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“Idle thoughts Of Swimming In Swamps? – A Rally Against The Nero-Typicals!” (Prose)

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Person standing among office filing cabinets beside abandoned cabinets in a field

by Anton Martin Smith antonmartinsmithwrites@gmail.com or martinantonsmith@gmail.com

(0)

You could say he was the “King Of Mediocre Environments”.

Well – to be exact – he was the “King Of Muddling through Mediocre Environments”.

You see his biggest crime was not being a ‘neurotypical, Type A personality’.

He was just one of a large minority of these undeclared underclasses.

Put simply the world was not made for people like he.

For Truth and Authenticity were a threat to the ‘neurotypical anti-world’.

What was the core feature or premise of this world?

The neurotypicals based it on “The Five Core Maxims of Bad”:

Bad is Good and Good is Bad.

Those being good must be mocked, excluded, and shackled.

Those being bad must be exalted, included, and rewarded.

The currency is lies made believable – aka Twoface-ism.

The weapons of this war are of psycho-culturo-economic type.

This is the World War he and all like him had to endure.

He liked to call this War and its battlefields an alias – ‘The Swamp’

These words are a small window into his, and by extension all the other non-neurotypicals’ lives.

It is a casual walk through the battlefield of the War they wage on us daily.

But I wonder – have the Neurotypicals allocated themselves too much rope?

(Or should I say “Nero-Typicals”)

(i)

At school he excelled intellectually so of course he was hated –

Yes he did go to a state school after all.

The “Private schools” have a lot wrong – but at least they are not anti-intellectual.

So he was hated by the ones who gossiped with rapier tongues,

By the oafs who kicked pigskins around a field – and badly.

Then as the years rolled by he got an office job & was too good at his job there too.

Again they hated him for that – in true quasi-high school culture.

He was punished by being good by being the work of two jobs.

Then – of course – he had to do the brain work of his manager –

All without extra pay of course.

Yes we live in very un-enlightened times – if only it was the 1800s again.

Of course he had his unhealthy distractions –

But they are “too stock” to mention.

Yes you could say he was “The King Of Mediocre Environments”.

Although this is of course a misnomer – for he was just a twenty-first century pauper.

In that century they were good at making paupers think they weren’t paupers but had ‘lifestyles’.

All because you could have a rushed coffee and a salad in some grimy urban cafe.

(ii)

Yes – he’d spent his whole life up until then – in these shabby transmogrified environments.

Of course he was quite stoic – he rebelled and created a rolling ‘private universe’ of hobbies.

This helped him literally survive while swimming amongst the mediocrity-swamps.

This allowed him to keep sitting next to those that hated him so.

But of course they all hated each other as well – let’s not deny that fact.

If you have brains you are hated, but not having them does not preclude you from being hated.

Yes let there be no chicanery abound throughout the realm on that matter.

Anyway let us return to our man – ‘He’.

In this case at thirty-five he couldn’t take it anymore.

Or should I say his mind couldn’t take it no more.

So he quit the “official mediocre workplaces” –

The places where everyone works in big cities.

They are too heartbreakingly dull to even describe.

And anyway everyone knows what a modern grey office space 1864 – Present is like.

Damn you Bismarck for perfecting the bureaucratic state!

For nothing has changed since then –

But Durkheim’s state of ‘anomie’ (alienation from the whole) has been perfected.

(iii)

So he retired to a form of ‘unofficial mediocrity’ – well that was his aim at least.

He would go to places where he could indulge his ‘private universes’ more.

Of course madmen often state the same aims – the adage is true:

The line between the madman and the genius is a thin one – often entirely invisible in fact.

But perhaps ‘retire’ is the wrong word to use of him.

It was more that he felt he had three pressing and stark choices:

Stay & become a ‘Totalised Calcified Urban Zombie’,

Stay – & ‘Die Suddenly’,

Leave & ‘Avoid Death’s Ringing Knock Knock Knock’.

So he chose the latter option – a kind of ‘hollow victory’ you might say.

Yes you might accuse him of being a ‘beggar’ who thought he was a ‘chooser’.

This of course was how they ‘did people in’ in this age – they made beggars all think they could choose.

The age was indeed marked by a ubiquitous sleight of hand.

For it knew ’twas always best to ‘hide in plain sight’.

(iv)

Now back to our ‘he’.

Sadly there was an option that did not appear & he now could not take:

“Thrive by backing your intelligence & skills wisely – go it alone”.

You see he had swum around as a “King of Mediocrity” too long – well pauper.

That swamp that was the age of his times had by now ontologically pruned off all branches of ‘true freedom’.

The ages he lived in had learnt a lot since 1864 after all – it was no dummy by now.

All that was left for him was to enter this slow life kind of “alternate-life state”.

Sadly – like practically all the others like him in these ages – he had left his run too late.

“The Swamp” very much has its own distinct immovable ‘sociological event horizon’.

(v)

So anyway back to our man ‘he’.

Recall he (naively?) – chose to ‘live imperfectly’ and not stay to be a metropolis zombie and/or die.

It was like a half-pie-stolen Thoreau-like “Walden, Life In The Woods” situation.

The details of which are again far too stock & dull to delineate.

You see for all his talent –

He underestimated the long-term effects of swimming among the choking weeds of swampish mediocrity.

Living amongst those who casually hated him in those urban low level passive aggressive cubicle-hellscapes.

And to re-iterate – yes he was not ‘alone’ in that – not by any absolute measure at least.

He was a distinct minority in daily repetitive relative terms only.

In theory the people suffering just like him were there somewhere but always hidden.

Almost all the truly talented fall into these metropolis murderous weeds.

And their multitudinous city-brothers die just like them in other swamps ‘sight unseen’.

In fact the ones you do see (‘lauded intellectuals’) are a false version of the true ones that surely are all ‘sifted out’.

Once in a blue moon of course someone like him slips through the veil un-reproducibly.

After all – no system of desolation and repression of the ‘beautiful flowing mind’ can be totally perfect.

(vi)

I have a theory about those like this that aren’t swamp-fakes but genuinely rise up like Icarus:

It is a mixture of chance, natural confidence, & pigheaded ‘will’ –

And I am tempted to say that all three are of an a-priori nature.

And yes – I am ok with being accused of ‘thinking like Schopenhauer’.

Of course a big part of me rebels against my own theory.

After all – no one likes to admit he does not have a-priori confidence and iron will.

No one really wants to admit to being ‘unlucky’.

