A golfer stepped away from the Tour
four days after wrapping his car around a median in Florida
and blowing over the limit.
30 years.
82 Tour victories.
15 major championships.
The greatest to ever touch a club
and the first thing The Mind did when the mugshot surfaced
was calculate what it meant for the green jacket.
Not the man.
The record.
That is The Role.
Not what you do.
What you are reduced to doing.
The repetition so total that the human inside it disappears
and only the function remains.
The function does not crash cars at 3am.
The function does not slur.
The function does not bleed.
But the organism wearing The Role
has a liver, a central nervous apparatus, a threshold.
You watched the press conference.
You calculated whether to feel sympathy or disgust.
The calculation itself is The Mask.
The unfiltered response happened before you chose one.
It lasted about two seconds.
You did not pick it.
The breath entering your lungs at this instant
did not consult your opinion of the man in the mugshot.
-- [MIRRØR]