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Geriatric-do you have contacts in crochet?

Posted on by tuesdaylatte

 

I can’t believe I am sitting here in a police station again. There are two of them this time. One does psychological profiling and the other wants to run through ‘the latest set of facts’.

She’s still all over the newspapers.

Number one asks, ‘What’s she like?’

Odd I think -because she is meant to be doing the psychological profiling, not me and secondly odd -because she sounds like a gushing school girl. They all admire my mother-all of them, some more, some less but still she is popular, like a rock star.

I can’t think how to answer.

‘She’s your average 83 year old who’s killed a few people.’ I can’t hide the sarcasm in my voice. I don’t know what to say to ‘what’s she like’, she’s my Mum, sweet, kind-outrageous.

She tries again, ‘She never showed any ‘tendencies’ when you were a child?’

‘No’ I say. Thinking tendencies to what?

‘Most killers start much earlier you know? Earlier than 83’

She says it as if that’s a fact that should startle me.

I can’t hide the sarcasm in my voice again. ‘No, no ‘tendencies’ when I was a child. She didn’t read murder mysteries, she wasn’t a loner, no deep ingrained childhood trauma for her or me, no parent to blame, she hated raw meat, couldn’t skin a fish, I can’t explain it, the homicidal tendency that seems to have occurred in old age.’

It sounds ridiculous.

‘ We don’t have much data on octogenarian killers, we think it’s more common than people think, people finishing off partners with medication either compassionately or vengefully. Your mothers really the first multiple.’

She says it like I should be proud and I think the other one is realising this is getting out of control. The whole gushing school girl thing is a little obvious. Number one sounds like she is talking about a supermodel not some 80 year old who hacked a machine and killed a few people in a nursing home.

Its then that number two starts- sombre, serious.

‘We caught one of them.’

My mother travels in a group of 4, her and 3 friends who escaped from a nursing home. It is generally accepted, actually universally accepted that my mother is the ringleader.

She is waiting for me to be shocked but it’s been in the news for weeks.

‘She needed a hip replacement, the one we caught, lots of pain, needed medication and we tracked her via that.’

 She is making that sound like a major IT achievement, when frankly most school children could do that in their lunch hour-although admittedly not using aging police IT.

‘Perhaps she’ll help you find my mother.’

Their faces both redden and then I know what is coming next. The bit that hasn’t been in the papers.

‘She escaped.’

My face reddens now.

‘A remote hack of the jail security system, carefully planned and timed. The usual thing, old lady-hobbled out, took a taxi this time-not ordered via an app, she used a pay phone. Didn’t think there were any or that anyone knew how to use them. She found one.’

At this point I am thinking there is no jail cell that will hold my mum or her friends and this will be my life forever. Stuck in a police station talking with her ‘fandom’.

‘Took her to the town centre, then another bus, then a taxi. We nearly lost track of her but she went to a fairground, a village fair-show whatever you want to call  it. Not much CCTV at an event like that? We have footage of her going into the baking tent and coming out with two accomplices, then all 3 go into the crochet tent. Your mother is not with them at this point, it’s just the other three and then they just disappear. We lose them. They never leave that crochet tent.’

‘Crochet tent?’ They are using arts and craft jargon now.

‘The tent where they have all the best crochet in the village and someone judges it.’

I have a faint childhood memory of a fair like that once, of the whiff of over-perfumed, overpriced pieces of lace that your grandma would like as a present. It was not the kind of thing my mother was into.

There is silence. They are both looking at me. I am looking at them. I wait for the killer question.

Number two delivers it, ‘Does your mother have any contacts in crochet?’

It is not what I expected

 ‘No’ I answer emphatically. They keep on it.

‘Can she knit? Sew?’ They are looking closely to see my reaction now. The tension is ratchetting up.

‘No she couldn’t even make a pom pom.’ I want to crawl under the table.

‘Could she sew on a button?’ The sentence is delivered with a hint of accusation.

I shake my head and try to sound confident, ‘No, no buttons.’

They look carefully to see if I’m lying. They note that comment carefully with an asterix in the notebook as if its crucial.