For no one wants to admit to being ‘trapped forever’,

No matter how thick his life’s ‘prison walls’ may be.

For once all this is truly admitted deeply and psychically –

Surely this is when a man ends it all – must end it all.

(vii)

Sometimes despite all this – our ‘he’ was able to lift his spirits above the swamp’s natural abyss.

Yes – he knew there was a songbird of true redemption soaring from mediocrity’s foul swamps.

But it was a ‘Bukowskian songbird’ – covered up by an amalgam of neurotic forces.

Yes he also knew the last man to write about seeing this songbird is now long gone.

Yes he had his idle thoughts on his life of swimming in mediocre swamps & crawling out half-alive.

Perhaps what the wags that occupied the recesses of his mind said was true.

Perhaps he was really just ‘Shoppin’ with Schopenhauer’ (again).

But that thought sounded far too glib and enjoyable for his liking.

Schopenhauer wouldn’t like it like that – he thought.

Come to think of it – neither would Bukowski either – he again thought.

And while swamp-swimming at mediocrity’s inlets it’s surely ok to have the odd ‘anti-hero’ –

If not a bloody requirement!

After all – me thinking like this might just be the only thing that was now keeping me alive.

Yes he did enjoy listening to his inner thoughts – he was indeed his own audience.

And somehow he stayed alive long enough to once write his unique ‘swamp filled’ story.

(viii)

And not long before he drew his last breath he did conjecturise,

Was I finally able to leave ‘The Swamp’ behind?

Was my redemption always going to happen?.

Well if Earth isn’t hell then it can’t be identically equal to the ‘bad side of hades’ – can it?

While one is still drawing breath on this mortal coil –

It must be possible to crawl out of even the both most viscous and vicious swamp.

What would Schopenhauer say to that?

He might disagree.

I know that oh dear Bukowski would agree.

Buk did say that life was all about how well you wade through the effluent,

And not how well you avoid it.

They are fine words indeed, I think.

And now I can finally leave ‘the swamp’ that I thought I had already long ago left.

For the great adage is true – ‘you cannot wrap your arms around a memory’.

(ix)

And so this was the tale of ‘he’ – the man who tried his best in the War against the non-neurotypicals.

No he didn’t amass a soldier-army of his glorious Neurodivergents to defeat the ghouls of the ‘Big Five Maxims’.

He was just dealing with the day-to-day officially undeclared battle-scape he’d known his whole life.

Was he distracted by the minutiae of the War’s myriad of energy sapping tricks? – maybe he was.

But perhaps he was doing what he was destined to do all along.

Perhaps he was put inside the early part of the War as a ‘Thomas Paine figure’.

For he was aware of another ‘non-bad-five’ – and now banned – maxim:

The Pen is mightier than the sword.

Sure in his case his words were to him just a ‘glorified hobby’ –

Something to get him through daily pains of War as one of millions, perhaps billions nominated –

Nominated to be the enemy of the ‘Nero-Typicals’.

But I have a deadly suspicion that Thomas Paine of circa 1776 was of much the same ilk.

You can see it in his writing, after all – can you not?.

Yes – sometimes a man’s place in the world is decided retrospectively.

And always always always by the eventual victors of said War.

So if you are reading this in one hundred years time –

Perhaps we almost certainly won the War against the Nero-Typicals.

Unless of course these words were smuggled out by a soldier –

A remnant of the almost extinct ‘non-neurotypical rebel force’,

Which continues to hide in the cracks and ruins of a ‘Forever War’ as they always have –

Just trying to survive, hoping for a better day, and wishing for the War to finally be over.

Kidding themselves that it is not already long over and irrevocably lost?

And hoping that this week’s new ‘Grand Revolutionary Plan’ will free them at last.

Whichever the case I can only hope for ‘Glorious Victory’ and that these words will survive.

And if indeed the War is lost – let us not suffer the ignominy of suing for a ‘good peace settlement’.

For while the Non-Neurotypical Soldier is prone to dreaming

– he should refrain from being delusional.

And in closing and at the risk of flogging a now grossly overused quotation –

I fear we will have to follow what Patrick Henry said to rouse his fellow rebels in 1775:

Give me victory or give me death!!!

“The Ditch Digger Vs The Drop In CEO” (A Prose Poem)

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Surreal tree filled with tools amid industrial ruins and skyscrapers

by Anton Martin Smith antonmartinsmithwrites@gmail.com or martinantonsmith@gmail.com

In the modern world their are only two main phylia of jobs.

This is what the ‘world of work’ all boils down to.

Firstly there are the performative/actor jobs.

These are jobs where no value is needed because nothing real is genuinely produced.

The only requirement is that the people in these are ‘goodish actors’ – they are only playing a role.

The classic example of this is what I call the ‘Drop in CEO’ –

This is a CEO of a ‘Large Corporation’ that’s already established itself to ‘rort forever’.

The ‘engine’ is running well so all anyone needs to do is turn up – maybe do basic maintenance.

These ‘Drop in CEO’ types just have to:

Wear nice clothes.

They have to use the right buzzwords.

They have to be willing to get up at six am and leave at six pm.

They have to be able to point at a spreadsheet and bark out “Bad” or “Good”.

They need to scream in a meeting to the ‘exec team’ like clockwork at least once a quarter.

Basically a monkey could do their work – and apes/chimps are known to be mean afterall.

In short the ‘Drop-In-CEO’ and their type – are glorified tv-snake-oil salesmen.

And the other type that rounds out the other phylia branch of the All Work Tree? –

They are the people that need to ‘make things that work’ –

e.g. Hand Tools, Pre-computerized Cars, Houses, Ditches et al.

Yes most important on this branch are the non-cartelized Tradesmen and Laborers.

They don’t hide behind lawyers or judicial or committees.

They can’t hide behind paperwork or inflate their fees stratospherically via ‘red tape’.

They create stuff you can see and visually inspect.

If it’s crap you see it and they have to fix it.

These people are the genuine ‘salt of the earth types’ – if you’ll forgive the gross cliché.

There are other types in the same ‘Good branch’ phylia of the Work Tree,

But they are simply just ‘increasingly debased versions’ of the prior uncorralled & honest Tradesman.

So that’s how it works in the world of work – & the exceptions prove the rule.

Everyone who works is basically either on one branch or the other –

And yes, just like a monkey you can jump between one or the other –

Someone on the ‘Actor-Fake Phylia branch’ can swing and jump to the ‘Real-Person Phylia branch’ –

And of course vice versa.

