The Kiss of the Serpent

The sun was back in the sky. The gulls were back with their cries. The waves were genteel on the shores.
He looked up at the blaring skies. He drew back holding his breath.
The lakes of trust and dream stood behind him. He was parched, for all along he had drunk from the springs of faith and belief. Now he feared them, all along they had weakened him, deceived him.

Yet, he had to fulfill his parched soul, He drunk out of faith not from the lake, but the reservoir within him.
He was happy, this water made him strong, made him humble, made him sturdy. Or so he thought.
He set salvaging things after the storm. He brought back his arrogance, his flamboyance his firm sentinels, whom he would need to resurrect his aura.
Things started moving, he grew again.

It would be wrong to say he was caught unawares. He never knew what struck him, from where it struck him, when it struck him and why it struck him.
The sting of the serpent was definitive and swift. One gash sufficed. In the other instant the serpent was gone, as if composed from the empty space from whence it had appeared.
He looked into the waters. He stood along with his reflection. He could not suffer it. The sentinels were gone.

Clearly, there was a major void he had left unattended, or his sentinels had left unattended.
What may that be he pondered.
The sting had frozen him, decapitated him, smote him. He had nothing left to salvage now. But again he was so wrong.

He had been composed of the same emptiness as the serpent. He did not seek it, the emptiness grew within him. It took over him. The boy had disappeared. The Man surfaced. You can rob someone of his riches. How do you rob him off his emptiness. The thirst had vanished.

The sting subsided. The emptiness continued to grow.

He did not understand it. He probably does not understand it even now.