‘Maybe macramé?’ says number two

Number one interjects, ‘Is that the paper one?’

‘No’ I say and immediately wished I hadn’t. I tell myself to shut up now but I still go on, trying not to sound like I am the guilty one,  ‘it’s the one with the knotted wool and beads.’

‘So you’ve done macramé?’ immediately I can hear the suspicion in her voice, have I lied about the pom-pom? The buttons? How would I know what the word macramé means if my mother never did any.

‘At school, I learned at school.’ I say-‘without the help of my Mum.’

I feel trapped, like I have lied, these people, they can’t hope to catch my Mum this way.

‘Some sort of arts and crafts school was it?.’

I shake my head slowly. I take a breath. I ask for more water. This makes them even more suspicious. I ask for a break.

This feels like it will never end.

Legacy: France

Posted on by tuesdaylatte

I vow never to remember the past again. In the darkness my arms ache. I can still taste salty tears-although that could be salty splash from the odd slightly bigger wave. I vow never to remember again. I vow silently. Then loudly in the darkness and then- think how foolish that is. I row to what I think is the south. The anger is building inside of me. I would be very angry if I wasn’t rowing. I need to focus.

I can see it in the distance as night is somehow falling. Land. I don’t want to land in the middle of the night. I am sticky. I smell. A good off shore breeze would take my smell to every predator within 100 miles and they might just as well line up to eat me. I am tired, fatigued. Too tired to fight. I want to get there in the morning, creep up a rocky beach, hide the boat, sleep somewhere soft and safe.

I can still make it out in the semi darkness. Land. The machine has faded now, I drew a line on the seat for north and south. I will row hard towards the shore and then creep south down the coast overnight. Hope for a short night. Clamour out of the boat in the early morning, hide the boat, scrabble up the beach. Sleep, soft and safe.  

Except night comes quickly. I can see the stars twinkling overhead now, the darkness engulfing me below and on every side. My only light, a glittering night sky. The shore can’t be far away but I can’t see it now.  The problem is if I don’t land, I could lose the shore in the night and find myself lost and back at sea. This landing will not be how I want it to be-like so much of life. I rage against it but I can hear waves lapping on a shore even if I can’t see it. It’s a risky strategy. Anything could be on that shore. There might be no way off that shore. It might be cliffs above it. I might hole the boat on the way in.

Still I have no option, in the darkness it will be impossible to hug the coast. I wished for moonlight but it is faint at best. Light clouds rake across the sky blotting it out at will. The stars offer nothing, lighting up galaxies humanity will never see. That was a dream once wasn’t it? I will not remember the past again.

I will have to take my chances on the shore. I listen carefully, trying to tell myself that I can guess whether its rocky or not by the sound of the lapping waves. I try and hold the boat still for a moment. I am close. How close? I look into the murky blackness-how deep will it be here? I need to wash. I smell. Even by my very low standards I smell, of blood, urine, faeces. There is no wearing these trousers again. I think about getting out and swimming the boat in. That would be an insane risk to take.

Its not just the rocks I have to worry about, there will be the debris that was once houses buried under the blackness. Maybe there were never houses here, unlikely. For the past few miles I have been travelling over what was once the coast of France before the flooding. That’s makes cliffs unlikely although there are places where half of a hill has sheared off into the sea. Welcome to the brave new world! I know that I have been travelling over what was France because the device was old and it thought that I was navigating roads and towns. I am not. This is water. Its what makes my location uncertain. The landmarks I was following are somewhere below in the murky blackness of the water. The machine is completely gone now. I am tempted to throw it overboard in frustration.

Maybe there is smoke rising from a settlement just a little way off. In the darkness I can’t know that. I sniff. Smoke would travel on the wind. I look to the left and to the right. I could try, hug the coast all night, or I could weigh anchor here and wait until the dawn. I am not sure that I can live with the smell of myself for another night. I want to feel clean. The boat is rocking while I think. For the first time in the murkiness I feel seasick. The way I felt seasick on my first journey across this water. I wonder, did she-I will not think of the past. Focus on the task.

