His diminutive stature made his legs dangle like wet clothes on the line. Laboriously shoveling scolding soup into his innocent mouth, he needed a distraction to keep from finishing that last piece of baby corn. At the most
opportune moment, a yelp boomed from the other side of the house. Parachuting from his stool, he eased his way to the bathroom door--the origin of the disturbance. A few more yelps that made him hesitate; they were deep
enough only to belong to his burly father.

He persuaded his head through the cracked door to see his shirtless father standing over the sink, head agonizingly arched. His mother was standing behind his father with her nose inspecting his middle-back. Her two index fingers were charming a white snake from a red mountain erected on his spine. He opened the rest of the door and graced into the exhibit. His presence seemed inconsequential. After the grown snake fell to his feet, his mother instructed him to finish his baby corn. Suspended by his thick arms, his father's head was lifelessly dangling. The exhibit was over; he obediently left.

Climbing aboard his chair he was still wide-eyed from the action. When he returned to the present, he gazed at his soup filled with baby corn carcasses and realized his appetite was on the floor with the snake. He descended yet again and threw the remainder of the soup in the trash.