The Disobedient Strap of Epictetus

Backyard Storm

It was one of those crepuscular afternoons, the kind where the sun hangs low and lazy and pretends it has nowhere urgent to be. Shadows from the old oak stretched across our backyard like long fingers, and I, Mark, twelve years old and as headstrong as a cat that’s just discovered the fish counter, came stomping home from school. My backpack thumped against my shoulders like it was also mad at the world.

Detention. For a paint spill. In my very objective opinion, it was the greatest injustice since they canceled Saturday morning cartoons. Some blunderbuss elbow from the row behind me knocked the jar over, bright blue all across the floor. The teacher looked up, saw the brush in my hand, and that was that. My temper flared so hot I felt like the grass might catch fire around my sneakers.

“It’s not fair!” I yelled at the empty sky, kicking a stone so hard it practically plummeted into the fence. “The whole system is rigged! The rules are lackluster, the posters are lackluster, the justice is lackluster—and did I mention it’s NOT FAIR?”

 

The universe answered by sending me Seneca.

He didn’t appear with thunder or trumpets. One blink the yard was empty; the next blink there he was, standing by the oak, toga and all, arms folded like he’d been watching my tantrum for the last five minutes. His face wore a small, laconic smile, the kind grown-ups get when they know something you don’t and enjoy the secret just a little too much.

“Afternoon, young rebel,” he said. “Your voice is impressive. I’m not sure the neighbors needed quite such a loud demonstration of your misery, but I admire the effort.”

I scowled, still breathing hard. “You going to tell me to calm down?”

“Eventually,” Seneca replied. “But first I’ll tell you a story. About a boy who had more reason to complain than you do. Born a slave in Hierapolis, in Phrygia. Name was Epictetus. His very name meant ‘acquired,’ like a tool or a chair. His master, Epaphroditus, was secretary to Emperor Nero – not exactly a gentle employer.”

He tapped his own leg. “One day, Epaphroditus grabbed the boy’s leg and twisted. Epictetus said, ‘You will break my leg.’ Twist, twist, crack. And then the boy said, calmly, ‘Did I not tell you?’ No scream, no lamentation, no dramatic fall to the floor. Just the facts.”

I tried to picture that. If someone so much as stepped on my toe, I made enough noise for the entire school. The idea that you could have your leg broken and not even cringe felt… well, abstruse. Too strange to believe.

Before I could argue, the air to my right started to shimmer, like heat over a road. A circular outline traced itself in the empty space, glowing orange around the edges.

Out of that glowing circle tumbled Alice, my friend from the stranger corners of reality. She landed on the grass in a tangle of scarf and hair, scrambling to her feet with the kind of grace that only comes from falling down often. The ends of her scarf fluttered like bright plumage in the breeze.

“Did someone order a portal?” she asked, brushing dirt off her knees. Her voice had that blythe cheerfulness I both loved and found mildly suspicious. “I was in the middle of tea with the Queen, but she got annoyed that the biscuits weren’t symmetrical. Again.”

“That sounds like her,” Seneca said dryly. “How is royal hedonism these days?”

“Oh, very active,” Alice sighed. “She thinks any tiny discomfort is grounds for ‘Off with their heads!’ It’s all feasts and shouting. Not very abstemious of her.”

The portal spat out one more traveler: Sherlock, my robot-hamster companion. He landed neatly on all fours, metal paws clicking on the stone by the tree root. His little eyes glowed blue, and a faint hologram flickered to life above his head – lines of numbers and symbols only he understood.

“Emotional reading: ninety-three percent outrage, seven percent despair,” he announced, pointing his nose at me. “Cause: detention incident. Recommended protocol: Stoic calibration.”

“Stoic calibration?” I repeated. “Does that involve getting my teacher to rescind the detention? Because I’d sign up for that.”

“Better,” Seneca said. “It involves you discovering that your mind is not a puppet. Epictetus mastered that trick. He couldn’t walk properly, but his inner life could have run circles around emperors. And since you, my young friend, are already halfway to blowing the roof off with your temper, it seems wise we pay him a visit before you accidentally obliterate your chances at peace.”

Alice’s eyes sparkled. “Field trip?”