I can hear the waves lapping as I try to keep the boat stable. Risk assessment-how many of those had been done once, paper, pen clipboard-not like this. Sitting in a boat unable to see a thing, to land or to sail on in the blackness. Is the blackness even relevant?

I’m hungry. I smell. My arms ache. Did I make a decision or just drift into shore. I can’t remember. I hear the crunch of small stones under the boat, not the flood of water as its holed by a rock. I let the oars go loose in their-I wished I knew what the hell they were called but I came to rowing quite late and the name escapes me. They clank loudly and splash in the water. I could do without that noise. I can feel the boat as it moves with the ebb and flow of the waves. I listen carefully and hear nothing. I would like to spring out and leap to shore but that would be silly. I have been sitting here for days I didn’t count, didn’t want to count. I will not remember the past.

Instead I ease myself up on wobbly arms. I try to get my legs to support me. I have been sitting for days on end. This is not going to be easy. Its not how I imagine it. I stand there hunched over still, my back wants to stay sitting. I grab the sides of the boat wobbling everywhere. The noise of the oars clanking even more, they ring out in the night. I can’t concern myself with that. I must focus.  Trying to straighten out my back, slowly, endlessly. This seems to take an age-an hour, half an hour. I slowly unfold. I hurt-everywhere.  I am standing. The boat is still going back and forth with the waves. I stand.

Now to get out. This is not going to be graceful. I turn to one side slowly. Stretch a leg, stretch the other one. One of them reaches up and out of its own accord. I can’t be directing that-I am too tired. I am clutching one side of the boat now.

I stretch the other leg out. In the darkness I can’t tell- what went wrong. I am in the water. It is not deep. I still have one hand on the boat-focus- importantly –the boat is still full of my stuff. I sit there with my back to the shore. My whole bottom half is in the water. I try to talk to myself quietly. My throat hurts. My voice is raspy. I should not be making noise. I talk to myself more loudly. I know this is wrong but my own voice telling me what to do is all that is keeping me alive. ‘Hold the boat’ I tell myself.

‘Find the rope.’

‘Its at the front.’

I am completely vulnerable. I am conscious of that. I am tired. Beyond tired. ‘Be quiet’ I say. I say it again. My voice dies in the night. I listen for footsteps, other voices, noise? I wait for the thing that will come from the shore to get me from behind-the vice like grip on my neck as I am pulled into unforgiving jaws or for the thing that will come into the shallows and take my legs. I push the boat back into the water and search for the rope that is at the front.

‘I have found the rope’ –I say it out loud. ‘Grip the rope’ Fingers grip. How does that work. Its like magic. How my body obeys me. For a moment, through the fatigue, I am astounded by my body. Then I just lay down. I know I should not. I let the water wash over me. Heal my aching limbs, clean my body. Somewhere in the darkness, the blood and urine and faeces is swirling away. I am glad I can’t see it. It is taking the scent of me out into the ocean- for the predators to smell. I cannot stay here.

My voice is failing me. I look up at the night sky, at the clouds racing across the canvas of stars. I breathe in the air, taste it, smell it. I tell myself, in my head, it smells like France. I almost laugh, smells like France, the subtle hints of abandoned berets and fields of garlic drifting on the breeze- the remnants of used bike tyres and striped shirts tangible in the air. As if somehow the stereotype is captured in the very oxygen I breathe such that France is still here. There is no certainty. I’ve no idea if this was France once. The machine said it should be France but it was well past its best when it told me that. In so far as there is certainty in anything, I am certain this is not England. I lay for a long time until I feel clean, invigorated, hungry. The darkness seems quiet and I lay my head even my ears in the water and listen to my heart beat. To breath going in and out of my body-I remember those words, as long as there is breath in your body, you must go on, you must find a way. You must live. I am exhausted, hungry, tired. I will not remember the past. I let the anger go with the blood and the urine and the faeces. I haul myself up and out of the water. I prepare for the rest of the night and the morning, in my head –a checklist-breath in and out, on and on.

