Liberties

1 Any one of these masked avengers might be moonlighting as another Captain Rock, might set out not only to censure but incinerate a rich farmer dreading his knock at midnight, a cowpuncher, a calf-drencher, a dweeb journalist, a helmetless jock courting death by misadventure, a negotiator trying to break the deadlock between boss and union, a prominent backbencher imagining he’s standing for re-election when he’s making a speech from the dock, a career civil servant both inured and indentured to a twice daily intravenous injection of horse piss and poppycock. 2 Any one of them might be an insurance underwriter taking the tube from Maida Vale, an architect pulling an all-nighter while she works to scale, a private investigator flicking a cigarette lighter and putting another nail in his coffin, a developer of an antibody titer, a Muddy Waters failing to curtail a Lightnin’ Hopkins, a bishop adjusting his mitre, a baker proffering a baker’s dozen of cakes and ale, a professional flautist, an amateur fire-fighter, a migrant worker who met your forty-second cousin at the blading of the kale. 3 Any one of these masked avengers might be moonlighting as Atticus Finch, might be reliant on the kindness of strangers, a blue man of the Minch crossed with a ginger, a money exchanger feeling the pinch, a lumberjack, a barista, a Texas Ranger tightening the cinch on any one of these masked avengers moonlighting as a butterfly nun, a lab technician, a boxer prolonging a clinch rather than putting themself in danger, a restorer of Tintoretto or Titian taking on the world square inch by square inch.