The Gaboon Viper slithers through the strawberry patch. Long and thick, thicker than a man’s arm, the snake admires the fat juicy red orbs from the keen gaze of his yellow eyes. Although he’s more partial to meat and fur, sometimes feather, it’s not beneath him to appreciate a ripe fruit. His forked tongue flicks in and out, testing the terrain – ingesting signs of danger or food – as the hourglass diamonds on his muscular body flex and relax. Slow and steady. On he slides. Unaware.
The gardener digs the fork deep into the earth, loosening the soil—cycling nutrients, making space for air, water, roots. Life. He can feel the land take a breath as he lifts his apparatus up and out. He pauses briefly. And then back in and down. This time he uses his foot on the head of the fork and applies pressure. It sinks deeper. Then, up and out. Breathe. Repeat. In up out. Breathe. In up out. Breath.
Closer, closer…closer.
Wham!
Right into the head of the snake.
The gardener lifts the fork, the Gaboon Viper attached. He turns the snake, like a piece of meat cooked over an open fire, and inspects the specimen. Supressing a shudder, he balances the fork over his right shoulder, the snake dangling behind, defamed and diminished, and takes a step towards the school.
The boys mob him, desperate to see the myth, the legend, up close, with its 2-inch fangs and deadly venom. He is a hero. Perseus with the Gorgon’s head. Hercules bearing forth a golden apple. Theseus defeating the Minotaur. Siya Kolisi thrusting the William Webb Ellis trophy into stratosphere.
Sweaty hands grasp the viper’s tail, pretending for the briefest of seconds that the fatal blow is theirs. One cheerful lad drops the snake when he feels it twitch but the gardener says not to worry, it’s just nerves. A cadaveric spasm.
…and then the lunch bell rings and the children scarper.
So too does the gardener. The call of food. Dropping the snake (he’ll come back for it later), he follows the call of his belly.
Midway through the meal, one of the staff walks up to the principal and whispers something in his ear. Lyndon Hess stands up and asks if anyone has removed the Gaboon Viper because it is gone.
No one had.
Storyteller: Noel Huntingford
Author: Andrea Zanin
Noel Huntingford was born in London. From the age of 6 weeks, he lived in Zambia with his missionary parents and two older sisters. When he was 14, he moved with his family to South Africa. Noel has been living in the UK for the last couple of years (to spend time with his three children and ten grandchildren) but plans to return to Africa, where he left his heart.
