Chorus

Chorus

         O the wickedness of man was great in the earth.
         hateful preachers spitting righteous venom, ey two thousand and some failings between what we are and our salvation. And not being heard or being heard too much.
         The doors click closed and the floor rocks down as the ropes take the pressure. The air is stale. Slowly the lift begins its fall. People jammed and shuffing, sweat stained shirts cling, eyes glued to the panel, the hum of the motor, watching the doors,  the mechanised voice.
         listening to popular programming,
         People suffering a work/life imbalance.
         People romanticizing their past, their parents past, an ideal past they would like to happen.
         Two thousand and some years since they reset the clocks,
         ordering on line from the most caring supermarket, locally sourced, organic and free range and loving
         Impotent office man, watching pieces of his job disappear, reorganized due to cold business dynamics, centralized, synergistic, high volume, low wage, low skill, high turnover, high tech, low challenge, low respect, low expectation, low quality, low joy.
         Watch the best minds of your generation, filing out spreadsheets, conjuring fake smiles to brighten banal power point presentations,
         wiping the sleep out of their eyes, hardly remembering being young though really hadn't the time flown between then and now and being young and thinking of something being wrong, what was that thing that had been wrong?
         Then not thinking at all, Drunking in all manners, establishments, quantities,
         We were, we were dropping like we used to, we had the best music, we know it, because it had the genes of all that had been before it, the blood of it all. Pump and rave stupidly like it was real, like there really was something more than a lot of separate wanters happening to want that same thing at that same time and that time and then again a slight fraction less than they did before.
         You twists the thin easy open line of cellophane skirting the box and pulled it away, unsheathing the flip top box, a design classic bearing the flag of his preferred multinational, made in  Switzerland from a blend of South America tobacco, shipped by the million for distribution within the UK's dwindling market share, produced by worried executives with an eye towards the bottom line and an uneasy symbiosis with governments looking to be seen to be curbing bad habits and their strain on the national health, looking in desperation for new markets, if they have money to buy guns then they have money to smoke.
         Ripping out the metal impregnated paper revealing ten perfect two and three quarter inch paper bound pencils weaving tendrils of nicotine, tar and carbon monoxide exactly the same blend as your last five thousand,
         biting down on the cigarette not even feeling a release from the want felt. Barely tasted smoke drank in caresses on your tongue then washed away with one hundred percent pure orange juice from concentrate.
         Ay and have they ever really had it this good?
         If they protest can you really believe them? Are they buddist or something?
         But what if they live the clean life?
         Waiting for,
         Dark damp graves.
         The lift bobs and drops starting its mindless descent. They all are so quiet, they all can hear each others breath, see each others reflections in the wall, and fragments of limbs.
         TV, idiot box, its just so common, so bloody dumb, now I remember when channel four was good when it first started, not like all the shit they put on these days, TV is not worth thinking about, not worth watching. I watch the news though that's all some politician or other, lying and squirming, hoping not to alienate anyone by actual giving a straight bloody answer or a reak opinion or policy or anything like that or all those knifing and shooting stories, or paedophiles or some other shitty thing, or the credit crunch, and the wars, and politicians and terrorists like mosquito's stinging psychoses and sucking paranoia.
         Do you have a problem with society?
         Are you dysfunctional?
         Do you have difficulty finding happiness?
         Are you emotionally removed from your situation? Are you sexually repressed?
         Are you happy with your life?
         Are you suffering from anxiety?
         Are you having trouble sleeping?
         Do you feel numb or too little or too much? Is the every imagination of the thoughts of your heart only evil continually?
         Is the Lord sorry that he made man on the earth, does it grieve him to his heart?
         He lay on his bed waiting for his food to be delivered through the hole in the door. Waiting as he had done for twenty days, locked in a cage within a cage, kept for his safety and the safety of others. He thought of nothing, listening to his train of stunted memories, as they relentlessly evaporate, thinking of the mistakes that led him there with the same thin depth that he felt everything else, those few other things that penetrated his little box.
         O England where shall we weep for you?
         England, for she is so old, she should know better by now, dressed as lamb in fine clothes she could no longer afford.
         Her in all of her horror,
         Her a bed of pain
         past remedy,
         at war with herself first,
         then at the world second. She should know better,
         As we cry like the birds of sorrow,
         Will she not learn?
