One night a few years ago I had a terrifying encounter with a black snake.
It was a warm night and I had difficulty getting to sleep. I tossed and turned in bed. It must have been about 2 a.m. when I heard a strange rustling sound in my room. There are always sounds of lizards; mosquitoes or crickets, but this one was different. It did not sound familiar. So I got up lazily to investigate.
I switched on the room light and squinted my eyes to adjust to the sudden brightness. From the corner of my eye, I saw a black shape just next to my foot. I looked down. My goodness, it was a black snake!
I was so terrified that I could not move. No words came out of my mouth either. The shock was complete. The hair at the back of the neck must have stood straight up. Never in my life had I felt such terror.
The snake must have been as shocked as I was, for it did not move either. Perhaps it was blinded by the light too. Whatever it was, we simply stared at each other for at least ten seconds.
After that, it began to move away from me, took the opportunity to run out of the room. I hurried to get my father who was in the next room. When I told him about the snake in my room, he promptly went outside and returned with two sticks and a long piece of wood.
Next, we carefully entered my room.
The snake was nowhere in sight. My father said it must be hiding somewhere and told me to be careful. He shone a torchlight under the bed and saw the snake sliding under it. Quickly he asked me to get ready with the long piece of wood. I was not sure how he was going to kill the snake but I obeyed his instructions.
With a stick, he urged the snake to slide along the wall. When the snake just emerged from under the bed my father told me to pin it against the wall with the piece of wood. My goodness, I do not know how I did it but with pounding heart and trembling hands, I managed to do as told! I managed to pin it by its neck to the wail so it could not move. It opened its mouth and hood while wriggling desperately to get free, but my father took a stick and pounded its head repeatedly until it was pulp. It took some pounding but that was the end of the snake.
We dug a hole in the garden and buried it. My father said it was a black cobra.
I could not sleep for the remainder of that night. The experience was too shocking. Even now the memory of the night still lingers on. I do not for a repeat.