The forest does not begin with trees. It begins with hesitation. Before the roots grip the soil and before the leaves argue with sunlight, there is always a moment of listening. The earth waits. The insects wait. Even the wind seems to pause, as if asking the old question again. Who belongs here?
For centuries the answer has been simple. Those who walk softly. Those who understand that the forest is not a place to conquer but a language to learn. Among the many listeners who arrived in the forests of southern India during the restless decades after independence, there came a young man whose patience was unusual. He had the tall frame and curious eyes of someone who had spent more time observing the world than demanding explanations from it. His name was Romulus Whitaker.
To most people outside the forest, snakes were stories of danger. They appeared suddenly in the corner of a courtyard, in the shadow beneath a stone, in the dark folds of a memory. They belonged to fear, and fear rarely asks questions. It simply strikes first. Whitaker, however, carried a different instinct. When he looked at a snake he did not see an enemy. He saw a survivor from another age. A creature that had perfected the art of patience long before humans learned to shape iron.
This difference puzzled many people. Why would a young man choose to spend his life among reptiles when the world offered so many easier companions? The answer lay partly in childhood and partly in the quiet stubbornness that grows in certain souls. Some people are drawn to applause. Others are drawn to silence. Whitaker belonged to the second tribe.
In the humid outskirts of what would later become the Madras Crocodile Bank, the air often carried the smell of brackish water and leaf rot. The land was rough then. Scrub forests tangled themselves around shallow ponds. Coconut trees leaned over sandy soil that remembered the sea even when the tide was miles away. Here Whitaker began building a sanctuary for reptiles that the world preferred not to look at too closely. Crocodiles slid through the water like ancient shadows. Turtles blinked slowly at the sun. Visitors arrived hesitantly, their curiosity battling their instinct to step back.
Yet the creatures that fascinated Whitaker most deeply were the king cobras. The king cobra does not resemble the smaller snakes that slip through village grass like stray thoughts. It carries a different presence altogether. Its body is long and deliberate, a muscular river of scales that can rise suddenly into a hood that resembles a living crown.
In the forests of India and Southeast Asia, the king cobra moves like a quiet authority. It does not rush unless provoked. It does not waste venom unless forced to defend itself. It hunts other snakes with a precision that borders on elegance. For centuries humans had turned this creature into legend. Some stories worshipped it. Others hunted it. Few tried to understand it. Whitaker wanted to understand.
One afternoon in the forest, when the sunlight had begun its slow descent through the canopy, a king cobra moved through the leaf litter with the careful dignity of an emperor walking through a corridor of servants. The air carried the smell of warm soil and distant rain. The cobra paused. Ahead, near a fallen log that had been hollowed by termites, a human sat cross legged on the ground.
Humans in forests usually carried noise with them. The snap of twigs beneath boots. The smell of smoke from cigarettes. The restless shifting that betrayed their impatience with stillness. This human was different. He sat quietly with a notebook resting on his knee. Every few minutes he looked up from the page, not with the nervous vigilance of a hunter but with the gentle curiosity of someone attending a conversation that had begun long before he arrived.
The cobra lifted its head slightly. Its tongue tasted the air, gathering fragments of information that eyes alone could never understand. Sweat. Paper. Ink. And something else that animals often recognize before humans do. The absence of threat. The human was Romulus Whitaker.
For many weeks he had been studying the habits of king cobras. Where they nested. How they moved through the forest. How they raised their young. The world believed that snakes were creatures of instinct alone, incapable of the subtle behaviours that humans often reserve for themselves. Whitaker suspected otherwise.
The king cobra watched him from a distance that balanced curiosity with caution. Humans were unpredictable animals. They carried fire and tools and an extraordinary talent for misunderstanding. Yet this one seemed oddly calm. The cobra lowered its body again and slipped beneath the fallen log, its scales whispering against the leaves. It remained there for several minutes, observing the man who had chosen to sit alone in a forest where most humans preferred to hurry through.
Whitaker wrote slowly in his notebook. A breeze stirred the upper branches. Sunlight moved across the forest floor like a patient clock. For the cobra, time did not exist in the way humans measured it. There was only hunger, warmth, and the shifting geometry of survival. Yet even within this ancient rhythm the presence of the quiet human created a small disturbance, like a stone dropped into still water.
