Bringing the Ruckus
A Zeno the Stoic Adventure. Part 5.
Hail Lambpoonies!
You know the drill by now. This Zeno story is a sequel to The Dog. Buy it! Or don’t. You can read it with Kindle Unlimited, too. But this isn’t the first time Black Sea Pirates showed up around these parts.
5
304 B.C.
“Wake up, little piggy,” Crates demanded. “This story is sagging so it’s party time! You're invited, too. Happy days!”
Zeno groaned. He'd been having the greatest dream. He was a famous philosopher, so famous the Greek world openly speculated on his sexual preferences. They seemed to think he preferred little boys. To head off any career ending charges of misogyny, he ordered a little girl instead of his usual and his career was saved.
Now, as the narrator of this questionable little story, I'm going to crack a window in the Fourth Wall. I feel the need to interject. Zeno was gross. He really did this. It wasn't a dream. We now return to his story.
“Get up,” Crates repeated. “Get up, little piggy.”
“Phoenician!”
“That’s just more syllables to say piggy, right? Come on. We got you a cloak. You tore your new tunic somehow. You’ll have to handle your own staff, though.”
“I am so confused,” Zeno admitted.
“I don’t care about your identity,” Crates lectured. “Get up! Party time, damn it!”
“I haven’t eaten in three days,” Zeno complained. “I don’t know if I can get up.”
“There’ll be food at the Academy,” Crates explained. “And academics, sadly. But you can eat your little heart out once we get there. If you can stomach the company, anyway.”
This perked Zeno right up and he leaped to his feet, realizing if he could tolerate Crates, he could tolerate anyone. Maybe. But in either event, he was looking forward to tolerating the pants off a burrito or something. Not even the tattered, soiled cloak Crates handed him could spoil his new mood. A real symposium! And he was invited!
“Oh, love,” Hippa smiled. “He's so excited.”
“Don't ruin it for him. Let's go,” Crates said with a certifiably evil grin. “We don't want to be late for this one. I invited some old friends, too.”
The gardened courtyard in the Academy was full. Not just of plants, or statues, but of slightly more intelligent, educated idiots, too. Representatives of the various schools all seemed present, gabbing and gobbling food at the buffet in a wild, liberal animation, excitedly tittering over gods know what. Finally, Zeno had found what he hadn’t known he’d been looking for since washing ashore. Food.
In his hungry excitement, he hadn't even noticed Crates spit in the gatekeeper's face when asked for invite and identification. His expectorant apparently served as both, considering the freshly moistened guard waved all three of them inside immediately. Instead, Zeno sprinted straight for the food. They had foie gras! He didn’t know what that was, but it was delicious. The little cubes melted in his mouth and down his throat.
A bearded man, largely indistinguishable from the other bearded men, clapped his hands and spoke in an expression-free, monotonous drawl, “Now the dogs are here, with a newcomer it looks like, gather in a circle please. Everyone.”
The various seals and dogs dutifully gathered together in a circle, looking quite a bit like fat, bearded seals. All but Zeno, who was still busily gobbling little cubes of goose liver like Slavoj Zizek stuffs teeners of coke up his nose. But Zeno put them in his mouth, not his nose, puffing and bulging his cheeks as he did. So, maybe more like a Marxist hamster? Whew. Saved the metaphor. Gods, I could go for some cocaine right now.
Also, crap. I forgot to close that Fourth Wall Window. It's closed now. And I was totally kidding about wanting cocaine. Unless you know a guy. Anyway, back to the story.
“Gentlemen,” the host-beard droned, nodding at each in turn. “There is a new face here tonight. The Academy welcomes him. I am Scholarch Polemon. Let's take a moment for him to introduce himself, the school he’s from, and… oh, I don't know, tell us what he thinks is best in life. And don't say ‘driving your enemies before you' like some barbarian. The noblest pursuit.”
“Thanks, Pole,” Crates said. “I'm Crates. I'm a dog and the best thing in life is virtuous living as Nature intended. No money, no homes, and certainly no nobility. As equal as we are naked. Just life, ya’ll. And insulting hookers. PS: Lenny Bruce is a BEEP! Yep, still doing that.”
