Tarot Creativity Challenge, Day #6

The Two of Cups

(This is a variation on an old story; the preceding events are the established story, while the dialogue that follows is mostly my own. I came across this story as an African-American folktale from the slave era, although a cursory Internet search suggests that it, like the flood myth, might be one of those cultural near-universals.)

One day a man found a snake by the roadside. The snake had been in some kind of an accident or a fight. Its scales were torn away, and there were long gashes in its belly, back, and sides. Its eyes were dull and dusty. It was not moving.

“Please,” said the snake. “Help me.”

The man took pity on the snake. He picked it up, holding its body close to his own, lending the snake his warmth.

He took it home. He fed the snake with milk squeezed from a cloth. The snake's forked tongue would flick out and lick up each drop of milk as it fell from the cloth. Its eyes grew bright. Its wounds scarred over. It began to writhe around.

When the snake had made a full recovery, the man picked it up again. Again he held it close to his chest, sharing the warmth of his body with the creature. He took it outside, back to the place at the roadside where he had first found it. He took it out of his shirt and set it down. As he did so, the snake whipped around and delivered him a fatal bite on his hand.

“Why did you bite me?” asked the man.

The snake hissed. “You knew I was a snake when you picked me up.”

“I did,” said the man. “And yet I helped you anyway.”

“Fool,” said the snake. “Did you really expect me to go against my nature? I am a snake; I bite.”

“I don't deny you are a snake,” said the man. “But you speak, which means you think. Thinking is your nature. Making choices is your nature. It is your nature to choose what of nature you want to cultivate and what to repress.”

“Arrogant man,” said the snake. “Your kind and mine are enemies. All men have earned death by snakebite. Why should you be exempt from revenge?”

“It is in the nature of men to kill,” said the man. “I don't dispute that. Men kill a lot of snakes. But it's also in the nature of men to make friends. It is in the nature of men to hurt, but also to help. It is the nature of men to choose how they act, and this is the highest of man's nature, and I chose to be helpful and friendly even though you chose to be false and violent. My primary regret is that, in being helpful, I didn't plan for the proper contingencies and wear a pair of gloves.”

Angered, the snake bit the man again, and again. The man groaned and sat down, his blood on fire.

“And now I die,” said the man, “death being a part of my nature over which I have very little conscious control.”

And die he did.