Out of Step

You want to go one way as the sun breaks over the ridge, while the abundant pressures of the world pull you the other way. You lean toward the cool morning and all its possibility as the leash of work tightens and pulls you onto the treadmill of modern, corporate, social order. If you want to eat, for now, anyway, you join the line trudging obediently to the smokeless factory, where you will take up your place in front of the screen in order to channel minds into a chute of abstractions. You see them there, the young people, and wonder what you are doing. Soon enough, you are caught out. Your privileges are stripped from you, your ID badge confiscated, and you are set free to wander in search of scraps. It's a thing, this condition. You don't know if you are sorry or not, unlucky or blessed.