The Garden Fence

There was a garden and around it was a fence.  The fence was made of twigs and the twigs were snakes.  The snakes twisted and tangled and hissed a warning to anyone who would dare trespass.

The garden smelled of meat. The aroma crept through the brush swimming seductively through the snakes’ nostrils deep into their minds.   At night the snakes would dream of the feast behind the scent.  They wished for nothing more than to leave their posts and consume it, but they would never dare, for it was their duty to guard the garden.

After many centuries, one snake wriggled his way out of the fence.  He lusted for the source and his body wreathed in agony for the hunger grew too great.   He slid through the grass, over rocks and under woody roots until at last he found the body of a dead calf.  The smell was so strong and brilliant.  It brought tears to the snake’s eyes.  “At last,” he thought, “I will know how it feels to be a snake.” He did not know that snakes aren’t scavengers for he had been a twig his whole life.

He quickly consumed the calf in a feverish state of madness, ripping through flesh that had been dead for centuries.   Soon after his meal was done, the smell disappeared.  The snakes of the fence cried out for mercy for they no longer had anything to dream about or pray for.  And for the rest of time, the garden fence was made of twigs and nothing else.