Zeno started as a shrill, loud beep escaped Crates’ mouth, finally noticing several of the seals were staring at him. He swallowed hard and hurried to join them.
“Not you, Crates,” Polemon admonished. “Your hamster friend stuffing his face. And yes, we censor obscenity here. Only barbarians need to curse. What is your name, young man?”
“Oh. Uh, hi,” Zeno stuttered over a stomach groaning from a sudden weight. “I’m Zeno of Citium. I suppose I’m a dog, too. Trying it out. Though, if I’m being honest, I’ve been considering canceling my subscription with the Cynics. There has to be a better way, you know?”
“Of course there is,” Polemon replied with his dead voice. "You’ll find all the ways here at the Academy. Nothing terrifies us. We welcome diversity on my watch. People from everywhere in the world, with all the variety of thought that comes with it, regardless of station.”
“Bull BEEP!” Hippa blurted, laughing. Zeno missed why exactly. His stomach now seemed entirely too full, growling in a decidedly unpleasant manner.
“Well,” Polemon said. “That seems to be the newcomer. Let's cut it there, if just to spare this story's wordcount. Please enjoy the food and wine and make sure to write about how gracious, tolerant, and welcoming the Academy is these days.”
Crates and Hippa both snorted another laugh at that. Zeno still couldn't be bothered to figure out what was so funny in favor of finding a latrine. He swiveled his head in a panic. His meal was coming to a head. To a butt? Quickly, in either event, to either end.
“Epicurus,” Polemon asked. “Want some foie gras? Zeno seems to have missed some.”
“No thank you, Polemon,” Epicurus replied. “I don’t eat anything I can’t pronounce, and by corollary, nothing spelled so stupidly. I don’t eat fancy things. But I would take a nibble of cheese if you’ve got it.”
“So much for your pursuit of happiness,” Polemon deadpanned. “Denying yourself the pleasure of abused duck liver? Asking for the remainder of some minimally abused cheese, instead? How does that make you happy?”
“Listen, smart guy,” Epicurus began patiently. “When you’re pissing out your butt later, will you remember that’s the pleasure I deny myself?”
“Probably not,” Polemon conceded. “I'll be too busy.”
At that moment, while Zeno focused entirely on pinching off his suddenly insistent, unplanned fecal event, several deep voices were yelling from the gate, “Bring the ruckus! Bring the ruckus!”
“Oh BEEP,” Polemon uncharacteristically screeched as he and his fellow seals scattered like roaches under a sudden light. They each fled the Academy as quickly as their fat, nerdy bodies would allow while Polemon screamed. “Black Sea Pirates! Get out if you value your lives!”
“Bring the mother, bring the motherBEEPing ruckus!”
As every top intellectual in Athens fled in terror, Zeno simply couldn't hold it any longer, and he BEEPed his cloak. Shame washed over him as surely as dooty washed down his leg. His vision and hearing suffocating under the weight of shame, he didn’t even notice the newcomers, seven of them, all dressed in black with dark skin.
“Oh BEEP,” Crates characteristically exclaimed. “That’s right! Get out racists! Where's your welcoming tolerance now?! Who's my Wu?! Wu-Tang my Wu! My BEEP!”
“Ah BEEP,” a Black Sea Pirate exclaimed. “We're not here to work! Why y'all running? Oh BEEP, Dog! You got foie gras! In ancient Athens?! How the BEEP?! I still won’t eat that BEEP, it’s cruel to the birds, nahmean? I can eat the pants of a BEEPing olive, though.”
Crates grinned and turned to Zeno, slapping him on the shoulder. “I’m proud of you, Little Phoenix. When all those welcoming, tolerant fools fled over a half dozen pirates, you didn’t. You stood your ground and only barely BEEPed yourself. Your training is paying off already.”
Woken from his shame-stupor by the unexpected compliment, as barely digested goose liver ran down his legs, Zeno looked up, seeing the Black Sea Pirates fully for the first time, and replied, “What?”