To me, the world feels like it’s becoming increasingly horrifying. The Russia-Ukraine war has gotten more unstable, the US government and its media are utterly corrupt (which matters a lot even for us in Europe, because whatever idelogical bullshit they come up with they end up spreading it), AI is getting nuts but the powers-that-be are focusing on trying to censor it to fit their ideology, insiders knew that the virus was a lab leak and yet they deceived us all, the WEF and the 2030 Agenda motherfuckers keep working every day to turn the entire world into a worse version of communist China, people are waking up regarding UFOs but whatever groups have the remains became a more entrenched power than that of public servants, etc. We’re living through the shoddiest dystopia imaginable.

Regarding my personal life, I’ve been unemployed since January. I thought it would last a month at the most, but turns out that the rankings that determine if I get called to work as an IT technician for hospitals got updated due to some new laws, and because I can’t speak Basque, I got pushed down from first to eight or ninth. I have been glad that I can wake up at nine in the morning and write, and that the goverment is paying me unemployment benefits. However, this won’t last much longer: they updated the rankings, and a good bunch of people above me must have gotten hired, because now I’m second. I may get called next week to cover summer holidays.

Obviously I just work to earn money. I wish I could write for a living, but that will never happen. Working as an IT guy with my neurological issues means not only that my time and energies will be stolen, but also my mental health. On top of that, ever since one of the so-called boosters damaged the electrical lining or whatever of my heart, working at the hospital will likely also end up with me in the ER yet again due to atrial fibrillation. From those who were permanently screwed by the biological weapon or its derivatives, I’m among the lucky ones; the twenty-two years old or so brother of a co-worker of mine, who played for a football team, dropped dead in the shower from a sudden cardiac arrest with no priors. The football team was checking him up regularly as well. His corpse lay for a week under a hot shower; they had to rely on his dental records to identify him.

Anyway, I’m getting more anxious by the day, not only because I may have to return to work soon, but because in twenty-one days I’ll have to travel to Vitoria to pass a bullshit exam that will determine the next ranking for this public IT job stuff. I’m having a hard time retaining half of the material; it involves semi-arbitrary laws and normatives more or less related to the public health system. Obviously I don’t give a shit about any of it.

Ever since I became unemployed, I haven’t spoken in person with anyone other than my family members and service providers. As an autistic guy who deals with regular intrusive thoughts due to OCD (possibly also untreated PTSD), I need solitude and a solid routine to avoid falling apart. I write first thing in the morning, I study a bit later, and after lunch I walk to the wooded outskirts of town to read. When I return home, I either study some more or waste time on YouTube and Twitter. I used to play video games, but I have a serious case of FOMO (can’t get into CK3, Victoria 3, Dwarf Fortress and Cyberpunk 2077 for that reason).

Today, though, as I walked to my usual spot in the outskirts of town, I felt unable to deal with even the occasional dog walkers and old couples that pass through that area. I walked further into the forest, past the ancient Roman foundry (this used to be a Roman mining town). An isolated home stood next to the foundry, inhabited by an old couple. You could tell that that house would have been demolished long ago if the couple hadn’t refused to sell it. There used to be chickens walking around. Today I have found that home bricked up. A cement kennel was overgrown with weeds.

I walked up a path that I don’t remember ever having followed, but maybe my parents brought me here as a kid. I took some photos of that area with the shitty camera of my tablet.

I sat on that spot for about half an hour. I couldn’t hear anything but the river and the birds. I thought of how old I’ve become: thirty-eight years old, far longer than I was sure I would get to live. Inside I’m still a kid, or at the most about eighteen years old. I have no idea how I’m going to cope if my life gets significantly worse. I fantasize about moving out of the area and/or travel for long periods of time, once my parents die. But due to my issues with executive dysfunction, I have a hard time dealing with anything that breaks my routine. Obviously I’m alone (I can barely handle myself), so I won’t get any help in that regard.

As I started heading back, I felt the kind of nostalgia that I could swear is written in my genes: I belong here. Not among people, not among cement and glass and steel. I need the internet to get by, but other than that, I wish I could get some job that involved losing myself in the woods for hours at a time without coming across any human being. Given my luck, though, I’d end up eaten by a bear, or becoming a Missing 411 case.

Someone had set up a huge salt circle, possibly for an occult ritual.

On the way back, I noticed a group of people out of sight because they were speaking obnoxiously loud. Shortly after, I could hear the presence of more humans from a distance: another group was having a picnic and lounging near the river while blasting music from a speaker. I endure sensory issues; the worst ones are audio related (repeated sounds make me feel like I’m being poked by someone who wants to fuck with me, and loud sounds make me feel like I’ve just been slapped. People’s abuse of noise has contributed greatly to my disdain for humanity), although I also have issues with light (outside, often I’m forced to do Clint Eastwood impressions, even if the day is somewhat cloudy), and whenever someone touches me, I cringe and feel the need to squirm (which was great for my sex life when I bothered with intimate relationships).

Anyway, I’m back home, sitting at my desk in my underwear. I’m not sure why I felt the need to write this instead of studying or browsing YouTube idly.

Oh, I forgot: until yesterday and for three days, a single person from the US had racked up about sixty hits per day on pages of my site, from poetry to short stories and novels. Not sure what you were looking for, but thank you for the dopamine hits. Particularly noticeable given that I rarely get more than five or six hits a day.