“An animal which stands upright,” my old friend said, trying to divine a proper definition. He had asked me here to help him out; and, as a good friend from our childhoods, I had agreed.

I shook my head. “An ox does not lie flat against the ground.”

“Nor does the h-” and he caught himself. He had been about to say ‘horse.’ “Nor does the hyena,” he corrected. I nodded.

“An upright animal with two legs,” he looked at me, and remembered the Edict that my kind could not be full citizens; thus, we were officially not people, “and no mane of hair.”

Ahh, ever the politician, my friend. No hurt feelings from me. Then again, “Do you despise women, Plato, so much that you are banishing them from mankind?” Now that should be an interesting spell, I had to admit.

Plato had the good graces to blush. “I fear I will never solve this riddle,” he admitted after a pause. His standing in the academic community, as well as his personal reputation were staked on this, what had begun as a harmless gentlemen's’ duel of words and wit.

“Go home,” I told him. “Reflect tonight, make sure you sleep. I will meet you on our way to the gathering.” I stood up and bowed just my head to him. “Good health to you, friend.”

I whistled sharply, a sound more fitting to a bird than a man, and waited for my son to say goodnight to his friends of both kinds.

When Hypolyt, my son, did come, I admit that I was upset that his hair had not grown back more than it already had: his mane was still the length worn by human lads. I heard Plato chuckling softly as he got up, nodding to my son and I.

Hypolyt and I walked out of the polis, the city of humans, past the homes of poor and a few rich. We passed a flock of sheep and the fauns keeping an eye on them; Hypolyt waved enthusiastically to one of the lady fauns his age, much to my - and the girl’s parents’ - embarrassment.

‘The ways of the young are fickle, no matter what Kind they are,’ I remember my own father telling me. I think that that was after he made me scrub the black paint from my hooves: paint in a single line on each, to mimic the cloven nature of the satyrs and fauns, who were more affluent than we sileni. My father’s proverb, passed down from Silenus himself, held just as true in regards to Hypolyt’s over-trimmed mane.

At last we arrived at our home, a house nestled snugly between two hills. Centuries of dealing with threats had honed our home-making skills, until our houses were indistinguishable from the surrounding hills. Only the open door marked this as anything other than a wide single hill.

And this was why some people called silenis the ‘rabbits with hooves.’

When morning came, my son and I awoke and grabbed a quick bowl of food. Unlike the centaurids, we sileni are not opposed to eating oat meal, as I did that morning; we simply dislike being teased about it.

I was in the process of swallowing when Hypolyt asked his question. He usually asked one every morning, his way of waking up. “Why do humans have beds?”

I nearly choked. Images of a comely human lass flickered through my mind briefly. I resolved to have a chat with Hypolyt’s teachers after the meeting ended. “Because their legs are weaker than ours, son,” I answered truthfully; “They cannot sleep on their feet.” Not usually, anyway.”

My son made a face. “But then, why don’t they just ask the gods for better ones?”

Oh, an easy question. “Because they are stubborn.” Example, he’ll be wanting an example. “Remember your lessons on the Athenians against the Persians?” Hypolyt nodded.

I made sure that Hypolyt finished his meal, then had him brush out what little mane he had before I would let him out the door. The walk to his school was uneventful, and I dropped him off there.

And then I waited.

The sun had risen several tens of degrees in angle to the earth before Plato arrived. In one hand was a cloth bag, slightly bloodied on the bottom, though, if my eyes were any judge, it had since dried.

He handed me the bag. “Do not open it until I say so, if you please.”

“What is in the bag?” I asked.

He simply smiled the rest of the block before answering “The answer to the question.” Then he shut up, and would say no more.

The wait would have driven a human to steal a peek, to open it anyway. Is that what defines a man? At any rate, I increased my stride, then suddenly slowed, trying to see if it would jostle.

Nothing.

Then again, I had to remember, that he’d placed it in a cloth would tend to dampen any tell-tale hints that it may have given off.

And then we were here, at the academy corner near the decorative gardens. The place where we regularly gather to talk and debate.

My hooves clicked softly against the tiled floor as I stepped to the center of the open-air room -- as being surrounded by Ionic and Doric columns, as well as the framework to a roof were adequate for the definition of a room, we’d long since decided -- with Plato standing at his seat. He nodded to me, which I took as the signal to remove the weight from the sack.

I opened the sack and looked down. It was neither wood, clay, or metal. It was flesh. I reached in and pulled out -

“A chicken!” Adrepez, another sage, exclaiming what we could all see.

“Plato’s man is a chicken?” joked Thermostyles, a retired general who hung around us to learn.

“Plato, I’m hurt: that you would rather call a chicken your brother than I?” I asked.

Plato, ever calm, answered “Were I to do that, I may one day call you chicken, friend.”

I gaped. How had he guessed? We are all called sileni by the humans, but among fellow sileni we speak proper names.

Mine is Chiken.

***

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