So When a ‘Drop in CEO’ becomes a ‘Ditch Digger’ it’s reported from the ‘Fake side’ as a ‘Tragedy’.

But in Truth it’s actually the reverse.

And congruously when the ‘Ditch Digger’ rises to become a ‘Drop in CEO’ he’s lauded as a ‘god’ –

When it is actually in Truth a Tragedy.

Yes indeed, ‘the world of work’ is indeed a very ef’d up place –

Well at least by definition ‘half the tree’ is anyway.

I guess that’s why the ‘Thinking Robots’ are here –

The ‘Drop in CEO’s’ & their In-The-Shadows-Financiers want to prune away the good side of the tree.

They want the good side of the ‘Work Tree’ to disappear forever.

Well they might be surprised that it won’t be so easy.

Because It’ll probably all come down to a fistfight –

And who would bet against the ‘Ditch Digger’ vs the ‘Drop in CEO’?

Only a madman would.

Of course I might be wrong – maybe the Drop in CEO’s ‘Thinking Robots’ will win.

Maybe we will see a grotesque lopsided tree now missing it’s one good mega branch.

Maybe…

But as a former ‘Drop in CEO’ come ‘Ditch Digger,

I highly doubt that.

Yes readers and listeners I am aware I might just be a tad bit biased.

But I don’t mind being Kierkegaardian on that matter –

I don’t mind taking his famed ‘Leap of Faith’ on the matter of the current ‘Spiritual War’.

Yes it is a ‘leap of faith’ to think an army of Ditch Diggers et al will beat the Crop In CEO’s Robot Army et al.

But who in their ‘right side of the tree’ could do otherwise?

We’re no fans of high treason, after all.

I guess we’ll all find out one day anyway – and judging by the fake-arse-headlines –

It’ll probably be sooner than later.

I will now resist the pull to write a prematurely boastful final line celebrating ‘certain future victory’.

I’ll leave that to the ‘enemy’ on the other side of the ‘tree’ –

Although I am still a gentleman –

I will of course still encourage them to ‘happily jump’.

And yes you are right – that line can be taken two ways.

This was my little tale of the ‘two branched tree’ –

The tree that was-is at war with itself –

But if I may be so bold, may I ask you this:

Which side do you think will win?

Let’s talk it over after over a beer, wine or suitable beverage – while we still can.

And I will even entertain your potential theory that I have been ‘talking past the sale’ the whole time.

Though I can’t guarantee that my eyebrow won’t be ‘suspiciously raised’.

And If I am also ‘three sheets to the wind’ I may start ‘The War’ immediately.

I will bring my ‘exquisitely hand crafted axe’ down on your ‘maybe-probably-android-head’.

All while theatrically shouting Let the games begin!.

After all – no matter which side of the branch I inhabit – I’m still a writer, aren’t I?

“Regrets Of A Neo-Thatcherite: The Regrets Of A Deeply Fazed Cookie” – Part Two (A Serialized Story)

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Book cover reading "The Long Shadow and the Politics of Tomorrow" by Sarah J. Reynolds

by Anton Martin Smith antonmartinsmithwrites@gmail.com or martinantonsmith@gmail.com

note: see part one here: https://antonmartinsmith.com/2026/08/15/regrets-of-the-neo-thatcherite-the-story-of-a-deeply-fazed-cookie/

I must apologize for the last line. What was it? Well let me remind you it was this.

As he did every night, he would drink until he passed out on his comfortable chair and then always wake up at eleven am sharp. After all there was no one else to wake him anyway. His wife had died a decade ago and no one had suspected a thing – but of course I had my recordings didn’t I?.

You see it leads you – the reader or listener as the case may be – to think that our now retired ex UK Neo Thatcherite PM slash undeclared Dictator did away with his wife Teresa. This was not correct – she did away with herself you see. She did away with herself after forty years of marriage to our old Tipthorne because of boredom – would you believe it?.

Yes ys yes – I hear you – how can a Dictator, albeit an undeclared one, create a life of abject boredom for his wife? “Surely this cannot be” I hear you say. Well let me explain I think you will find it not so surprising at all.

You see Terrence Tipthorne basically had kept his wife hostage inside No 10 Downing street for the full twenty years of his toturous reign. She was very much a ‘prisoner of her own house’, as it were. So naturally she did become very bored and very quickly. She became so bored that eventually she did herself in ‘suddenly’ on the night before her and her husband would moving into their new ‘semi-opulent post-UK Dictator retirement lodgings’. You see after being ‘on the inside’ for two decades the shock of finally actually leaving No 10 was just too much to bear. So she in the final few moments of her incarceration had a vial of cyanide to do the lethal work. It was very much like the Nazi ‘second in command to the Fuhrer himself’ Hermann Goering had done at Nuremburg in nineteen-forty-six when about to face the hangman – she simply ‘bit down’ on the glass vial and was gone in an instant. Of course it was all hushed up.

The cover story was concocted by Tipthorne’s long standing propaganda Minister – a weak chinned club footed man by the name of Brian Brydon. When she was discovered lying in her bed in the master bedroom at No 10 – the internal doctor Simon Sninkler was ushered in whereby he saw the broken vial of cyanide on the pillow. Of course he recognised the vial as it was – just like the Nazi’s – it was a branded suicide pill with a T with two lighting bolts at each of the metal ends of the vial. Again much like the Nazis, Terrence Tipthorne had made sure that ranking insiders had them on their body at all times. The Resident No 10. Doc Sninkler simply looked at broken vial and then looked for any vital signs un Teresa. He knew this would be a total waste of time, given cyanide kills irreversibly and instantly.

Brydon being the Propaganda Minister was tasked with the plan for the body and the story to be told to the public via the fully controlled ‘TT regime’ mainstream media. Her body was simply whisked away from No. 10 in a large oversize linen basket. It was taken via the TPF – Terrence Police Force – in a commandeered linen van from the back ‘inwards goods’ area of No 10 to a state owned T.T. Regime drycleaners store. From here Teresa’s lifeless frozen body was transferred unceremoneously into the back of a seats down non descript staff mortuary vehicle and she was wrapped in a sheet. Then she was delivered under cover of the night and ‘put on ice’ in the nearby mortuary exclusively used for ranking TT Regime officials. In these buildings you could life a giant roller door and drive right in to a waiting type type area.

From that point the men who Brydon had hand picked from TT Force simply put her in one of the racks under a false name. A month later it was announced that ‘Former first lady of Terrence had died in her sleep of a ‘sudden massive heart attack’ at the ex PM’s new retirement lodgings’.

