Male 35+. 266 words. Nikos: "Scarey the Slave." From Aesop's Fable.

By Paul Pasulka

What, you think I’m not good enough to own someone? And how would you know. I heard you were a slave yourself before you got all important and ended up here. How the poor have, um, gotten high and mighty, Mr. High and Mighty Aesop, and, um, then gotten… in jail.

Not that it’s any of your business, but I found him a month ago on the street. Besides, it don’t matter none. You can’t do nothing about it. Pretty soon you won’t be telling no more tales. What? His name? He ain’t got none.He’s from Sparta. You know how they are. They left him on the mountain to die when he were born, alright, on account a he was crippled and all, but I guess he just refused to up and die. Don’t know how he didn’t. Brutal winters. Almost died myself during the war there. Maybe some of your wolves or gooses or foxes looked after him. Says all he knows is he was used as a scarecrow by a farmer - called him Scary the Scarecrow. The farmer got married and moved here to Delphi. But the wife thought the boy were bad luck. That he had the evil eye, cause he was crippled. They tried to sell him, but nobody ‘d buy him, so they threw him in the street with the garbage.

Anyhow, his wife’s bad luck is my good. I got me a slave now. Watch. Boy! (Beat.) BOY! (Beat.) You scared him, is what you did, ugly as you is. He better not have runned off, or you’ll pay.