Downtrodden Sheila

Sheila is a climate migrant surviving in a border town gutted by ecological collapse and economic abandonment. The only available work is playing algorithmically generated phone games—gig tasks disguised as entertainment. Each task is randomized, opaque, and compulsively engaging. She doesn't know the games control the town's policing drones.

Sheila is unaware she has a dissociative disorder rooted in childhood trauma. The games amplify her fractured sense of time and self—engineered to induce ADHD-like compulsions. Her labor is mindless but vital to a system she neither understands nor consents to. The town is quiet. The drones are active. Sheila keeps playing.

Verse 1:

Sheila is a migrant.
No jobs in town.
Only gig work available.
Algorithmic games keep her occupied.
Drones patrol the skies above.

Verse 2:

She is good at the game.
She got a high score yesterday.
She is hoping to be able to afford a one bed flat rental.
She dreams of a better life.

Verse 3:

Sheila walked down the street.
There were protests because a man was shot yesterday.
By a drone.
The authorities say it was an accident.
But Sheila noticed surge pricing in the game.
So she left the protest to play.

Verse 4:

Poor ole Sheila, stuck with her lot in life.
Doesn't realise that she shot a man.
Can't organise.
Doesn't understand the game.
And doesnt have the attention to understand the system.

Downtrodden Sheila

Poor Sheila, whose mind tends to flee, Asked Lord Digital, "Would you set me free?" "I can't stop dissociating, you see, He said, "Child, you're too soft— Just hustle though, it's productive, you'll see."

Downtrodden Sheila, she went to work
Playing games for the man in the sky.
"Oh Lord Digital" she said, the world to me,
is like looking through a glass, its eerie.
Sometimes I'm looking through,
sometimes I'm looking at the window.
but its not up to me.