Ecstatic from One Lie by Hadyn J. Adams

Author:Hadyn J. Adams [Adams, Hadyn J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781467019811
Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
Published: 2012-01-11T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 9

An Interlude

“They flee from me that sometime did me seek

With naked foot stalking in my chamber:

I have seen them gentle, tame and meek,

That now are wild, and do not remember

That sometime they put themselves in danger

To take bread at my hand… .”

(Sir Thomas Wyatt: They flee from me…)

Being unemployed was worth a feature article in itself if John’s experiences were anything to go by. There were the circumlocutary details to be completed for the Job Centre to claim the dole and for the D H S S to claim the income support to which he was entitled though his claim to that particular department came to nought. Provided he turned up at a set time every fortnight and autographed a piece of paper then within two days a predominantly green and orange cheque with shades of faded pink and blue superimposed in the middle on the top plopped through his letter box duly typed up to pay him a derisory sum in the region of £90.00. But that was the routine side of things and just part of the system; an incidental to be put up with, to go through the motions of. Hardly arduous though certainly boring.

Days were filled with lethargy. Out of habit, John still got up just after 7.00a.m. and then meandered through his morning routine of toiletry and breakfast. Although having nowwhere particular to go he would find himself ambling about town in the morning generally ending up in bookshops or the library where he might browse through the computer index of books just trying to locate obscure titles he remembered from his past at school and university. It was interesting to find that the library often failed to have copies of books that he considered interesting, important and, above all, simply a good read; perhaps they had gone out of print, been stolen or it was just that the library’s resources never stretched that far despite the fact that this was an index which covered all Hampshire public libraries. He also found himself now doing the shopping at times which he considered odd for he had tended to squeeze in this aspect of his life on Friday evenings after work or Saturday mornings when not away. Again, it was merely to kill time or was it that time was killing him?

What he found interesting was the number of other people around during the day. Didn’t they work? Didn’t they have jobs to go to? Surely the nation’s unemployment wasn’t as bad as it appeared to this journalistic observer on the streets. But then John realised he had to categorise people. There were the pensioners, of course, permanently, but not always happily, freed from the chains of labour. This group, however, by no means accounted for the masses in which he found himself. Shift workers of course… . but shouldn’t they be in bed? Ah, no, there were those in that number who worked long shifts only three days a week and therefore had the other four days of the week off.

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