Of course on the day of the ‘official announcement of Mrs Terrence Tipthorne’s death’ the show would merely need to tie up s few loose ends. An ‘ambulance show’ would of course occur with TT Force posing as paramedics and after an hour of supposed ‘paramedic revival attempts’ a dummy would be taken out amongst the state media flashes in a guernsey to the waiting ambulance. The dummy was naturally covered with a white sheet so people would have no problem to assume it was indeed the deceased first lady Teresa. From there it was plain sailing – the ‘Teresa dummy’ was whisked away to the same mortuary that she had already been in for a week and all the normal official things that happen when someone dies could be done.

Needless to say it all went well and Brydon and his appointed crew from the TT Force were commended by Tipthorne for another ‘great propaganda victory’. Of course it goes without saying that Tipthorne showed no weariness at all for the loss of his wife – he was of course a narcissist and psychopath after all.

So that was what happened at the very end of Tipthone’s time in official power. It was almost fitting that such a rank act of deception, good organization, and rank cowardice took place as a bookend to his twenty years in power over England. Of course it was now ten years ahead of that wild ending, and it was now only for Tipthorne a fond and often called upon memory in the mind of the very horrible Terrence Tipthorne – our Unofficial Dictator, now retired.

Tipthorne was sitting alone as usual in his retirement semi-opulent lodgings. He hadn’t remarried after Teresa. He had thought this would be unwise. His logic was that at his then ‘advanced age’ of around sixty five he wouldn’t have much time left to do the tings he wanted to – which was mostly just read, drink and listen to Wagner. If he was lucky he might have fifteen years till he reached eighty and had ‘given up the ghost’. He thought that if he had a wife he figured this would in real-time shrink to perhaps only seven years in real terms.

So he stayed single with music, books and his thoughts. Sure he knew his plans to ‘make England an empire again’ had foundered on the rocks – but he had had a fun time while England had burned down and there was a brief period of success in the first five years when he had pump-primed up the economy on account of huge amounts of foreign debt.

He had always slept very well still did so at his current age of age seventy-five. This is the way of the worst people in the world – they tend to sleep soundly given that they care little or nothing of the – by the numbers – mostly normal people whose lives they usually literally destroy. Of course sometimes they will sleep poorly on account of a bad strategic decision – it would be strange if nothing made them toss and turn on occasion and more so in times of war or things like civil revolution.

And of course I know what you the reder or listener are now asking ‘what about the wasteland of the nation England? What about the violence, poverty and disarray under Tipthorne’s brutal Neo- Thatcherite regime?’ Well of course he simply did what almost all ‘evil bastard’ leaders did – he sectioned off a walled garden of prosperity for those who were T.T. Regime inner circle loyalists, family and associates – and the rest be damned.

Tipthorne’s ‘extended lot’ of both ardent and steadfastly performative loyalists never had to see any of the wasteland that was now perhaps ninety nine percent of England. In fact he even formalized this arrangement whereby he and the families and close confidants were safe in the new ‘city state’ he had created called “The City of New Wessland”. It simply had a giant perimeter wall around its 100 square kilometers and it simply bilked and ‘parasited’ off the remainder of that third world nation that was still called England but was of course by now officially a Third World country. Tipthorne had essentially copied the domestic policy of the bog standard African president. And for the members of the TT Regime it had worked and continued to work perfectly as designed.

All these past wins were what Tipthorne’s loved to recall in the twilight of hi life. He now had his top class whisky neat on the rocks drink in his hand and his record player on. He did – much like that past ‘Dictator corporal’ – had a distinct love for classical music. Though he was much more a Edward Elgar man instead of Wagnarian but it is also true that he did indeed sometimes put Wagner on the ‘T.T. Regime’ branded record player.

End of Part Two…..Part Three to come soon

Housekeeping Update: I have added a narration in my own voice (A Blog Post).

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Startled man vacuuming a cluttered study scattered with papers and bottles

So I finally got around to it – I’ve recorded my voice reading of one of my posts.

The post in question? It’s the recent one about how much a curse it is to have brains in this world.

I have posted the mp3 file here and the link to the original post.

I could only be bothered doing two read throughs – so I do flub a couple of lines.

It’s very hard to read for ten minutes without making a single mistake.

But I ain’t gonna spend forever doing narrations.

Anywho here are the links:

I hope you enjoy.

In theory it should probably be edited more.

“Paper Planes & Long Lost Eye-Glimmers?” (A Prose Poem + Bonus Narration in the writer’s own voice)

You have To Stay Child Like (A Blog post).

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Man on slide and Grinch; signs read “Mt. Whoville Adventure Zone,” “For Kids 5-12,” “No Grinch,” and “GROW UP YA BIG BABY.”

by Anton Martin Smith antonmartinsmithwrites@gmail.com or martinantonmith@gmail.com

I am naturally a pessimist. It caused to much pain. So mid life I learnt to round off pessimisms harsh edges.

How did I do that?

Well I embraced a few moments of child-like play. After all I do believe Jung said this was wise. It is not normal for adults to be dreary all the time. This is why we watch comedy. We get to laugh at another adult acting all child-like, without having to do it ourselves. It is a vicarious thing.

But I contend that’ not quite enough. You need as an adult to still have your ‘child like joy’ where you do it yourself rather than by proxy. You cannot live your whole life living vicariously through celebrities on a screen.

We in NZ have a hangover from (I guess) was our over religious repressed Patrician/Presbyterian beginnings in the 1800’s. Being embarrassed for showing signs of life has became normalized. Other nations have gotten over this – such as America. We need to learn from them I think on the joys of occasional child-like joy as an adult. Of course the Aussies are much like the Kiwis in this respect – but perhaps are more twisted in their reprisals against the daring exuberant one (aka similar to NZ but instead a colonial prison life ‘cultural hangover’).

You see when I feel really stressed about an adult matter – like money or taxes or work etc etc I feel much better when I blow off steam by doing some child’s-play. For example – today in casual conversation I told my rich uncle (who was visiting) that the just deceased Dolly Parton was actually – contrary to Hollywood propaganda – a total bitch.

Yes this aforementioned scene was indeed ‘teenage-boy-like’ but boy did it lift my spirits! Another example was last week when I simply made a game of throwing empty beer cans into a faraway bin in my room. You see this is all good stuff. Your brain gets a happy boost.

