Samantha Ames

Pick up Snakes
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Pick up Snakes

Samantha Sea Ames

May 25, 2019

I am not afraid of what I am told to be afraid of. I pick up snakes from the garden and

make them my pet. I name them ‘Buddy’ and show them to my friends. I see them as a member

of this world. Not some demon hailed from the wrong side of heaven. A snake is a snake. And

the fires in hell have my full consent to scathe me if they exist.

Ash and soot must line the trails of the places I’ve been. God fearing men and women

must wonder how I have not been smited where I stand. If God exists then he shall not have any

quarrel with me for I have no quarrel with him.

I do however have a problem with those who use religion to elevate their social value.

You, who hold beliefs in something with no scientific evidence, cannot increase your piety with

a few prayers and hellbent faith.

I have faith.

I have faith in the facts of life. I breathe, my heart beats, my brain thinks and controls my

body, and mostly one day I will die. I have faith that this world is unbeatable. It will win every

life or death battle I try to engage in. Which does not upset me in the slightest. In fact, I embrace

it. When I die I am dead and it is comfortably final.

I don’t want a lavish afterlife in the clouds. I want a hard earned life where everything I

have came at the cost of my hours and my sweat. I want to see the quantity of my achievements

and know that I have worked for this. I wish to leave the remnants of my life behind to my

children, my friends, and even my rivals. I want them to see the fight I had in the creations I
 Samantha Ames
Pick up Snakes
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leave behind. My art is my life that will live on when I die. And to me, that is the most

comforting thought as my final breath slips past my lips.

One cannot pray to some otherworldly being to be rescued from hard times. Life is not

supposed to be all happiness and sunshine. Life is dancing in the rain and laughing in the face of

conflict. Life is learning to be happy when everything around you would rather see you fail and

fade away.

The trick is being able to say, “TO HELL WITH IT ALL!”

I am not afraid of hell, for even if it does exist I would be the kindest atheist in the firepit.

I will have died knowing I lived every moment to the fullest and treated everyone I met with the

utmost compassion. I will not balk if hell is real but I sorely doubt that it is. So I pick up snakes

and learn their behaviors, just in case.