The Socratic Root Vegetable (Flash Fiction)

Once upon a time, a mistake was made in the kitchens of the Bastille. The error was so strange as to seem a miracle. This is what occurred: on the day in question, a young prisoner received in his bowl, hidden beneath the starvation-broth of prison, a raw turnip. The prisoner marveled.  The vegetable brought back to him memories of freedom and meals along the Rue Chalet. Once, he recalled, he had eaten a turnip with onion and pheasant, and another time mashed turnips with sausages.

           

Slowly he drew forth the marvelous prize. He imagined the crunch it would make beneath his teeth, and the thought filled him with joy.

           

The vegetable was ellipsoid and more slender than most. Studying it, the prisoner saw a vision of a man with coarse lavender garments and a fiercely ugly face. Slowly he traced his fingers across the ridges. It was a wise, knowing countenance, the sort that he had hoped to see on his lawyer. Once he had had a lawyer. Now he was forgotten. So long had he been alone that his clothing was mere shreds, symbolic of his hopes.

The prisoner’s nails were long. He used them to take a nick out of the turnip where the little man’s neck might be. The sliver of vegetable tasted fresh and good upon his tongue. Working with concentration and snail-like speed, he proceeded to free the little man’s head, and jacket, and trousers, and feet, eating each scrap as it was cut away. At last the fellow lay in his palm. An ugly man, but a unique one nonetheless. He called it Socrates.

           

***

           

Socrates had lived with the prisoner only a few days before the aptness of his name was proven, for he possessed the ability to rouse the prisoner’s mind from the hopeless torpor into which it had sunk.

           

“Once,” said the prisoner to his turnip, “I believed in the equality of man. ‘Égalité,’ that was my watchword. Do you believe in the equality of man?”

           

Socrates said nothing, but the ridges of his ugly face showed that he pondered.

           

The prisoner admitted, “Perhaps it is a fantasy. The brains and muscles of men are distributed entirely unequally. I myself ought to have received more brains. My father is a clever man, and my brother is a clever man, and even my nephews are clever. But I? I am an idealist, a man of dreams and revolutions. People said at one time that my pamphlet was clever. Yet what has it done for me?” He pointed to the stones around them.

           

Socrates also glanced about, but only as if to say, “Why complain?”

           

The prisoner tried to make his point more plainly. “Their God-given intellects enable them to sit at home in safety. By now they have pawned my watch and sold my books. My intellect merely betrayed me into this living grave. Is that equality? No, it is clear proof that men are born unequal!”

           

Somewhere in the prison, a madman shrieked, and a key ring rattled in a keeper’s hand.

           

The turnip whispered something, and the prisoner laughed. “You claim that the material state does not disprove the spiritual, eh? The mere fact that I rot here does not disprove my moral equality with his majesty King Louis? Perhaps. In the realm of God there is truth without prison. Yet here I sit. Be careful, my friend, or I will think that you are suggesting I should hurry to the realm of God.”

           

(Image of the real Socrates)

The turnip seemed to smile. It was a companionable smile, but not a sympathetic one. What can a root vegetable know about the sufferings of a sensitive human mind? 

           

Slowly the prisoner exhaled. “Your nose reminds me of the nose of Père Aboit, the schoolmaster. Do you know what he would say to me? He would say that the ways of God are inscrutable. Once I told him that mathematics are also inscrutable. He whipped me for impiety and insisted that I memorize the common sums. You yourself, Socrates, are worse than he, for at least he told me that six of six is thirty-six. You tell me nothing.”

           

The turnip smirked.

           

“You are infuriating! As bad as the real Socrates! Forever questioning and badgering, yet never venturing an answer of your own.” The prisoner drew himself up. “Who are you, to look at me thus? Here in this cell you shall treat me as an equal.”

           

Yet as the days went on, the argument was not resolved. Continuously did the prisoner implore his vegetable to cease with smirks, and wise looks, and other subterfuges. He begged it to be free and equal and speak as man to man. Yet it would not.

           

At last, the prisoner came to a realization. He had expected too much of Socrates. How could a newly-carved turnip understand equality, when it had never seen beyond the confines of this cell? How could the ugly little man be free, unless he tasted freedom? The prisoner was grieved. He had come to treasure his friend. Yet because of that love he must act. He must send Socrates forth to feel wind and hear the chatter along the Rue Chalet.

           

The next day, the prisoner hid his companion in the slop bucket. It was not a fragrant way to escape, but it would serve. Socrates would be taken away.

           

Life in the cell was lonely after that, yet no longer bitter. The prisoner had found his philosophy. The equality of men, he explained to himself, is in their equal ability to choose the good and noble course. That was the equality which no prison cell or king could take from him.

*** 

           

Far off in the Bastille kitchens, slops and peelings were being thrown into cauldrons. Steam rose. Somewhere a kitchen boy was weeping because a guard had boxed his ear.

