A man in a suit called out to me in the crowd.

An awfully skinny, kinda dirty looking man.

“Would you like one?”

He leaned in close and whispered to me.

He was holding a covered bird cage. It appeared he was trying to sell me whatever was inside.

I tried to brush him off but,

“Come on, it’ll be very useful,” he said and removed the cover.

In spite of myself I was taken aback.

The cage was packed tight with snakes. Just how many were in there? They were tangled and intertwined, like a giant snake ball. They were hissing and giving off this grassy-type smell.

I shook the man off and quickly separated myself from the area.

Then, on a different day. I saw the same man in the same place.

He was approaching people left and right, trying to do business with them.

But what I really couldn’t understand was that somehow, in the distance, I could see only a few snakes left in the cage.