Why had he come here? Humans usually approached snakes with sticks or stones. Some arrived with drums and flutes, believing music could command a creature whose hearing was shaped for vibrations rather than melodies. But this one simply sat.
As the afternoon deepened, Whitaker noticed the faint movement near the log. His eyes followed the line of leaves until they met the unmistakable shape rising slightly above the ground. A king cobra. For a brief moment the world narrowed to the delicate balance that exists whenever two species confront each other across the long history of fear.
Whitaker did not move suddenly. He did not reach for a weapon or attempt to stand. He simply remained where he was, allowing the forest to continue breathing around them. The cobra lifted its hood slightly. In the language of snakes this was not yet aggression. It was attention.
Whitaker felt the quiet electricity of the moment travel through his spine. Years of studying reptiles had taught him that fear was often the first mistake humans made. Fear transformed curiosity into violence. So he stayed still.
The cobra tasted the air again. Something in the human’s stillness disrupted the familiar script of encounter. There was no immediate threat. No frantic attempt to escape. Only observation meeting observation in the filtered sunlight of an afternoon forest.
Minutes passed. Eventually the cobra lowered its hood. The forest resumed its ordinary conversations. A bird called from a distant branch. Ants carried fragments of leaf across the soil like determined architects. Whitaker slowly reached for his notebook again.
In that quiet moment he understood something that many naturalists spend entire lifetimes trying to articulate. The world is not divided simply between predator and prey, danger and safety, friend and enemy. Those categories belong largely to human imagination. Nature operates through something far more complex. Balance.
The king cobra slid away into the undergrowth, leaving behind a faint trail in the leaves that would disappear within hours. Yet the memory of the encounter remained with Whitaker for many years. It confirmed a belief he had carried since youth. The greatest violence humans commit against the natural world often begins with misunderstanding.
Snakes had become victims of this misunderstanding more than most creatures. Villagers killed them on sight. City dwellers recoiled from photographs. Even educated voices spoke of them with a mixture of fascination and dread. Whitaker decided that knowledge could be a kind of antidote.
At the Madras Crocodile Bank, visitors slowly began encountering reptiles not as monsters but as neighbours in the long story of evolution. Children leaned over railings to watch crocodiles float like carved wood in green water. Students listened to lectures about ecosystems that depended on creatures they had once feared.
And somewhere in the forests beyond the boundaries of the sanctuary, king cobras continued their ancient work. They hunted other snakes, keeping delicate ecological balances intact. They built nests from leaves, one of the few snake species known to care for their eggs with something resembling parental vigilance.
Occasionally Whitaker returned to those forests. Sometimes he encountered king cobras again. Sometimes he did not. The forest offered no guarantees to those who entered it. Only possibilities. Yet each visit strengthened his quiet conviction that fear often dissolves when patience replaces it.
Years later, when people asked him why he had chosen a life among reptiles, Whitaker would sometimes smile before answering. It was not the smile of someone amused by danger. It was the smile of someone who had spent decades watching the world reveal itself slowly. Most humans spend their lives trying to control nature, he once explained. But the real miracle begins when you learn simply to watch it.
In the forest where the king cobra once paused to observe a quiet human, the leaves still fall each season with the same gentle finality. New snakes emerge from eggs hidden beneath warm soil. Sunlight continues its patient conversation with the canopy. And somewhere in that vast green silence, the ancient question still lingers.
Who belongs here?
Perhaps the answer has always been the same. Those who arrive without fire. Those who arrive without fear. Those who remember that even the most feared creatures carry their own quiet purpose within the balance of the earth.
Copyright © 2026 TRISHIKH DASGUPTA
This work of fiction, written by Trishikh Dasgupta, is the author’s sole intellectual property. The story draws inspiration from the life and work of Romulus Whitaker, the noted herpetologist and conservationist, and reflects the author’s imaginative interpretation of a human relationship with the natural world. Certain characters, incidents, places, and descriptions may be based on real individuals, events, or locations, while others are fictionalised for narrative purposes.
All rights are reserved. No part of this story may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including printing, photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.
For permission requests, send an email to the author at trishikh@gmail.com or get in touch with Trishikh on the CONTACT page of this website.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Trishikh Dasgupta
Adventurer, philosopher, writer, painter, photographer, craftsman, innovator, or just a momentary speck in the universe flickering to leave behind a footprint on the sands of time... READ MORE
This story is Free, and if you have found something here that stayed with you, some of my other books (collection of short stories, novels, and more) are available in print and digital editions. They gather many unique journeys, quieter questions, and stories that continue beyond this page.
