What? Python Attempts Swallowing Lover?

I read a story today, culled from the (in)famous Cameroon Post, which must be Cameroon's version of the National Inquirer. It'll be hard for me to remain serious through this, but I'll try. First, here's the entire published story:

'Python' Attempts Swallowing Lover
By Peter Mu-Nyete

A tycoon, whose name The Post got as Ndzomo Ursin Clotaire, 46, allegedly tried to swallow his lover in her residence in Dschang when he transformed himself into a python.

According to reliable sources, Ndzomo, who was a fridge technician at the University of Dschang, met his girlfriend [Henriette] for sexual intercourse. After the fling, The Post learned, Ndzomo entered the bathroom and closed the door behind him, leaving the girl lying in bed.

It is said that a short while later, Henriette was shocked to see the door of the bathroom open and a python - mboma - crawl towards the bed and try to climb it. The frightened woman reportedly started screaming for help, leaping out of the room and calling out to her neighbours.

When some neighbours turned up, they reportedly sighted the tycoon, now a human being, hurrying down the stairs and drive off in his car. By the time of compiling this report news had reached The Post that Ndzomo had fallen seriously ill with poison oozing out of his skin.

The Post also gathered that the man was receiving traditional treatment in Yaounde but unfortunately a week ago, news spread in Menoua municipality that he had died. It is believed that the tycoon was involved in a secret society on main fronts; wealth, vehicles and women.

Now, back to the issue at hand ... Maybe poor Peter Mu-Nyete is an honest bloke trying to make an honest living, but how can this pass through an editor's desk and into print?

There are obvious technical flaws in the story. The story refers to the dude as a "tycoon," which means he must be a business man of considerable wealth and power. Apparently, being a "fridge technician at the University of Dschang" must be the pathway to tycoondom, especially if you are involved in a secret society to amass "wealth, vehicles and women," whatever that means.

Let's follow the story again. This man eats the forbidden fruit with his mistress, goes into the bathroom to wash his mouth (or whatever men do after dining in the Garden of Eden), meets David Copperfield - who transforms him into a python. The python then slithers it's way into bed, alarming the missus, who gets hysterical. Busted, El Serpento summons the invisible Copperfield, who renders him invisible before returning him to his original species. Next thing we know, the man - now clearly visible - is seen entering his car (it must be a Bentley) and heading for the hills. Or, in this case, Yaounde, where he allegedly received treatment for failing to suffocate and swallow his nude prey. He later dies, allegedly, but not before his soul returned to the python, which by now is eating a freshly suffocated chicken at the Dallas Zoo, where Jabari, a 13-year-old gorilla that disappeared from Dschang 3000 years ago, was shot after trying to escape back to Africa.

Of all the cool animals in the wild, why would anyone choose to be a python? Was leopard off the Copperfield menu? If I had to renew my membership into a cult by eating my mistress, the last thing I would want to transform into would be a python. A python is a burly snake that kills its prey by suffocation, then swallowing it wholly. It doesn't even get to taste what it is eating. And once it eats something significant, it is unable to slither far away.

Reading this crappy story, as a violent storm rages outside, reminds me of a story I heard while visiting Cameroon in 1999. I had inquired about the recent passing of Hoffman Bate, a popular dude in Limbe.

"Them say them kill he beef for bush," was the response I got, and it came from a brilliant ... attorney - which is all the proof I need to believe that this stuff actually happens.

Someone, anyone; just shoot me.