“Field trip,” Seneca agreed. “Through time and judgment.”

Sherlock beeped. “Coordinates locked. Nicopolis, Greece. Workshop of Epictetus, teacher of the Enchiridion. Warning: may include uncomfortable truths and mild sandal repair.”

I folded my arms. “And if I don’t go?”

Seneca’s smile widened a fraction. “Then you stay here and keep shouting at the clouds. But between us, they are not likely to change their schedule just because you’re upset.”

The portal’s glow grew brighter, washing the grass and fence in orange. I looked at my scuffed sneakers, the kicked stone, the quiet backyard where nothing seemed ready to apologize to me. Then I looked at Alice, grinning and already halfway into the light, and at Sherlock, who was humming some heroic tune under his mechanical breath.

“Fine,” I muttered. “But if this ends in more homework, I’m blaming all of you.”

“Blame later,” Seneca said, stepping into the circle. “Learn first.”

And with that, we jumped into the glow, leaving my small complaints behind—at least for the moment.

School Temper Tantrum: Time Tunnel

The crepuscular light of my backyard folded up like an old map, and the world slid into an almost ephemeral dusk, the kind that makes you think somebody upstairs has started dimming the lights on purpose. One second I was kicking pebbles and yelling about injustice, the next we were spinning through a sort of oblique tunnel made of sky. My headstrong grumbles bounced off the glowing walls like a blunderbuss going off in a small bathroom.

“Teacher’s lackluster justice!” I shouted, turning end over end. “If there was a world record for blaming the wrong guy, she’d have a gold medal!”

Alice tumbled beside me, skirt and scarf flapping around like confused plumage. She grabbed at the air with tentative little squeaks. “This feels exactly like the Queen’s court,” she said. “Only with fewer flamingos. In Wonderland, her hedonism means off with their heads just because she doesn’t like the color of your socks!”

Seneca rotated calmly as if spinning through time was just a slightly bumpy wagon ride. “Your teacher and the Queen share one illness,” he said, voice perfectly steady. “They both think other people’s mistakes are the main show. Epictetus knew better. He knew chains.”

He pointed, and scenes flickered in the tunnel around us like old movie frames: a crowded street market under the Phrygian sun, stalls full of cabbages and onions; a thin boy with sharp eyes carrying vegetables on his back. “Born a slave in Hierapolis,” Seneca went on. “Sold in the market, shouted over like a sack of potatoes.”

Then the picture changed. A rich Roman house, polished floors, a furious man in fine clothes—Epaphroditus, secretary to Nero. His hand clamped on a skinny boy’s leg.

“You will break my leg,” the boy said. Calm. Sure.

A twist, a crack I could almost feel in my own bones.

“Snap,” Seneca murmured. “And Epictetus, still calm: Did I not tell you? No scream, no cringe, no long, dramatic lamentation about the unfair universe.”

Beside me, Sherlock whirred to life. The little robot-hamster floated upright in the tunnel, eyes glowing bright blue. Numbers and notes scrolled over the tiny screen in his chest, throwing a pale light on our faces.

“Uploading objective packet,” he said. “Mini-Stoic briefing. One: Enchiridion—the little handbook. Core line: ‘It’s not things that upset us, but our judgments about things.’ Two: Epictetus studied with Musonius Rufus—banished from Rome not once, not twice, but three times by Nero. Three: When Emperor Domitian kicked philosophers out in 93 AD, Epictetus just moved to Nicopolis in Greece and kept teaching until around 135 AD. Resolution score: extremely high.”

The data lines floated around us like fireflies. It was hard to stay angry when even your rage had footnotes.

Somewhere inside my chest, something pliable gave a small twist. I was still headstrong, sure. You don’t change a whole personality in one time tunnel. But curiosity slipped in through a crack, the way cool air sneaks in when you open a window on a hot night.

“So,” I muttered, spinning slowly, “if a kid with a broken leg and a bossy emperor breathing down his neck could stay calm… can an ordinary school remnant like me be free too?”

Ahead of us, the tunnel narrowed into a circle of yellow light. Through it I could just make out wooden beams, rough stone, and the soft, crepuscular flicker of oil lamps. The air coming toward us smelled like leather and smoke and something sharp, like vinegar.

