MY LIFE IN THE SMOG OF GRUNGE

Once upon a time I was living in Oxfordshire developing noxious gas analysis software for a company that rents it to power stations and other exhaust emitting industrial plants.  I am meticulous and consequently slower than most, hence why I was only earning about £12,000 per annum.  My software is, however, superior and exceptionally bug free.

15 years pass by and I have endured an unbelievable divorce that makes the Skripal Novichok affair look like child's play.  I have been a single parent and spent 18 months struggling to defend my daughter, my nephew, and myself from a hideous eviction orchestrated by my erstwhile siblings (four harpies and a Napoleonic pretender) who cruelly coerced my mother to sign the most disgusting toxic narrative for their solicitor to present in court.

The three of us eventually landed in rented accommodation that we cannot afford sitting precariously in every respect on the banks of the Haven in Lincolnshire.  The stress and anxiety, caused primarily by the Tory's destruction of the fabric of society, proved unendurable for my nephew who attempted to take his own life before being whisked off to Wales.  This left my daughter and me rattling around this house, unemployed, disorientated, and ostracised by society.

For over a year now we have taken to strolling along the banks of the Haven which is tidal and fed through a sluice from the River Witham.  The Haven meanders its way out to the mud flats and sand banks of the Wash before finally reaching the North Sea.  Part of our walk takes us round an odorous sewage works and along a littered path called the Havenside Country Park.  From here we have been watching the construction of some monstrous industrial plant on the other side of the river.  Yesterday it started belching toxic exhaust and I assume someone is very happy to see their investment burst into life.

A search on the internet reveals the new cathedral for modern man to be a multifuel gasification plant.  Apparently these gasification plants process wood, industrial waste, and sometimes human body parts.  So I expect we will soon be able to fill our lungs with the slightly smoked aroma of charred foetuses and gangrenous toes.

And I ponder the intricate harmony of the complex circles of life that bring me to being near destitute whilst staring across a cold bleak river watching body parts incinerated for profit and belching noxious exhaust which is most likely being monitored by sophisticated software that I wrote all those years ago.