There are Snakes Out There
Juan Pablo Villalobos
The night passed like that and then the day, and then another night, and my cousin said that we had to hold on, that if we’d held on this far we couldn’t go
back now, that we knew how difficult it was going to be to cross the desert, more difficult than the part on the train. In Oaxaca we had to sleep on the train
for part of the journey, which is really dangerous. We were traveling up top, on the roof, for half a day and a night, risking falling off. They say lots of people
have died coming north this way on the train. A few times we slept on the bus, too, and others we had to sleep by the sea, on the beach, and in Chiapas we
had to sleep by the river, and sometimes, like in Mexico City, we slept in a hotel. When we were in Mexico City I went out to buy something to eat and there
was a group of people in the street—I think they were Zetas—and they were clashing with the police. There was a fight right there in the street, people with
guns, with snakes in their heart.
And on the third day in the desert, on the border at Sonoyta, there were still loads of federales, lots of Immigration. At one point I found a snake—we found
a snake, I mean, me and the people I was with, but luckily we managed to kill it. They told us it had the dangerous kind of venom that could kill you.
My cousin wasn’t scared of the snakes and said that we hadn’t escaped from the gangs back home just to be killed by some snake’s poison. And I
remembered that some of the guys in the gangs had tattoos of snakes, snakes on their arms, or on their backs, even on their heads or their bellies.
Use the passage to answer the question.
Which meaning do the author’s repeated references to snakes in the paragraphs convey?
Animals should not be feared.
Danger is all around.
Snakes are common in the desert.
Snakes are good subjects for tattoos.
1 answer