The Five Poisons

Viper
Two sisters, a white snake and a blue snake, assumed womanly forms to experience what it was to be human. White Snake fell in love with a scholar-poet, who was mesmerized by her willowy curves and the smoothness of her brow.

The first time they were intimate, he joked about the coldness of her skin. She drew her head back sharply and unleashed a fury of curses. He was shocked by her outburst, but soon made her forget her anger with entreaties and kisses.

Over time, the scholar grew curious that his lover disappeared each night, claiming that she needed to care for her ailing sister at home.

One night he followed her through the winding streets to the rural outskirts of their village. When they reached the lip of the river, she descended into a cave hidden beneath a covering of reeds. He waited, then followed her path through the dark canals, until he found himself in a narrow room where he found, to his horror, two enormous snakes, one blue and one white.

Blue Snake saw him first, and hissed, See what you’ve done! Now that he knows our secret, he must be destroyed. She sunk her teeth into his neck and swallowed him whole.

For two weeks, White Snake curled up next to Blue Snake to caress the discernable form of her lover.

Scorpion
When he was indignant, he would straighten his back; his ass would lift slightly, like that of a scorpion preparing for a death match.

Centipede
Watching the furious tank-tread progress of a centipede fills me with dread. It is loathsome to think that such extraordinary rotary mechanics are driven toward the pursuit of an infinitesimal morsel of lettuce.

Toad
The father and son were both unattractive. But while the younger one, with his sleepy, bulbous eyes and wide lips, could be said to resemble a frog, his father looked more like a toad. Even so, the son was possessed of a glorious and tenderhearted personality that hit you with the force of sunshine at brunch.

The son’s girlfriend, who needed to move to her feet to count the number of assholes she’d dated, loved this about him, and was willing to overlook his less appealing attributes. But she feared that, as he aged, the son would grow to more and more resemble his father, whose toad-like features she found repulsive.

She thought: The frog leaps from lily pad to lily pad, but the toad sits, turd-like and oblivious, in the mud. The frog glistens like a dew drop, but the skin of the toad is thwarted with warts, barnacles from a lifetime of dissolution.

She prayed that she would not wake up one day and find herself in the arms of a toad.

Spider
Little one, we called you Spider, sewed toads on your pillowcase, embroidered scorpions on the pockets of your silk coat, carved snakes into your headboard to protect you from the pernicious things of this world.

Now you’ve grown into a man with a heart that could set tires on fire. When they come rooting for things in your past to explain your demonic impulses, tell them that our amulets and symbols lost their potency in this foreign country, that they were little more than the whimsical decorations of a once powerful empire.