However sweet your ring tone is, however lovely you think it is, you will have a moment of quiet introspection when your mobile start ringing while you are having a nice sleep.
Now I certainly do.
"hey. you there?? "
"Yea..ah " I replied, not having fully recovered from sleep.
What were you doing? I have been trying your number for a while.
sleeping, I said sheepishly
What? it is just 8 man!!!
Oh..
Pause.. I checked my watch, it was just 8.
"I fell asleep."
"OK. I will be there in ten fifteen minutes.. Don't go anywhere."
"OK.. "
I put the phone down and tried to sleep. Sleeping further was pointless. He would be here any moment to wake me up again.
I got up, put on my slippers and went outside. It had rained while I slept. Air was still cool. Felt a gush of refreshing cold breeze on my face and felt a chill running through my spine. But it wasn't just the cold breeze. Origin was somewhere else, under my feet if I am not mistaken, giving a tickling sensation now and then.
When you touch a burning object or get pricked by a sharp substance, you make an involuntary movement. That is 'response to stimuli', I remember my biology teacher trying to teach us in high school. Know it or not, without it, lazy sluggish people like me would end up dead more than once on a daily basis.
Response to tickling it was, somehow I got my feet detached from the slippers and with it, a small reptile, black with prominent white bands all over its body, took its leave. It wasn't hard to recognize, Velli kattan, shankhu varayan or ettadi veeran. You might know it as common krait ( a member of the "big four",including cobra and two types of viper, species inflicting the most snakebites in India. )
My body had made it's maximum reflex possible and was reluctant to make any move. I was transfixed. But my uninvited friend had realized he was unwelcome, made no fuss and took his leave.
"Why are you standing there like that ???"
I could lift my head and make a feeble sound "Snake"
What ??? Where?
It left the way you came in.
He started jumping around like tigger from winnie pooh.
Why didn't you kill it??
He was already on top of one of the chairs.
I didnt say anything.
Where did you find it ?
Under my feet.. over my slippers..
What the ... and did it bite you ???
That was when it struck me, did it bite me?? does the bite leave marks? I went back to my room. Sat on my bed, decided bite should leave some marks and started checking my feet for bite marks.
After several minutes of inspection I shortlisted several probable bite marks which had an appeal. Moreover I started having pain from more than one of those.
My friend was still on top of the chair.
"Did you find any?? Hey don't panic. If it had bitten, you would have been long gone by now."
I didn't say anything. I was trying to see if I can find more bite marks.
"And common krait is decent snake."
He had opted for science in his plus two.
"it doesn't bite much unless provoked."
Does standing on top of it meet that criteria? who knows.. I didn't ask
"Even if it does, death is less violent as compared to a viper bite. Their venom is neuro-toxin, it causes paralysis. You know if it bites you in your sleep, you will die peacefully in your sleep and you wont even know."
He then went on giving lectures till midnight about several 'to know' things about snakes, several folklore, stories from his village and more. If it was the paralysis that was seeping in or just the fear, I didn't have any energy left to pay much attention to his lecture, I slept at some point.
In the morning when I checked the mirror I was relieved to see I didn't look blue, literally, like someone from avatar.
:)
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