Too Kind

Damocles sat, yapping all through dinner. Talking about how great it was to be rich and powerful. He drank too much wine and ate enough figs to fill a barrel. Dionysius listened distractedly for a while, wondering if the thread would break before he had proven his point. That would be unfortunate, but it was a risk he was willing to take.
How long I sat there, blabbering on, I can't tell you because from the instant I noticed the sword, hanging by a thread, I was paralysed with fear. Drunk and reeling with self pity, I didn't understand the lesson, the severity of which betrayed your loathsome opinion of me.
Something took hold of me then and I wondered at my complicity in my own destruction.
When I awoke the next morning, it wasn't until the toast, black as night, came screaming from the toaster in a state of shock, that I remembered the warning. It was a long time ago but that's the last time I get drunk with you.
Damocles should have rolled out of the way, snapped the hair by which his life had been threatened and used that sword to poke a hole or two into Dionysius, proving his potential and contriving to become the world's first recorded pain in the ass for an entirely different reason. I ate the toast and learned to like the taste of revenge.