Weekend Stories by Trishikh 
A long story YES cannot wait to read this tonight!
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Do read it. I am sure that you would love it.
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I finally got around to reading this. It was wonderful. I loved how masterfully you gave voice to the King Kobra. Not as a menace, but as an intelligent, sentient, being. One who was puzzled by humans and our nonsense about them as we are by their majesty.
I especially liked how he thought it was strange people tried to charm them with flutes 😆. I wonder if I may ask the question, did he simply stay there with Mr. Whitaker in silence? In your mind having crafted this wonderful story.
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Dear MM, thank you for reading the story and for your generous words. I am very glad the voice of the king cobra resonated with you. Creatures like the cobra have lived beside us for thousands of years, yet we often see them only through the lens of fear. Imagining the world from its quiet, observant perspective felt like a small way of restoring some balance to that relationship.
I am pleased the flute moment amused you. Humans have always invented curious explanations for animals, and I often wonder how bewildering our habits must appear from the other side of the forest.
As for your question, in my mind the cobra did remain there for a little while. Not dramatically, not as a standoff, but simply within the same shared stillness. The man writing in his notebook, the cobra tasting the air and watching. In forests, such moments of quiet coexistence are not as rare as we imagine. After some time the cobra would have slipped back into the undergrowth, leaving behind nothing except a brief memory of two very different beings occupying the same silence.
Thank you again for engaging with the story so thoughtfully.
With kind regards,
Trishikh
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Always my friend. And I actually pictured Romulus as sketching his Kobra friend. Silently together in the shade of the trees. I always love how you set up these quiet and wonderful moments.
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Just too heartwarming for words. I am loving Badook Gali too. Rarely have I come across books that have touched my heart in this manner. Some books remain with us longer after we have lived those pages. Trustee from the Toolroom by Nevil Shute, Anne of the Green Gables series and of course Lord of the Rings. When Aravind was in 4th std I read it to him every day in the evening. It took us 40 days to complete the book. Through the years I have read it a number of times, he has listened to it many times. I used to read to his younger sister, Gayatri. She loves books and so do her children.
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Dear Lakshmi, your message carries such warmth that it feels like sitting in a quiet room where stories have been read aloud for years.
I must confess that I have not yet read Trustee from the Toolroom or the Anne of Green Gables series. But the way you describe them, especially the memory of reading aloud to Aravind for forty evenings, fills me with a real curiosity to discover them myself. A book that becomes part of family time in that way has already lived a very full life. I have read The Lord of the Rings, of course, and I can easily imagine how powerful it must have been to experience that vast world together, evening after evening.
At the same time, I have realised something over the years. When one becomes deeply committed to writing, so much of one’s available time begins to belong to the act of writing itself. Reading, which once felt effortless and abundant, slowly becomes harder to fit in. I suppose every writer must constantly negotiate that balance between writing and reading, and also between family, work, and the many other quiet demands of life.
Your story of reading to Aravind, and later to Gayatri, and now seeing that love of books travel further to the next generation, is truly beautiful. It reminds me that stories do not only live on pages. They live in voices, in evenings shared together, and in memories that travel across years. I am deeply grateful that Bandook Gali has found its way, even briefly, into such a home.
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Lakshmi, the memory you shared about reading stories aloud over many evenings adds a beautiful layer to this conversation. It reminds me that stories often travel far beyond the page. Sometimes they become part of family voices, quiet routines, and moments that children carry long after the book is closed. In a way, Trishikh’s story about learning to observe the natural world patiently feels similar — it invites us to slow down and listen, much like those evenings when a story is read one page at a time.
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Trishikh, thank you for another magnificent story.
“Before the roots grip the soil and before the leaves argue with sunlight, there is always a moment of listening. The earth waits. The insects wait. Even the wind seems to pause, as if asking the old question again. Who belongs here?”
This narrative carries significant weight. The earth is like a theater, waiting to see how the characters will interact. Two species, historically enemies due to fear, overcome the current status quo through curiosity and respect for one another. This is a vital lesson and an essential first step toward love and harmony in a world filled with fear—a step we as humanity must take. ~ Dave
“Success is not final, failure is not fatal. It is the courage to continue that counts.” — Winston Churchill
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Dear Dave, thank you for reading the story so attentively and for returning with such thoughtful reflections. It is always a quiet joy for a writer to discover that a reader has paused at the same sentences where the heart of the story was meant to breathe.