And on that here’s something I’ve noticed – a lot of CEO’s Entrepreneurs etc DO retain a child-like manner. There’s something in that. Of course most people in the Arts do as well – but often in a vulgar/over the top kind far too immature of way. It’s always about balance.

I won’t labor the point. Go out there and be child like once in a while – even (or especially) if it’s behind closed doors. To you Americans – I don’t need to tell you that (maybe you guys are over doing it?). I won’t hold my breath for Kiwis & Aussies – I think we have a long way to go on that front. Oh well one baby step step at a time I guess.

See you on the next blog!

Anton M. Smith 17 Aug 8:35PM (in the small town Alexandra, in the South Island of New Zealand)

“Paper Planes & Long Lost Eye-Glimmers?” (A Prose Poem + Bonus Narration in the writer’s own voice)

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Paper plane carrying office worker past oblivious office

By Anton Martin Smith antonmartinsmithwrites@gmail.com or martinantonsmith@gmail.com

Basic Assumption: You the reader/listener have brains.

You used to think “When I leave High School my brains will be appreciated”.

This naive delusion helped get you through the psychological torment dished out by the bullies,

And all the other horrors that happened thanks to those deeply frazzled & disinterested teachers.

Then by the time you’re a couple of years into ‘work life’ you realize ‘High School never ends’.

Of course this was to your horror – a slow kind of creeping crystalizing horror.

Yes sadly on this godforsaken planet, most people of all ages will still hate you if you have brains and good ideas.

Your already existing decades-long-friends certainly don’t want you to have brains.

In work you realise that people would rather have the whole company fail than reward your brains.

Of course a big part of you lies to yourself – you say to yourself:

Maybe if I do this project REALLY WELL it’ll change.

Of course it never does – you were deluding yourself.

The kooky management kept promoting people with dubious IQ’s to be your boss or to boss you around.

And so the years and decades roll by.

The money stays shit and the promotions never come.

You keep doing the work of seven.

You keep doing the work of your boss.

You’ve become the ‘high price external consultant’ that is totally free.

Of course you start to drink or do drugs or womanize (or ‘man-ize’) – that’s a given.

In fact it’s almost the wise choice since you do work in a literal madhouse –

For if bad decisions are routinely made over good & intentionally so –

Then don’t be a fool to think that this isn’t a form of madness.

Why wouldn’t you blow off steam on the short weekend breaks from the asylum?

You would be stupid not to lean on at least some form of escapism.

And then suddenly the ‘cubical dilated time’ says seven years has past since you had your first day,

And you take stock – you realise you have psychologically checked out forever.

It was all like a loud dripping tap into an empty but plugged bathtub in the room above your head –

The annoyance seems endurable so you don’t make plans to remedy it –

But it will assuredly fill and then overflow through the floorboards and onto your cold head.

At this point the light has long left your eyes.

You’re probably overweight.

You probably de-facto-married someone who is also a cubicle-prisoner (with wasted brains too) just like you –

After all misery does love company –

And there’s no way you could marry the empty platitude enemy (your jailer boss the ex high school bully) is there?

Or maybe you just ‘did it all alone’ to wallow ‘Schopenhauer-ingly’ in the ambiently-anguished-atmosphere.

And as a Late-Twentieth-To-Early-Twenty-First-Century-Dweller it is almost redundant to mention this but I will –

The Corporation’s Henchmen (formerly ‘The Quacks’) have certainly loaded you with deadly anti-depressants.

Yep – I’m sorry to announce this BUT….you screwed up.

There’ no getting away from the fact.

You fell for the plan.

You fell ‘hook line & stinker’ – as the wise last century’s cartoon characters did say.

Yep – you foolishly agreed to ‘Stay in High School forever’.

Of course in theory you could have left Cubicle Fluorescent Light High School –

But they told you business was to risky and by the time you realized it wasn’t –

It was too late –

By then you were past the point of no return.

You succumbed to the ‘non-event horizon’ that is your forever ‘corporatized penal life’.

Yes the World ‘got you’ as is the plan for all us ‘Neo-Dickensians’.

I mean lets take a breath – let’s not be too harsh – they do run a great devilish ‘Mephisto PR game’.

You have to be born into an ‘insider family’ to know it before it traps your soul and your eye-glimmers.

Yes – It was a shame, it is always a shame.

You (like so many with brains) were full of potential.

You could have been something great.

Now you’re closer than ever to retirement.

The last thirty years have gone forever never to return.

And through the decades under lock and key you didn’t even have a hobby either.

You could have read the worlds books.

Knitted up a storm of bright jerseys.

Learnt to be a potter.

Got into web design.

Learnt how to speak as the Spaniards, The Russians or The Japanese do.

Done some woodworking or furniture repair.

Hell – you could have made a billion wonky-quasi-flying paper planes.

But you didn’t even do that.

But being a cerebral outsider that never finally quit the bully-favoring-cubicle-rat-race wasn’t your biggest mistake.

What you needed was a persistent low level chronic dose of freedom on tap.

For all you truly needed was not a giant company of your own –

It was not a trapper’s cave in the woods far from civilization –

But it was something small that was entirely yours.

That you could build upon.

If you had jus done that – you would still have a tiny glimmer in your eye.

And it is true that a single spark can burn down an entire tree, forest or national park is it not?

If nothing else you must have a hobby – as glib and sanctimonious and as that seems.

Now excuse me – I have (my equivalent to) a paper plane to catch.

You see – I wasn’t quite as stupid as some were,

For with these words I have retained a hobby.

But with all this quasi-sermonizing I don’t think I’m being mean either.

Just think of me as a farmer of your un-paralized and formerly non-extinguished urban eye-glimmer.

My goal is to bring a tiny part of you back to (a real) life.

Surely at your age some of you is allowed to leave Urban Cubicle Dreadnaught High School?

And I don’t think that’s too much to ask – do you?

Don’t dare lose all of that fading glimmer in your wandering screen-jaded left eye.

So go get yourself a noble hobby – and remember ‘bomb making’ is just as good as any.

You didn’t think I’d end on a mature note did you?

(Ah you know me too well!)

“I’ve Bin Busy” (An Update – Blog Post)

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Colorful books arranged in geometric patterns on a wooden dining table

by Anton Martin Smith antonmartinsmith@gmail.com or martinantonsmith@gmail.com

QUICK (WordPress AI GENERATED) SUMMARY: In his recent update, Anton shares his busy week involving home renovations, guitar playing, and writing a serialized story on alternative history. He reflects on struggles with music theory and cleaning up after DIY projects while expressing gratitude for his growing audience, especially in the U.S. Amid challenges, he appreciates creativity and companionship, including his cat, Squeeky.

