Fear

It was evening of the day when i was to leave my home for the first time. I was to be away from my parents for the first time. It was not as if i had a choice , i had to leave . Staying at home had become impossible. I was at once both relieved and terrified. I had a train to catch in about 2 hrs and for that to happen i had to leave for the station right now. But before doing anything i had to pee, badly.

I didn’t switch on the light of the bathroom while entering as i thought the ambient light around would be more than enough and i would be be out in a jiffy. I peed , flushed and started to wash my hands in the sink . I felt around to find the soap but couldn’t find it. So i reached to switched on the light. It came on and i was able to find the soap. I was about to finish when i saw something move from the corner of my eye, i turned my head to the side.

It was a snake, it was a black snake , it was the biggest ,blackest snake i had ever seen and it was looking right back at me. I was frozen at the spot. I couldn’t move an inch. I didn’t know what to do. Saying that i am afraid of snakes would be an understatement . I am horrified by them, they crawl and they slime and they fork their tongues out at regular intervals. All in all a nightmarish prospect even in nightmares but this was real life and it was so much worse. It wasn’t that i had never seen snakes before, i had . But the difference had been the distance , the closet i had been to snake was around 40 m and even then i had run and hid underneath my bed. This snake on the other hand was only a few feet away and he was right beside the door. So there was no easy escape from this. I had to cross the threshold and it was protected by a monster and like in the movies the time was running out. My train was not going to wait for me and if i missed it things would be that much worse than they were already.

The snake was still looking at me , unblinkingly. It was eerily still and the only way i could tell it lived was the flickering of its tongue in and out its head.The sweat trickled down the side of my head. I had to move, i had to get out of here. I didn’t want to miss my train but i didn’t want it to bury its fangs in my ankles either. My heart thumped, the clock ticked and butterflies in my stomach were doing a dance. i heard my fathers voice calling for me to come out. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. I steadied myself and … Jumped!  and …. I was out !! I was alive !!  . I quickly shut the bathroom door behind  me and ran towards my father without ever looking back to see if the snake was following me.