Such bitter self-recriminations haunt Jan and Peter, the next oldest in the Brady structure. Agonized by pubescent dreams of might and glory, these doomed figures wander the split-level single family ranch-type house set, neither old and "wise," like their older siblings, nor fresh with the glow of untainted youth like the younger ones, these pitiable figures attain the mediocre "nadir" of human existence, foredoomed by forces they have no comprehension of, forces which have no compunction in using
these puppet-people to fuel the endless melodrama of man's cruel insistence on the right to be normal.
Bobby and Cindy, the youngest. The hope of the future, virgins for the guttered altar, uncorrupted, yet eminently corruptible, these two play and fidget nervously, seeing in the tainted lives of their elders a mirror of their own pale and woebegotten future lives; under this inescapable threat--the eternal fear of mortality--they gather rosebuds while they may, future workers mice harvesting a grim and bitter crop of endless toil while the vile sharp-shinned hawks of industrialization hovers above the newly frosted woodlands.
Plump and tempting mice indeed for the twin specters of international terrorism and rigidly nationalistic jihad-mongers, they more or less remain the eternal bland American public, fearful yet not yet understanding the root cause of their own discomfort, electing instead to roust about in the fetid pool of ignorant self-delusion, believing all the while that "something" will happen to
improve their mundane existence.