Now the 100% Human (I guess I am human)written Blog Starts Here:

Hi all.

Well what have I been doing? Well I’ve bin busy! I’ve covered a lot of bases this week. I’ve hd my usual domestic tasks of trying to do the basics well – home cooked meals, getting to the supermarket, working on my home reno project. Over and above the basics I’ve got the old electric guitar out again (recently I pulled it out after not playing for two years). Let me talk of electric guitars.

So I know i have a problem with playing guitar – long ago I got to the point where I learnt the basics, well SOME of them. I know what’s in key or not BUT I still can’t play bar chords. The problem is a guitar is not designed very well to ply bar chords. My fingers don’t like them. So I can only play the powers cords, notes AND the basic chords on fret one and two. I don’t really have any appreciation for the I iii IV chord sequence etc. You see the problem with music theory is you hi the HARD PART and then it’s a grind. I started guitar too late. It is what is is. So my history has been 1) Bad cover versions 2) Writing bad half good guitar tracks. So really I simply jangle about for fun – I like to play some overdrive riffs, then I add a few notes. It is what it is. Maybe one day I’ll be bothered to learn guitar properly. You can’t win ’em all. Maybe I just don’t like how to be a good musician you have to ignore all other parts of life – and I like to do lots of different things. Ok enough about that.

What else – well I’ve been working on my reno project – this week I painted some tired looking wooden storage racks. It IS amazing what a lick of paint does. It’s boring so I’ll stop talking about that.

I also am trying to deep clean all the “Gib Dust” (i.e. powdered plaster) that has gone through my room because I decided to do my own ceiling replacement job. I did th “Joint Plastering” and “Drywalling” myself. We calling it Gib-Fixing and Gib Stopping in NZ/Oz. The fine particles are everywhere. I’m bad at cleaning at the best of times. Did I mention I was also sleeping in the room while I did the job? That’s a tricky process where you try to live in one half on the room while you work on the other, with a canvas sheet sectioning off the messy dusty area from the living/sleping area. It only half works. The dust seeps through. Ok enough about that.

On a writing front I’ve came up with a new idea for a serialized story. It’s what might be called ‘alt-historic political fiction’. i.e it’s half based on real life and characters but half not. So the half true part is Thatcher and English Politics and society in the mid nineteen eighties. With these things you come up with the story as you write it. Actually I wrote part 1 a week ago and then went back tonight to finish and improve/add to it. I’ll post the link here:

“Regrets Of The Neo -Thatcherite – The Story Of A Deeply Fazed Cookie – Part 1” (A Serialized story)

Anyway I’ve tried to be humorous with a nod to reality as well. Not much point in banging on about it. Go read it (I’m beggin of you!). I plan to record it as a voice file in my own voice – give me a few days for that.

Outside that – the site is going well. You Americans seem to like my stuff. That’s awesome! Say what you like about the Americans – they are great supporters or the arts which includes writing (of course!). American traffic is actually 6X as much as the next country – NZ (my home country). Weirdly Australia doesn’t like me – but I’m not so surprised – I don’t thing they are massive readers per capita (but I might be wrong). Of course my site is tiny overall. I should probably be on Substack – maybe one day (I actually do have an unused account). Anyway – thanks to you Yanks! Maybe it’s just because I mention Bukowski all the time? He was very good after all a great feather ruffler!

Other that that I’m just trying to survive. This is not easy these days. Especially in small town NZ. Especially since you can’t work in a offices anymore and you find working with others too toxic. Oh well – maybe I’ll get more handyman/garden work this season. So long as I don’t die under a bridge I guess. At least I’ve made it to age forty-eight this August. Almost fifty. Man time is being eaten up like some giant bookworm might eat up entire chapters of Buk’s ‘Ham On Rye’ every five seconds or so. I always lament how hard it is to just survive in NZ. In my more black minded moment I think it’s like we never made it out of the ‘Great Depression’ of the nineteen-thirties…..well perhaps it’s not that bad…we did boom in the fifties…maybe we’ve never got out of the ‘oil shock era’ of the mid nineteen-seventies. That’s fifty years of eating mince on toast. Oh well thank god I’m a quasi-bohemian who doesn’t need a fancy Maserati and trips to the South of France. My mind can conjour up enough fantasies and ideas of various types I guess. I just wish I had more people do have conversations about ideas and the world with. Oh well at least the internet is here to (potentially) reach billions.

Anyway that’s covered a few bases. I’ll update you more later! Good luck on your creative pursuits and the books/writing you are reading.

Oh I should mention my cat ‘Squeeky’ is well. Cats are great little furry things. They are like real life angels looking over us – are they not? Except when they are ‘hangry’ of course.

Take Care All!

Anton Martin Smith Sat 22 Aug 2026 11:48Pm

Update: “Regrets Of A Neo-Thatcherite – The Regrets Of A Deeply Fazed Cookie – Part 1” has been expanded (So Go Read It!)

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Book cover reading "The Long Shadow and the Politics of Tomorrow" by Sarah J. Reynolds

by Anton Martin Smith antonmartinsmithwrites@gmail.com or martinantonsmith@gmail.com.

HI FOLKS! Please read the now further updated version of my new ‘Political Alt-Historic Fiction’ serial here (I’ve added another 1500 words from the Aug 15 one) :

ADDED NOTE – I will aim to add a MP3 where you can listen to the story – with my voice reading it. That’s the plan anyway! But if I don’t you can read the words ya lazy lazy sod!

“Regrets Of The Neo -Thatcherite – The Story Of A Deeply Fazed Cookie – Part 1” (A Serialized story)

I’ll write part two when I can – hopefully within a week! I have fleshed out a rough plan that will help give birth to the next few parts.

“Rolling Tears And Deeper Truths” (A Poem)

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Silhouetted person overlooking mountains as glowing light trails drift into the valley

by Anton Martin Smith antonmartinsmithwrites@gmail.com or martinantonsmith@gmail.com

When you see or hear something sorrowful,

And a tear forms and rolls down your cheek,

            It always carries more weight –

                than the thought itself. 

      The proof is the element of surprise.

      That a tear is rolling down your cheek. 

So there must be ‘another you’ deep inside – 

    That knows everything and feels it more, 

 But hides itself for your day-to-day survival. 

