇，大自然让人和蛇之间有一种敌意。人类用腿走路，而蛇用腹部爬行。物种的不同导致了恐惧。我在慢慢靠近纸箱的时候也确实有些紧张。

The snake looked like a pile of dark rope, woven around itself like a loose knot tied by a lazy sailor. It didn’t move. The fellow was hiding, I thought, and probably hoping for the best in this encounter with a huge two-legged beast he didn’t understand. 

这条蛇像一根黑绳，盘卧在那里。它没有动，可能觉得我不会伤害它。

I have no idea the degree to which a snake can reason, but I don’t imagine it’s a lot. 

我不知道蛇的思考能力如何，但应该不强。

I’ve been around snakes before, mainly when I lived in the rocky desert mountains near San Diego, California. In that area, it was rattlesnakes — and lots of them. 

我之前住在圣地亚哥附近的山上，那里有很多响尾蛇。

I read books and observed, learning their habits and their warning signs. The more I understood, the less irrationally fearful I became, though healthy caution remained. Rattlesnakes are, after all, venomous. 

我从书本上和实地观察中了解它们的习性和警告动作。我了解得越多，恐惧感越少。不过别忘了，眼镜蛇毕竟有毒。

I encountered dozens of the reptiles on my mountain. Once, a good-sized rattler even got into my house, maybe intending to cuddle in bed. Believe me, that was exciting!

我在山上多次遇到过眼镜蛇，有一次一条眼镜蛇甚至钻进了我家里。它也许还想上床呢，相信我，那很刺激的！

Rattlesnakes were not mysterious, but I had no idea about the black-and-grey snake in my garage. There are many benign species in the world. Was this one lethal or harmless? I didn’t want to find out the hard way, so I retrieved a shovel and held the blade over the coil behind the carton. 

眼镜蛇并不神秘，但我并不熟悉车库里这条黑灰色的蛇。这条蛇有没有毒？我不想以身犯险，所以拿起铁锹靠近纸箱。

I knew the snake could come to life in a fraction of a second, wreaking God knows what mayhem. All I had to do was plunge the shovel downward.

我预料到蛇会奋起反击，而我只需要用铁锹拍它。

I’m glad I didn’t. Instead, I voted for life, for peace with my fellow creatures. I wanted to know more about this one, not take his life out of fear. So I put the shovel down and went to my computer. 

不过庆幸的是，我最终没有这么做。我想了解它，而不是取它性命。所以我放下铁锹回屋查资料去了。

I found the species right away — a black racer, which is common where I live. It’s not venomous and it shies away from people. It eats frogs, which are abundant in the creek below my home.

资料显示，这是本地区常见的无毒蛇，害怕人类。这种蛇吃青蛙，而我家附近的小溪里有很多青蛙。

And so I determined to guide the snake out of the garage and back into the woods. It must have had the same idea because I returned just in time to see its black tail whipping into the tall grass outside. And I was glad.

我决定让蛇回归丛林。它肯定也这么想，因为我回到车库就看到它正钻进屋外的草丛里。

Reflecting on this experience in light of today’s geopolitical turmoil, it occurred to me that the gulf of understanding between a snake and a man is at least somewhat understandable. We live in alien worlds. 

这次的经历让我联想到目前的地缘政治危机。尽管人类和蛇的世界不同，但是至少双方可以互相理解。

How much easier it ought to be, then, to find common cause with members of our own species, with whom we share so much.

那么人类之间更应该找到共同点。

Yes, we have legs! We also have big brains, opposing thumbs and an appreciation of beauty. We are capable of organizing to act in unison. We have the ability to love our mothers (something I daresay snakes lack). 

我们都有腿！我们还有大脑、手指和审美。我们可以团结互助，也有对母亲的爱（我觉得蛇没有这个能力）。

Differences of culture and language among humans are trivial compared with what they have in common, yet these differences somehow divide us to the point of war. I don’t get it.

和人类的共同点相比，不同的文化和语言简直微不足道。但我不明白，为什么这些不同点有时会让人类陷入战争。

The story of mankind is ultimately a sad one, a tale of lost opportunity. We share a common heritage — a little planet in the vastness of space upon which we somehow came to live — and yet we find it difficult to get along, to protect our interests as a species, to live in peace, to look beyond our local patch of ground. 

人类的故事关乎丧失机遇，很悲哀。我们住在一个地球上却无法共存。

Instead, we turn to the shovels.

我们选择了铁锹。