Gloom

It's almost onomatopoeic.  It sounds like it is.  Sounds like it feels.  Gloom descended.  You can see it descending.  No explanation needed.  Like a London smog in the bad old days of consumption.  Before consumption became a good thing.  Though I'm sure people still die of it.  Or of its derivative: work.  I hate work.  Not all of it - though I was born a catholic.  Work will kill us all in the end.  Miner's lung disappeared with the mines.  Now it's palpitations and those irksome chest pains.  We need the money for the good life.  Plato and Socrates had no notion of what the good life was really about.  It's about affluence, consumption, travel and a means of living with your bullshit job.  What do you make?  £40,000 a year.  You don't make anything then – who does anymore?  Living with lies.  The art of ignoring the truth as it screams through the bars of your cell.  The art of telling yourself that you're happy as long as the money pours through your account and the freezer stays full and the car gives you a hard-on each morning.  Kid yourself it's all ok.  Your life could never have been anything else.  Drop the romantic nonsense and buy a round for the lads.  We're all in the same boat and it will never sink as long we're all in the same boat.  A nod's as good as a wink.