From The Story of Bones

I was ten years old the day Skinner taught me a person could be the most dangerous creature in Africa. It was a valuable lesson for a boy raised with a deep respect for living things. I was learning to coexist with the natural world, yet I remained ignorant of the many ways human beings can inflict misery. Fortunately, I didn’t know Skinner’s life and mine would become as interlocked and tangled as an old osprey nest, because all I hoped for then was to be rid of him.

On that awful day, the cobra that lived in the ditch beside our house decided to coil itself in the grass next to my bicycle. I didn’t see it until I had tied my books onto the rebar welded over the back wheel and undone the chain. By then I was standing in the narrow space between the bike and the splintered boards that held up our front porch. Through the rusted metal frame I saw the pointy reptilian head rise and sway, hood flared to full effect, and I found myself staring into the blunt-eyed gaze of one of the world’s deadliest snakes.