The Hero & the Crowd
The hero always takes it in the shorts. He slays dragons and saves damsels, runs one gauntlet after another, and the crowd cheers him on while continuing to watch TV, pigging out on junk food, and voting for chumps. He takes up their slack and it winds around him like a noose. Someone slips it around his neck and the trap door drops.
The crowd gasps, but what they’re feeling is resentment — the hero always fails them.
They cut his body loose and feed it to the ugly monster.
They dredge up another hero, dress him in gold, and hand him the mighty sword.
They put him on a pedestal, and the process begins again.
The crowd is the ugly monster, but the hero cannot see this.
