He opens the window a crack when he runs his bath in the evenings. It's cold but he likes the sound of the rain and the traffic. It reminds him that there's a big world out there filled with lots of people. Different people with different lives. But at least some of them, if not most of them, are experiencing the same mundanity as him.
To find reassurance in the mutual suffering of strangers is an odd tonic. But the idea is like a piton securing a net. It breaks his free fall into darker thoughts. Each imagined pain is another stake in the wall. A more robust landing.
Every time he asks himself, is this all there is? He can say in reply, this is all there is for everyone.
But not all. He knows that. He sees it often enough. Those few fortune enough to enjoy all the pleasures with none of the work. They loom larger than the countless peons. Each elite accounts for a hundred normal people. And they cast an unwitting and alluring hex that breeds an insidious idea. A delusion that their given nirvana is achievable through mortal means. Hard work. Good morals.
A lie.
He sinks into the cold waters. It does not quash his rage.
Someday, someone will do something, he tells himself.
Until then, we just keep pulling each other down in our attempts to go up. Manx crabs in a bucket.
Paddy Dobson
8th August 2021