WHO IS BES?
A long time ago, Bes guarded ordinary people's homes.
No temple. No priests. No palace. Just Bes — in the house, watching. Strangling snakes with Bes's bare hands. Standing between sleeping families and the demons of the night.
Fierce enough to frighten the dark off. Gentle enough that when a baby smiled at nothing, people said Bes was there, making faces.
Bes is still on the job.
The house changed. The snakes moved.
THE SNAKES
The snakes wear a friendly voice.
They wear your bank's name. Your phone company's logo. A message that says you bought something you never bought.
They don't hide in the grass anymore. They hide on your network — patient, professional, and practised — and they work hard to make sure none of it ever comes back to bite them.
And they don't only prey on the vulnerable. Like a fisherman who works the whole lake, they change the bait for every kind of fish — and even the wise old fish, the one who's never been caught, can be tempted by exactly the right bait.
Getting conned is not about your character, or your wits.
- The snake carries a big bag of bait.
- And the snake has a bait in it for everyone.
- The snake's one job — the one job the snake is good at — is
knowing which one you'll bite.
THE DEMONS
The demons wear a suit, a uniform, a policy booklet.
They arrive afterwards. The bureaucracy. The red tape. The bank that says you opened the door, so it's on you. The insurance company that finds the same door and calls it your fault. Police who would help if they could — but the thief is halfway around the world, and their hands are tied.
Everybody passes the buck. Nobody's there to help you.
And the demon brings one more thing: the embarrassment. People blame themselves. They go quiet. They don't report it, they don't tell their own family — the best guess is only about 5 in every 100 frauds ever get reported at all. The rest suffer it alone, with the rent coming due on an empty account.
That's the demon. And it only ever shows up after a snake gets in.
THE WATCH
So Bes watches — so you never have to meet either of them.
Bes watches your internet around the clock. Not just at night: all day, every day — and closer at night.
Bes watches, but Bes never sees. Never sees your emails. Never sees your passwords. Never sees anything private or personal. Bes watches the door, not your life — who comes and goes, and whether they belong.
Bes won't promise to protect you. Nobody honest can. Bes can't stop you staying on a phone call, and can't make you heed a warning.
What Bes can do is watch. And when a snake tries to slip out of your house with something — shut it down, in the couple of seconds that's all it takes.
Bes strangled snakes then, so families could sleep.
Bes watches for them now, so yours can.
Bes watches, so you can sleep.