The Woman and the Python

For three years, the woman believed she had found a most unusual companion.
Saffron, a golden-hued python, had slithered into her life when it was just a few feet long. She raised it with patience and affection, convincing herself it was no different from a loyal dog or cat.

When friends visited, they stared in disbelief.
“Be careful,” her father warned, grimacing as the thick coils glided across the tiled floor. “It’s still a predator.”

But she only laughed, stroking the cool scales with confidence.
“Saffron is tame. It loves me. It would never harm me.”

And so the python became part of the household—curling in corners, resting near her feet, even climbing the couch to drape itself lazily across her shoulders.

The Odd Changes

Then, without warning, Saffron began to change.

It refused food. The plump rabbits she had always offered went untouched. Days passed, then weeks. Its belly shrank, and yet its eyes glowed with a strange intensity.

At night, the woman often felt movement. She would wake to find Saffron stretched out beside her on the bed—its head resting on her shoulder, its tail brushing against her ankles. A perfect line, as though deliberately matching her body’s length.

Other nights, it slid around her waist, coiling gently, almost like an embrace. Sometimes it lingered near her collarbone, its forked tongue flicking against her skin.

She laughed about it to her friends.
“It’s just giving me kisses,” she said.
But the laughter sounded hollow even to herself.

Because more and more often, she woke in the middle of the night gasping for air—its weight pressing heavily against her chest.

The Breaking Point

One night, a sharp hiss jolted her awake. The sound was low, guttural, unlike anything she had heard from Saffron before. The python’s body tightened briefly, then stilled, its eyes gleaming in the darkness.

Her heart raced. Something felt wrong—terribly wrong.
By morning, she decided to take Saffron to the veterinarian.

The Chilling Truth

The vet, an older man with years of experience, examined the python carefully. He weighed it, ran his hands gently along the muscular body, and listened as the woman described its nightly habits—its refusal to eat, the way it stretched alongside her, the “cuddles” around her waist.

When she finished, he leaned back in his chair. His words were slow, deliberate, and heavy.

“This isn’t affection,” he said. “This is preparation.”

The woman frowned. “Preparation? For what?”

He met her eyes steadily.
“Large pythons sometimes starve themselves before attempting to consume prey that is larger than usual. Lying beside you—matching its body to yours—that was measurement. Wrapping itself around your waist—that was rehearsal. Testing its strength.”

Her throat went dry.

“You have a strong, mature female. She is fully capable of strangling you before swallowing. Such cases are rare,” the vet added, “but not unheard of. My recommendation is strict isolation, a revised feeding plan—and ideally, transfer to a specialized facility. Immediately.”

The Final Night

That evening, the woman sat on the edge of her bed, staring at the python she had once thought of as family.

Saffron slid across the sheets with slow, deliberate grace. For a fleeting moment, it positioned itself just as it always had—its coils draped around her waist, its head resting near her chest.

But this time, the woman was fully awake. She felt the weight. The quiet strength. The silent danger.

Tears welled in her eyes as she gently lifted the snake and placed it back into its terrarium. The latch clicked shut. She sank to the floor beside it, pressing her forehead against the cool glass.

“I love you,” she whispered. “But love doesn’t erase what you are.”

A Humane Goodbye

The next morning, she called the city reptile center. By afternoon, a truck arrived. Professionals carefully lifted Saffron into a secure container and carried it away—to a vast enclosure where it could live safely, among keepers who understood its nature.

The apartment felt unbearably empty that night. No soft hiss, no golden coils beside her bed. Only silence.

Yet in that silence came clarity.

She realized she had cherished the python as though it were human, forgetting that beneath the scales was still a creature of the wild—ancient, instinctive, and bound by nature’s laws.

Sometimes love means letting go.
And sometimes survival requires the courage to admit that not every bond is meant to last.