Microstory 1274: The Jackdaw and the Sociopath

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One day, a sociopath was sitting in a field—enjoying his time away from other people, and their pesky emotions—when he witnessed a magnificent eagle drop down from the sky, and snatch a lamb from the ground. He might have been impressed by this, but he was incapable of experiencing most feelings, so he just shrugged it off. He then witnessed a jackdaw fly down as well, but there were no more lambs on the ground, and it was far too small anyway. Still, it evidently wanted to prove itself as strong as the eagle, so it attempted to lift the ram. The ram didn’t even notice. Sadly for the jackdaw, not only did it have no chance of accomplishing this, but its little feet actually got caught on the ram’s wool, so it couldn’t fly away. The sociopath walked over, and considered freeing the poor bird, but since he didn’t care about its life, he merely clipped its wings so he could return home and show his kids the funny little bird. The sociopath’s wife had always suspected her husband of having violent tendencies, but now she knew he had a problem. She called the police on the sociopath for his disturbing behavior, thinking surely his actions were illegal. Well, they weren’t. They were horrifying, and terrible—mutilating a living organism—but there was no law against it. So the police were unable to do anything to help the wife. Anger was the one emotion the sociopath had no trouble understanding, and in a fit of rage, he killed his wife. The moral of the story is don’t marry sociopaths; they can’t be trusted.

This story was inspired by, and revised from, an Aesop Fable called The Eagle and the Jackdaw.