Token Monarchy

There is an hour which interferes with work - "our hour". We use it, or are used by it, to bound round supermarket chains or sandwich bars. See? We're bound by bars and chains. Workers pound the counter at the Queen's Head every lunchtime. Time for lunch, not time for hunger - hunger learns to coincide with lunch. The counter which we use, or are used by, the Workers' Pound, bears the Queen's head. It's a token. You get these if you work. Hard work, hard cash. Someone gives you tokens, which you trade in for Things. The Queen approves. Sovereigns can do anything. Wake up when it's dark, do things no sane adult would ever want to do, and you can have tokens, too. One day, we'll see beyond Things. Work work out of our system. Pools will be stocked with carp, not typists, and the Rush Hour will mean a lazy while spent on a river bank - not that anything will be spent, and banks will have been abolished. The only office will be evensong, nothing will be known as "hours", or even "ours", and pounds will be locked up ... in pounds. Alarm clocks will be wound up. Treadmills will be recycled, much to the relief of guinea-pigs (which will be renamed, along with money spiders). There'll be a Queen's Award for Indolence. I've seen the future, and it doesn't work.