There is a guiding trope in a certain kind of horror movie involving a certain kind of fatally curious character who decides to unleash upon the world some force or demon that has been shut out or bottled up, not dead but dormant. The decision is framed in absolute consequential terms, and the curiosity is often naive or else thrill seeking. then, cue the mayhem.

The act of freeing or enlivening this dormant destructive force is sometimes accidental but usually intentional and usually done with bright-eyed engagement. What if justifies why not and then the blood begins to spill, bodies pile up, and someone must stop it all again. That justification wears many disguises and not just in horror.

Is it overreaching to suggest that every Main Character out there walking along is actively hoping to spring the right lock in their lives, to exceed their piddling station, to unleash their authentic self that has been tucked and folded down and repressed?

And the Main Character isn’t interested in reviving or preserving excellence in thought and deed, in building or (more likely) restoring a repository of thinking practices and habits out of which emerge a lively continuity. It’s a kind of fantasy of omnipotence, sure, but it’s also some projective response to a deep and abiding sense of grievance which is detached from a value.

Part hobo, part insult comic, part performance artist, who lived the life of a man playing the life of a dog and considered debasing the coinage to be a high honor. Throw away a cup once he had seen a group of young boys drink from a faucet in their hands. Diogenic decrepitude as a fount of unerring straight talk wisdom.

A different time and a different city from the young boy who had his pet fox nested under his tunic and when it began to gnaw into his rib cage, that was endured in total silence. The boy let the gnawing continue, letting death take the lead in solving the equation, rather than emit a cry of pain that might make evident his secret.