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A man views his past as a kingdom of monumental hardships, dedicating his life to documenting the miseries he has faced. He wields his sob story like a weapon, cutting down the happiness of others with precision. To the untrained ear, he may sound like a tragic poet; to everyone else, he is a tear-slinging historian who cries over yesterday’s bread while gnawing on today’s cake.

Let us revel in his misery, his unrelenting quest to paint the past as a masterpiece of agony.

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Old Man Woe, with his mournful refrain,
“Life was a furnace; now it’s champagne!”
He sits by the fire, though no cold’s in the air,
Swaddled in grief, his favorite despair.

“Do you even know,” he begins with a sniff,
“How I carried mountains, no breaks, not a whiff?
I climbed Everest daily just fetching some bread,
And slept on a pillow made out of my dread!”

The youth would nod, their patience thin,
As he launched into tales of his suffering kin.
“We bathed in rivers—no showers, no soap,
And drank from wells filled with shattered hope!”

“Your Wi-Fi’s strong, your gadgets smart,
But where’s your grit? Where’s your heart?
We read by candle, or the lightning’s glow,
While wolves serenaded our nightly woe!”

His eyes grew misty; his voice hit a quake,
“When I was your age, I didn’t get cake!
No, just moldy rice and tears on a cracked old aluminum plate,
Yet here you are, with frosting so great!”

“Why, back in my day, even air was a chore,
We breathed it sparingly—it left us sore!
Now you’ve got oxygen as much as you please,
Such pampered lungs, they don’t even wheeze!”

But the truth of his tale, painfully clear,
Was not the hardship he held so dear.
No, it was envy, gnawing away,
For he wanted to swap his yesterdays.

So he sulked in his chair, his stories on loop,
A one-man orchestra, misery’s troupe.
While others moved on, he clung to his plight,
His anthem of sorrow, his lifelong delight.

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Old Man Woe is a comedic tragedy mourning the loss of relevance in a world focused on modern conveniences. Underneath the humor, his sadness stems from a desire for acknowledgment of his suffering, as he isolates himself in a self-made museum of melancholy.

So let us laugh at his theatrics while taking heed—life’s hardships are not medals to wear but lessons to outgrow. And perhaps, just perhaps, offer him a slice of cake. You might silence the symphony. Or you might just start a new verse.

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