"THE CONSTRICTOR" BY OLUWAFEMI SAMUEL.

We—courageous descendants of the legendary Jaguar Paw—plodded through the primeval forest of trees with our machetes in a desperate search for the stealthy enemy who had plundered our goats and chickens. Although we were three brave hunters left to guard Ni’hagen after our soldierly tribesmen had gone to war against Pira—fellow forest men from another Paw tribe—an aura of fear still abided somewhere within our inquisitiveness. We had no vital clue to what was out there, whether it was a livestock thief or a Mephistophelian spirit. What we did know was that the last time they had stolen from us was two days before.

After walking barefoot for thirty minutes and pushing our way through some holly bushes, we arrived in an open but deserted field. Some metres ahead were a teak plantation and six mud huts with thatched roofs. There were children's goatskin hanging on a rubber line; four pieces of a man's goatskin on the thatched roof of a hut; a woman's breast cover with three pieces of thigh cover, each leather made from goatskin. 

“I told you, Max,” Nan mocked me, “there's nothing here. Just a waste of time leaving Ni’hagen.”

“Ni’hagen is under attack, Nan,” I reminded him. “Those strange footprints led us here. Surely the enemy must have come here. They might have come here to feast.”

“Max,” Father intervened. “Nan—you two should quit arguing, and focus.” Then he went on, “Max Is right. The thieves are among us.” He pointed out the teak plantation and the six mud huts that were ahead of us. “Some fellows among our people have been robbing us of our livestock. It looks like they are starting a village of their own. It's clear they are Paw tribes; they wear what we wear, that is, their women cover their breasts and their thighs with their stomachs open, just like our women do. Their men,” he pointed at the goatskin on the door and continued, “wear goatskin to cover only their testicles while they leave their chests open, just like we do.”

“Hmm…” Father was right. “It's betrayal then.”

“Yes,” he nodded, fuming with frustration. “And we need to smoke them out of their holes.”

“Yes, Father,” I agreed.

But Nan did not respond. “Nan? Where's Nan?”

Lost within a blank space of curiosity, Father and I turned to see Nan standing transfixed with shock and wonder. His machete had thudded to the ground as his goggling eyes concentrated on something ahead of us. We saw a far different fear in his eyes, not that familiar fear that normally exuded from his eyes. Then we looked beyond his face only to behold an unimaginable wonder—a massive boa constrictor with a pinkish skin and some finely weaved black patches slowly crawling down a mahogany tree. My mouth dropped automatically, but Father quickly shut it and firmly stamped my chest with his fist. After that, he jolted Nan back into his body and gave him his machete.

“Where were you?” Father asked, but it was certainly a rhetorical question. I wondered whether or not Father was afraid, because he did not seem astounded to see such a massive serpent attentively staring at us with its tongue flicking in and out.

Getting ready for a calculated attack from the constrictor, we watched as it coiled up in front of us, obstructing our only passage home. Its sparkling green eyes were amazing, but they conveyed the serpent's rage. That was when it dawned on me that we had just jumped from the frying pan into the fire.

“What are we going to do?” Nan asked Father, but our father was silent, observing the constrictor. Consequently, a frightened Nan had started to subconsciously empty his bladder.

Then Father said: “Unprepared men against this monster is a slaughter. ”

_No, this doesn't sound like Father,_ I thought, as I glanced at him in disbelief. The father I had always known was a brave man; as a result, his sudden dread of the reptile surprised me there. This was the same man who had clubbed a lion to death four years before.

“Don't be surprised,” he told me, still looking at the serpent. “As a hunter, you must know when to run and when to attack.” He shook his head and sniffed hard. “Even I am a little afraid, and so is every brave man.”

“So what do we do?” Nan and I asked together, as the constrictor continued to gaze at us. I wondered if it were waiting for us to attack first, but it did not seem so. I thought there might be something else.

“We run,” He said.

