Beefasaurus:  My friend Malapropus, why is it that you look so down?  Indeed, I’ve never seen you as sad as you’ve been since the Feast of Dionysus.

Malapropus:  A terrible calamity has befallen me, Beefasaurus.  I have lost my job waiting tables at the Restaurant of Cerberus.

Beefasaurus:  No!  You, who were once Serving Slave of the Month?  How could it have happened?

Malapropus:  Well, it all began when two men entered, whom I later found to be the great philosophers Heraclitus and Parmenides.  I was shocked at their appearance, as they entered the holy shrine and salad bar each wearing only a feathered hat, sunglasses, and towels.

Malapropus:  Welcome, sirs, to the Restaurant of Cerberus, famous for its Fire-Breathing 3-Headed Corn Dogs from Hades.  Yet as the Maitredeeorus of the Restaurant, I must inform you of our ‘no toga, no sandals, no service’ policy and respectfully ask that you please go home and change before you return to worship and eat.

Parmenides:  Change?  Oh, what a silly, uninitiated cave-dweller you are.  How can I “change”?  There is no change.  All “change” is merely on the surface; reality is permanent.  A square can be drawn by any uninstructed child; will not they all look the same?  Does the square “change”?  Do the laws of physics ever “change”?  Will not an object at rest remain at rest for eons?  No matter how many generations come and go, how many empires rise and fall, will not the basic human relationships, the human emotions, remain the same?  And now you ask me to change?

Malapropus:  Even so, sir, I have been asked to require all patrons not complying with our dress code to change.

Parmenides:  I’m sorry, son, but I cannot.

            “Whereupon, his companion began to speak.”

Heraclitus:  What do you mean, you cannot change?  How can there be no change?  Everything is change — the world exists in flux alone.  Even this short exchange of words has caused us to change; do I not know more of the world than I knew before?  Have not the atoms of air of which Democritus speaks moved in and out of our lungs?  We cannot escape change!  Everything is always changing!

            “At this, he became very agitated, beginning to flail his limbs in the manner of the Dancers of Dionysus, god of wine.”

Heraclitus:  You cannot twice step in the same river, or in the same - well, you know, after you clean your shoe it’s different, you know?  I mean, everything’s different, at least after I started takin’ the little white pills, the little bits of magic, you know?  There’s always change, everything’s changin’, the people get to dancin’, the songs start playin’, the WALLS start movin’, the SOUNDS are blazin’, the COLORS get BRIGHTER, and BRIGHTER, oh, how I CAN SEE THE MUSIC!  I CAN HEAR THE COLORS CHANGE!

Plato:  Aha!

            “I was surprised when a patron at a table interrupted our discourse, but I soon realized he was the famous Plato, and listened to what he had to say.”

Plato:  You make a mistake, my stark and raving friend, by noting that the change is in what you see and hear.  What we see and hear is always changing, that is true; but Parmenides has a valid point.  There exist certain true and immutable forms beyond what is visible that are never altered.  It would be impossible for you to change your form, to alter what is truly you, except through bizarre medical operations.  What we know from our senses is merely an imperfect shadow of these absolute truths; we are as one living in a cave, seeing shadows upon the wall yet ignoring the reality outside.  Of course, I can see that reality clearly and know that all of you peons just don’t get it.

Heraclitus:  But how do we know what’s real, man?  I mean, what’s really REAL!

Malapropus:  Indeed, sir, how would I know what is the real and what is false?  How would I know who is dressed properly to let into the restaurant?

Plato:  Through reason and dialectic.  There are universal definitions of every term, forms that exist outside the cave, to which we can compare our sensory perceptions.  For instance, what is a toga?  Is it not a loose one-piece outer garment worn in public by citizens of ancient Rome and prohibited to the slaves, allowed to boys as the white toga virilis at fifteen years of age as a sign of manhood?  Is not a sandal (1) a shoe consisting of a sole strapped to the foot, or (2) a low-cut shoe that fastens by an ankle strap, or (3) a strap to hold on a slipper or low show, or (4) a rubber overshoe cut very low?

Malapropus:  Uh, I guess.  I don’t really know the definitions.  I just know what they look like.

            “Whereupon Plato turned and began to demean me to his friends.”

Plato:  You see, this is a perfect example of a member of the producer class.  He sees the toga and the sandal, but he does not understand.  He has no understanding of the dialectic, only an appreciation for the lower forms of thought, perception and creativity.  Indeed, he is firmly in the grip of the shadow-makers.

Malapropus:  Wait!  By Zeus, I am no stooge!  I’ll have you know that I have been elected Serving Slave of the Month by my co-workers at the prestigious Restaurant of Cerberus!

Plato:  Ah, elected!  You have been elected!  You have been chosen by other members of the producing class to represent them!  Yet that shows nothing of your true worth.  You and your friends are driven solely by bodily appetites and your spirited element — you have no reason in you at all!

Malapropus:  What do you mean?  Are there different parts of my personality that drive my actions?

Plato:  Of course.  Chained in the cave, you revel in your captivity; you rely on the cave to satisfy your bodily appetites for food and sleep.  Occasionally you show some of the spirited element, as you have just now, but there is no reason in you, the third and highest of the parts of the tripartite soul.  All of you producers live solely in those two categories of the soul.  You are not to be despised, only to be relegated to your proper place in society.

Malapropus:  You mean I do not have any say in the affairs of the state?

Plato:  Certainly not.  The many, of which you are one, can never know what is good for the state.  They lack the necessary level of intelligence and training; they are concerned only with their immediate pleasure and gratification.  I, who have no bodily appetites except for very young boys, shall have complete control.

Malapropus:  Yet you say that I should be relegated to my proper place in society by the state, do you not?  That I should obey the dictates of the philosopher-king, no?  Yet do not laws serve the strong only?  Would not my conforming to the laws be the morality of the weak?  Did not Socrates show how the law can be cruel, blind, unwilling to step out of the Cave and face the harsh light of Truth?

Plato:  Well-

Malapropus:  So this is all to keep me down, right?  This is just to put me “in my place”?  But what if you guys don’t really know what is going on?  What if your concepts of “The Idea of the Good” get wacked out and fail in real life?  So the philosopher-king is still in charge, and his authority to make insane policies is not to be questioned?  What if all of your philosophizing is just going to be used to justify the social oppression of the proletariat, making your dialectic just another of the long list of lies perpetrated by The Man to keep a brother down?  RESTAURANT WORKERS OF THE WORLD, UNITE!

Managerus:  What are you doing?  Unionizing in my restaurant?  Get your Commie self out!  I’m sorry, sirs, if this man upset you, he-  My god!  What are you wearing?

Plato:  Come, friends, let us not go through this again.  Let us go to the free atmosphere of the Commons, where we may feed on the semblance of food.