Sketch: The Submissive
I was riding horseback along the main road from M— to the castle of B—, to deliver a message to my patron. From some distance away, for the road was very straight, I saw a man kneeling at the side of the road. Now, this in itself was nothing unusual. Beggars were very common on the roads connecting the affluent towns of this country. But as I approached, I noticed he was very well-dressed, without a hint of wear to his brightly-coloured clothes. Furthermore, he was wearing a thick leather collar around his neck, from which an attached rope snaked into the dirt of the road.
I brought my horse to a halt and addressed the man. "Are you alright, sir?" I called.
"Perfectly fine, thank you," he replied cheerfully, with a little wave.
I nodded, and trotted a few steps past. But my curiosity soon brought me back in front of him.
"I couldn't help but notice you're wearing a collar," I said.
"That's correct, sir," he replied with the same carefree air.
"It doesn't look very comfortable," I prompted further.
"No, sir, it isn't," he agreed.
There was a moment of silence in which I contemplated leaving this man to his oddness, but again curiosity compelled me to persevere.
"May I ask why you're wearing it? And why you're kneeling at the side of the road?" I called again, a little more pointedly. "Are you in need of assistance?"
"Oh, no," he laughed, "don't worry about that. I'm wearing this collar because I'm a submissive."
I looked around. We were alone on the road.
"Submissive to who?" I enquired.
"Oh, nobody in particular. I'm just generally submissive."
By this point I realised I was fully committed to the conversation, and I hopped down off my horse onto the dusty ground. On closer inspection, the man looked fresh-faced and youthful. He certainly didn't look like he had been kneeling at the side of the road for very long. The sun had taken no toll on the milky complexion of his face; the wrinkles of his smile contained no grime from the track. I tentatively picked up the trailing end of the rope with my right hand.
"What, so if I held this rope, you'd be submissive to me?"
At this, the strange man fell about laughing.
"No, no, sir," he replied, "not to you. Just in general. It's sort of a part of who I am."
"But," I pushed him on this point, "you can't submit to nobody. Submission implies yielding to the will of somebody else. If there's no will, there's nothing to submit to. So whose will is it that compels you?"
For the first time, the cheery look on his face was replaced by something more pensive. He mused for a few seconds before replying.
"Well, only to women," he said, "I find submitting to men intolerable."
Again I looked up and down the road. "But there are no women here."
"You speak the truth," he admitted, "but as I said, my submission is more general. I suppose I submit to women as a rule."
This seemed ridiculous to me. "What, to every woman? To your mother, to your landlady, to the beggar-woman on the street?"
He mused a little more. "No," he said finally, "to a specific woman, I suppose. She'd have to be worthy of my submission. I just don't know who she is yet. I guess that's why I'm waiting here at the side of this road. I'm waiting for her."
I began a final sortie. "But if you don't know to which woman you are submitting, how can you know what her will is? Are you just assuming her will in advance, and submitting to that idea of it? What if in actuality, she expects something different from you?"
This sally had penetrated his facade. Now he looked worried. He threw up his hands and began pacing in the road, back and forth. The rope writhed behind him like a python as he walked.
"Peace!" he cried. "I need to think."
He paced for a few minutes. For the first time I noticed other travellers on the road. A small but lavish carriage approached, drawn by two horses. The clattering of the wooden wheels on the dusty, stony road grew louder and louder as they approached.
"How am I supposed to think with all this noise?" cried the man again, and he paced still more furiously. The rope began to take on a life of its own, sweeping back and forth, coiling and wreathing trails into the dust.
The rightmost horse of the carriage spooked at the sight of the rope. The carriage jerked forwards, out of control, and the strange man was trampled under the hooves.
"Goodness!" cried the coachman, and we both rushed to the man's aid. But it was too late. His form lay broken and bruised, coughing weakly, a line of blood dripping from the corner of his mouth.
He gestured weakly for me to come close, so he could whisper in my ear.
"Tell me," he choked, "tell me — is there a woman in that carriage? A noble lady perhaps?"
I stood up and peered into the carriage. A rather pale and shaken man of about fifty stared back at me.
I knelt back down to the gasping, dying unfortunate.
"Yes," I lied.
"Oh, thank God," he said with great exertion, "it wasn't all for nothing." And there he expired.
The whole affair proved very unprofitable not just for him but for me also, as I was docked a crown from my commission for the lateness of my delivery.