An Abject Adjective

This week I am using the Collins English Dictionary, First Edition 2006, for my random word selection. It is a straightforward text: main entry words in bold type, variant spellings and pronunciation given phonetically only for words deemed difficult. Parts of speech abbreviated, in italics.

Section A is sectioned out: eyes closed, pages flicked: the finger jabs. The first word is not especially encouraging.

Abysmal adj Informal extremely bad, awful. (Abundant is only a column away, one notes, perhaps therein the lesson?)

It is the morning, and the sun is clearing through mist. Drink tepid coffee; perform classic finger tap, ponder at the scene from the windows here. At the bottom of the abyss, Joseph Campbell asserts, there lies salvation. But abyss is a noun. Abysmal suggests that which belongs to the abyss, to the dark and distressing press. Which makes one think of media reporting and how once it had seemed serious and related to real lives and these days it is hard to tell if one is viewing a newspaper or some celebrity baiting pamphlet. Sometimes these things are such nonsense that the comedy of it almost outweighs the soul encroaching slime. At the bottom of today's abyss is a toilet for abysmal trolls. And the sooner we stop feeding them the sooner we can reach salvation.