* Recently, I was given the challenge of a fiction writing assignment in English class and this is what I came up with. My teacher loved it so much that it motivated me to start writing again. So hopefully, I'll be posting more stories on this blog. Hope you enjoy this story just as much! *
From the outside, Sherman Winchester’s one story white house looked bare and vacant. However, there was much life within the walls of the Virginia house. Sherman, a short, obese, thirty-some year old man with barely enough greasy hair to pull off a comb over, lived almost alone. He didn’t have any family or friends to talk to besides his mother. The only exception was his twenty pet snakes.
All the snakes were poisonous and varied in length from the size of a worm to up to 6 feet. Sherman kept these snakes in a room that served as a giant habitat. The walls of the room were painted a dark green to match the dirt floor and grassy logs propped up against the walls. Heated lamps hung down from the ceiling creating a humid temperature and a moldy smell. The snakes occupied every inch of the room. Some snakes were barely visible, blending in with the manmade habitat.
Sherman spent most of his time in the snake room listening to the musical hissing sounds of the creatures. He sat for hours with a book or notepad reading about and drawing serpents. These slithering lizards were the only thing Sherman had, even as a young boy. Sherman often sat alone at lunch, his head buried in a snake book because no one ever wanted to talk to him. His home life wasn’t too great either. As a young boy, his father walked out and left his mother a single parent. Living a short walk from the zoo, Sherman spent most of his time observing the beautiful patterns of snake scales.
Now, sitting in the dirt on the floor, Sherman did the same thing. He came to this room to find peace in solitude. However, his stay was cut short when the phone rang. Sherman raced out of the room forgetting to shut the door. He already knew who was calling. “Hello, mother!” He said into the phone. “How are you?”
“Sherman! I’m just calling to tell you I’ll be over soon so keep those ugly snakes away!” The voice on the other end was nasally and high like a piccolo.
“Yes mother, will do!” Sherman hung up the phone and returned to the snake room, realizing his mistake. However, he didn’t think much of it, assuming the snakes wouldn’t want to be out in the open away from the comfort of the heat lamps. “Okay little snakes,” He spoke to them. “Mother’s coming over and you know she’s a little frightened of you. So, I need you to be on your best behavior.” Turning to go make tea for him and his mother, he almost didn’t see the snake coiled around the doorknob. “Woah!” He said. “That was a close one.”
It was almost noon when the doorbell rang. Sherman knew it was either his mother or the mailman with the new snake book he had ordered from the zoo catalog. Although he loved his mother, he was really hoping it was the mailman. His hopes were let down when he peeked through the door hole and spotted a short, little red haired lady with big round glasses. “Mother!” Sherman opened the door and invited her in. “How are you?”
“You put those evil things away, right?” Mrs. Winchester looked cautiously around the living room. She never approved of her son’s hobby. “Yes mother.” He told her. “They’re all locked away. Can we go to the kitchen? I made us some tea.” Sherman followed his mother into the kitchen. She barely sat down before she tasted the tea. “Ugh! So bitter!” Mrs. Winchester took the sugar dish off the counter and opened the utensil drawer for a spoon. Looking down, two little beady eyes looked back up at her.
Mrs. Winchester’s eyes became huge. Her whole body tensed up and she fell over dead.
“Mother!” Sherman ran to her side and watched the perpetrator slither out of the drawer. All his life, everything he had was his mother and his snakes. Bringing the two together, he realized, was a fatal mistake. It was his entire fault, he decided. He promised his mother that she was protected from the snakes and he had failed her. There was only one thing left to do now.
Seeing the little black snake that killed his mother on the kitchen counter, he reached for it. In just a second, the snake’s fangs shot out and stabbed the blue veins in his left hand. The venom immediately took effect, burning as it traveled up his arm to his heart. Staggering to the door, Sherman desperately tried to go get help. His legs became weak beneath him and his eyes were blurry with pain. Dropping to the floor, Sherman reached out making a final attempt to grab the doorknob.
He’d never make it, he decided. His life was over. The pain was too much to handle. He was going to die here with his mother in the kitchen and the snakes in the house. Finally coming to accept death, the door bell rang. Unable to call out or reach for the door, it was as if God himself was mocking him.
On the other side of the door, the mailman was dropping off a package. Before the mailman left the front porch, Sherman was already dead. Days later, a neighbor noticed mail piling up and called the police. On the scene, police discovered the brown package still sitting on the porch. Upon opening the package, the police discovered a book titled, ‘How to Survive a Snake Bite’.