         Just thinking of the football, no thinking of talking about the football, watching the match in the pub with his friends killing time there before going home to the wife, thinking of doing that. Waiting for the next moment of quality a gracefully practised set piece flick of the foot that caught them all off guard, hitting the perfect space just out of reach and bouncing into the net.
         Thinking as he scratched at himself, hardly watching the track eaten beneath him. Two hours into his shift, coming up to Birmingham then on to Coventry, already wishing the day was over, not unhappy just waiting. He scrolled up thorough the fm stations, radio two was too dull this early, guiltily he listened to the sounds of your lives, on the easy listening station, he was too young for it but it was the lesser evil than yobbish comedy of the blockbuster djs. He preferred to drive at night, when the radio was worth hearing, when everything was calm under the phosphorous lights, but working nights and sleeping days ate his life in chunks, days speeding like sleepers falling beneath his feet.
         See past a century of science and a century of death,
         See a fear of each other then a fear of themselves.          
         Past men of science, shuffled papers, raising concerns.
         Fears for her started to spread, systems of balance that maintained life began to dovetail, deforestation, pollution, destruction of habitats, loss of species, war raged an uncaring fire whilst the ice sheets thawed.
         As resources fell, population exploding endlessly with innocent needs and innocent wants,
         crammed in the lift between the floors, the air getting hot, clammering for breath.
         Ay what is there to say that we haven't already heard.
         Socialists, nihilists, centre rightists, capitalists, fascists, evangelists, extremists, buddists, islamists, free marketeers, communists, totalitarianists, environmentalist, racists, feminists, careerists, philosophers, scientists, existentialists, relativists, pragmatists, isms and ideas, worms of thought spread on the wind,
         don't listen to anyone who says they've got it right.
         The old man rests in jail, awaiting execution, accomplished, wise, satisfied, convicted of corrupting the young with evil thoughts and opinions.
         Each year the state sent a mission to Delos, it was the law that the city shall be pure during that period, which means the state shall put no one to death.
         So he waited with a number of his friends for the ship from Delos to return.
         “I never thought about it like that.” - god I feel so stupid.
         “That is so true,” - again, don't just reply to him with anything, think up something funny, something good,
         “ha ha ha yes I suppose.” - just go with it, relax,
         “We've all been there.” - fuck,
         “Really that's sweet,”
         “I'm sure yes, I'm sure you do. What have you been drinking exactly.”
         “No no, I'm only teasing don't worry about it.”
         “I know its tough when its like that.”
         “Do you want to dance.”
         “Look at Frank he's up there giving it a go, come on.”
         “ha, yes maybe he's a bad example.”
         “Not too bad is it for an office do.”
         “Yes.”
         “Well I don't know about that.”
         “Oh I see, snap, well actually I split up with mine,” I looked down at the dirty bar top, sticky with spilt drinks, “well nearly three months back now.”
         “Yes, she's two next month, she's great she is.”
         “You know you look good in that shirt,”
         “Yeah really.”
         “Come on don't you like this one. Its your kind of era, the eighties. Isn't it?”
         “Oh yes please get me another,”
         “Oh hi, how are you, look at you all dressed up, you look lovely.”
         “What? Well I don't know really.” - ow! I bit my lip to hard.
         “really nice actually if you actually speak to him, you know, speak to him not at work. He's actually really nice.” - Gods.
         The prison official came into the men and was surprised at the old man's mood, he was not scared, he was not depressed. His friends and followers were distraught, but he seemed happy and at peace. He said to him,
         “I shan't reproach you as I reproach others for being angry with me and cursing, whenever by order of the rulers I direct them to drink the poison. In your time here I've known you for the most generous and gentlest and best of men who have ever come to this place; and now especially, I feel sure it isn't with me that you're angry, but with others, because you know who are responsible. Well now you know the message I have come to bring: goodbye then,” and with this he turned away in tears, and went off.
         “Goodbye to you too, and we'll do as you say,” and to the rest of them the old man added, “What a civil man he is!”
         The gawky babysitter patted me on the head, and waived me through to the stairs, like pushing me along, practically leading me like a dog.
