Lines

Long grim lines of people trudge their various ways into the endless grey, the first figure of each line always looks familiar; you know him from somewhere. His look, when animated, though it usually isn't, seeming to say: "Where did I get this crowd from? Am I responsible for them too?" For their part, the followers, particularly those nearest the front, appear keen to convince their leader that there is no question of his guilt before them, on the contrary, now more than ever...
Some are even making the strained effort to appear cheerful: "Where are we going? Isn't this pleasant. All of us together." Though this effort is all too impossible to sustain, apart, that is, from the odd childishly naive figure whose joy seems genuinely unfeigned, but such men seem an irritation, an embarrassment even, to the others; particularly for the added pain such gormless innocents' presence must surely evoke in the first man, not that the leader even deigns to acknowledge the presence of the long line of followers behind. In different circumstance perhaps he might have even been proud of the followers, basked a little in the adulation of these admittedly inconsequential men, but that is all of course only idle conjecture.