Near-constant anhedonia would probably be more of an issue if Thom had more time to think about it. In that way, the continual stress of his job can provide some kind of superficial relief from the many flavours of despair engendered by his problems (while acknowledging, of course, that it causes many of them too).

Primitive antidepressants with a formulation dating back to the 20th Century can help, too — until he runs out, and can’t afford more. The amphetamines that keep him awake for colossal stretches of work also provide a teeth-grinding, hyper-focused kind of respite from the blankness.

However, when there is a lull — for instance, spending 13 hours kicking around the plains of the Reckitt-Benckiser vertshuttle terminal in the desert remains of Navasota, Texas, Earth — it can be hard not to spend time turning inward, and feeling the risk of dwelling upon the complete absence of happiness in his life.

In these situations, if Thom is brain-zapped from the discontinuation symptoms of hastily-stopped SSRIs, his vascometrics package prohibits the purchase of any more speed-laced coffee, and his shrivelled serotonin receptors still croak out for nourishment, he has to do something.

Eventually, the bass notes of enjoyment are among the few that can still resonate with his pleasure-deafened body. They are the endlessly-lucrative classics: Sugar. Salt. Fat.

Somewhere underneath the high-frequency, throat-scorching odour of dinitrogen tetroxide, it’s possible to be drawn by the cooking smells of a Jimmy Lumps stand. Jimmy Lumps are a popular way of mashing up whatever protein meals can be bought cheaply and in bulk and homogenising them into a product that hungry, bored, and/or depressed travellers can slide greasily down their throats while waiting for a vertshuttle. Gelatinous balls of anonymous protein and fat, flavoured heavily, whipped and shaped into aerated balls, deep-fried, and skewered by wood-effect plastic sticks, they’re cheap, they are grotesquely delicious, and they will dull certain aches for a few precious minutes.

One of the biggest drawbacks with the Jimmy Lumps served here is that Navasota is one of a patchwork of places — places not in any way limited to Earth — where the most common cooking fat to use is still sucrose polyester. Like Thom’s antidepressants, sucrose polyester is a 20th century invention– though, in this case, originally designed to prevent people getting fat, rather than to prevent them killing themselves. It can be used like any other kind of cooking oil, but it can’t be digested by the body, so it passes straight through without being absorbed. Unfortunately, many formulations of the substance have a habit of causing terrible stomach cramps and diarrhea, as well as leaching fat-soluble vitamins such as A, D, E and K. As a result, such snacks are usually sold bundled with a large dose of a cheap opioid-receptor agonist that stops the large intestine from turning into a high-velocity hot chocolate dispenser, the latter effect being one particularly undesirable when facing a stressful vertshuttle trip.

Sucrose polyester is actually synthesised from vegetable oils and sugars. The reason why merchants do not just cook with the raw vegetable oil alone is because, across several territories spread through the system, a venture capital company owns the exclusive processing rights to the only remaining viable strain of rapeseed oil–and has not attracted a price high enough yet to consider licensing them. The oil is still produced (where crops can still be grown), and it can be bought, but it can’t be used and resold. 

However, a loophole in the wording of the rights (which the VC company is engaged in a colossal battle to close) means that a few derivatives of the oils are still able to be sold. So a small market has sprung up in labs synthesising sucrose polyester out of vegetable oils. Oil manufacturers can sell oil, vendors can sell food, the VC company can’t stop them, and all it means is that packs of loperamide need be stacked up next to the napkins.

All of this is a moot point, of course, if the arid dustbowl where Thom is stranded whips up into a sudden gale that sprays the majority of the noxious treat across his face, his ears, and the company-branded jacket that he will have to pay to have cleaned.