The dark silhouette in the cage sways slowly, eyes glinting like it’s plotting something. The keeper hauls in a dirty wooden bowl sloshing with rotting blood and guts. Flies swarming, the stench thick enough to choke a grown man.

“Eat, you foul beast” he growls.
“Don’t forget to be grateful. I could’ve left you to die”

He stomps off, boots stamping bloody prints into the dirt.

A year drags by since that first night. The monster’s learned the man’s tongue—comes at a whistle, sits like a mutt, even rolls over for a scrap of praise. The warden grins, his chest puffed with pride.

“You’re mine now...” he says, as he opens the lock.

The cage creaks open. The beast stretches, jaws wide. That night, it feasts better than ever—fresh meat, still warm, no flies to spoil the taste.

The warden's keys buried in the mud.

__

What am I doing?

I've been thinking quite a bit on what my goal is here. The idea of me writing these little short stories, these fables seems suspicious even myself, so I figured I would attempt to write it down.

Maybe the driving force behind these short stories is my feeling of impotence. Sometimes I have discussions with people about political subjects, about life itself, and I seem not be able to reach them. So it would seem that I'm attempting to deploy some sort of disguised message, as if the delivery method for the point I'm trying to make has stealth as it's priority.

With that said, I'm aware as well, that these little short stories, little fables can miss the mark too. Because people interpret the message according to their biases, and that's to be expected. The idea of batting a thousand is not feasible to begin with, but such is life, and I'm at peace with the possibility of the numbers.

But let me ask, for the sake of measuring my ineffectiveness to communicate.

What is this story about?

MenO