 

 

A job interview

Posted on by tuesdaylatte

I have a job interview tomorrow. I guess I should be pleased. I got it because I am 100% – human that is. They have to give you an interview if you apply and are 100% human under the disability laws.

I can’t remember when being 100% human became a disability, I think it was around the time when they had ‘solved’ all the other disability related issues. I like to think that solution was medical but there are endless rumours.

My mother says I have a chance tomorrow. I know I don’t. The panel must be made up of someone who is at least 60% human and the other can be a bot, cyborg, android-call it what you want- of any percentage. Of course all the other applicants will be some percentage or another. This job is unusual in that it requires you to be more than 50%. That is rare, and that kind of advertising is due to be outlawed soon, it favours us that are over 50% although it does no favours to the 100%.

My mother incidentally is 65%. She is thinking of reducing though-to  40%. She finds the whole emotion thing difficult. She looks at my life and the decisions I have made and is dumbfounded, hurt, exasperated. She cannot understand how she has produced a child who wishes to be 100%. Cannot understand why I can’t just get an implant, any implant to be just say, 97%. It doesn’t matter what I say to her about it she still doesn’t understand.

She says the whole emotion of it is going to force her to have an upgrade and if I start to earn money the decent thing would be for me to pay for that upgrade. I look at her and wonder whether her narcissism settings don’t need an adjustment and could I do that-morally-whilst she was sleeping.

Most days I go for a walk-I don’t see many people out walking-after all-only a 100% would be out walking without purpose. Something else which sends my Mum into a spin-purposeless walking. Why would anyone do that? I have tried to tell her it’s for exercise, to clear my mind, to get fresh air. Her response is clinical-and in this exact order. Number 1- You can get a bodily up grade anytime, just have a reboot. Number 2 – Your mind should never be clear, it should always be analysing data-no wonder you don’t have a job. Number 3 – Fresh air comes in a plastic bottle-how can you not know that? On the fresh air she has a point-all of the monitors say the air I am sucking in is likely killing me slowly, as if boredom isn’t.

My mother looks younger than me by a good 10 years and I suspect surgery and upgrades aside, that is owing to the air she breathes.

I will of course give the interview my best shot. It is what is expected, but there is always a test and even those over 50% will be able to switch on enough programming power to outdo my human brain or more likely to retrieve the answers from somewhere on the internet where the test will surely be found.

The interview is in the morning. I will pass the afternoon sitting in the park reading what passes as a book these days. No one publishes anything from anyone over 70% because hardly anyone is over 70% and well – if you are under 70% you are likely to think that stuff is good. I find it a tad formulaic which is the same reason they think it is so good.

I hear you, I get what you’re saying. Why not just upgrade, you would have a future then, get a job- be like them. But where is it all going-what are we going to look like in 10 years time-not aesthetically either-because obviously with bodily and facial upgrades  available-we can all look beautiful-not that beauty means anything anymore-when everyone has had an upgrade it just becomes meaningless- you can wake up today and look however you want and then change it tomorrow. There a site call Spectr-it matches people, like a dating site but its just a list of machine specs and they match you that way.

It works. I guess. I am not on it. They don’t take 100%’ers. I am on other dating websites but most of the profiles say the same thing, no 100%’ers wanted.

I look in the mirror. I am not the future of humanity. I am its past.

Chelsea plastic

Posted on by tuesdaylatte

‘It’ had to be old. No one young remembered this place. This was the Chelsea flower show-after it had gone completely plastic. A move designed to placate environmentalist and recycle some small amount of plastic. It also meant it could be open all year round- a win-win situation – it was a kind of ‘build it and people will come’ idea. They hadn’t really built it, so much as moulded and melted it.

