Page 47 - Fables volume 2

Pons Asinorum

Old Buridan stopped, as luck would have it, dead center on the
bridge.
“Jorge,” he croaked. “You are smarter than I ever was. Carry on.”
And Buridan went over the side, unimpeded by the cable at its
lowest point.
The donkey stuck his head over the low railing and caught a last
glimpse of his master, a twig in the tempest of a rain-swollen river.
He had no load: nothing to carry on. His ears twitched at the
annoyance of a fly, carrying on even here, hundreds of meters above
the Rio Borges.
Years of service rewarded by abandonment—or negative freedom.
Jorge looked ahead to the end of the bridge before him. Beyond it lay
open country, home to a herd of wild asses he had often seen on
trips to carry firewood gathered by Buridan in the dwindling forest a
few kilometers further. They would accept him, perhaps, after an
initiation of kicks and bites directing him to his proper position in the
social order. With them he would develop a taste for foraging and
trotting among the hills, withers, spine, and hips unencumbered. Or
suffer unpredictable afflictions of predators, disease and starvation.
Jorge twisted his neck and regarded the other end of the bridge.
Not too far away lay Buridan’s village, their point of origin that
morning. The donkey could retrace his steps to familiar ground.
Another master would take him in charge, perhaps better than
Buridan. Or, as likely, worse. A new routine would ensue, with a new
daily burden. It might be lighter than a load of firewood. But it could
be heavier. Board and lodging—the same unknowns. Security, in any
event. And bondage.
So the decision would be to go forward or go back. Neither
alternative immediately appealed to Jorge. How to decide? He looked
at the cable suspending the bridge and found it arcing in equal half-
catenaries to its supporting posts. He concluded it was the same
distance ahead and behind: he could walk to either end of the bridge
in the same time, expending the same energy with the same number

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