The Will To Live

Last day, same as the first. The Tigers in the zoo are all on Prozac and there's a big fucking outcry about cruelty. I deal with people, places and fucking drivel every day that would put a tiger on crack. That's life, shut up, accept your lot. Everyone is right except you. You really are out of step, out of touch. Worthless, irrelevant, ugly. Scum. Failure. The black stench of rot. This would never have happened if you'd listened to mummy. Your perfect cousin points the way.

Apparently there have been 'comments'. Have I really spent three decades maturing nicely to take this shite off a failed machinist? In a better world she'd never have been born. Fat, devious, hunchback bitch. I am a human being. I believe in spirits. I read books. I am valid. Squashed under the heel of a naff TK Maxx boot. This is hell at the rangers end.

Smack the paper. Move it round the desk. Sixteen lives and none of them get better. The mad, bewildered, simple, lost and the chancers. Bring them to me and I'll keep them in their place. They call this radical in the bosses circles. Say goodbye to the pigs.

Watch the clock. Twenty, thirty, forty minutes late out the little door. Will the bus to break some speed limit? Home to dreams that won't come true. The fortuitous friend I'll never meet. The revolution we won't start together. The breaking away from the family. The meeting of my potential. The life of joy. The help I really need. The leeches growing breeches. The trick is to believe it for long enough to get a rest.

Keep taking the pills for the chance to start it all again. This is the will to live. This is the life when you are cured. I am not mad. Put on the music and live in the better world.