Nobody had come in a long time. You could see by the dust. The plastic was fading. Plastic flowers had been blown over in the wind. Plastic leaves littered the path as if there had once been a plastic autumn. There was still a scent of fabricated flowers on the wind, mixed with the raw smell of hot plastic, muted over the years. She must have triggered a sensor that released some long forgotten chemical as the scent of fabricated flowers followed her in the breeze. The whole year thing had been a mistake by Chelsea-whoever she was. Someone who ran a flower show, she guessed. She remembered reading about it. No one came. It was in truth a shadow of itself in plastic-a kind of joke on a grand scale. People did not come out in all weathers to see a show of plastic flowers, in fact they didn’t come out in any weather to see plastic flowers.

She wandered into the abandoned café, there was a scone machine in the corner. Long unused, she swiped her card and some foul smelling gloop came out and then a swish of reddish jam. She caught the jam on her finger and ate it-sweet-artificial, but not a total waste of money.

She guessed ‘it’, this person or part person, people called them ‘pee-pee’s’ as a joke-she didn’t-  had chosen here because this place was deserted. The CCTV didn’t work and there was no chance of anyone else turning up. She wondered how long she would have to wait. These ‘people’-part people were so cautious, so worried. Scared. Their fear was made worse because it was something they couldn’t control or understand.

She recognised the gait and knew ‘it’ had arrived. An extraordinarily tall figure, weren’t they all-hadn’t they meddled with that as well. A hood covered its face. She knew what to expect, the chiselled perfection of youth. It approached, drew back its hood. This one was chiselled androgynous perfection, she couldn’t guess its gender from its features and its clothing hung loose and shapeless. Gender only helped with the serial number anyway-where to log it- where to look first when she came to record its passing.

Her first question, always impertinent, ‘How much?’

‘Sixty percent’ it had said. She guessed from the voice it had once been a human female.

‘Which way?’ she asked.

‘Human.’ it said.

She was making up her mind-this had once been female.

‘Let’s find somewhere to sit down.’ She led the way and sat next to some faded plastic purple foliage. She couldn’t tell what plant it was meant to be. Each flower was perfectly formed in plastic but the sun had faded them into different colours. It was a bit like the part people she dealt with. Perfectly formed but scarred in different ways.

She needed to make small talk, build trust.

‘Why here?’ Not that she cared particularly.

‘I came here as a child with my mother, when it was real, when I was real,’ it said.

She could hear the tension in her voice, she could smell the fear. The problem was when you were 40% machine and 60% human, the machine bits didn’t understand the human bits quite as well as they should and the result wasn’t something that was more rational, but something that was less able to control its irrational. It had been a fundamental misunderstanding of how human beings worked when they had gone down this path. It had been ok when they only had to make small decisions but the more pressure they came under the more rational and irrational clashed and the result was turmoil. They had been in charge with their super-charged brains and their long limbed perfection but the result had been abject failure, because they couldn’t manage to control themselves.

And then there had been climate change, sooner than anyone expected and they –these part humans had offered logical solutions and then ranted irrationally at the outcomes. We need to do this and that. There will be suffering but we will make it through. It had not gone so well. They had thought themselves invincible and then nature had decided they weren’t. A bit like the plastic flower show that stood here, you could see real grass poking up between the cracks in the pavement. Every so often a giant real life bushed covered and cowered plastic flowers into submission. They and their ideas had gotten less and less popular and they had panicked. Panicked and then- they had run. Simply, the few of them that had been in control took off. The rest and there weren’t a lot really- followed.

There had been a vacuum of power and a 100% human had stepped into the breach. They, the less than 100% were derided -attacked –hunted –blamed. Now they turned up in places like this, seeking help from people like her. They had found their conditions intolerable, the whole think illogical. How had it all happened? How is it that machine and mind did not work together to get the right result. Their experiment had not worked. They had found themselves out of control. At first they had been found curled up in the foetal positions in doorways but now it was more like this- an anonymous phone call, a plea for help. A steady trickle of calls to keep her in work.

Her job was simple, get the thing to trust you and it was easier to think of them as things rather than humans. Get it to trust you, get its serial number, record it. Find out as much as you can about it. Find out if it has any friends, anyone else who might be ‘part’ and then assist ‘it’ to terminate itself.

