A Brief Report on Hell, the Undesirable, and Other Weekly Inconveniences

 Listen.

There are weeks that pass politely. They queue. They apologise. They leave no residue.

This was not one of those weeks.

This week arrived like a damp envelope marked URGENT and addressed to the soul. It smelt faintly of burnt toast, old rain, and decisions made after midnight. By Tuesday it had already introduced me to three things that should not exist, one thing that insists on existing too loudly, and a growing sense that reality itself had failed a routine inspection.

Let us begin with Hell.

Not the operatic one. No fire, no choirs. Just the administrative wing. The part with flickering strip lights and a carpet that remembers every footstep. Hell this week manifested as emails marked “Just circling back,” a kettle that boiled only when I left the room, and a queue that advanced exclusively when I stopped paying attention. Classic signs. Textbook, really.

The creatures came shortly after.

There was the one in the corner of the kitchen at 2:14 a.m. Not a monster so much as an idea with elbows. It watched me make tea with the patient disappointment of something that had hoped for blood but would accept oat milk. It vanished when I sneezed, which suggests it was either shy or unfinished.

Then there were the smaller ones. The undesirable ones. The sort that live in the cracks between intention and follow-through. They fed on procrastination and self-doubt, grew plump on unfinished tasks, and left behind a residue best described as ugh. I tried salt. I tried sarcasm. In the end, I opened a window and they drifted off to bother someone else. Possibly you. My apologies.

Midweek brought the human horrors. Opinions shouted without context. Confidence without curiosity. People explaining things you did not ask about with the fervour of cultists and the accuracy of a weather forecast written by a goldfish. Twitter—X, if we must—was particularly fertile. A digital swamp where everyone is correct, nobody is listening, and the algorithm watches from the reeds, chewing thoughtfully.

I closed the app.

The silence that followed was biblical.

By Thursday, time itself began misbehaving. Monday echoed. Wednesday lingered. Friday refused to confirm its attendance. I found myself tired in advance, a sensation normally reserved for funerals and software updates. Somewhere, a clock ticked in the wrong order. I let it. We all have our coping mechanisms.

And yet.

Here is the irritating part.

Despite Hell’s paperwork and the creatures’ enthusiasm, the week contained moments of grace. Small, stubborn ones. A laugh that arrived unannounced. A cup of tea that tasted like it meant it. The quiet relief of knowing that even the undesirable things have limits. They cannot stay forever. They get bored. They wander off.

Lovecraft would tell you the universe is vast, indifferent, and populated by entities that do not care if you are tired. He is correct. But he neglected to mention that some of those entities trip over furniture, lose their keys, and retreat when confronted with basic competence and a decent biscuit.

So yes. It was a week of Hell.

A week of creatures best left unnamed.

A week that tested patience, sanity, and the structural integrity of the soul.

But it ended.

Which is more than can be said for some things.

File this under survival rather than victory. Sometimes the win is simply making it to the other side with your humour intact and your tea still warm.

That will have to do.

More later.

Assuming the creatures don’t unionise...