We pretend to be something we’re not, we pretend to be something rather squalid, rather tiresome, and then we expect to receive the Boon of All Creation on this basis. And not only do we expect it, we demand it. We absolutely demand it and what’s more, we demand it in the most petulant and entitled way you could possibly imagine. That’s us all over, that’s us in a nutshell. ‘Is there any hope for us at all?’ I hear you ask, ‘is there not even the tiniest little bit of hope?

The question is purely rhetorical of course. You know it and I know it. The Lord of Faeces sits solidly upon his throne and we supplicate him, or at least attempt to, as best we can. ‘O your Faecal Eminence,’ we pray, ‘we beg that you spare us from your righteous wrath and do not visit your anger upon us in the way that we so richly deserve.’ We pray and we pray and we pray but it does us no good – the Lord of Faeces sits upon throne and curses us roundly from a great height. His anger and rage knows no bounds – he is anger with the whole of Creation, he’s anger with us – the created beings – for letting him down, for failing to reach the standards he has set us. He is the Wrathful One, The Degrader of Worlds. His standards for us are completely unattainable of course, just as they were always meant to be, but we won’t dwell unduly on that.

There was no such thing as social media in my day – we used to talk bullshit in the pub and when we were sad we’d cry quietly into our pint glass in the corner where hopefully not one would notice. Then when we got over it we’d finish drinking the pint and start talking bullshit again and act as if nothing had happened. We’d be talking bullshit as if there were no tomorrow. These days folk cry on TikTok instead, trying to express – as best they can – the terrible desolation and utter despair that has been engendered in their hearts by this vile insincere age of ours. There is a horror none may speak of you see – a horror that we are too afraid to address. Our fear is too great – it dominates us, it never leaves us. Instead of summoning the courage that we would need to face the abomination that is our life in this Corrupted Realm, we pray fervently to the Lord of Faeces, who sits above us on his throne of glory. His face is mottled with terrible malice. The Lord of Faces is deaf to our prayers however – he is intend on our destruction and it doesn’t make any difference whether we pray or not. Our prayers only disgust him all the more. The only reason he made us in the first place was so that he could have the pleasure of destroying us again.

‘Spare us, your Imminence,’ we cry out piteously, ‘we pray that you hold back your Ire…’ What wretched worms we are! How unbearably wretched and ignominious our existence is! ‘We’ll do whatever you want, your Evilness,’ we implore cravenly, ‘all we ask is that you protect us from your bottomless Mendacity…’ There’s no hope for us really of course, no hope whatsoever. It was a doomed endeavour right from the very start. We’re locked onto our doom now and no force in the universe can put us off. We can’t be dissuaded. We’re just not listening and that’s all there is to it. We’re far too afraid to listen to anything now – we might hear something we don’t want to hear, after all. We might hear the words that will strike fear in our hearts, we might be unlucky enough to hear some snippet of news pertaining to the actual truth of our situation…