Jo and the man in the desert

The giant snake sidewinded up the dune, she had been following her tongue to this spot for 2 days now, the taste of prey nearing death was on the air and Jo was hungry.

Before she reached the summit, Jo was certain her long sort after prey was on the other side, in the slack. The peculiar vibrations were getting stronger and stronger, her scutes ached from it. It was the strangest death rattle she had experienced, still since her exile to the endless desert from the Snake Kingdom food had been hard to come by, Jo pressed onwards.

Snakes of the Snake Kingdom ate seldom, often with weeks passing before feeling any desire for a biscuit to nibble on.

Jo was hungry enough to eat a dozen rather plump blue whales.

Cresting the top of the dune Jo saw her prey and was instantly disappointed, it was a pathetic weedy human, barely a starter for a snake her size. Despite not having ears she listened to the man by lying her head down on the ridge, allowing the vibrations to run through her jaw, into her skull and to her ear bone.

She had no idea what the man was saying.

This was odd. Jo could understand any language that any sentient life form vocalised, scented, signed, digitised… the list went on, essentially, she could understand any language if she concentrated, but not this man.

She watched his movements, wondering if his motions were a dialect of the Sumerian tree root, which shook its tubulars under the ground to send messages but all she got was nonsense, not even enough words to string a sentence together.

Listening to the vocalisation she wondered if the man was warbling like the Greater Moon Whale of Zepdous but again she only got gobbledegook.

The fact that she could not understand the man was only the start of the peculiarity. By Jo’s estimation they must have been two dozen days away from the nearest human settlement, yet this man had no food or water with him. At his feet lay a single half crushed can of Merlo Sports! With added electrolytes. She had to go and have a closer look at him.

The sand she displaced hummed in a deep base tone, the man stopped his actions and watched. He didn’t grow scared or worried. He simply watched as a snake with eyes bigger than himself slid down a mountainous dune, coming to a rest mere metres away.

“Hi.” Jo spoke, without a sign of a lisp.

“Go away evil doer, I will not be deterred by you.”

“Hey, I can understand you now. Earlier, were you speaking in the-”

“Good. Now go away” the man interrupted before turning his back and returning to his incomprehensible chanting. Jo found the strange little man amusing, he wasn’t scared of her at all. Of course, the man couldn’t have known that Jo had been the Snake Kingdom’s champion against the Pig Kingdom before her exile, but his ignorance didn’t explain his lack of fear.

“What are you doing? What language are you speaking in? What do you mean by evil doer? And why aren’t you scared?” Jo rapidly fired questions at the man, she slide across the sand, making a large circle with her coils enclosing the man, she waited patiently for an answer.

The man tried to ignore her but in the end he could not. “Isn’t it obvious what I am doing?”

“No”

“I am talking to the Gods to make it rain. I have had a vision that this land will become a rich pasture.”

Jo smiled to herself, her tongue flicked out, she had known a few gods in her time, in fact she had on occasions been one. If there was one thing she trusted about Gods, it was you couldn’t trust them. She wouldn’t trust a vision from a God for all the food in the world and she really was very hungry.

 “A rich pasture you say? I think I will wait with you.”

With a gentle ripple movement Jo wormed her body under the sand until only her snout and tongue remained unsubmerged.

Dinner would be serving itself shortly.

Dinner time