         She was so dumb, I'd be much cleverer than her, when I'm her age, I won't be babysitting, sitting on my but, to raise money, oh I'll be doing all sorts of stuff. Not clever at all, not as clever as mom, or as pretty, or as pretty as me either.
         She asks if I want the door open, in a sing song voice, of course not, no I don't want the light on either. Off she pops down the stairs. I can hear her open the creaky door. Sit on the sofa, click the remote.
         T.V voices wash up through the stairs. Silly cow.
         I click on my T.V. Quickly fading the volume down. Now all I have to do is make sure I don't fall asleep when the film finishes, just keep my eyes open, so I can get up out of my comfy warm bed, walk over to the set and press the button in, no problem.
         so she rubbed her eyes, pressing the balls into the roofs of her sockets, red raw she looked at the screen.
         For about fifteen minutes.
         So when she woke, at only ten years old, she'd was the oldest on the world, by a mile.
         “there are many wondrous regions of the earth, and the earth is neither of the region or the size supposed by those who usually describe it, it is of vast size. We who dwell between the Phais river  and the pillars of Heracles inhabit only a small part of it, living around the sea like ants or frogs around marsh.
         Now we ourselves are unaware that we live in the hollows, and think we live above the earth- just as if someone living at the bottom of the ocean were to think he lived above the sea, and seeing the sun and the stars through the water, were to imagine that the sea were the heaven, if through slowness and weakness he had never reached the surface of the sea, nor emerged, stuck his head out of the sea into this region here; and seen how much purer and fairer it really is than their world”
         Rain beat down on the world, on man and beast and on mans things.
         Crashing from the pavements,          
         He half ran, slouching towards the train station, his coat leaden from the water.
         He paced up the stairs and over to the other line, he checked the times on the wall, he'd missed the last train.
         “shit” he should have known, he trudged back out to the storm.
         He walked down the road to the travel hotel, only thirty pounds a night, for a room the size of a bed, with a bunk overhanging it at and angle, with sounds of sex prodding through the walls, with meals dispensed in vending machines, and automatic check out procedures.
         He lay down and was glad that he'd be asleep soon, then up and out.
         He hoped the meeting had gone well, he spun a convincing enough line, he had not made the programme but had been told enough, to spin the same vague promises of simplicity, speedy reports, user friendly interfaces, advanced automatic statistical adjustments. He didn't really hope about the meeting, he would get paid whether they chose to deal or not.
         His company made updates for software for computer checking systems, these checking programmes were used to measure the effectiveness of different paint layers, paint layers applied to bodywork of cars or planes. His company's software updated the standard software in several key areas, though it was up against some decent competition, in several other software firms. Though all of this was short term as there would be in perhaps as little as three years a new software system, that would probably incorporate all these advances, or not, and either way would almost certainly not be backwards compatible.
         He slept in the grimy room, untouched, dead, like a pebble in the sea.
         “if we were to pass through to the summit of the air: for were anyone to go to its surface, or gain wings and fly aloft, he would stick his head up and see, if his nature were able to bear the vision he would realize that that is the genuine light, and the true earth. For this earth of ours, and its stones and all the regions here are corrupted and eaten away, as are the things in the sea by the brine, and practically nothing is perfect.”
         picking their way through to the tables, holding thier mohoitos, down to the plastic modern bohemian chairs.
         Making small talk and watching the young strutting in cool t-shirt and boxy trainers.
         She wished she was thinking deep thoughts,
         She picked at her soft dress, her fine, expensive dress,
         her fine expensive hair,
         Beautiful and grown up, more than a good looking couple, her and her artist, they had depth, and intelligence, taste and experience.
         In minutes she would be up and dancing, with him, in the crowd like they should.
         “Its good tonight innit?”
         “yes,”
         The old man finished speaking, the guard was called in, he explained the poison,
         “simply drink it” he said “and walk about till a heaviness comes over your legs; then lie down, and it will act of itself.” Crito told him he could still go and dine well and drink plenty, wait until the sun came down, even go enjoy himself with those he fancied. The old man dismissed his friend,
         “I'll gain nothing by taking the draught a little later: I'll only earn my own ridicule by clinging to life, and being sparing when there's nothing more left.”
         look at that gawker whats to think about?                              pick your bloody sandwich, pick it up, get on your way,                    no hes getting closer, I back up. Cheap smelling perv,
look at him, can't afford a razor, ginger skank fro on his chin,                                                  come on choose something,                    
         its not life or fucking death,
         Right, I'll just shove by,
deli club prawn mayo.                                                            -Ick touched him- Finally,

"sorry"
         he says
         I beam back sarcastic and say nothing,
         Prick, I'm so sorry, bet he'll wank over that later.