         The Truth’s outline is only hinted at 

       in a few salty droplets once in a while. 

                This is all understandable. 

     We are Earth-trapped in minutiae of life.

And Love is sometimes too dangerous a thing. 

“Regrets Of The Neo -Thatcherite – The Story Of A Deeply Fazed Cookie – Part 1” (A Serialized story)

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Book cover reading "The Long Shadow and the Politics of Tomorrow" by Sarah J. Reynolds

By Anton Martin Smith antonmartinsmith@gmail.com or martinantonsmith@gmail.com

NOTE: THIS WAS GREATLY UPDATED ON 22 AUG 2026 – 1500 words were added.

“That’s another fine mess I’ve got myself into”.

Said the man who was almost next to me in the train to Nowheresville. Of course he was talking to himself – something that used to be rare in the England transport system. It was well past midnight on a Friday night. Of course drunkeness on the tube in London was the norm as people left the central drinking holes of London. He didn’t know who I was at this point – this would come a lot later on, long after his retirement from UK Politics. I would know all about him from afar thanks to my hidden recording devices. For some forty years he did not know I had existed at all. I knew everything, and I was lucky that he had a habit of murmerring away to himself as he sat at home after a hard days work.

My name was Anton Schmid and when I first saw the at-the–time thirty-three-year-old Thatcher backbencher Terrence Tipthorne – and his wild performance on the tube – I was just a twenty seven year old greenhorn. I was just a lowly telecoms technician working for British Telecom. Although I had bigger brains than my job. With my big bored brains I had used BT equipment to make the best ‘bugs’ possible – not of the crawling type – of the surveillence type. I made both listening bugs and video recording bugs. Better that state of the art – my bugs were only one cm square. I would have some great entertainment snooping on Tipthorne the man who replaced Thatcher. Yes – initially I was just having fun – although now looking back I was also working on a long term plan to save the UK from the UK that Tipthorne ended up creating during his two decade long run as PM.

This would be how I got to know about the real Terrence Tipthorn and how dark his personality could become. But for now I was just watching him from a few seats down on the tube. I was watching this drunk who I did not yet know was a Thatcher backbencher. I had simply though he was just another mid eighties yuppie. I thought he was perhaps a stockbroker from Canary Wharf or perhaps one of the millions of faceless corporates in ill fitting black suits. Terrence had gotten up and was swaying wildly while holding the hand rail above his fold out seat and started slurring loudly.

“If only I had listened to my other self before I did it”. Said the man in a loud yelp above the din of the other half-cut passengers – who later I’d soon learn from a TV news report was Terrence Tipthorn. I noticed as he pretended to read the strangely creased paper he was now frantically scratching himself. It was like he had an ant under his shirt. He also had a wild look in his eyes. Yes his clothes quite Businessman-like but his dapper-ness was ruined as he had a large patch of post-London-nightlife-alcohol-binge vomit on his shirt. The smell was mostly obscured by the ubiquitous cigarette smoke that literally hung in the air in visible layers. They were different times compared to now, that is nineteen eighty five versus twenty thirty seven.

Tipthorne’s haircut was recent and sharp. He was almost handsome but not quite, on account of his weak chin, bad English teeth and slightly wonky and ovesize nose. But he certainly wasn’t ugly and for an English Politician he was relatively good looking. He helped himself by being not so far away from what is called ‘snappy dresser’. His shoes of top quality were by the well known firm ‘Balderdashes’. Baldedashes Shoes had been to footwear of choice among the upper-classes for some three hundred years. It was highly unusual if the man in Ten Downing street did not wear them. Of course his ties were rather garish, often having little planes on them or strange patterns. In short he wanted to always look the part more than he could make happen in the real world. Well he was a Tory wasn’t he?

I noticed was the Financial Times open on his lap. The headline was

“Thatcher Cuts Red Tape – Invites More Foreign Investment”

Yes to look at him you would not know he was volatile at all. Just a typical suit who was binge drinking – like most of the Western world did after work in big cities, let alone London. But when he opened his mouth – it was all beyond doubt. He loaded up the next line by taking a big audible breath.

“It all started with Thatcher – IT’S ALL HER FAULT WE RICH GUYS WERE MUCH MORE LOVED BEFORE HER!”

He screamed as he stood up off his seat. Of course no one knew he was a Tory backbencher so it didn’t mean anything controversial. Even if someone did recognize him it didn’t matter a jott – backbenchers were seen as silly children no one took them seriously. They had to rise up a number of places to be noticed by anyone.

He was told to sit down by a few passengers. He of course did not sit down. He said the next line.

“Don’t let that grocers child pull the wool over yer eyes folks….she was and is scammer, a charlatan and shyster…and I loved her”. It was then he was semi-pelted with a few jeers and a couple of empty coffee cups, and a few scrunched up pages of The Telegraph or one of the many ‘daylies’ of the time. Back then before smartphones their were newspapers everywhere within arms reach – especially on trains and busses.

“I loved her fiery red hair just as much as her sternly and poorly veiled pomposity…maybe even more! Naaah…just kidding! Or am I aha-haha!”

People yelled a little louder with their jeers, and some more things flew. This time a few more empty coffee cups flew and some more balls of scrunched up newspaper broadsheets. Everyone else on the train was almost as drunk as this man – Terrence Tipthorne, so the tongues were firing up – so to speak.

‘Sit down you fazed cookie’. The crowd around her laughed – includign a chuckle from me. The lady that had given terrence this quip-shutdown was a sixty year old Scottish accented lady. She was loaded in cardigan and loaded with clothes shopping bags. Back then sixty was quite old. Sometimes lonely older people living on their own went shopping late at night in London.Another spoke up against Terrence’s on the face of it ‘pro-Thatcher’ words.

‘That red haired witch! She smashed he bloody unions to dust you dolt’ – don’t you remember the miners strike for fucks sake?” said the man in oily overalls who was holding a spanner at both ends. He was actually one of those on call mechanics that sometimes had to use the tube late after they had fixed another train that had broken down.

‘She believed in clueless trickle-down economics’ said the drunken London School Of Economics university student who I noticed had a Text book half falling out of her haversack. It was on the famous mid nineteenth century English PM during the Victorian era ‘Pitt the Elder and his Economic Views Of England’ by Brian Ware. I thought that was funny – ‘B. Ware’.

