A short story offering from Mary Poppins: The Black Viper The slippery streets of midsummer storms drew me out again that night. I’d stayed at home all day, watching TV and wondering how to stop. The day was humid and stifling. I drank a cold beer. Then had another. The village was silent, apart from the odd cry of a baby, or call of a bird, I heard nothing. The South African summer lay hard on me that day; the bright loneliness of my own existence seemed harder to face by day and easier at night. I knew I shouldn’t go but when the sun sank finally, in burning glory, and the dark covered me like cold velvet, I got in my car and left. This time I made sure to drive well out of town, to another city, miles from mine. I couldn’t take the chance of someone remembering me again. As I drove the rain began to fall, in great lashes from the sky. The girls in the lights look like phantoms, like the inhabitants of old nightmares and new lusts, their short skirts glittering in the gushing rain. They seem opulent, have everything to offer, their white throats so smooth and silky, like the well rubbed ivory of the elephant tusks I used to touch as a child. I slowed down as I passed, the way every man does, and each girl posed for me, to attract me to her den, like a bird of paradise, fluffing out her feathers and licking her wet, red lips. I felt the excitement in me show its ugly face, but this time I never tried to push it back down. It lived in a pit, like a viper, coiled around my mind, stirring now and showing its fangs, its poison glands pumped full and needing release. I stopped at a bottle store and bought a half jack of whisky and sipped it as I wanted to. The hot liquor burned and my mind began to expand. I felt my cheeks flush red and I loosened my collar, feeling the sweat slide slickly down my back. Everything was liquid, everything called to me. I drove on. I would drive all night if I needed to. But in the next town, rain still sheeting down, I found her. She was about nineteen, bright red hair and big brown eyes. Breasts like white pillows and a voice that sounded like she could use a drink. Short skirt. She suggested she had no underwear on. The inner snake uncoiled. I asked her where she wanted to go, she suggested a dam nearby, deserted, she explained, at this time of night. My clock read 00h14. As we drove she put on the radio and turned it up. It was a pumping, heavy, sexy song and she put her hand on my leg. My fingers pulled at hers, and she tugged her skirt up, moving my hand upwards. We shared a sip of whisky, kissing in the car. When we stopped the water was black as night, the park was empty and the trees rustled in the wind and rain. The music continued and she moved towards my lap. The filthy whore. She should never have done that. The next thing I knew the night turned into a kaleidoscope of horror. Warm blood splashed on my lap, the snake screamed crazily, I felt her soft throat and heard the bone snap. Sinking my teeth into her veins I lapped at her source, her screams unheard now; the viper drew from her, again and again. Careening out of there. The doll flung out, drained and lifeless. I turned the car radio off and the silence hammered at the wildness in my mind. I fumbled for the bottle and put it to my lips, the sweet powerful taste made me tingle with joy. I smelt the rawness of blood in the car, the wet meaty taste sat in my mouth and my hands became sticky as it dried. Trembling, I pulled off the road and changed my clothes. Threw the old ones away. I had come prepared.
