A clinician and lecturer logs the absurdities of two failing systems: one chained to hierarchy and scarcity, the other drowning in paperwork and performative equity. Chained palliative patients wait while feline hospice campaigns multiply. Late-night COVID-19 guidance calls. Endless appeals that never die. Grant rejections justified by "not enough clinician voice" or "insufficient geographic diversity of lived experience". The absurdities accumulate. They become permanent. Pending: Notes from Two Failing Systems is a short, bleak autofiction ledger. No uplift. No moral. No escape. Only observation. Influenced by the detached precision of Rachel Cusk and the institutional satire of Samuel Shem and Adam Kay — but stripped bare of humour and warmth. Nothing changes.