A snake was pursuing a lizard. The lizard for its part had its eye on a cricket. Each followed the other with its own peculiar movement, sudden, staccato, smooth. Eventually, the cricket hesitated. The lizard crept closer, while the snake, in turn, was preparing to strike.

It was then a swallow-tailed kite swooped down, seized the snake in its claws, and carried it writhing and twisting into the sky. “Wait, no! Let me go! You’ve made a mistake. I am not your prey,” the snake protested.

“And yet here you are,” the kite replied as it flew to its perch high in the trees and tore the snake apart.

 Richard Parkin, 2024