The Slave

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A man had a slave. And the slave had to do all the chores for him. The slave washed the man, combed his hair, cut up his food, and put it in his mouth. The slave wrote the man’s letters for him, shined his shoes for him, darned his socks for him, chopped the wood for him, and lit the fire in the stove. When the man saw some raspberries while taking a walk, the slave had to pick them and put them in his mouth. To keep the slave from running away, the man always kept him on a chain. Day and night, he had to hold on to him and haul him around, or he would have run away. In the other hand, the man always carried a whip because when the slave pulled on the chain and yanked at it, the man had to whip him. Then when his arms hurt, and he was exhausted from whipping him, the man swore at the slave, and at the chain, and generally at everything.

Sometimes he secretly dreamed of the times when he was still young and didn’t yet have a slave. In those times he could still roam through the woods free as a bird and pick raspberries without this constant tugging and tearing at the chain. Now he couldn’t even go to the can by himself. In the first place, because the slave would have run away, and in the second place: who would have wiped his butt? He himself couldn’t free up either hand for that.

One time when he was bellyaching like that, someone said to him: "Well, if it’s so terrible, why don’t you let the slave go free?"

"Sure," said the man, "so he can kill me!" But secretly the man dreamed of freedom.

And the slave? Did he dream of freedom too? No, he had long ago given up dreaming of freedom. The only thing he dreamed of was of being the master himself and leading the man around on a chain and whipping him and making him wipe his butt. That’s what he dreamed of!

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