美語情景對話 第29期:不速之客 The Visitor

Todd: Hey Leath! Do you want to go ahead and talk about the story you we're going to say?

嗨，利思！你接下來要講一個故事嗎？

Leath: OK, um, yeah, this was about, I'd say a year and a half ago and it was in Harare, the capital, where my mom lives. I was on holiday back home seeing my mom and anyway it's a Sunday morning and I was in the shower, got up pretty late, it must have been about half ten, and all of a sudden my mom burst into the shower and said," Leath, Leath, there's a snake, there's a snake in the kitchen." And so I thought, "Ah, what kind of snake would this be" cause we live in the capital, residential area, almost high-rise. Well, not high rise, but residential area. And so I put a towel around my waist and walked bad-temperedly throught to the kitchen. Um, attached to the kitchen we've got this little courtyard, where we set out to have morning coffee and breakfast. It's tiled and leads onto a small garden. And so I walked out onto the courtyard and there was a seven foot Egyptian cobra! Wow. I was really, really blow away because I know a bit about snakes and I know that a bite from an Egyptian cobra in a country where antidote isn't readily available is almost certainly fatal. And, there we were, mom and I, with a seven foot Egyptian cobra slithering between the courtyard and our kitchen. And, eventually, we trapped it in the courtyard and I went to fetch guys who work for national parks. National parks are the guys who kind of look after animal problems within the city, and, uh, brought them around, and we were hoping that they were going to catch it because Zimbabwe isn't so rich at the moment and stuff like that. They don't have the facilities to keep caught animals so unless it's endangered they just shoot it, so the guy shot our seven foot cobra.

好的，這個故事發生在一年半前津巴布韋的首都哈拉雷，我媽媽住的地方。那時我放假回家去看我媽媽。一個週日的早上，我起得很晚，大概是10點半，正在我沖澡的時候，我媽媽突然衝進來大喊“利思，利思，有條蛇，廚房有條蛇。”當時我就在想那是什麼樣的蛇，因爲我們住在首都的住宅區，基本都是高樓大廈。雖然不全是高樓，但起碼那是住宅區。我在腰間繫了一條毛巾，心情不爽地走到了廚房。廚房外有一個小院子，我們早上都在那裏喝咖啡吃早餐。院子外面通向一個小花園。我們穿過廚房走進小院子，那兒有一隻7英尺長的埃及眼鏡蛇！我真的被嚇到了，因爲我對蛇有一些瞭解，我知道在一個解毒劑並不常見的國家，埃及眼鏡蛇是致命的。只有我和我媽，還有一隻在小院和廚房間來回滑行的埃及眼鏡蛇。最後我們在小院裏設陷阱抓住了蛇，我聯繫叫來了國家公園的工作人員。他們是負責動物相關問題的專業人士。我把他們帶來希望它們能把這隻埃及響尾蛇抓走，因爲津巴布韋還那時候還買不起這種動物。但他們沒有抓走野生動物的相關部門，除非是威脅到居民生命，他們會把動物射殺，所以那名工作人員舉槍殺死了這隻7英尺長的眼鏡蛇。

Todd: Oh, they shot it, uh!

他們向蛇射擊！

Leath: Yeah, and we had to bury it out back.

後來我們埋葬了那條蛇。

Todd: Really, well, still I'm glad, you just didn't want to be bitten or anything.

真的嗎，我很高興你沒有被咬一口之類的。

Leath: No, no. No way.

那可沒門。

Todd: What a story!

真是個好故事！

注：譯文屬原創，未經允許，請勿轉載。