Fear by Rhys Davies.

Fear is a short in which there are two persons in the compartment of a train. There is an English boy, and an Indian man with a basket. The man is humming, which apparently bothers the boy. The English boy appears to be afraid of this “different” man. At one point, the man goes nearer and, from his basket a snake arises. The Indian man is a snake charmer. But the boy fells completely horrified by the snake and jumps over to the opposite side of the compartment. This makes the snake loose its quietness and turn angrily towards the boy. Finally, the man manages to quiet the snake again. He tells the boy that he is a snake charmer, and invites him to go to see their performance at a fair in Newport. When they get to the next station, the terrified boy, leaps from the train and runs away.

The story shows clearly how sometimes people react to the unknown. Throughout the story, the presence of this “different” man makes the boy uneasy, as if the fact of belonging to a different race assures something bad about him.

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