Category Archives: Short

The first man he had brought death to was his father. He brought it to him in a dirty golden goblet, stained purple with the earthy poison it often held. His mother had tried to take this burden, to go in his stead, but Athenian law was clear. Only Lamprocles, the firstborn son, could fulfill his family’s duty to the city. Today, that duty was to supply the poison for his father’s execution. Thus was Lamprocles, the fittest of his family, reduced to Death’s delivery-boy.

He was not a very fast courier: the large, uneven steps leading to the city center were difficult for his juvenile legs to surmount and he was in no hurry. With the goblet in his left hand and dawn in his eyes, Lamprocles fell into sun-bleached dreams and a rhythmic tread.

He imagined that he had already laid down his life. He had taken the hemlock himself as soon as he acquired it and was now floating above the city, disembodied. He saw his body delivered to his home and his younger brother pulling furiously at his limp hand, unable to accept reality. He saw his mother in unending sobs, crying over his body so loudly that the entire city knew her grief. The Archons were overwhelmed with shame and canceled his father’s execution. Even as Lamprocles’ ethereal spirit was pulled down to Hades, he saw his father released from prison surrounded by friends and revelry. Lamprocles’ ghost passed before the crowd and he saw a glimmer of recognition in his father’s eyes. His father stopped mid-stride and, for the first time, Lamprocles saw tears stain his father’s face.

A small crack in the stone widened as he stepped on it and Lamprocles found his daydream and his balance both overthrown. He leaned forward and threw himself against the lip of a higher step. It bruised his ribs but restored his balance and kept the goblet level.

Lamprocles tried to massage the pain away with his free hand. Indulgent self-pity. Childish. His lifeless body would not soften any hearts or save any lives. He had … Continue Suffering →

“Compassion is the basis of all morality”
—Arthur Schopenhauer

The first man he had brought death to was his father. He brought it to him in a dirty golden goblet, stained purple with the earthy poison it often held. His mother had forfeited the (not insubstantial) silver for the mixture, and the People had been kind enough to provide the goblet itself. Thus was Lamprocles, the fittest of his family, reduced to Death’s delivery-boy.

Despite years of similar service for his mother, he was not a very fast courier: he moved towards his destination in a cautious stabilizing tread. This was somewhat necessary, as he had to overcome the city’s most recent scars- scattered mounds of splintered stone and shredded wood. As he climbed over these remains of the Athenians’ once grand wall, he kept his goblet-hand locked and extended, so as not to spill the mixture. Were he one year younger, he would have engineered such a spill rather than avoid it. He would have run in quiet tears to his mother and claimed there was an accident on the road or an incident at the herbalist’s store. She would have consoled and lightly scolded him, then turned to her father for another loan to pay for the second dose. She would have gone herself the second time, to beg the storekeeper for another mixture at a reduced price so that her children would not be hungry while they mourned. All the shame, dishonesty, and poverty, he would have endured- if only it bought his father the time it took to deliver a second mixture.

But Lamprocles was twelve years of age, and though not yet a man, he had begun to understand what it was that would make him so. Honor and Duty obligated him to guard the goblet with his life. He was more than willing to lay down his life- he had, in fact, planned to do so, to drink the hemlock himself as soon as he acquired it and thereby save his father’s life. But, in time, he recognized this childish plan for what … Continue Suffering →