AN OUT OF THE BLUE ENCOUNTER

I had an unusual guest in my house for a few days and that too without my knowledge. People write bizarre stories about their odd encounters which sometimes are stranger than fiction. Here is one in which I was the chief protagonist and was saved from a possible unpleasant situation by the grace of God.

It happened many moons back when I was still in service. One day because of some extra work in the college I was late in coming home. Hubby was waiting. As soon as I came, right away I went to the kitchen to fix some late lunch and didn’t even change my dress. Meal finished I was putting the left overs back into the fridge when I felt that there was some rustling around my feet as if our dog ‘Nutty’ was striking my sari with his tail.( Nutty had a habit of showing affection by touching me with his mouth and striking me with his tail around the house.) Like wise I thought it must be him attracting my attention. I harshly said, “Stop Nutty. Leave me”, and kept on adjusting the things in the fridge.

At that very minute I happened to look down and to my horror I saw the long body of a snake with its head probably under my shoe. (Presumably it was flapping its tail desperately to extricate itself.) I let out a scream and jumped out of the kitchen. Dear hubby was still nearby and understood what I was muttering though incoherently. The snake in the meanwhile more scared with the hullabaloo than us slithered to an open space under the kitchen sink and coiled itself into a safe position. There was no option but to eliminate it.

We got a lot scared as actually our friend was with us for not less than a week and for about as many days I was disturbed at night by some rustling sounds when it was so quiet otherwise. It must have been coming out of its hiding place under the sofas or from under the fridge (the fridge is placed on a low wooden stool and there is the ideal place for such an opportunity) to forage for food in the quiet of the night. We attributed the noise to poor ‘Nutty’, though we knew he slept like a baby on a small couch near our bed, since an explanation for that noise had to be reasoned out.

We were perplexed as to how the reptile managed to enter, when our house is fully secured with double doors. After much brainstorming the answer came in a flash and the story got unfolded easily enough.

We’d arranged it like that the maid’d do the cleaning after we had gone for our respective jobs. While mopping the floor she used to place the water filled bucket in between the net door and frame of the door and resultantly a quarter of the door was left open till she finished the job. While the door was thus open my uninvited guest sneaked inside and in the unfamiliar surroundings lost its bearing and failed to manage exiting though the similar route was available each day.

I’d cautioned the maid many a time because I had noticed mosquitoes and flies flying inside. But this intrusion I had never vouched for. And she completely ignored my directive and her carelessness led to this.

Thank God we escaped any untoward incident.

Our life is a fertile landscape of novel surprises and if we’ve a skill of spinning the surprises into words, the experience can be enlightening and amusing too.

Image courtesy: Internet