“Aye,” Seneca said, as if I’d asked my question out loud. His eyes were kind, but there was a bit of a challenge in them too. “Epictetus would say freedom begins where blaming others ends. He ate simple, abstemious meals. No grand hedonist feasts. He trained his mind the way soldiers train their bodies. We’ll let him explain it himself.”

Sherlock bobbed. “Coordinates locked: dusty workshop, one very important sandal, and one very stubborn philosopher.”

Alice reached for my hand. Her grip was still a little tentative, but she was grinning. “Well, Mark,” she said, “if we’re going to learn how not to explode every time a teacher messes up, this seems like the right stop.”

We shot out of the light in a heap, landing on a hard wooden floor with a collective thud. The smell of leather wrapped around us like a thick blanket, and the tunnel vanished behind, leaving only the lamp-lit gloom of a small room and the sound of someone working, slowly and patiently, in the corner.

Arrival in Epictetus’s Workshop

The first thing that hit me was the smell. Not volcano smoke or sea salt this time, but leather—thick and sharp, like every old belt in the world had come here to retire. The second thing was the floor, because my knees met it pretty hard.

I pushed myself up and blinked.

We were in a long, narrow room with low beams and stone walls that had seen more years than my whole family tree. Oil lamps hung from iron hooks, throwing a soft, golden light that made the shadows sway like they were listening in. Sandals were everywhere—on benches, on pegs, on the floor—rank after rank of them, like an army that had taken its shoes off.

At the far end of the room sat a man on a rough wooden stool.

He wasn’t big, and at first glance he looked like any other craftsman: simple cloak, rough tunic, hands busy with a strip of leather. But his face was the kind that made you straighten your back without knowing why. Not scary—just very, very awake. His right leg rested normally on the floor. His left leg was stretched out in front of him on a low block, stiff and twisted in a way that made my own ankle twinge just looking at it.

“Welcome,” he said, without looking up. His voice was calm, dry, and had the tiniest hint of a smile tucked into it. “New customers? Or just lost?”

Seneca dusted off his toga as if this were all perfectly ordinary. “A little of both,” he said. “Epictetus, meet Mark and Alice. And the small metal miracle is Sherlock.”

Sherlock snapped out his tiny chest antenna and gave a polite beep.

Epictetus finally raised his head and studied us, the way a teacher looks at a new class on the first day—already guessing who will pass and who will try to eat the chalk. His eyes were bright and, strangely, cheerful.

“You’ve brought me children, Seneca,” he said. “Good. Children still have room in their heads. Adults often fill theirs with complaints and then wonder why nothing else fits.”

I felt my ears heat up, as if someone had just read out my name in a list titled “Chief Complainer.”

On his knees lay a worn warrior’s sandal. One strap dangled loose, frayed almost through. As we watched, Epictetus pulled a new strip of leather from a pile, ran his fingers along it, and began to stitch it in with quiet, careful movements.

Alice tugged my sleeve and whispered, “Is that the sandal? The important one Seneca mentioned?”

Sherlock’s eyes flickered. “Statistically speaking, sandals in this room have a seventy-five percent chance of being important,” he said. “But this one is currently winning.”

Right then, the old strap gave up the fight and snapped with a small, stubborn crack. The broken end slapped against Epictetus’s hand.

He didn’t curse. He didn’t sigh. He just held the two pieces up, almost like a teacher holding up an example in class.

“Ah,” he said. “There it is again. The famous runaway strap.”

I opened my mouth to say something smart about bad craftsmanship, but he turned the full force of his gaze on me.

“Tell me, Mark,” he said gently, “when this little thing breaks on a soldier’s foot in the middle of a charge, what usually happens first—the strap breaking, or the soldier’s temper?”

I thought about that. “The temper,” I admitted.

Epictetus nodded. “Exactly. The strap is leather. It’s supposed to wear out. That’s its job. The soldier’s character, on the other hand, is not supposed to tear every time something goes wrong.”

He laid the broken sandal on the bench and tapped it with one finger.