Dance to the office, the babs in the cribs, Lisa rings,
"yeah actually I'm busy working call me back”
                                                           when I'm off lunch.          
                   Prawn mayo...                                                                                                    Can't believe we're going to figi!                              ...Deli-club.
         O listen to the legacy of man,
         a hundred year wave, a ghost radio, echoing out into space.
         The french disapprove,
         The weather is cloudy, the sterling is up against the dollar, but down against the Euro, the people are thirty percent in love, and fifty percent happy, the people are twenty five percent fulfilled, six percent unstable and forty percent worried about their mortgages, twenty percent wondering if they will ever get on the housing ladder. Fifty two percent are at war though mostly from a great distance. There has been a rise in feelings of inadequacy, a rising number are concerned about the environment. There is a significant increase in racist attacks towards Muslims,
         “whereas the Jews were your typical target how do you now see them?”
         “well we now view the Jews more as potential allies, some time in the future we could see that as possible, after all there is the issue of Israel.” Apathy holds generally steady with slight diminishing returns.
         Ay look at a culture that held them with freedom, drowned them with choice of this shade of grey as opposed to that shade of grey, until their belly swelled and they could not leave their houses. 
         O did you ever want to dance naked in the streets, and fuck and  shit and gut and disembowel your neighbours on the tarmac?
         Can you hear the whisper of the the flood coming, can you feel the moistness in the air, can you feel the electricity.
         As the lift hums and pulses, dropping through the air, the eyes dart across the metal walls, pulses quicken. Watching the door,
         Desperate for water
         flooding innocence.
         You
         Drowned in hate,
         self paralysed,
         eyes to the door, feeling it change, knowing it its about to slow, about to stop, watching the doors, knowing they will slide.
         Curse yourself, themselves, your partners.
         Their parents,
         their colleagues,
         their friends,
         Drugged alone in their front rooms waiting for sleep.
                   ....work every hour that god sends to pay for all of...
         Uselessly bored, in modern torment of
         this shade of grey
         as opposed to,
         this shade of grey
         or
         this shade of grey
         or
         this shade of grey.
         Full enough to make the beautiful banal, full to the brim, no fuller than that, and then elvis and basil fawlty and chips and drugs all the drugs, and day time T.V. And talking in a whisper as you're waiting for the film to start, and cars and planes and football and accountancy and time and psychology and call centres and basket ball and celebrities and computers and work and working out and education and science fiction and religion and money and fashion and ten green bottles and horticulture and cookery and mathematics and double glazing salesmen jokes that haven't been heard since the eighties, and medicine and comets, and greek myths and remembering when Pluto was a planet, and the flintstones and road runner on Sunday mornings and vietnam war films and Rembrandt and DIY tv shows and
         Is he dead or just sleeping?
         He pressed the cup to his lips, and drank it off with good humour and without the least distaste.
         And dog eared copies of unfashionable once best selling books, and late night horror movies, and technics turntables, and skater clothes and punk clothes and day glow clubber clothes and bespoke music festivals and royal ascot and wimbledon and ladies day and sleazy saunas and book exchanges and tate modern and the national gallary and,
         Upon seeing him drink, his companions could not restrain themselves any more. Apollodorus burst forth into such a storm of weeping and grieving, that he made everyone present break down  except the old man himself, who said.
         “what a way to behave, my strange friends! Why it was mainly for that reason that I sent the women away, so they wouldn't make this sort of trouble; in fact I've heard that one should die in silence.”
         He walked about, and when he said his legs felt heavy he lay down on his back. The one who gave him the poison pinched his foot hard, and asked if he could feel it, he said not. After this he felt his shins once more; and moving upwards in this way, he showed us he was becoming cold and numb. He went on feeling him like this and when the coldness reached his heart, he was gone.