It was not the easiest job, these things were part human but they were not in control of the human bits, 60% human was not enough to control your human. Every time she saw one she would be struck by its beauty and then the conversation would start. They would ramble, sometimes unintelligible sentences, a list of their programming or their capabilities and then the rationality- could she help? They couldn’t cope anymore, this kept happening, that was happening, none of it made any sense, please could she help.  And all she ever asked for in return was a serial number.

The death would be relatively painless. This one was crying already, uncontrollable tears. She knew she would be sitting here amongst the Chelsea plastic for hours whilst it cried. She tried not to get too involved, it was hard to be empathetic when half way through the subject ‘it’ was talking on, the programming would kick in and a series of numbers would splurt out. ‘It’s’  mother had brought ‘it’ here as child when the flowers were real. The flowers had been plastic for her whole life span, it was a good thirty years before she was born they went plastic. This person-part person- must be over 100 years old and yet she looked 20. How many resources had ‘it’  consumed in that time. How much had ‘it’ taken from the planet to give back -nothing. It made her job easy. The androgynous perfection had a price everyone had paid for, the meshing of machine and human was just the final symptom that had led them here.

She smiled, tried to pretend she understood, clasped the oversized hand, adjusted cosmetically to fit the oversized body. She simpered at the old woman who looked young- ask only for the serial number. She looked at the old woman, more closely, looking for a sign of how to begin, how much had this thing taken from this planet in her 100 or so years-that was the easiest way to think of it.  She looked at the beautiful chiselled features that showed no emotion despite the tears, the perfect smile crossing the perfect face when the slightest bit of attention was given to it, the smile fading as the programming kicked in. The tall elegant thing that could no longer discern its memory from its memory storage facility, it would smile even at the end, reel off some numbers.

She looked around, she would leave it here amongst the plastic perfection, where it seemed to belong.

A moment of levity

Posted on by tuesdaylatte

That moment! Right there. Where your body and your mind – are – disconnected. Where the image that is physical and the image that is inside your head, are no longer held together. You are two images. Out of focus. Was that death visiting you? In your sleep? Passing over you, moving on to the person lying next to you.

How did you get to that state. Asleep. Your body is sleeping. Your mind. Awake. Disconnected. Just hovering. Slightly outside the boundaries of your skin. Peaceful. Soothing. Alarming. That you can be free of your mortal, physical, accident-prone self. A moment. That comes to you in the night. Not a dream. After a dream. Anchoring you to the world. Freeing your mind. A paradox. A moment of levity. Amidst the seriousness of sleep. A reminder that you and your body are attached.

That the boundary of one is the boundary of the other. Mostly. That they can slip, slide against each other.  But not uncouple. Is that what it was? That momentary peaceful. Alarming. Hovering of spirit over physical being. However slight. Is that why you slept on, happy in the thought of the possible and the possibility. In the night, in the darkness, a moment taken, a mind returned. Slumped back. Slammed! Crept in, Crawled. Swept. Alive. Awake. Attached again. In harmony. Coupled together, the body and the mind.

A blurring of the lines that grounds you in reality. A touching of the spirit. A wavering in the moment. Haven’t we all been there, curled in this world of hope. Undimmed and  unfaded.  A soothing balm to a bitter end in a tortured world. Won’t we all go there. Hover for that moment. That moment. That one moment alone. Between what is and what is no more. A moment that passes as our breath passes. Lightness before darkness. A seriousness of sleep. A moment of levity.

Legacy: Rowing

Posted on by tuesdaylatte

Just keep bloody rowing. What the hell do you do when you’re in the middle of the English channel –menstruating. Just keep rowing. The darkness is coming. Night time. I don’t know why I am surprised or taunted by it. Its like its personal. The absence of light, makes things worse. The stars will be beautiful and stunning but I will feel cheated as the light goes down. Keep rowing. The device is still working-just. I am still going the right way. I have factored in about 4-5 days and nights of rowing to get to land. The sea here is much calmer than it used to be, there are no ships to worry about. Nothing to concern me except food and water.