“Out there,” he went on, tilting his head toward the invisible world beyond the workshop walls, “markets are noisy, masters are cruel, emperors are moody, and straps break at the worst possible moment. In here”—he touched his chest—“is the only place you can actually set the rules.”

Alice edged closer, eyes wide. “So this is… like your classroom?”

He smiled. “This is my classroom, my temple, and my gym. I fix sandals for their feet and stories for their minds. And today, perhaps, one story about a boy who thinks a teacher has stolen his whole world because of a little paint.”

I felt that one land like a pebble in my shoe.

The Strap and the Inside World

Epictetus patted the bench beside him, the way a grandfather might invite you to sit and listen to a story you definitely need but probably don’t want.

“Come closer,” he said. “It’s hard to explain freedom to someone standing all the way over there.”

I shuffled forward. The bench creaked under my weight and a small cloud of leather dust puffed up, smelling like old journeys and sweaty feet.

He picked up the broken strap again and held it between his fingers. “Let’s play a game,” he said. “Two piles. Things you control, things you don’t. Which pile does this go in?”

“The strap?” I asked. “The ‘don’t’ pile. Obviously.”

“Good.” He nodded. “You cannot make leather live forever. You cannot make teachers always fair or emperors always kind. You cannot make your leg un-snap after a foolish master twists it.” He tapped his crooked leg with two fingers, almost casually. “All that goes in the ‘don’t’ pile.”

He set the strap down and turned his gaze on me again. “What about this?” He pointed not at my head or my chest, but somewhere in the air right between them.

“My… attitude?” I guessed.

“Your judgment,” he said. “What story you tell yourself about what just happened. That goes in the ‘do’ pile.”

Alice leaned on the bench arm, chin in her hands. “In my world,” she said, “the Queen’s story is always: ‘Someone breathed wrong. Off with their heads.’”

“Exactly,” Epictetus said. “Same tea party, different story. One story leads to laughter; one leads to terror.”

Sherlock hopped onto a small crate, his metal feet ticking on the wood. “Logging concept,” he chirped. “Inside world versus outside world.”

Epictetus smiled at him. “You see, when I was a boy in Hierapolis, I thought freedom meant not being a slave. Later, living in Rome, I saw rich men chained to their fears like dogs to a post. They could order ten dinners and twenty musicians, and yet a single rumor from the emperor made them shake harder than any servant.”

“Like Nero?” I asked. “Seneca told us about him. The one who burned half the city and then blamed the other half.”

Epictetus’s eyes darkened for a second. “Nero, yes. I lived in his world. Epaphroditus served in his house. You might say I studied human panic up close.” Then the shadow passed, and his eyes were bright again. “But I also studied Musonius Rufus. He was sent away from Rome again and again, and every time he treated exile as if the city had just given him a vacation to think more clearly.”

“So,” Alice said slowly, “two people in chains. One rots inside, the other… uses the time?”

“Now you are getting it.” Epictetus took up a fresh strip of leather and started threading it through the sandal. “This little strap here is like your detention, Mark. It snaps at the worst moment. Your teacher points at you, and your mind jumps to: ‘I am a victim. The universe is unfair. I must shout at the sky.’”

He glanced sideways at me. I shifted on the bench.

“What if,” he continued, “you told a different story? ‘Ah, here is my daily exercise. Today the world will practice my patience.’ Same event, new story. Outside world unchanged. Inside world, completely different.”

“That sounds hard,” I muttered.

Epictetus chuckled. “So does learning to tie your shoes, until you’ve done it a hundred times. You think I woke up one morning as ‘Wise Epictetus, Patron Saint of Broken Legs’? No. I practiced on every insult, every delay, every snapped strap. Freedom is not a door someone opens for you. It’s a muscle you train.”

He pulled the new strap tight and tied a neat knot. “You came here because a teacher was unfair,” he said. “If you leave still blaming her, you’ve wasted the trip.”

He pushed the sandal toward me. “Hold this. You’re going to help me with the next one. If you can learn to handle stubborn leather, a stubborn feeling won’t scare you so much.”

Training the Strap, Training the Temper

Epictetus slid a fresh strip of leather toward me. “This one,” he said, “is like a pliable thought: it can go in good directions or tangle itself into a knot. Depends on who’s holding it.”