Your image of the earth as a theatre waiting to see how its characters behave is beautifully put. Much of the natural world seems to function exactly that way. It observes first and judges later. The cobra and the human in the story are really standing at that small but decisive threshold where fear can either harden into violence or soften into curiosity. As you noted, that first step matters greatly, not only between species but between people as well.
I am especially glad the opening lines stayed with you. Forests have always felt to me like places that listen before they speak. If we learn to listen back, even a little, the world becomes less hostile and far more mysterious.
Thank you again for walking through the story with such care, and for bringing Churchill into the conversation. Courage, in its quiet forms, is often simply the willingness to keep listening.
Warmly,
Trishikh
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Dave, the image you drew of the earth as a theatre waiting to see how its characters behave fits this story beautifully. What stayed with me is how quietly the moment unfolds between Whitaker and the cobra. Nothing dramatic happens, yet the tension feels real because both simply pause within the same space of attention. It almost suggests that understanding sometimes begins when neither side tries to dominate the scene. That quiet kind of courage seems to sit at the heart of this story.
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WoW… This is breathtaking. The way it shows patience, respect, and deep understanding of life even in its smallest and most feared forms is incredible.
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Dear Willie, Thank you for your generous words. It means a great deal to know that the quiet spirit of the story reached you. Much of what I hoped to explore here was exactly what you sensed. Patience, respect, and the simple act of trying to understand life even in the forms we are taught to fear.
The natural world has a remarkable way of reminding us that fear often grows in the absence of understanding. When we pause long enough to observe rather than react, something shifts. What once appeared threatening begins to reveal its place in the larger rhythm of life.
I am truly glad the story resonated with you. Your encouragement, like that of many thoughtful readers who return to StoryNook, helps keep the words flowing.
Warm regards,
Trishikh
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Willie, your words about patience and respect capture something essential in this story. What struck me is how the forest scene almost slows time itself. Whitaker does not react, and the cobra does not rush, and in that small pause the usual cycle of fear never takes hold. Moments like that quietly remind us how often misunderstanding begins with haste. The story seems to suggest that when patience enters the picture, even the most feared creatures can become teachers of balance.
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Thanks Ned for sharing my story with the larger world.
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🙏👍
Aum Shanti
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Thank you so much. Peach and blessings to you and your family too.
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I also wish you and your loved ones all the happiness in life. 🙏
Aum Shanti
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One thing that quietly stayed with me in this story is how the encounter between Whitaker and the cobra unfolds without any attempt to control the moment. Many narratives about humans and wild creatures revolve around tension, conquest, or escape. Here, the most striking element is something much simpler — attention.
The forest almost becomes a teacher in that moment. Both the human and the cobra pause within the same space of awareness, and the usual script of fear does not unfold. It made me wonder whether the deeper lesson of the story is not only about understanding snakes, but about relearning how to inhabit the world without immediately trying to dominate it. Sometimes the rarest form of courage is simply the patience to observe.
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Dear Livora, thank you for such a perceptive reading of the story. You have touched upon something very close to the quiet center of what I hoped to explore. Many encounters between humans and wild creatures are usually framed around control, victory, or survival. Yet the natural world often unfolds its most meaningful moments in a far gentler register, through attention rather than action.
I especially appreciated your observation that the forest becomes a kind of teacher. That was very much the spirit I tried to capture. In a forest, nothing truly hurries to prove itself. Everything watches, listens, and waits until the right moment arrives. When a non-forest human manages, even briefly, to enter that rhythm, the encounter changes. The usual script of fear loosens its grip.
Your reflection about inhabiting the world without immediately trying to dominate it is beautifully put. Perhaps the rarest courage is indeed the patience to observe before we react. In that quiet pause, the world often reveals far more than we expected.
Thank you again for reading so thoughtfully and for sharing such a graceful interpretation of the story.
With kind regards,
Trishikh
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Thank you, Trishikh. I love the way you describe the forest’s rhythm — watching, listening, and waiting. It makes that quiet encounter feel even more alive. Sometimes the gentlest moments truly reveal the deepest lessons.
