BECAUSE THE SERPENT KNEW

BECAUSE THE SERPENT KNEW

When the roller bearing could no longer bear it’s share of the preordained work load it suddenly froze, as if going into a self-imposed coma. Four of his fellow coworkers took his untimely demise in stride because they realized, with age, they became expendable and they silently welcomed the short reprise, a well earned semi-vacation from their duties.

However, the serpent, the fifth member of the team, perceived the bearing’s failure to perform it’s duty as a personal insult to him. The serpent rightfully knew he carried the bulk of the workload that keep the mechanism functioning as intended. Being au contraire by nature the serpent responded by shedding his skin, his skin being the serpentine loop that kept the pulleys in motion. Though the standard reaction was for a serpentine belt to snap in two, the serpent’s ego compelled him to splinter the belt into long remnants, with each remnant wrapping itself around the base of a pulley, causing each to equally freeze. 

The serpent’s desired effect created mechanical chaos when the idler went totally idle, the tensioner became to tense that it suffered a symbolic panic attack and the alternator could no longer alternate. Though the crankshaft worked independently of the belt it became very cranky knowing it could no longer drive the cooling fan and the engine would quickly overheat and the assigned collapse of their teamwork happened as expected.

Was the serpent’s seemingly excessive response, with it splintering it’s belt through pent up outrage, justified? In his defense, though only figuratively called a serpent with a serpentine tail, he identified with the snakes worldwide he bared a slight resemblance to, considering them kindred spirits. And. more importantly, he knew in advance that once the truck’s hood was raised he would instantly be blamed for the failure of others.

Still, was his reaction justified? If they were able to respond in a language humans could understand most of the earth’s fowl, fish, animals and reptiles would likely say yes. Their justification in his defense was instinctively based on the stigma caused to serpents for egos, a bad rap going back to the Garden Of Eden. To them the serpent dwelling in Eden at the time was set up to absorb it’s share of the blame, framed as it were, by circumstance. The serpent was never really the cause of or the instigator of the Original Sin because the Creator had preordained him to offer Adam and Eve a simple option. That Adam and Eve chose the wrong option, and then invented the first attempted coverup, was hardly the serpent’s fault.

Reviews

[R.J.A.Gilbert]

A creative approach that segues smoothly into the "meat" of the argument. Well done.

[Willys Watson]

This may go through a minor edit but as is I though those of you reading this would find it funny. And, BTW, this story is based on personal experience with me having to deal with fixing the problem myself.