I pinched the strip between my fingers. It was smooth and bendy, nothing like my stiff, headstrong mood. “And if I mess it up?” I asked.

He shrugged in that very laconic way of his. “Then we try again. A bad strap we can obliterate and replace. A bad habit takes longer, but the idea is the same.”

Alice sat cross-legged on the floor, watching us like this was her favorite show. “So the goal isn’t to never get angry,” she said. “It’s to temper the anger?”

“Exactly,” Epictetus replied. “To temper something is to make it stronger by heating and cooling it. Blacksmiths do it with metal. Philosophers do it with feelings. Queens who skip that step become headstrong tyrants. Boys who skip it become… well, what were you shouting at the sky again?”

I groaned. “That my teacher’s rules were stupid. And her poster was lackluster. And the whole system was rigged.”

“An impressive pile of words,” he said. “All thrown at someone else. That’s how you envenom your own day. Now, let’s try something more objective.”

He nodded to Sherlock. The little robot hopped closer, projecting a tiny list into the air: “What Happened / What I Can Control.” Under the first column: “Paint spilled. Teacher blamed Mark. Got detention.” Under the second column, there were only two lines: “My story about it. How I behave.”

“See?” Sherlock squeaked. “Very short objective list. Much less to panic about.”

I pulled the leather through the sandal. My first knot looked like it had survived a small explosion. Epictetus pretended not to notice.

“Stoics like me are sometimes called cold,” he said. “People think we are abstemious statues, never smiling, never feeling. That’s abstruse nonsense. I enjoy a good joke. I just don’t want my peace to plummet every time someone forgets my birthday.”

“So you’re not against fun?” Alice asked. “Just against hedonism?”

“Good distinction,” he said. “A hedonist is a slave to pleasure. If the dinner is late, they howl. If the wine is weak, they stage a full-scale lamentation. Pleasure is fine. Chains are not.”

Epictetus took the sandal from my hands and studied my work. “Not bad,” he said. “Still a bit tentative, but tenacious. Like your character. Keep pulling in the right direction and it will hold.”

He set the finished sandal in a row with others. Some were plain, some had a little extra stitching or a patch where things had once gone wrong. It reminded me of people more than shoes.

“So what do I do when I go back?” I asked. “Just sit in detention and smile like an idiot?”

“Not an idiot,” he said. “A free man. Here’s your exercise.” He held up a finger. “One: when you walk into that classroom, enunciate your resolution to yourself—silently. Something simple. ‘This is my training ground.’ Two: when your temper starts to rise, notice what story you’re telling. Is it a clear thought, or a cryptic little drama about how the universe hates you?”

I shifted. The second option sounded uncomfortably familiar.

“Three,” he went on, “choose a new story. You don’t have to rescind the punishment. You just refuse to let it define you. That’s all. No banners, no accolade, no applause. Just quiet strength.”

“That sounds kind of…” I searched for the word.

“Lackluster?” he supplied, eyes twinkling. “Yes. Freedom often looks lackluster from the outside. No fireworks. But inside, it is bright.”

Alice nodded slowly. “Like a crepuscular sky,” she said, “that looks gentle but still has the whole sun behind it.”

Epictetus smiled at her. “Exactly.”

Sherlock lifted a tiny paw. “Logging final note: character is like this strap—small, ephemeral details, but if you keep caring for it, it holds your whole life together.”

Seneca, who had been leaning in the doorway the whole time, pushed himself off the frame. “Time to go, travelers,” he said. “Nicopolis has given what it could today.”

The workshop grew softer around the edges, as if someone were erasing it with a careful hand. The lamps blurred into streaks of gold. I wanted to grab one of the sandals to prove I’d really been here, but Epictetus just gave me a look that said: You don’t need a souvenir. You’re wearing it inside now.

“Remember,” he said, voice floating with us as the room faded. “Straps snap. People shout. Queens and teachers make mistakes. But your will—if you train it—does not. Don’t give that rope to anyone else.”

Then we were sliding back toward my own world, my own school, my own very ordinary desk. Only this time, the storm inside felt smaller, and the bolster of what I’d learned felt, quietly, very strong.