Although I look big, bold, and strong, within I'm just a young man with a fragile heart who can't stand the sight of blood from a small cut, not to mention being face-to-face with a wild or scary animal. All my life, I've been afraid of dangerous animals, and that's one of the things that detached me from embarking on hiking and camping exploration, although regardless of where we're, we can still come in contact with these animals, and today I'll tell you all about my closest encounter with a dangerous animal and how it scares the shit out of my life.
Although I've heard how many people are scared of dogs and even run away from them, that's not the case for me, probably because we've always had a dog as a pet, right from when I was young. We've got and raised different species of dogs, and that got me familiar with them and not afraid. Even though I know how dangerous some can be, what got me the most was the snake. I've just been naturally afraid of it, and I remember several occasions when I sighted it as a child, teen, or even teenager and had to call on my grandmother or closest adult to come get rid of it.
It's always a funny scenario, and the closest and scariest time I ever got in contact with this dangerous reptile was in 2020 during the COVID mandatory lockdown. I work at a manufacturing company in Kano State, so we're allowed to still work during the lockdown, and so faithfully, I went to work just like every other day and came back at about 7:30 p.m. in the evening. Just like every day like that, I'm usually exhausted and tend to sleep on the bed for about an hour before I finally stand up and look for what to do.
But that day was somewhat different because, after entering my room, I lay down on the bed, but just after a few minutes I realized I was very hungry, so instead of taking a one-hour nap like I used to do, I got up and began to search for the money I kept on the floor beside the bed. As there's no electricity, I had to use my phone screen light to see clearly, and while looking, I realized something strange was moving as my hand went closer, and so I kept on tracing the moving object. When I was unsure of what it was, I opened the door to accommodate more brightness and realized I'm tracing a snake that keeps moving away as I draw closer.
Immediately, I realized it was a snake. I ran backwards, and rather than it going out, it ran inside the house to hide, so I ran out immediately. I sat outside, unsure of what to do, and luckily for me, about 30 minutes later, my neighbor came back from work and enquired why I'm outside, because since I moved to the apartment, he hasn't once sat outside except when I came to enquire something from him. I told him my ordeal or how the snake was in my room, and he asked if I'd killed it, and I told him I couldn't, so he laughed and said no problem.
He later walked into my room with a log of wood and was finally able to see and kill the snake. I was just staring from afar, as I didn't even dare to go near the room. He showed me the snake when he's done and told me I can now go inside. I said thank you, but I won't go near that room again unless there's electricity, and so after he helped me kill the snake, I sat outside the compound for about an hour and was already contemplating how I'd go back to my place of work to sleep if there's no electricity, and luckily they brought the lights.
Once they did, I quickly checked through every nuke and cranny of my room to be sure there's no more snake. I cleaned everywhere and made sure I moved every single object in the house, so it wouldn't be like one was hiding somewhere. As for the door, I realized one part of it was opened, and that's where the snake must have come in through, so I made sure I covered it well to prevent such from happening again. Only then was I able to sleep in that room that very day, even though the sleep that very day was short and I kept waking up at the slightest sound of movement; even my own touch scared me that very night.
Believe me, I was scared that very day, but the one thing I learned is that most of this snake ain't really after your life if you're also not trying to hurt them, because that very day my hand was like 5 inches away from it and yet it didn't turn to hurt me, instead kept moving forward and crawling away. But regardless of my encounter with it that very day, I'm still scared of snakes and will always run away when I see one because they're still dangerous and you don't know when they'll decide to strike.
All photos are taken and edited on canva