“OH I WISH I WAS THATCHER’S HUSBAND! BUT DENNIS THE SOZZLED GIN GOLF BOY AND HENPECKED FOOL BEAT ME TOO IT….AH HAHAHAR” Terrence spluttered out ridiculously. There was a loud groan from the passengers and again a few projectiles here and there including a mans cap. The young socially invisible backbencher Tipthorne continued his drunken verbal antics as he swayed standing of his seat and clutching the hand rail for balance.

“SURE THE SEX WOULD BE BAD BAD BAD!!!! BUT THINK OF THE FRINGE BENEFITS!!!”. This line drew some sniggers, and a few guffaws and I watched the peoples faces turn upward – he had definitely just improved his reception more than a little. People in a big dirty mega city like London love an unexpected laugh. The English are not entirely mean or unsmiling or as stuffy as is commenly thought abroad. Nothing was thrown at Tipthorne this time – other than a rogue pencil that amazingly landed in his spiffy jacket pocket next to the fancy blue handkerchief. Tipthorne seeing this improvement from the captive audience was boyed to keep going. This time as he was getting a little tired from all the excitement he was alternatively loud and then quiet.

“If I was THATCHER’S HUSBAND….. I’d take her on long holidays in the COTTSWOLDS – because Politics is a STRESSFULL GAME!!!!”.

The sniggers turned into big guffaws and claps and cetainly no projectiles. People whispered to each other along the lines of ‘maybe we’ve misjudged the fellow’ and ‘haha this suited up git’s funny’ etc. Again he kept talking.

“I would have said to her ‘HEY THATCHER – don’t offshore that, don’t BORROW from those SHADY SAUDIS YA GINGER BITCH! We can pay OUR OWN BILLS with the pure traditional hard workin’ class factory-spun-labouring known as BRIIIITISH GRITTT”.

The train was now clapping to him and listening with quiet respect. usually someone in a suit was a snob who was down on the working class. Of course most on the train were lower or middle classes, but most would have had working class parents. Of course Tipthorne – as I had found out later from my recordings of his late night whisky addled mumblings – had one working class parent and one of lower middle class and had grown up in the East End; but they were the kind that had pretended they were ‘rich’ to anyone who didn’t know them. Tipthorne had always found this embarrassing. That’s why it was a common ‘late night mumble’ of his that my listening devices – bugs – had picked up. He continued the rant as the train clacked along and as his audience listened now with quiet interest.

“I would have said HEY YOU THATCHER – I really loved your alliance with RONNIE REAGAN – after all a B – GRADE ACTOR is exactly the steel trapped mind we needed to HITCH OUR SPOTTY ENGLISH ARSE TOO” Of course he was almost certainly being sarcastic, and they all mostly picked up on it. They loved it. They were putty in his hands – although he was too drunk to see the effect.

They were all so moved a throng of the tube passengers started to sing what turned out to be a messy but ebullient combination of they old-timey songs ‘for he’s a jolly good fellow’ and ‘hip hip hooray’. Now egged on by these simple folk he again took a mighty big gasp to load up the next verbal quickfire rounds. He knew he was on a roll.

“Now did I ever TELL YOU GUYS about the brilliant PR MAN friend of THATCHER’S by the name of Joseph GOEBBELS?”.

But he had ruined it. The train went silent. Half drunk people in nineteen eighty five didn’t really want to remember the Nazi’s as it reminded too many of them of ‘The Blitz’ that is the bombing of London. In fact it wa only twenty five years since the last of the rubble had been cleared from ‘The Blitz’.

Tipthorne had lost Though nothing was thrown. I saw the drawn faces of the older folk. Bit no stray paper cups and no scrunched up newspapers were thrown. Though there was just a barely audible gasp of disappointment from the forty-five pluses. Of course the Englanders on this train were now used to having their high hopes dashed in a seconds notice. They mostly accepted it with stiff upper lips. I mean by this time dissappointment was the norm.

The last decade – starting with the ‘oil shocks’ of the mid seventies had been very bad times for England – and they weren’t that good before that, even though England had been on the side that had won the war. Terrence Tipthorne’s impromptu comedy act had was simply a silly diversion anyway – they were happy for it while it had lasted. Now they simply went back to amusing themselves by the usual thoughts about the dull but necessary tasks they all had to do with the usual Saturday morning chores – dishes, vacuuming, doing the washing etc.

The spiffy dressed ‘Thatcher half-loving-half-hating man’ looked around, and had seen and accepted that his last line had not landed with his captive-on-the-train audience. Later on in his Political memoirs he would reference this laughably embarrassing happening when he was simply a promising backbencher. But being a Politician, of course in the memoir he wrote he would disguise it by pretending he was watching it all from afar in the train as an onlooker – instead of the truth that he was the main event speaker making a fool of himself.

Of course he never forgot the deeply embarrassing incident – but he wrote it off to a ‘temporary mental meltdown’ which afflicted many of the young-ish career minded ladder climbers of his type.

As he now many decades later sat in his country home as a man of eighty with his pipe and The Telegraph on his lap he was still happy to delude himself about hi political life and legacy. He told himself how glad he was that he had ‘made a difference in UK Politics’. In his time as PM he had indeed copied Thatcherism down to the last thread of its threadbare ideology. Sure this had meant a terrible social decline during his reign – that is beyond dispute even among the current Tory remnant.

During his time at Number Ten the poor had all became homeless, the middleclass decimated into abject poverty and were now living in squalid camping grounds as long term tenants. However the top half of the upperclasses – such as our man Terrence Tipthorn himself – had greatly prospered out of the carnage of what had been dryly and emotionlessly referred to as a ‘K shaped economy’ by the wealthy economists of the day. He took a sip of hi neat whisky.

“I was only doing the right thing by way of Thatcherism” he said to himself trying to squash the nagging feeling that was omnipresent.

“It was the execution of Thatcherism by the boneheads in my cabinet that ruined Britain for the millions of dispossessed stupid but honorable middle and working-class ‘brokies’ – it certainly wasn’t my fantastic adroit leadership”. Again trying to squash that nagging feeling of ‘being a traitor to his people’ that would pop into his mind a few times per hour.

At about this point he realized the drink had been drunk. When he had these intrusive thoughts his sips turned to gulps. He would then get up to his liquor cabinet as the mental stress of these invasive thoughts further ramped up.

As he did every night, he would drink until he passed out on his comfortable chair and then always wake up at eleven am sharp. After all there was no one else to wake him anyway. His wife had died a decade ago and no one had suspected a thing – but of course I had my recordings didn’t I?.

TO BE CONTINUED.