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This was a long story. I planned to read it at night, but once I started, I couldn’t stop until I finished it. It was really interesting.👏
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Dear Daisy, thank you for reading the story and finding it interesting. Nothing makes my day like sharing a bit of knowledge, a bit of joy through my stories.
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Happy weekend, Trishikh!
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A great weekend to you and your family too Daisy.
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Wonderfully written as usual but I am still not going to sit around observing snakes. Hummingbirds maybe!
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Ha ha Geoff, that is very true, facing a snake is not everyone’s cup of tea, not even mine. We can only hope that if we come against one, as I once did a long time ago, we can remain calm for a moment or two to let it pass without starting it to attack us in any way.
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Your book has come through at last! Some hold up, but… here it is!
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Wow, that is such great news. Which book did you order? And which country did you order it from?
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I love the line about the King Cobra moving through the leaf liter with careful dignity like an emperor walking through a corridor of servants.
The entire piece is so evocative. I could feel the tension of facing a big snake, yet facing it with patience and no fear.
Even though I like most snakes I still stable when I see one.
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Dear Katelon, thank you for your kind words and for noticing that particular line. I am glad the image of the king cobra moving with the quiet dignity of an emperor stayed with you. These remarkable creatures carry a presence that is both powerful and strangely composed, and I hoped that moment would capture a little of that grace.
Your reaction is also very honest and very human. Even those of us who admire snakes sometimes feel that sudden jolt when one appears unexpectedly. Instinct still whispers its old warnings. What interests me is the space just after that first instinct, when curiosity can slowly replace fear.
I am delighted that you felt both the tension and the patience in that encounter. When we pause long enough to observe rather than react, even the most feared creatures begin to reveal a different side of themselves.
Thank you again for reading the story so thoughtfully.
With kind regards,
Trishikh
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I used to go camping for a week, alone, every year. One time I was camping near Oak Creek canyon, south of Flagstaff , AZ. I would hike around, jumping from one rock to another, hear this rattle and just think to myself, “Wow, there are big crickets here”. This went on all week long. I never gave a thought to snakes in all my years hiking, sleeping outdoors in a sleeping bag, camping, even though I knew AZ had many kinds of snakes.
On my last day, I was walking along a dry creek bed. I looked ahead and saw a rattlesnake stretched out, slithering down the path, heading toward me. I calmly stepped to the side and the snake just continued on its way. It was like nature was showing me what had been under the rocks I’d jumped over all week.
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I can relate to your experience. I have had a few encounters in my time, nothing very melodramatic, but I did see snakes around me. The one which I remember most is one afternoon I was lying beside a pond in our village house, just after I had a good swim. I was lying on my back enjoying the cloudy blue sky. There was no harsh sun. That’s when I realised that a serpent, non-venomous but very large was movig beside me. Some instinct kicked in and I did not movee. The snakee acknowledged my presence, lingered a while and then slithered past me. I kept on admiring nature. I was scared when the snake had passed me, because though not poisonous these snakes are known to leave a nasty bite if agitated.
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I have a psychological fear of reptiles – the creepy, crawly things. Yet you present them here as more ‘human’ than we humans are. Your story also negates the age old concept and concern for human conquests. Concern not over its devastative aftermath but concern for the absence of it.
The forest for readers like me symbolises a somewhat untresspasable zone. A place to be dreaded therefore discovered and ultimately destroyed for ‘better’ utilisation which may also be read as misappropriation. In contrast , you present the untrodden, heavily canopied, thickly leaved grounds as a sanctuary of stilled observation. Where temptations are handed over to tranquility and co-existence substitutes annihilation.
Humans don’t understand, nor they ever will, that elimination of perceived enemies is actually self annihilation. We want to kill the beasts outside but what about the beasts within? Unfortunately today’s ravaged world does not present a satisfactory answer to that question nor does it provide any kind of solace for future interrogation.
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Dear Geeta, thank you for such a deeply reflective response to the story. What moved me most in your comment is the honesty with which you began. Fear of reptiles is something many people carry, often from childhood, and it takes a thoughtful reader to look beyond that instinct and engage with the ideas beneath the surface.
Your reading of the forest as a space of still observation rather than conquest is beautifully expressed. For much of human history we have approached landscapes with the assumption that discovery must eventually lead to domination or utilisation. Yet forests have their own quiet intelligence. They invite us not to conquer them, but to slow down enough to notice how life sustains itself without the need for human intervention.