It’s monotonous. It’s tiring. I should have brought someone with me. The past. I should have brought something other than the past. My first thought is a book. As if you can read and row, You can’t. Instead I have the past for company. It is still with me. Inside of me. I think it’s not, it’s gone but at moments like this with the night closing in. Before the heavens glistening with stars, I know it has not left me. I know my heart will beat faster. I know my breath will become shallow. I know I need to focus on my arms, on keeping the rhythm. Row. Aching legs, sore butt, row, row, row. Rhythm and pace. Water and food

I think about the old lady. About her last breath under my hands. I think about all the death I have seen and the parts of it I have caused. Of course we caused most of it. Plastic toothbrushes, why do I always think of plastic toothbrushes.  As if one less plastic toothbrush would have made a difference. It was everything, all consuming, all of us consuming. Our whole life style got me here. Rowing across the channel, between England and France, both of which only exist in a meaningful way in my head. We swapped to bamboo toothbrushes an age ago. Didn’t we? Did we? Back when we had four safe and secure walls, a house, a home-wall paper. Beds. The list is long and pointless because all that stuff got me here.

I remember the Essex floods that took us south, to my mother in laws. I remember her house. Not our four walls anymore after that. Even though we lived on what passed for a hill in Essex, it was barely a mound and it had become an island. We had to row. Its where I first became good at it. As a matter of fact my first really big row was from Essex into Kent (which again was largely underwater and then into East Sussex. Names that haven’t fallen from my tongue or anybody else’s in years. A few days of rowing our belongings or what was left of them between the two houses. I think that is when he really left us. Two boats, lots of possessions-we left her at one end and went in convoy together. Him and me, but he was looking out over that sea.

I’ve no idea where he went, even when he went is a bit vague-a few months after we arrived. Maybe. One day he just didn’t come home. I don’t think I waited. Or cried or even mentioned it. He just never came back. I think maybe he died out there somewhere. Who knows. Lots of people died. I think probably he died. Otherwise why wouldn’t he have taken her. She was his daughter. Young. Valuable. Perhaps he knew the future that was to come and that he couldn’t protect her. I will never know. I still worked then. His mother was wheel chair bound. I had less compassion then. I hadn’t see so much suffering. I thought death was the worst of things and held no blessed relief.

I can’t even remember when we decided to go. Maybe I can. If I want to. I packed our things. She never asked. She knew. Nanny wasn’t coming with us. She couldn’t. Too much of a burden. We left before daylight, one day, one random day. Planned. Unplanned. Planned the time but not where we were going. Is that a plan?  Before the old woman was even awake. I put some fresh bread on the bedside table and a jug of water but we never went back. She died horribly, suffering probably calling out for us. For her probably but not for me. There would have been a point when she realised we were gone. That no one was coming. In hindsight, I should have been compassionate and ended her sleep quietly in the night rather than sneaking away. It was inhumane but I didn’t know that then. I hate to think that dogs found her or birds pecked at her or that god awful cat that hung around gnawed at her as she passed. Memory has no comfort. The stars, where are the bloody stars tonight.  

By the time we left, the lights had gone out. The power had stopped. The place smelled of sewerage. Clean water was hard to come by. Food was near non-existent. I grew things in the garden but it wouldn’t sustain us. Some nights I would get out of bed and flick all the light switches in the house on and then off again-but it was useless. I wanted to believe we’d blown a fuse or needed new bulbs but the truth -the power was gone. It was never coming back. It was matches and candles and things we couldn’t make anymore. There were a lot of empty houses. We took things. Wouldn’t you?

We went to London together, me and my daughter. Along dark tar roads, broken and torn by the weather. Filled with others like us, walking to nowhere. I can still hear cars in my head sometimes. But cars were long gone. Fossil fuels. They were the enemy. We just didn’t know it. London, we were headed for London. Not really London. It was outside the M25. Near Reigate, where we –well I was old and she was young. Not super young. Seventeen–able to take care of herself. It was a joint decision. There was space on one boat. I gave her everything I could. Just words mostly. No matter how bad it gets-live, breath, live I will find you.