“Wait, what?” I could hardly believe my ears. “You taught us to stand and fight.”

“Yes, but not in this case,” He told me. “We will fight, but we must first run… now!”

With that, we unprepared men fled. I took the left route with Nan; Father went through the right; more strangely, the constrictor went through the route through which we came. Although the monster's move was worth worrying about, all Nan and I had in mind was to get home. Nothing else mattered.

Our strength had begun to ebb away slowly, but we kept running until we heard Father's loud cry of pain. It sprang from somewhere behind the sixth hut which was East.

“Father!” Nan screamed, stopping on the way.

That was when we sensed the boa had hooked him down. My heart skipped a beat as tears slowly invaded my eyes; Nan was crying already.  However, I wiped my tear-stained eyes and pulled Nan with me. He tried to free himself from my hold, but I would not let him. I was not going to spend the night in that forest. Nevertheless, I was not strong enough to drag him with me. When he would not be persuaded, I left him to continue weeping while I took to my heels. He was the older twin, so I thought he should know better than to give in to weakness. For to me then, a person's weakness is their feminine flaw—that _was_ my belief.

Gratefully, Nan beckoned to me to “wait.” I stopped—leaning on my knees—near a dying lemon grass, and hyperventilating. He was wiping his face as he ran towards me.

That same night, we camped at Red Beard—a small shelter built with dried lemon grasses by some forest men six years ago—and slept inside the little arch. Moreover, Nan and I took turns in watching, which means that we both took turns in sleeping, too.

Then shortly after Nan assumed the role of watchman, I awoke suddenly to a high-pitched scream of immense pain and quickly crawled out of Red Beard, with my machete in my hand, only to witness the constrictor squeezing the life out of my only Nan as his eyes burst out from their sockets, with blood dripping down his goatskin. My machete thudded to the ground as my eyes popped widely open as if they were going to burst out of their sockets as well.

“No…”

Uncontrollable tears gushed out of my eyes as I beheld that giant creature getting ready to swallow him like a huge ball of wheat. It had already crushed him to death; what he feared had eventually happened. But I was not going to let his corpse be lost in the stomach of a reptile forever—never!—so I screamed.

“Come get me, you ancient devil!” I cried out.

As soon as the creature had perceived my presence, it let go of Nan and began to coil itself up to face me. I reached for my machete and began to run as fast as I could, tearing as I ran, with a bloodthirsty monster after me.

Thoughts of Father whirled around my mind. I imagined the giant snake cracking his bones and swallowing the last piece of him. At that moment, I made up my mind: I was not going to die next, for I had to struggle to reach the village because of our wives and children and those men at the Borg'un War—the battle against Pira—who had left us to protect their families. 

At last, I arrived at the village and started screaming for other villagers to come out and save their lives, but there was no one. More surprisingly, the huts and the ground wer covered with ore. A fresh apprehension filled me as I watched the constrictor crawl its huge form into the space where I was. It snaked into the area that was covered with ore and then coiled up, ready for a much better attack.

“Max, away!” I heard Father's voice and turned to see him holding two flaming logs of wood. I was so surprised to see him that I immediately forgot about the boa. I thought he had been constricted by the snake. “Away!”

I understood.

One final glance at the constrictor, I quickly jumped out of the field as he threw the first burning wood into the ore and the second flaming wood at the large snake which had prepared to attack. The flames immediately spread around the field and torched the huts as well. The boa struggled to escape the flames, but like the field and the houses, the constrictor was on fire, struggling to quench the flames and escape into the forest. However, it could not; that was ore.

Away from the field and the flames, Father and I watched the monster as it burned, while I thought of a way to break the sad news of Nan's death to him.

While I watched the serpent burn, Father looked around the field for Nan, but there was no Nan.

“Where is Nan?” he demanded.

I was going to tell him, but I could not. All I could do was cry.

OLUWAFEMI SAMUEL

(AKA Sam Denver.)