Snakes

We snakes used to be like you. We had arms and legs and we waved and walked like you. And now look at us... People hiss at us and hate us. And don't think that we don't know why. The serpent in the garden of Eden? It doesn't take Freud to see what you are seeing when you look at us...

Anyway, this would never have happened when we still had our legs. what happened was this... There was an insect called Pete.and he was a bit, well, you'd call him "handicapped" now. And I'm not proud to say that we snakes were cruel to him. Laughed at him for only having four legs. And, yes, we are aware of the irony that we only had four legs (or arms and legs) ourselves. But that didn't seem to matter at the time.

Well, one day, it was so hot, and we snakes were complaining about the heat and Pete asked why we didn't have a swim. Us snakes swim really well - you should see us... And the river looked so cool and inviting... But, even, then, we didn't use our arms and legs for swimming and we were a bit worried about just leaving them on the river bank. So Pete offered to look after them. His only stipulation was that he could keep any limbs that weren't claimed at the end. We laughed at this - what snake would be foolish enough to not claim their own limbs? So we agreed.

We had a lovely, cool swim, racing each other in the cool, refreshing water. and, when we were done, we crawled out onto the bank to where Pete had all our arms and legs piled up in a heap.

"Right..." said Pete. "Hands up all those who want their legs back!" Unsurprisingly, no-one put their hand up. "What's that? No-one? Alright then, step forward anyone who wants their arms back!"

And so Pete kept all of our arms and legs and, ever since that day, we have had to do without whilst he has more arms and legs than anyone needs. If anyone asks us where our limbs are, we just mumble "Sent to Pete".