The stories are true. Dan captured a cobra in our yard. He showed me the snake (which all of our Balinese friends scampered away from), and as I admonished him for picking up a snake he couldn’t identify in a land where poisonous snakes are common – the beastie flared its hood. I admit I squealed and started in the opposite direction, yelling over my shoulder that he was mad, absolutely mad.
Back in the safety of our room, I ripped the Balinese reptile book off the shelf and flew to the index. Crap. There are cobras in Bali, of both the spitting and kingly varieties. Flipping quickly to the demarcated pages, I scanned the pictures. Hearing heavy breathing, my attention was drawn to the doorway where Dan had appeared, looking triumphant. In his hands was a clear plastic Tupperware container - inside was the coiled, displeased-looking cobra specimen.
Much to my dismay, Dan of course had a plan for said cobra. For two nights, it tangled upon itself in the container on Dan’s bedside dresser, next to his wallet, cell phone, books on medicine and philosophy, and of course, his head. I asked him to put it in the cupboard so as not to frighten the lady who cleans our flat each morning, and he obliged – smiling I think, on the inside that I had temporarily abandoned my demands that he release the creature at once, on the opposite side of the yard, over the wall and into the rice field.
On the second morning after its capture Dan was ready for the cobra photo shoot. Neighbors stopped, jaws dropped as he carried the clear container out into the courtyard, his camera slung around his neck. All portions of this scenario have become standard to our once curious neighbors, except of course for the contents of this particular container. They clucked their tongues, shivered, and shook their heads, eyes dancing incredulously between the container and my dismayed face on the porch. I couldn’t bring myself to watch –snakes and I coexist on a civil, respectful basis generally, but this one tripped my creep-out button.
After moments of spastic flailing in my peripheral vision, Tupperware being wielded like a shield, camera snapping and “Whoa! His hoods really open now!! Look Beth, look!!...” - one of the two things I dreaded most to hear rung out in the courtyard – “Beth, can you come help me!?”
Wrangling the snake with one hand he thrust the camera in my direction, asking me to snap a few frames with his macro lens while he worked on agitating it enough to flare its hood more fully for the camera. “I think it knows now I’m not trying to hurt it, so it’s not reacting threateningly anymore…I need something…like maybe one of the cats…” his eyes scanned the courtyard as he toppled the tub up-side-down onto the snake to contain it momentarily. Finding no feline accomplices at hand, his eyes returned to me, clutching the camera and staring at the container, lest the creature emerge unexpectedly from beneath it and break for my direction. I could see his mind working quickly, calculating the number of shots he’d snapped, determining whether he’d captured his proof or not, wishing I hadn’t scoffed when he’d set his snake-wrangling-hook on the suitcase back in Vermont – “Babe, I doubt that will make it through customs… no it’s not a carry-on item…you do realize the snakes there can kill you right?”.
“I think it’s time to let him go…” he said with a sigh, his calculations complete. He gently collected the now riled snake into the Tupperware a final time, and crossing the courtyard deposited him in the rice paddies on the other side of the compound’s outer wall.
It wasn’t until I articulated the story to another person for the first time, after the cobra’s epic release, that it began to sink in how bizarre a scenario this had all been. A cobra had spent two nights in our bedroom in a Tupperware container on the night stand.

Last night we went to dinner with friends and the story was shared in full animation. I am still cringing at the Komodo Island (home of the famed Komodo Dragons) documentary adventure proposed by our journalist friend upon hearing the tale in full over dinner – “it will put Dan on the map” he’d said smiling – “I’ll run it past my contacts at TIME…hopefully get our travel expenses covered – next time call me when he catches a snake – I didn’t understand the “I have cobra” text he sent me the other day…”
Some small part of my brain revolted at the suggestion of “next time” inour friend’s proposal, but Dan was beaming. I sighed. Right. Next time. And so the adventure continues.