Howie

Howie is the main character of The Mezzanine, and in many ways is its only character. The Mezzanine contains very little dialogue, as it is mostly focused on Howie's thoughts and mundane experiences during his lunch hour. Occasionally co-workers and his girlfriend L figure into his thoughts, but not terribly often. More than anything, Howie is focused on objects like the escalator to the mezzanine, his CVS bag, his left shoelace and his copy of Marcus Aurelius's Meditations.

Howie is indeed a strange man, obsessed with analyzing his thoughts, seemingly for a variety of reasons. He wishes to de-sentimentalize his childhood memories in order to reconcile himself to a proper understand of nostalgia; he has a plan to think a steady number of new thoughts each day to attain the new Majority where he has a majority of adult thoughts, and he focuses in great detail on mundane...