X of Cups

They closed down the factories, and cleared us off the piers; my wife and I stood arm-in-arm, both of us in tears. The soldiers took the terraces, and put curfew in place; they gave the traitors walkie-talkies and armbands.
We gathered in the Dog and Diogenes to discuss revolution. Then suddenly there were jobs. You could earn thousands a week as a guinea-pig for the Projects, or test new equipment for the Lady, and later, for the Moon itself. It might be dangerous, but there was money, and purpose, and we were all together for once.
Nobody wanted revolt then. It was a new dawn, a new age.
God, what a thing it was, to be alive after catastrophe and war, and see men living in the skies, aiming their carbon-fibre Babel at the stars.