           

Yet in the cell of the prisoner, quiet reigned. The prisoner was at peace.

END

The Station Inspector and Writing with Compassion

Recently I watched the movie Hugo. It prompted me to think about storytelling, and about how difficult it is to create lifelike worlds on paper or screen. Sometimes writers focus so much on crafting their protagonist that they forget to also breathe life into the people who surround him. We human beings tend to be self-centered and inclined to view others only as they relate to ourselves, yet literature is supposed to help lift us out of ourselves and show us more about the world than we are capable of finding inside our own heads. Fiction in which non-protagonist characters have no meaning except in the way they relate to the protagonist’s goals and development is too “realistically” unreal—like our heads, it shows us only what we know already and fails to stretch the way we think about life.

Hugo contains plenty of whimsically fantastical elements, yet it is also an unusually real movie because even the minor characters are nuanced. Despite their brief appearances and scant dialogue, they are treated as individuals, and are not defined merely by their relationship to young Hugo. For example, consider the Station Inspector. Although he menaces Hugo’s daily life and treats orphans cruelly, harshness is not the entirety of his character. The movie hints at his childhood and wartime backstory, and sympathetically portrays his awkward attempts to kindle a romance with the flower seller. The movie is constructed as if the Station Inspector possesses neither more, nor less, of a right to happiness as anyone else. He is simply pursuing his misguided duty as he sees best (emphasized by the scene in which he matter-of-factly saves Hugo from a passing train, then immediately resumes his attempt to collar the boy). In fact, he even travels a bit of character arc on his own—and not merely for Hugo’s benefit. He does not simply soften through his new-found love and release the boy. Instead, his softening is not yet complete in the moment of Hugo’s capture, and the boy is saved only because the Station Inspector is offered a reason for mercy that is compatible with his sense of duty.

How is an author to create such lifelike nuance without burying their story under the weight of irrelevant information? In order to do this, every word must be purposeful. Perhaps every phrase should serve multiple purposes. A scene might center around our protagonist, yet also allow other people’s stories (or hints of stories) to weave through the main plot in a way that adds to the theme or connects to later events. The material in the story should all be relevant to the tale the author is telling—and affect the life of the protagonist—yet it should not all draw its meaning from the protagonist alone. Perhaps that can only happen if the author likes people.

It seems to me that an author who hopes to write in this style cannot do it artificially. Surely such an author must cultivate the compassion that sees others as intrinsically valuable human beings whose lives are interesting in their own way. The author should develop understanding for why people behave in the ways that they do, and the skill to communicate the individuality of humanity’s masses whilst they wander past the protagonist. Perhaps this is simply a way of life.

Things Found and Shared

Join me on a pilgrimage!

Dear Readers,

I wanted to share a few things that I've recently found. Each one made me want instantly to tell some grand and ancient story in beautiful words. If you too are seeking inspiration or merely a  great teatime read, click below.


The Jackdaw, Married
Goblin Fruit is a journal of fantastical poetry. I loved the whimsy and affection of Matthew Joiner's poem in the Winter 2013 issue.

You'll most likely find him on broken ground:
a discerning collector, though his treasures
seem suspect. Crumbs of glass — mirrored, stained —

 Click here: "The Jackdaw, Married. "


England under the White Witch 
Theodora Goss' engrossing, chillingly crafted tale about the White Witch's reign in England carries echoes of Narnia but also the very real ability of human beings to believe in and follow evil.

At first, there were resistance movements. There were some who fought for warmth, for light. Who said that as long as she reigned, spring would never come again. We would never see violets scattered among the grass, never hear a river run. 

Head to Clarkesworld for: "England under the White Witch."


The Black Dog
Also compelling but very different from "England under the White Witch" is this tale about wishes, childhood, and a little girl named Violet by Elise Forier Edie. I would be interested in hearing what you make of it.

“A stray dog followed me home from my walk,” said Violet to the cook, while scraping the mud from her shoe soles by the scullery door. “He has black fur and brown eyes and I can’t get rid of him.” 

“Well, don’t let him in the here,” Cook said sternly, from her perch by the stove. She was plump, frowned a lot and smelled of cloves. “And don’t touch him, mind. You have to be careful of a black dog when he follows you home.”

Go to Enchanted Conversation for "Black Dog."


The Desire for Dragons
Christie of Spinning Straw into Gold wrote a lovely post about the human desire for dragons. Readers may find echoes of Chesterton, C.S. Lewis, Tolkien, and even Thomas Aquinas.

If we occur, un-tampered, with a need for wonder, it logically follows that wonder is something we need to be complete. We need it the way we need lunch, the way plants need sunshine, the way humans digest food and plants photosynthesize light. We transform those things into our very substance. They become an inseparable part of us.

Read "The Desire for Dragons."

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