nce upon a time there lived termites. Hundreds of termites. They built a Termite Colony together. It was a large, towering structure some eight feet tall made up of hard sand and it had tunnels, openings and small towers. It was literally sand shaped into shelter. Sand shaped into Life. This new curiosity was the talk of the Plant and Animal Kingdom of the local desert.

"Wow, it's large!" exclaimed a little squirrel, swiftly climbing a tree.

"Nah, I've seen bigger ones" said a Migrating Bird, which had flown as far as New York and had seen skyscrapers as tall as the sky. "But still, their (the termite's) hard-work should be appreciated", it added.

"Hmph!" said the Old Cactus scornfully "What has society become these days! They don't even know what hard work means! My roots run deep into this wretched desert soil, and I have to hunt for water everyday, whereas you can fly freely, and search and drink litres and litres of water. I would have surely and most certainly built a better structure, if the Almighty had given me legs! And I shall show to the world what hard-work means!"

Unbeknownst to them a serpent was listening to the conversation silently. It made a low hissing noise. The noise which tells that death was evident in its hemotoxic venom.

The next day the termites saw a serpent in their colony. "What are you doing here? This is not your place. Get out of here!" said the Queen of the termites. She tried to be intimidating, but could not. She knew that she was nothing compared to the serpent.

"Well, I am just standing right in front of you. I don't think I will be able to get out of here. After all, this is my house. Is there any problem?"

"Your house?!"

"My house." agreed the serpent.

"We built this Colony!"

"And does it make it yours?" hissed the serpent. The serpent with hemotoxic venom. Death evident in it.

"Where do you think we will go without this Colony?" pleaded the Queen.

"Go to Hell. Or if you don't want to, stay here. I don't have any objections against you staying here, my friend." And it leapt and swallowed three of the youngest termites, it's body ripped into thousand pieces by the serpent's fangs.

Outside the colony, a young and curious boy asked to his grandmother, "Grandmamma, what is that mound of sand in the ground?"

"That? It is the House of the Serpent God, my child." said his superstitious grandmother.

The serpent heard this and smiled at the poor Termite Queen.