returning

October 9, 2026

Today we will be tidying and cleaning, and packing up most of our stuff, so we can be ready to load the van and head back to reality early Saturday morning. Back home. Going from there to here is always much easier, and better. Better than tomorrow when we will be going from a leaf covered path in the woods barely wide enough for the van, with chipmunks darting across it, to a highway with sixteen lanes full of trucks and terrible drivers. It is a bit of a downer thinking about leaving tomorrow, but it truly has been an exceptional getaway. A recharge.

At least when we get back I still have a couple more days off before returning to my stupid job. It is really hard to think about walking away from that terrible job... as much as I hate it. But I do think of leaving, often. Especially when I'm off. This November will be nine years of being employed there. It is the known rut I'm stuck in.

The pay rate was competitive when I first started there, but it has fallen behind other companies that do the same kind of thing. If I'm careful with spending, it is enough to get by. For now anyway. World leaders and the oligarchs they serve seem hellbent on making it impossible for everyone. But for now I can make it work.

Aside from the semi-sufficient pay, I also get four weeks paid vacation, plus pretty okay medical and dental insurance. I've been paying into an investment thing. Going somewhere else to do the exact same job seems rather pointless, stressful, and a roll of the dice. If it did happen, it might seem like an okay decision for a few months, or maybe longer. In the end it would be exactly the same shit I'm mired in now. Just with different people in a different building. Chances are it would be worse, and it would likely seem like a terrible idea right away. There is almost no hope, like one in a million chance, of it turning out to be better. I would no longer have the vacation time, and likely nothing close to the insurance plan I have now, if any at all. That is all assuming that I could even get hired somewhere else at 55.

Something in the news yesterday triggered a memory of words I had typed about a year ago. The memory was vague, so I looked into the archives, and found them fairly quickly. I remember it feeling like exaggeration when I first typed them. But now, a year later...

A tiny handful of the global population has a massive amount of the wealth. There might be a few of those in the top 1% that are not horrible people. Or maybe 'a few' would be too generous. Maybe .001% of the one percent might be not horrible. Not good people, but not horrible people. Or maybe all of them are just horrible. Maybe calling them people is a stretch. That seems to be a more comfortable assessment.

Amassing wealth trying to fill a void that they don't even know they have because they are the void. Born that way. Born into it. Devoid of everything that makes a person a person, and the only way for them to feel anything at all is if the numbers representing their wealth keep going up year after year. To say 'they feel anything' might also be too generous of a thing to say about them.

Priority to them is displaying power and a wealthy image. They fear losing it. Despise everyone not like them. I guess those are feelings too, sort of. Just not the type of feelings that will extend the existence of the human race. The disgusting unbalanced joke of a system might have worked silently without much obvious damage done at some point in history, to some degree, but now it is like a virus killing all but the wealthy in many different ways, and it can all be watched, like watching an explosion in slow motion.

I find myself wondering if capitalism could actually function fairly if it wasn't owned and operated by the worst of the worst of humanity. I don't know. I lack the knowledge to understand the intricacies of world economics. Recently though I have been reading about the idea that no one on earth should have enough wealth to 'be a billionaire'. So I guess in a way that sort of answers the question of whether or not this shit show could function more fairly. That excess wealth that they hoard for no logical fucking reason could instead be wages, could be for dealing with the climate crisis. Could be for feeding, housing, medical and dental care. Education. Science. Useful technology. Guess we, humanity, fucked that up. We could have been something better than what we are.

Food and shelter are basic human rights, they say. Some even say it with a straight face. Yeah right, rights. Right? I suppose in an alien world not governed by sociopathic billionaire morons there might be such a thing as basic rights like food and shelter. If they could find a way to commodify the air we breathe they would, and they absolutely would not hesitate to take it away. Just like with food and shelter.

When my parents were starting their life together they had three tiny kids, a 4 bedroom house, and a car. My father was the only one working. He worked in a factory. I wouldn't say we were well off, or had nice things really, but we were never ever hungry or lacking necessities. That scenario could never happen now. I left the grocery store the other day with one bag of groceries that cost $90. That used to buy a cart full, and not just 1 bag. So much that I couldn't carry it all in from the car in one trip. Inflation is broken. Cost of everything has been on a steep incline. Wages that are supposed to keep up with the cost of living haven't changed enough to keep up.

Someone important to the regime south of the border got shot in the neck. The world nearly instantly got to see blood spew from the wound thanks to social media. It wasn't too long before they had the shooter in custody. I'm sure by now he must wish he had turned the gun on himself after shooting the guy in the neck. Last I heard he wasn't cooperating with giving the interrogators his motive. It is entirely possible that he simply does not have a motive beyond a shallow desire for fame. Maybe ChatGPT told him it was an excellent idea.

I picture him being mentally and physically tortured until he ends up saying things that he deep down doesn't care about at all, just to get them off his back. The highest bidder will decide what words the torturers make him say. Something that will send the right kind of ripples through the pond of public opinion.

The regime will fast track his execution and make it public. Turn it into a spectacle. They won't follow rules even if they know them. Firing squad will use the same type of gun and ammo that the shooter used (maybe even the same gun?). They will shoot him in the neck. No one will gasp in horror, or turn away. It will be met with a non-reaction, a profound silence that no one expected. No possible reaction seemed like the right one. Like everyone was waiting for someone else to react so they could mimic it.

The drooling senile cult leader will be there, asleep and dreaming of his gold toilet. He will shit himself, and then wake up when the shots are fired. A flunky will help him stand, then he will wobble and lurch up to the podium wishing he had the walker, and could still be wearing his dead mother's bathrobe like he does in private. He will slur out his usual fucking nonsense that no one understands. Not even him. When he appears to be finished rambling, everyone will vigorously nod their heads as though in agreement with something, while frantically applauding. They don't even know why they are applauding, but they are thankful for being able to finally make some noise after the silence.

The body of the executed will be laying on the ground face down in a puddle of blood, legs bent weird, hands tied behind his back. No one in the newly birthed Fox and Friends Public Executions Team planned on having the corpse removed.