Wordvention: My entry

Here's my entry in a contest started by Mr @galenkp which challenges Hivers to make up an entirely new word. You can read the full post here.

The word I've made for the contest has its own backstory. Back in the day when I was a young, rebellious lad, I used to visit a popular rock pub in my home town. To be honest, the place was rather shady. Cheap, shabby furniture, floor sticky from all the beer (and worse) spilt on it, air thick with cigarette smoke — nothing for fancy people who like their Portuguese wine properly called, but local metalheads and punk rockers loved it.

One wonderful thing about the pub was the jukebox standing in the corner. Don't get me wrong, it wasn't a vintage one you see in American movies, with real vinyl records inside. The thing looked like an old arcade with a cheap computer inside and a hard disk full of pirated MP3 files. With some spare coins, you could make an entire playlist of favourite songs and listen to them while sipping your favourite poison. Even better, other regulars used it, too, and it was a great way to expand your tastes by listening to new bands and albums.

One day, I was sitting there over a glass of cheap, watered beer. My own playlist just finished playing and a new song selected by another customer started playing. First, there was the fantastic meaty riff and then the first lines: We're the troops of tomorrow, we're hanging round today. Right, so another classic by the legendary Scottish punk rock band The Exploited. However, for some reason (could it be the beer?), I misheard them as Tombs of tomorrow. And I liked that false phrase so much that it stayed with me forever.

What a darkly poetic line! A tomorrow full of tombs everywhere. The future of a graveyard planet, with the last surviving people crawling like revenants among all the tombs. Now, that's some properly dark vision, fitting for an 80's punk rock band.

This leads me to the word I've made up for today's contest.

Tomborrow.

A tomorrow with not much more than just tombs everywhere around you, from here to the horizon. This is just a word I've just invented, but given my innate pessimism and how bleak the world around us looks, I may start using it quite often.