A young boy playfully fits a ram's skull on his head .

He wears it TO ILLICIT amusement, as children do .

fashioning IT FREQUENTLY, HE OFTEN forgets to take it off .

often enough that it becomes characteristic of himself .

It evolves in its utility . . . a tool for intimidation, security, etc . . .

life, as it is such, soon demands from him obligations of which the skull interferes .

It reveals itself now as a burden to him in his progressive age .

His reacts little at first when it doesn't come off . . .

Then it becomes clear what he has done . . .

he has grown compact into it so it keeps, fastened on his head with terrible resilience .

What once amused now detriments . . .

a crass brand of intimidation . . .

fatal to opportunity . . . catalytic to danger .

Thus, Throughout life, he struggles .

He pleas in vain to some that the skull is stuck, until desperation becomes despondence .

Even understanding, much less help, is offered seldom to him .

In psychotic despair, he tries to break it off in a fury and one of the horns snaps .

It cuts his hand and his hope, and turns the skull worse . . . deadly . . .the broken horn sharper than ever before .

The years go by . . . he gives up .

He assumes its permanence, alone and ashamed .

nowadays he tends to embrace it - a psychological response of a pariah desperate to cope .

It remains to this day . . .