They build the feeling of both terror and disgust in me, those animals called snakes. I sat in my father's bedroom scouting for novels to keep myself busy with since the secondary school I was attending had rounded up for the term. My two brothers were in the room they shared, arguing about who owned the disorganized clothes my mother had asked them to arrange before she returned from work.
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I had just laid my hands on one of the pacesetter novels I loved when I heard a loud scream. I knew my brothers, they were either grappling each other, or one was hitting the other so I didn't budge, I just prayed none of my parents would come back and meet them at each other's throat.
I was about to settle into the novel when I heard the scream again. I rose with the novel still in my hand to check what was going on so I would know what to explain to my parents if any of them needed details of what was going on when I felt a sudden jab in my side. My two brothers dashed out of their room suddenly, yelling at the top of their lungs.
I didn't even get the opportunity to ask what was going on, I just saw my younger brother fetch the fuel Jerry can from the store and handed it over to my older brother. I followed them out of curiosity, my older brother asked the younger one to hold a torchlight for him so he could see clearly.
It was just 2 pm but since the sky was cloudy and it was threatening to rain, the house was quite dark.
I followed cautiously behind, craning my neck to see if I could have a glimpse of what was going on. My brother pushed open their room door slowly, then got the torchlight from my younger brother and pointed it in different directions around the room.
My eyes followed the torchlight, all along there was nothing unusual; just their clothes strewn all over the room and their books kept carelessly in different corners, until my eyes fell on something weird. It hung loosely in a hole in the wall close to the window.
I thought it was one of their belts but when I looked closely, I saw its skin was glistening and it was raising its head. The next scream tore out of my lungs as my brothers tried to find out where I had finally seen the snake.
I had to run out of the hallway where we were standing. My older brother ran after me after closing the door and then asked where exactly I had seen the snake. I managed to tell him and he dashed back with the Jerry can he got from my younger brother.
I wondered what he was going to do with my father's Jerry can of fuel so I followed them again even when I was scared to death, especially when I saw the snake raising its head.
Before my brother pushed the door open again, he had the fuel poured out into one of the bowls my father used to feed our puppies that died recently then asked my younger brother to hold it at the ready for him.
We all craned our necks to see where the snake was and when we couldn't find it, I suggested that we pour the fuel around the room to drive the snake out.
My brother heeded my advice and before we knew it, the snake ran out from a heap of clothes. My brother emptied the rest of the fuel on it and we all ran for our dear lives. When we were finally able to catch our breaths, we opened the door to the living room and there was the snake, crawling majestically towards us as if we hadn't just emptied almost 5 liters of fuel on it.
I don't even know where my brother got the idea that fuel killed snakes because it wasn't working on this one.
At this time, it had begun raining heavily but my older brother suggested that we leave the house so the snake would not attack us since the fuel wasn't working and none of us could kill it.
We took a big umbrella that always stood behind the living room door and headed out with only the living room door shut and the entire house reeking of petrol.
My father returned in the evening to find us in a provision store at the beginning of our street. When we explained the situation to him, he asked why we didn't go out to get an adult to help us. Now that we left the snake crawling around the house, it was far more dangerous than when we had it in just my brothers' room.
Luckily when we arrived at the house, the snake was lying in the hallway, not dead, but obviously too weak to attack. My father took our old machete and killed it then buried it in our backyard and asked us to clean up the entire house to get rid of the petrol smell.
I learned through that experience that fuel and kerosene weakened snakes enough to buy you some time to get help or get something to kill it if one could by him or herself.
Ps: Forgive the image I used. I didn't want to scare you all away with the glaring image of snakes on my blog
