this inverted world

...and as he walked out into the street, he saw them - all of them, each of them - living their individual lives separately together. Waiting, every one waiting on something. On a paycheck, on true love, on a change in the weather, on the promise of tomorrow - always something.

"Fools," he thought. "We're all such fools."

He saw it now, with a sudden, frightening clarity. The lie was laid bare before him: entire lives spent biding time, in anticipation of the better days that were surely around the corner. He shook his head at the realization.

"But they never come. Things never do get better."

He watched as an old woman hobbled by him on a cane held together by tattered duct tape and good intentions.

Stepping off the sidewalk, he whispered softly, "It only ever gets worse."