Snake Boy

Because something like this could never happen not by a far stretch of the imagination; but it did happen, and it shocked me and shocked almost everybody in the little Canadian town of Castlebridge

The snake, a boa constrictor, coiled its length around two sleeping boys and killed them. The coroner said they died of asphyxiation, and when he assisted the autopsy, he saw how the boa had crushed their rib cages into their hearts and into their lungs.

Such young hearts were these two boys of eight years old as they slept together in the same bed after a day of fun and games.

On a television broadcast, the grandfather of one of the boys said sadly, "they were just typical boys, who played typical boy games, whoever would have thought this could have happened?" And his aging lined face was expressionless and morose, as he looked out on the world and tried to make sense of this nonsensical happening.

How could this horrific event take place in such a hidden away, sleep-sodden town? How could the rural peacefulness of Castlebridge be so uncharacteristically turned up side down by this event? By a boa constrictor?

And the mother of one of the boys, shivered and shuddered as she recalled that morning, walking into the room to find the boys asleep in death. The night had been rainy and cold, but the bedroom was warm and cosy making it an ideal nest for a snake that had crawled through the ventilation pipes from the pet shop on the ground floor below.

John Crawford owned the pet shop. He was a young man, short in stature and robust in body. He had bright blue eyes and and a crop of sharp blond hair that stood out on the clean cut contours of his face. His easy smile and propensity for socializing was the perfect combination for someone who worked with the public every day. A motley crowd of customers visited his shop to buy pet food and sometimes a puppy or a kitten, a hamster or rabbit; but most customers came to marvel at the exotic reptiles imported from different parts of the world that he kept in temperature controlled cages. John Crawford was proud of his collection of snakes that included vipers and rattlers, but his prize joy was the boa constrictor that coiled its length around the two sleeping boys and killed them.


John Crawford had always liked Leslie. She was twenty two years of age, blond, like himself with twinkling blue eyes and she was gorgeous to look at. The blue jeans she wore showed off her slender legs and pronounced the smooth round curves of her buttocks, and beneath her tight white cotton blouse her breasts were snug and small.

That fatal night the snake coiled itself around the two sleeping boys, John Crawford was distracted by the simple scent of sex and the desire to have her, and this is when forgetfulness of other things of primary importance falls into secondary importance.

Because that night, as the rain beat outside, he fondled her breasts, removed her tight white blouse and removed her jeans and because the feel of flesh on flesh drove him to a frenzy, it made him forget; forget to put the lid back on the cage of the boa constrictor he had shown her.

Yes, he had pulled the snake from out of its cage and showed her its length and its softness and its hardness and its silky skin that he had let her feel, and she had giggled girlishly at the smoothness of the snake with its licking tongue slipping in and out, out and in. She did not recoil when he kissed her on the lips, and she did not mind the snake stretched to its full length as he guided her onto the floor and made love to her.

But the snake was outside its cage and freely sliding across the tiled floor making zig zag movements to the ventilator pipes that led to the bedroom on the floor above where it coiled its length around the two sleeping boys and killed them.