Wednesday 13 May 2015

Snake Bite

For audio click here

The square was exactly as I remembered it, hot, dusty and peppered with green umbrellas. The small umbrellas shielded the women giving the tourists henna tattoos from the baking sun, while the bigger ones had troops of troubadours, playing their pipes and drums and encouraging their snakes to sit up and attract the cameras of the passers-by.  The larger snakes were basking in the warmth but the cobras were obediently dancing to the tunes the pipers played. Men with snakes around their necks were coaxing coins from holiday-makers in return for the dubious privilege of have the snake draped around their sunburnt shoulders for photo-opportunities.
I crouched down and took a snap of one of the regal hooded serpents, mindfully keeping my distance. I may not have attracted the poison but I did catch the attention of the drumming troubadour who approached me telling me I needed to pay for the photograph I had just taken.
I never understood this, I’d taken the photo, on my camera of something happening in public, yet I was expected to pay. Buildings don’t tend to charge you for a snap, sportsmen don’t hold out their hands when a flash goes off in the crowd, but this man was so adamant that I should part company with a few coins that he was yelling stand and deliver and painting a white stripe on his nose.
I walked on ignoring the man’s claims, I didn’t have any Dirhams on me except a two hundred note and I certainly wasn’t going to ask him if he had change. But my new friend was as persistent as I was stingy; he walked beside me telling me in no uncertain terms that I should give him some money.
Ten, fifteen, twenty metres, he was still with me then I noticed a friend had joined him, badgering, imploring me to put my hand in my pocket. One friend became two and two became three, in the blink of an eye I was surrounded by 7 or 8 angry men.

What had started as fun had now got scary, there looked to be no escape but I still had the problem that I didn’t have any coins on me. A man with a snake had taken over the speaking and getting too close for comfort. He was skilled at walking backwards, keeping the pace with me and his balance perfectly. He held the snake out in front of me waving in it threateningly. Suddenly he thrust the hissing snake forward into my arm. I let out a high-pitched yelp and clutched where the snake had made contact, my knees buckled and I stumbled. What kind of snake was it, would the venom kill me or just make me feel sick? It was certainly making me feel queasy already, sweat dripping off my brow.  Then I was aware of laughter; the band of men began to disperse, laughing to themselves, slapping each other on the backs and leaving me on my haunches to nurse my wounds. I looked at my injury, there was no mark, nothing. I looked at the man with the snake. He had a gleam in his eye, a hiss in his throat, a laugh on his face and what was obviously a 2 Euro toy snake in his hand.

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