Thumb Down

. The emperor rises in murk and fug like a foul mood, glares and gazes at the bloodied arena below. The savage screams and blood-curdling shrieks of the blood-thirsty mob rise to a pitch. There stands swaying solitary, a wounded gladiator in a frozen poise of striking with his broken sword the vanquished at his feet as the crowd roars louder, more hysterical, more maniacal, yelling for that sign from the bejeweled hand: thumb up means spare the maimed; thumb down means kill him. Although he always can, he won't let them down for he, too, shares their lust for blood. Drunk with power and grandeur, he dispenses life or death, decides who lives or dies, who should be in or out, who should be up or down - - ah, prepositional aesthetics, infantile sense of vain omnipotence! .