Squeeze!

I was lost in the country, and I was afraid. I prayed, "O God, show me the way!" I was an eleven year old son of the headmaster of a little rural school, in the country and faraway from home. In those days, only reading stories in the school library and going hunting with my dad were important to me. This time Dad had allowed me to go alone, but I had wandered too far and was lost.

"I am hungry, and I am thirsty; I must hurry up," I said to myself. "This shotgun is so heavy. I will rest under this tree, and then I will look for the way back home. I am not lost. I am not lost." I knew it was a lie, but I was trying to encourage myself.

While lying under a tree, I heard a noise invading the perfect silence of the forest. I rose to see what had happened, and my soul was paralyzed at the sight of the scene. An iguana was chasing a mouse along a narrow path not far away from my tree. Further down the path, a snake was ambushed, waiting for a frog. When the iguana and the snake saw each other, they stopped and stood motionless. The snake lifted its head, opened its mouth, and twisted itself around like a big, black, trembling ball. Facing its enemy, the iguana was still and tense with its body trembling against the dust and its mouth opened in a hissing roar of furor. It seemed that neither of them moved, but the dark ball of the snake contracted more like a flexed arm. The iguana, inch by inch, approached its rival.

Who jumped first? So swift was the strike that even the most perceptive eye could not tell. The instantaneous mixing of members, tails, rings, limbs, and scales showed a tremendous monster rolling on the ground creating a cloud of dust. When the cloud faded, I thought to myself, "Oh!" The iguana bit the snake by its neck and it was trying to brake it.

"Horror!" The snake loosened her neck from the iguana's jaw, and in a big arc it was trying to inject its venom into the iguana's neck.

The iguana still had the snake in its jaws, but in a point lower below the neck. The snake was squeezing the iguana's body with such a force that it was crushing it. The iguana, protecting its neck with the two front legs, bit the snake with all its strength. Bite, squeeze. Squeeze, bite.

"Oh!" The iguana lost the control of its body and fell down to one side still protecting its neck with its hands. The iguana only bit. The snake furiously squeezed the iguana even harder. Squeeze, bite. Bite, squeeze.

Then I realized that the snake was hurting. Abandoning the squeeze, it found a leverage in a bush and smashed the iguana against the ground, one, two, three times. The iguana with its claws in the ground continued only to bite. With sheer determination, she bit. Finally, the backbone of the snake succumbed to the iguana jaws. The iguana still held the bite. She knew that it only was a matter of time. Five, ten, maybe even fifteen minutes passed. Finally I saw the last agonizing temblor of the snake. The iguana had won. The combat was so tremendous that I could safely get out of my hiding place to watch them closely.

It was getting dark. The iguana had left. Then I fell to my knees, crossed myself, and prayed. "Oh God. I ask you for small enemies. I ask that you never put me in a situation like this, but if it happens, I ask for strength to bite, to bite and not release, to bite till the death."

I stood up. It was dark already. In the distance, shots in the air told me that the patrol had come to the rescue headed by my father. I answered firing my gun and then sat down to wait for them.