Weekly Ramble

Rocky had been a teacher for several years, which was not quite long enough that he felt any compulsion to do it deep in the marrow of his bones, like his colleague Pan talked about, but for quite enough time that if he were to suddenly stop, it might cause a mild upset in his mood, particularly because he didn’t like interruptions in the way he goes about his day. After all, the profession is nothing like it would have been prior to the Great Reorientation. He should feel lucky that he’d been able to keep his job, and should take whatever they were willing to offer him, and should do whatever work they deemed fashionable, and should do it all with great big dumb smile. But that wouldn’t be an option, not with the way he saw things.
In fact, Rocky had ‘off-ramp’ planned, but to pull the trigger was another matter.
At any rate, wearing his orange tinted glasses, blinds drawn in his dim-lighted office, he wrote.

‘There came a point in everyone’s lives, consider it well, where they no longer had to reckon with the comforting dread that shackles the individual to a routine and sedates them with a dose of Protestant work ethic. The carrot is poisoned, and the stick swapped out for bombs. Life suspended mid air like a silk worm swaying in the breeze, yet, everything still seemed to get done. It is hard, devastatingly so, that a warrior should be asked to lay down his sword, even when he is promised a life of luxury. Even harder is it for the average bloke, whose life will not include the luxury of a battle-hardened hero, but the dread and weight of a life he never planned nor imagined.’