Yeast

W. was impressed at my recent depression. It's a sign of your seriousness, he says, or that even an idiot like you cannot escape seriousness. These are desperate times, says W., even you must have a sense of that. W.'s always admired my whining, 'like a sad chimp, at the limits of its intelligence', but my depression took me beyond that, didn't it? You were silent for once, W. says. I didn't ring him, or respond to emails … No chatter from me: that's when he knew things were really bad, says W.

Of course, I put my depression down to yeast, W. notes. Yeast! Some psychotherapist you'd make, says W. '"Doctor, I want to kill myself'." – "stop eating yeast" – "Doctor, my wife just hung herself." – "It was the YEAST!"' Of course, it has nothing to do with yeast, and everything to do with the great crises of the world, which even I have woken up to, W. says.