Dear diary. Today, for no apparent reason, my mother decided to show me the place where all the lost and damned souls go to await the day of judgement. Its called the Clacton factory outlet village. The place had all the charm of a concrete bollard, all the cheerfulness of a holocaust memorial, and all the imagination of a clothes designer for GAP. The whole time we were there, it was cold, grey, windy, and damp with drizzle. I suspect it would be like that even if the rest of the country were having a tropical heat wave. As we wandered around the outlet stores, discovering that apparently, outlet means useless shit we cant even give away anywhere else, I could actually feel my will to live draining away. I am also pretty certain that the few other unfortunates we encountered were actually physically aging before my eyes. There were a lot of big black cars in the car park that looked suspiciously like hearses. Finally, it hit me. This is the governments covert solution to the right to die issue. Instead of people having to travel to Switzerland to die at Dignitas, they now only have to go to the Clacton factory outlet village, where their remaining life-force will be slowly sucked away, accompanied by their choice of appallingly bland Muzak. I take one comfort from all this. Having seen the Clacton factory outlet village, I no longer fear the idea of going to hell. Hell is a picnic compared to the soul draining greyness. And mother dear, if, in future years, you find yourself spending your twilight years trapped in some joyless, insipid, sterile hellhole of a rest home... I want you to remember this day. Because what goes around, comes around.
Posted on: Wed, 16 Oct 2013 15:36:31 +0000