Misfortune

Just give up, mun, person and writer and all and sundry between the two. You, it, this, you’re inadequate, selfish. I lurch right to the queue for the Food Bank at the back of St. Anthony’s, straight across the dual-carriageway to the Gospel Hall Foodbank. And, let me say, unlike the ‘reality’ twittering of commentators false and knowing usually, but tossed in not at all accidentally or innocently, for their and not our benefits, actually mate it is at max 2 plastic bags of tinned food and some toilet rolls once a week. It is not every day. It is but once a week. First, humiliate yourself asking at the dole office for a written piece of paper saying you are useless before you are sanctioned to stand in line.

‘Fuck, Why in hell do we take this?’

‘Totally right. The UK is one of the richest countries in the whole world. I don’t understand. What happened to a caring local community? The welfare state used to step in.’

‘The post industrial, gig economy, zero- hours neoliberalism of the UK. Gov. com. is what happened. Doesn’t need mass workers. We are redundant. The UK is London, its money-markets, its £200.00 expense-account lunches and bonuses and all in thrall to the relentless burning up of the planet’.

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Perplexed

Mike Hoban was sitting in the armchair of his apartment in Finchley, London. At his feet, Amanda Abraham, his girlfriend, was working on a quilt she’d started just before Christmas. Mike is reading “The World According to Garp”.

“Is that good?” Amanda asked without looking up.

“Very,” Mike replied. “I don’t think I’ve ever read anything like it.”

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Going To London

Old lady with dementia

Martha Somers was feeling upset again. She’d been talking to her dog, which was sitting in a corner of the room, saying to it, ‘Are you hungry? Shall I feed you?’, when this lady had told her it was a toy. ‘A toy? But I heard him barking,’ she’d told the lady. Then a second lady had come in and said, ‘Time to change you,’ and had laid hands on her. She’d begun to cry, then shout, and said, ‘No you’re not! How dare you!’

            Next thing she knew she was sitting in an armchair in a large room, and there were strange faces all around, elderly women in armchairs, reclining or sitting upright. Some were asleep, some stared into space, one was muttering to herself. There was a horrible smell like poo.

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