It Was a Big One

The peace and quiet of the dark tropical night was shattered when my roommate Peg leaped on my bed and started screaming. “There’s a snake on the floor and it’s having babies!” Fumbling for a flashlight I could see that it was true and we tried to escape the bedroom, one of the two rooms, plus bathroom, that composed our small house in Centro Uno of Nueva Concepcion.

Escape was the number one priority but proved to be difficult as the snake was parked in front of the door near Peg’s bed. The second door was used as a makeshift “closet” where we hung our bridles, hats, horse brushes, etc. Our 200 book book-locker was resting on the floor next to my trunk in front of the door. In our nervousness it took forever to shove things aside and try to control our shaking fingers to open the never used latch.

Escape we did, running screaming down the path in our garden, out the front gate, down the dirt road a block away to the handsome young perito agronomist’s house. Our hero, Francisco arose to the occasion and trotted out of his house pulling up his pants with one hand and brandishing the machete with the other. He soon dispatched the intruder, which turned out to be a 6 foot long poisonous coral snake eating a lizard ( hence the appearance of having babies ) We were indebted to him for saving damsels in distress and thereafter put on our shoes and checked out the floor carefully before walking to the bathroom in the dark.

Lynn