King of Serpents

            William took a puff on his inhaler, pocketed it, and pushed the turnstyle out of the way. He expected someone to show up at any moment. Part of him hoped that someone would, but when the door closed behind him, leaving him in total darkness, hope was lost.

            Something hissed. Something croaked. Claws scratched at glass. William pulled out his phone and started up the flashlight ap. It was just a gecko crawling up the display. Nothing to be afraid of there. Even with it’s bulging eyes, the gecko was no larger than his hand. This mission was meant for bigger things.

            William passed by the entry exhibits, the large bits of indoor rainforest being politely sprinkled by the timers to recreate a tropical environment when no one was watching. Lizards in those exhibits he could handle.

            He sidled up a ramp, his palms sweaty along the railing, his puffer not far away from his fingers at any time. Each step brought him closer. He started imaging the thick coils wrapped around his legs, strangling his resolve to go any further.

            “Mustn’t worry, William,” he said. “It’s behind glass. It can’t hurt you.”

            Ten meters long and up to fifteen centimeters in diameter, he hoped the glass was thick.

            “It must not mistake you for a mouse, William. Stand tall.”

            He came to a circular room with various exhibits positioned around it. Something splashed into some water, which flashed in the meager light. Williams jumped back, barely grabbing the railing.

            He read the exhibit tag. “Frogs. Newts. Worse than geckos. Not even reptiles,” he said and shook his head. “Nothing to fear.”

            He had to get to the end quickly. Someone would have noticed the alarm to the Reptile House going off. Someone would be around soon to check on it. Worse still, someone would have noticed he wasn’t on the bus headed home with the other children.

            “Do you want to be a man?” He waded through his own fear, his muscles seized by spasms to flee. “When she hears you snuck into the snake-pit, she can’t call you a coward anymore, but only if you face the snake.”

            There were two things that scared William, really. One was on the bus back home, and the other was somewhere in a tank, hunting small rodents.

            “The boa constrictor can swallow small children,” he said, reciting what he’d read from the Zoological Books. “It can crush steel girders or break the neck of a buffalo. It does not need venom. Once you’re in it’s grasp, you are as good as dead.”

            He read the signs as he passed, each one more dangerous sounding than that last. “Skink. Monitor Lizard. Gila Monster….”

            He paused at a bronze sign with white lettering. “Copperhead.” He tapped the glass, but it was too dark to see. Besides, the Copperhead was only three meters long, at best. It wouldn’t be enough.

            Nor would the Coral Snake, the Taipan, or even the King Cobra that seemed to fly by him. At the end of the hall, there was a large glass structure that held the place of honor. There was no mistaking who lived in that one. No other exhibit could match its sheer size.

            His feet were positively glued to the floor, and there was no railing to let him haul himself forward. His fingers brushed against the glass of exhibits on either side, oblivious to the noise of the disturbed serpents inside. Transfixed on what lie before him, nothing could stop him, not even his fear of lesser snakes.

            Finally, he was at the exhibit, pressing his palms up against the transparent material too strong to be for meant anyone else. His breath fogged up the surface; he had to lean back to see through clearly. He held up his phone and saw something moving in the corner. He jumped back, dropped the phone, and yelped. He clawed at the floor trying to scramble back to his feet.

            “It cannot hurt you. You have to be strong.”

            Retrieving his light-source, he pressed himself against the glass again. The something in the corner moving was just a leaf. He shook his head.

            “Courage, William. Are you a man, or are you a mouse?”

            Just then, he caught sight of an actual rodent near the leaf. It chewed nervously on some of the fake foliage, twitching every time the leaf moved behind him. So small, so weak, it ran from the light.

            “You are doomed, mouse! Thirty feet of snake is hungry!” He chased it with the light. “Mustn’t be a mouse, William. Mustn’t be afraid.”

            He cornered the little creature, backed it up against the wall, and just as he was about to scold it, something moved on his left. Slick scales slithered through arranged foliage, over rubber pebbles, and out of lukewarm tap water. William’s light caught only the tip of it’s tail flicking through the homemade dirt.

            He flashed his light back at the mouse now too frightened to move, thinking that motionlessness might help it’s cause. He flashed back to the snake, or at least the paper undergrowth. The fog cloud on the window became denser.

            “Move, mouse! It can sense your body heat, you know.” His attention darted back and forth between the villain, and it’s terrified prey, whispering prayers of good fortune for a rodent he hardly knew. “You must fight. Run for your life.”

            But the rodent did nothing, save slowing it’s breathing. Against the blue painted wall, the gray mouse had no camouflage. In the light of his phone, there was not even darkness to hide it.

            “Perhaps it could get to the shrubbery?” he asked. “If only I could…”

            Snake and mouse converge, the diamond-shaped head emerged from the plastic forest, rearing up to tower over the poor animal. There was nowhere to run, no need for stealth. It’s coils, slightly less than thirty feet for sure but still omnipresent at rodent-level, slipped to either side. There was nowhere to run.

            “It’s only a mouse.” William balled up his fist. The distant click only barely registered in the back of his mind, the darkness fading with the distant light. “You are a man.”

            Footsteps echoed off the ramp into the amphibian room, the snake flicked the air with its tongue, the rodent’s little heart pattered like rain on the canopy, and William balled up his fist. Just as the beast was about to strike, William slammed the glass. The snake twitched, the rodent escaped, and it turned its massive head hungrily toward the boy. Mouth opening ever-so-slightly, it slithered forward, into the puddle that it used to cool down, drawing closer and closer, just as the footsteps and shouts behind him.

            He looked it square in the slivered eyes, let out a primal roar, and turned in time to see Ms. Abignail and the security guard rushing toward him. “I am the bane of the boa!” he shouted, beating his chest. “I am the King of Serpents! I am a man!”