Eastern Barbados: 1943
“Ugggg”
Ben did not want to be there.
Well, he did, but, not under the current circumstances. He rather liked this particular forest, but, here he was. And worst of all, Mr. Tringle, his boss, didn't even feel bad that he was ordering Ben to destroy the forest he had grown up exploring!
The absolute least he could have done was say sorry, but no, not even an attempt to be decent was made.
All his boss cared for was money. And here, what with fuel being in short supply, firewood was very expensive. So, down came the trees.
Old forests, glades, and ancient trees all came down under the greedy gaze of Mr. Tringle.
“It figures, that the primary forests would be the ones he would target first.” Ben mumbled In truth, Ben did understand, sort of, big trees were old trees, and old trees were in old forests, like the primary forest he was idling outside of.
He sighed again, trying to remind himself of all the reasons he needed to do this job. When it came down to it, Ben needed money, and the only job he could do was this one, even if he did manage to find another halfway decent job, someone else would still tear down this forest.
“I suppose I might as well do my job, before I get fired or someone else gets asignerd to tear this place down” With a final sigh, Ben put his logging truck into drive, and entered the forest.
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In the same forest, and at the same time, there was a small Barbados Threadsnake. It was not known by that name, nor was it even thought to exist. It was simply too small, too insignificant.
Nevertheless, it did not really care whether humans knew about it, or its kind, it was quite content to exist without their permission. Besides, it was the middle of the day, and the little snake was much too exhausted to care anyway.
It would have sighed if it could, but since it could not, it just kept burrowing. It needed to make a safe place to lay its egg. That’s all that She really wanted to do at that particular moment, then she could curl up and go to sleep. Then when night fell, she could be on her way, as though nothing had happened during the day.
It might be a little bit depressing to think about for some, but to the little snake, and a large part of nature, it was just the way of the world.
Satisfied with the little hollow she had dug into the ground, the little snake began the next step: laying an egg. For most creatures, an egg, or a baby is fairly small when compared with the mother, but the Barbados Threadsnake is already very small. Nature’s solution to this was to make the egg very large. Not as large as the mother perhaps, but still big enough for it to be impressive that such a small snake could produce an egg of such a scale.
The pale yellow egg that the little snake laid, was about five millimeters across at its widest section. This was a good size for a threadsnake’s egg. The new mother decided that she quite liked this egg and that it would make a decent pillow, so she curled up around it, and that was that. An egg was born, and an exhausted mother got some sleep.
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Until the mother was rudely awoken.
A loud rumble that shook the earth around her awoke the tired snake, and so she fled further into her little tunnel network. The panic she felt grew as the earth’s rumbling intensified. Until the rumbling lessened until it stopped.
The small snake’s terror gradually vanished, until she felt her fatigue creep up on her once again. She found a decent location, curled up, and slept.
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The tunnels in the earth were too small to suffer from a collapse, so they were fine. The hollow that contained the egg, however, was not as lucky. One side of the ceiling fell, striking the egg and pushing it to the still-empty side of the little room. All the same, however, the pale yellow egg was left with a dent.
Time passed unopposed, trees were harvested by desperate people in need of firewood, and hungry little snakes that no one knew about ate termite larvae. Life went on.
The egg hatched, and a small Threadsnake was born. The little snake pushed its tiny head out of the egg and struggled to heave the rest of its body after it. A short power nap later, its task was accomplished.
A snake barely even a quarter the size of its mother ate its egg. Thankfully, its shell was thin, and it still had an egg tooth, so despite the struggle involved, it succeeded in this endeavor. Then like all young creatures, the snake slept. It slept until its meal settled in its stomach with a satisfying weight. It slept until the moon was high in the sky, and then, it awoke.
With hunger encroaching, it awoke to hunt. Its tongue flicked out of its mouth, it searched for food. Following its nose, it searched. For an hour it roamed until its diligence was rewarded.
It found a termite.
Termites are not the natural prey of threadsnakes, mostly because they are too big to be consumed, but if one is to follow a termite long enough, a termite will eventually go back to its nest, which is where their babies reside, and even if threadsnakes do not eat termites, their children are fair game.
The young Threadsnake stalked the termite. While most snakes are fairly decent at stalking prey, this particular snake was a newborn and had no experience at stalking whatsoever. But, that is why instincts are useful. Without even realizing why he did it, the snake started to emit a smell.
As soon as the little termite smelled it, the insect turned around and went in another direction. Following dutifully, the hungry little snake reached the nest of termites and entered into a world of termites. They were everywhere. Leaping, crawling, even jumping on top of the Threadsnake, the small insects were a chaotic mass of chitinous limbs and bodies.
Termites normally attack intruders, but the strange scent produced by Barbados Threadsnakes puts termites at ease. So the hunt continued.
Finding the nesting ground filled with baby termites, larvae, and eggs, it practically drooled at the thought of its first meal, the snake smelled the sweet, delectable aroma of the feast before it. It slithered up to the closest smell, a baby termite if it had to guess. But it did not really want to guess, it would rather feast.
Or, it would have, if its mouth had been big enough. Feeling a little bit stimied, it moved on to a smaller smell. Perhaps it was a larva this time? It opened its mouth as wide as it could… and head-butted something squishy. Maybe its mouth missed? It tried again. Nope. It still didn’t work. It stopped trying to eat the wiggling termite and moved on to the smallest food available to it: the eggs. Failure met it once again. Gnawing? Head-butting? Constricting?
If snakes could scream in frustration or pull out their hair, this one would certainly be doing just that. Feeling lost, with hunger beginning to consume its thoughts, it started to burrow into the ground, both from some form of shame and in a desperate, far-fetched hope that it might find food in the ground beneath it.
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Beneath the ghost of a forest, a Barbados Threadsnake born too small to even eat, burrowed a hole no bigger than a worm’s with vain hope and desperation. Nothing on earth could save it.
But, as the earth swallowed a crippled little snake, its snake hole stopped being a snake hole. Perhaps the universe misinterpreted the size of the hole. Some cosmic accident, or just blind luck. Or, maybe, just maybe, something has a strange sense of humor.
No matter how it occurred, the worm-sized snake hole ceased being a snakehole, and started being a wormhole.