I was also struck by your question about the beasts within us. That tension lies at the heart of many environmental stories. The danger is rarely the animal we fear in the wilderness, but the impatience and aggression we carry into places that have survived perfectly well without us. When we attempt to eliminate what we perceive as enemies in nature, we often forget that we are dismantling the very systems that keep us alive.
The cobra in the story is therefore not just a creature of the forest. It is also a quiet mirror. It asks us to reconsider whether fear must always lead to destruction, or whether understanding can sometimes replace it.
Thank you again for engaging with the story at such depth. Your reflections add a thoughtful dimension to the conversation that stories like this hope to begin.
With kind regards,
Trishikh
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You are a wonderful writer. You are introducing me to so many interesting people. Thank you
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You are most welcome. I am glad to have been able to introduce you to some interesting people.
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Every one who is sensibly enough to let himself go, and able to embrace his or her natural condition, the freedom from ordering, manipulating, disposing, and reject conceptual severity and definiteness, will find inspiration in your story.
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Dear Michael, thank you for such a thoughtful reflection on the story. I am glad it spoke to you in that way. The natural world often reminds us that life does not always require our constant urge to organise, control, or define everything too sharply. Sometimes the most meaningful understanding comes when we allow ourselves to simply observe and experience what is before us.
Your words about embracing our natural condition resonate strongly with the spirit of the story. The forest, the cobra, and the human presence within it are all part of a larger rhythm that exists quite comfortably without human attempts to impose order upon it.
I am grateful that you found inspiration in that quiet idea. Thank you again for reading and for sharing such a generous interpretation.
With kind regards,
Trishikh
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Wow Trishikh, your experience with a large snake sounds scary. I stepped on a sleeping snake in a dark hotel room one time, standing on it actually as I was reaching to turn on a light in a room we’d just booked for the night. Luckily it didn’t react other than quickly leaving through the open door.
I learned to like snakes when a guy shared his pet boa constrictor with the kindergarten kids from the Alternative school I was working at. He’d bring it to the park regularly. It was well fed and safe and the kids would hold it and let it slither over them. I figured if they could do it, I should be able to, too. So I learned to hold it, too. It was a pretty large snake. Thankfully we all survived.
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That must have been quite a moment, suddenly realizing you were standing on a snake in a dark room. I imagine your heart must have leapt into your throat for a few seconds. Fortunately for both of you, the snake seems to have chosen the most sensible response, which is exactly what most snakes prefer to do when they encounter humans. Quietly leave.
Your experience with the boa and the children is a wonderful example of how familiarity can slowly dissolve fear. Children often approach animals with a kind of openness that adults gradually lose. Watching them calmly hold the snake must have been an interesting lesson in trust, both in the animal and in ourselves.
It is reassuring to know that all of you survived the encounter with your dignity and curiosity intact. Sometimes the smallest shifts in perception can change how we see an entire group of creatures.
Thank you for sharing such a vivid and personal story. It adds a lovely layer to the conversation around this piece.
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Your story makes me realise that we observe, respect and try to integrate when we wish to belong. We fear or fire when we desire to possess and control. An apt lesson for the times!
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Dear Kajoli, thank you for expressing the idea so beautifully. You have captured the quiet tension at the heart of the story. The difference between belonging and possessing often lies in the way we approach the world around us. When we wish to belong, we slow down, observe, and learn the rhythms that already exist. When we wish to control, fear often becomes the language we speak.
The forest in the story offers that small reminder. It asks nothing from us except patience and humility. If we arrive with those, even the most feared creatures begin to appear less like enemies and more like fellow inhabitants of the same fragile world.
Your reflection that this is a lesson for our times feels very true. Perhaps the first step toward harmony is simply remembering that we are participants in nature, not its masters.
Thank you for reading so thoughtfully and for sharing such a clear insight.
With kind regards,
Trishikh
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You have a great talent. I wish you much success w/ your books.
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Thank you so much Anna. I always treasure your appreciation and encouragement.
Yes the books are a real dream come true. I will be publishing many more books as long as I can.
However I shall also continue to write free short stories for my readers to enjoy.
I am also working on free audio versions of my short stories on YouTube. They will be available very soon.
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