An Attempt at an Explanation

The fairy tales remain alive in all of us. Those early stories, read or heard, conspire against our maturing minds and mock our experience. We are all victims of oaths made long ago. Vows made in the dark when we were alone and unhappy and afraid. Pledges made in all innocence. And now, as adults, we are like sleep walkers, adrift and dissembling, and there is nothing we can do and nothing to be done.

An insane man, violently, with a shout of triumph, kicks over a trashcan brimming with garbage. He stands over his fallen opponent and takes pleasure in its broken sprawl. Then he does a most remarkable thing. He opens his pants and pisses on the trash. It is suddenly like a scene out of the Illiad. This final act suggests that, dark as he is, this man isn’t insane…insofar as he knows his enemy.