A man in a suit called out to me in the crowd.

An awfully skinny, kinda dirty looking man.

“Would you like one?”

He leaned in close and whispered to me.

He was holding a covered bird cage. It appeared he was trying to sell me whatever was inside.

I tried to brush him off but,

“Come on, it’ll be very useful,” he said and removed the cover.

The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

In spite of myself I was taken aback.

The cage was packed tight with snakes. Just how many were in there? They were tangled and intertwined, like a giant snake ball. They were hissing and giving off this grassy-type smell.

I shook the man off and quickly separated myself from the area.

Then, on a different day. I saw the same man in the same place.

He was approaching people left and right, trying to do business with them.

But what I really couldn’t understand was that somehow, in the distance, I could see only a few snakes left in the cage.