The sound of a wild snail eating, by Elisabeth Tova Bailey

Literally flattened by a mysterious illness, the author of this short and beautiful memoir is confined for months at a time to her bed, almost unable to lift her head. She is being cared for away from her own warm farmhouse home and is isolated most of the day in a rather sterile room. During one of her darkest periods, a friend digs up a wild spring violet and brings it to her -- with a inch long snail in the pot as well. This scrap of life, silently going about its mostly nocturnal business of exploring and eating whatever it finds that might be edible, engages her interest. Eventually the snail is moved to a bigger terrarium and she continues to observe her snail and learns more about its kin. Although the author will never regain her full health, she does improve. The company of her snail gives her solace and insights that will help her cope with whatever comes. There is an old Anderson fairytale, "The Pea Blossom," about a bedridden girl who watch a tiny pea shoot growing in a bit of soil in her window -- and as the pea plant matures and flowers, she gains her health again. This was a real-life version of this old story. 186 pp.