Greetings!
Disclaimer: For those that worship snakes as gods, please feel free to skip this article. Thank you.
I’m not the type to get scared of animals easily, especially when I know that I won’t get harmed. I’ve been confronted by dogs many times, and I applied the simple solution of "do not run," and nothing happened, nor did I get terrified.
The one time I got the scare of my life was during an encounter with a snake. Generally, I don’t fear snakes, especially when I know that it’s going its way and I’m heading mine, but this time, it was striking towards me.
Before that particular day, a large black cobra bit a girl in a house in our compound during the daytime. Snakes that we know usually operate at night, so this was strange. People attached the event to superstition, suggesting it might be related to the gods of my great-grandfather, who lived in the house and committed many crimes historically. That day, my cousin was rushed to the hospital, and brave men in the compound sought out the snake in the four-bedroom house and got it out. To be honest, I wasn’t terrified at the scene because when they brought out the skin, it was already harmless.
Two days after the incident, I went to the farm alone to weed grasses. That morning, I left early with my bicycle, intending to work and return early. When I got there, I parked my bicycle at the farmhouse, picked up my cutlass, and set out to check our traps to see if I had caught any bushmeat so I could enjoy it before working. I got to the lines of traps, checking one after another. When I saw the next trap shaking badly, my heart leaped with joy because I was sure it had caught bushmeat. Since bushes were covering my front, I couldn’t see and needed to walk closer to see what the trap had caught.
“Jesussssssssss!” I screamed immediately upon seeing a gigantic snake caught in the trap with its head pointing in my direction. I ran off, goosebumps taking over my skin, and I began to shiver. I couldn’t look twice, and I didn’t bother continuing to check the traps. I was so scared and began to think that I was surrounded by snakes. When I got to the farmhouse, I imagined the snake following me. When a lizard made noise in the zink, I ran out of the farmhouse in fear. I was so terrified that I found it hard to weed the grass that day. It was bad because I was alone on the farm, and every little thing scared me.
I decided to work, but before that, I walked around the portion I was to work on, using my cutlass to hit the ground to make sure there were no snakes. I didn’t go back to the spot where the snake was. I left it in the trap.
When I got home, I told my family about the encounter, and my mom thanked God that she wasn’t the one who went to the farm that day because she wouldn’t have done anything.
My dad wasn’t around, but a man who heard about it picked up his bicycle and went to our farm to get the snake because he loves snakes so much(you know what that means)
Thanks for reading.
Photos are mine