From a Polyp On the Ocean Floor

I was once a polyp attached to the ocean floor in the deep, deeps of the sea. This was a long time ago, about 40,000 human generations ago when folk didn’t know any better. I tell them this at medicals and they look concerned and start scribbling notes.

“What do you call it when two brothers who are writers fall out?”

They look at me blankly, so I answer.

“Scribbling rivalry!”

They jot down some more notes.

Outside in the waiting room it’s like world of the zombies. All sorts of the city’s mendicants and wasters and some who are actually, genuinely ill who could be doing without all these shenanigan’s.  They’re forced to because of the wasters and a vengeful Tory government of toffs and kleptocrats who want all the money for themselves and seek to demonise like it’s the sixteenth century and they’re after witches. This time the scapegoats are poor white trash from the schemes.

“Yes, I was a polyp once. A proud working polyp with prospects of one day being a floaty-about thing.”

Outside there are groans like from the Thriller video. Folk moaning as if in some physical or mental agony (possibly both).

“Ah cannae be daen wi’ this. Three hoors ahv been waitin’”.

Short of staff, you see. All the medical assessors off sick with stress.

You can imagine the ATOS Christmas party. All the anecdotes about folk lowering trousers and defecating on desks. Claimants pretending to be chickens, etcetera, etcetera.

 

Quota’s, but. What about the quotas? How many of us duds have you got to fail every week?

What if someone’s genuinely ill but you need your own personal wee quota filled by that one solitary person, the last one on a Friday?

Moral dilemma. A bollocking from your team leader or you send that person into the beckoning hell of appeals and tribunals where they’ll probably win but might die in the attempt?

 “You too, genetically, derive from a polyp. From a polyp to an ATOS medical assessor. Some journey”. 

They don't look like they see the joke.