Wednesday, November 17, 2004

Pre-Partum Anxiety

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.
Invictus, W.E. Henley
As I wend my way through my final days here at work, sloping sullenly in on grey mornings and scurrying franticly out in the dark evenings, I find solace in muttering these nerve-strengthening and resolve-stiffening lines to myself. In much the same way that I scowl and mutter Philip Larkin's This Be The Verse to myself when forced to converse with my parents. Or Wendy Copes's Bloody Men when waiting for a bus. What I'm saying here is that I tend to talk to myself a great deal. Which may account for the fact that I am not generally liked.
The tax office sent me a 'Claim for tax repayment during unemployment' form the other day. Do they know something I don't?

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