By Robert Schlesinger
I’m big on similes, metaphors and the like.
One of my favorites involves, depending on the telling, a good Samaritan and a poisonous creature of some sort — a snake, a scorpion, what have you.
The serpent asks the samaritan for help — crossing a river, getting up or down a mountain, etc.
Samaritan: If I pick you up you’ll sting me and I’ll die.
Creature: Nonononononono, of course I won’t. I need your help and won’t hurt you.
You know what’s coming, right? The creature stings. With his dying words the Samaritan asks how the creature could break his word. You knew what I was when you picked me up, the fault is yours. Creatures cannot change their nature.
Alternately, if the story involves crossing a river, the final question-and-answer takes place as the pair drown. Then the moral of the story has the added message of: A creature can’t change its nature, even if its life is on the line.
