For the record, I *did* write this short story, but it was supposed to be a metaphor for mass immiseration of populations under ever-more-degrading forms of capitalism. You know, like how stories set in the future are almost always actually about the present, or "The Matrix" was not actually about virtual reality https://web.archive.org/web/20250106131338/https://cohost.org/mcc/post/1299852-hell-box