The king on his throne

I was watching the History Channel documentary "Dark Ages" on Netflix, and found it to be very enlightening (o, the irony). That is one time/place I didn't have much knowledge of, and I thought the film gave the viewer a good framework of the period between the fall of the Roman empire and the Renaissance. Left me with more context when I saw a reference to Justinian, the Franks, or Charlemagne. It also resonated in a very disturbing way with how I feel the world has been going in the past few years. Twilight of an era. From Randy Newman's new song:

"The end of an empire is messy at best
And this empire is ending
Like all the rest
Like the Spanish Armada adrift on the sea
We're adrift in the land of the brave
And the home of the free"

Scary stuff. I don't think it will quite get to that. Rational folks, who will recognize the humanity in the other, will prevail.. one would hope. I saw a sketch I made on the back of a notepad, and thought it kind of went with the movie I just watched.