"We don't split hairs about who is a better slave master" - Minith, the unassuming Economic

This novella stayed with me for days after reading it. I would be busy attending to something in the office, take a break and think back on Torquell, and atavism. I'd be taking my puppies and border collie out for a spa day and a frolic in the vast fields beyond my backyard, and Sir Peter Grimes and his arrival at that small and green village would flash before my minds eye. I'd be air-frying succulent steaks and getting out salads on the plates before me, and I would find myself thinking of "defaulter's pie", (we know what that is) and Isadora eating it with gusto. I'd be watching the news and stories of private war mercenaries marching back into the the house of the Madman of Russia, loudly proclaiming they're leading a coup only to back down just as fast as they announced it (seriously, who publicizes their desired coup to the "coupee", Wagner fools) and I found myself re-imagining Torquell's Revolution, past the murder of that Ogre - his real Rubicon and all the way up to his dinner with Isadora. So the crux of it right there on the table between glasses of wine and cooked meats - atavism gave way to the ogre and in the end, the ogre is as all the other ogres were before.

What a tale of excess, gluttony, power and the never ending vicious cycle. In the end, the human race is the ouboros