Untitled Allegory

Posted it on the forums...but I feel like posting it here to help contribute. I wrote this based on a few sentences in some vocabulary sentences in class a few weeks ago, and had decided to continue it when there was nothing else to occupy my time. I wanted to use this as a learning opportunity, so that I can enhance my skills in this field of creative writing. I want to be able to depict things like this in a better fashion that is at a higher level of understanding. I know that there are things I have to work on; emphasizing his cowardice, the beauty of the earth beforehand and ugliness afterwards, and some supporting statements about the serpent's purpose for being, among other things. I want to make sure that it all flows, and makes sense, but is not over done. I also want to make sure that my point gets through without having read the concepts before coming to a conclusion.

I would highly appreciate it if you guys commented on the story, and tried to guess the concept and moral of the story. This type of story is an allegory, which is sort of a teaching short story with a moral ending. There is a theme in here, and I would like to know if you all understood the symbolism. Thank you for reading it, if you have.

Untitle Story:

A small black serpent slides across the scorching desert sand. Its black scales glimmer as it snakes past a naked man, who is freely basking in the warm sun. The serpent writhes forth, heat within her slits for eyes. It hisses at the man, demanding that he leave at once: this was her territory, and she permitted no stranger to come within only a few feet of her beloved nest, where her eggs lay quietly beneath the earth's soil. But he hardly seemed to notice her whines, and so the snake pursued her defense. She slowly begins to wrap herself around his sun-tanned wrist. With each passing second, the infuriated serpent tightened her grip upon the man's wrist, turning his once perfectly golden skin into an ugly bluish purple color. It was then, and only then, that the man took the time to take his eyes off of the sky above him and look at the snake, and he understood what the serpent wanted at once.

Angrily he cries, "This is my home now! I will speak without another to silence me, eat what I want, sleep where I want, and walk where I please! No man, and no animal is going to take that which I have shed blood, and fought to acquire for so long, in mere moments! Leave now, and never dare to grace me with your unworthy presence again."

The serpent loosens her grip immediately, releasing his hand and retreating. The man smiles, satisfied with the outcome. He then continued to bathe in the sun's golden rays. Many crossed paths with the man. All who witnessed his bawdy exposure were befuddled, and asked themselves; had fighting in the king's bastions driven him insane? But he would not listen to the banter, nor would he the questions, nor the skepticism, just as he had ignored the snake's wishes and calls. He was free now, and needed no words to guide him.

The merciless sun produced beads of sweat from every pore on the man's body. His hair is stuck to his neck, and sand to his skin. But he would not take notice of these trivial things, for his avidity lies within the shapeless puffs scattered across the blank canvas above him--within the wild, and untamed sky--within freedom.

"Freedom," he whispers to the winds ravaging the earth.

The winds answer his call with a single, chilling breeze that rolled throughout the crowded lands. Then they were silent the next moment, as if waiting for a reward of some sort.

"Freedom," he whispers to the clouds, who were oddly suspended in the sky as if held by threads from the saints watching over him.

One giant, snowy puff rolls over him. It stopped momentarily and then left just as quickly as it had come.

"Freedom," he whispers to mankind; to each of the other souls who had broken their chains and escaped the burden of other men.

The man waits for a moment, as if expecting a form of gratification from the other beings on this earth. Then a shadow suddenly drapes his bare body. It is the shadow of a man who bears the fangs of beasts and eyes of a hawk. He looks down upon the naked man and sneers. The man dares not answer his stare, for his eyes alone are deathly. Freedom had brought him here and it was freedom he will take. Then he spoke wordless words and whispered meaningless whispers that the cowardly man could not begin to comprehend. The man screeched in agony, at the cacophonous sounds emitting from the strange man's thin lips. It was a scream that made the birds, and the clouds, and the people flee. A scream that even the most wicked men cringed at upon hearing. No blood had been spilled, no attack made from either man, only a sinister voice was heard. The man left his temple open, his treasure for all men to see, and he merely screamed and writhed, clutching his head and his heart, which was to be his only defense. He is not dying, but still he feels and excruciating pain throughout his entire body. He does not understand this pain, nor would he until it was far too late.

And then the shadow was no more, as if it had never been. The pain faded soon after, causing the man to stop writhing uselessly. But it is more than pain that left him that day. Now calm, he looks upon the earth once more. It seems that the ambiance have been plundered from the earth; the greens, the blues, the yellows and the reds had become faded and ugly, the winds are no longer gentle and sensuous, the sounds of the earth are no longer euphonious, and everything that he smelled and tasted was putrid. He felt an inexplicable emptiness within him; a dull gray feeling washing over his soul and ebbing its way into every part of his cold body. Alas the man cries to the heavens, just to see.

"Freedom!" He cries to the earth.

There is no response. Not from the wind, or the clouds, or the birds, or the people. There is nothing, and his once plentiful chests are now empty and dismal. All had been taken from the man in an instant. Beauty, freedom, the spirit within himself; all taken before his eyes, and without effort. It was back to the castle he went, to the cavalry, and the arduous life he had escaped, and away from the one so poorly defended. His days are forever damned, and freedom is no more.

~*~ Tell me what you think. I wrote it last year so it kind of sucks, and I decided to attempt an active voice instead of a passive voice so I went ahead and made minor changes.