Those early journeys into France or Spain weren’t so risky. Lots made it and then onto Africa, more risky but still lots made it. Maybe she did. But Africa had shrunk as well. Even now, when I go there, I can’t tell which bits have survived and which haven’t. It changed. It just changed like everything else. Less water, less land, different land, more people, less people, different people. Its hard to know where she would even have landed. I tell myself she did land and I will see her again. I tell myself I would know inside my head if she was gone. But the truth is I don’t spend a lot of time inside my head. I focus on the things I need to do to survive. I hope she does to. Pain is useless in the face of hunger. It simply weighs you down more. Lessens your chances of survival.

Row. Keep rowing. I keep rowing. Not seeing her getting into a boat. Not remembering that it was night time and dark and I lost sight of her even at the dock.

I remember her smell and her smile. The colour of her hair. My arms ache. The tears are coming. I focus. The tears will do me no good out here. I have to survive. The way she has to survive.

I look even now when I see a group. Him, the old lady I can barely make out their faces in my head but she is there, golden and shining and waiting. I stop rowing. I must focus.

There is so much blood, its like puberty in reverse. I remember puberty, hers, mine. Not enough food for her to even have a period at the end and here I am positively gushing Row, just row, on and on.

France is waiting. She spoke French, did a year of it at school. Better at Spanish. It would be enough. Would it? How could I know. You hear rumours about the fate of the children of Europe in the camps of Africa. I am fortunate. I came later, when humanity seems to have returned, although for my part I am not sure Africa is a continent it ever left. I think it might have been us, we might have been the ones that turned a blind to humanity and the price we have paid, when I think of it, is perhaps not so undeserved. I sob. I row. I try and focus. It is dark. I am wet. There is blood everywhere and still I have no choice. Breathe is going in and out of my body. I have to live. Survive. Go on.

Geriatric bot-killers

Posted on by tuesdaylatte

I could barely believe it when I saw the headlines: ‘Geriatric Bot-killers!’ ‘Nursing Home Horror!’ And there was my Mum and her ‘friends’ on the front page. The four of them in their 80’s, looking old and innocent. Except they aren’t. Well ‘they’ might be but ‘she’ isn’t. She so definitely isn’t. I can see that, even from the photograph. Fierce, determined, yet slightly milky and faded 83 year old eyes, looking out at me. Defiant. Irreverent. I can’t believe she did it. Although I can believe she did it. She could never be trusted. I thought age or infirmity might straighten her out, instead it’s gotten worse.

 I remember when she was in her 60s and decided to take up smoking, and -god forbid as she got older the skirts got shorter, the clothes louder. I will never forget taking her to the doctors at 75 and she had a t-shirt that said ‘how’s about it babe? – IN SEQUINS- then she wore that one to our house for Christmas, ‘get your cherries here?’ Dear God, she was a mother, there was no cherry and hadn’t been for a long time. I hoped no one really got the reference, but that hope faded late in the afternoon when she loudly explained to my children what it meant. My husband was horrified. Still is, can’t talk about it without blushing.

I don’t know what happened. She was fine in her 40’s, really good in her 50’s, settled, focussed.  Then she hit 60 and its like the world just turned upside down. She stopped being vegan, I blame it on food additives. I still do. She took up zumba, bike riding- she wore lycra everywhere no matter how much was hanging out or sagging down. She went on one of those Saga Old people holidays and was asked to leave for raucous behaviour-raucous behaviour- and those holidays are pretty rowdy anyway. I will never forget the sound of the woman from the tour companies voice, ‘I’m calling about you mother’. My first thought was she’s dead, but no it turns out the tour bus was self driving and when they were meant to be driving to visit the palace in Versailles, she had hacked the system and taken them all to Amsterdam, where it had all gone horribly wrong.

She hired some sex-bots in Amsterdam. When I say hired, I can’t really confirm she paid, I think it was theft, but they let her off that charge. One of the others on the trip had a euro pharmacy card-you know the ones, you put them into the kiosk anywhere and they dispense your medication- and my Mum used it to get some drugs, which she duly distributed. Meanwhile everyone at the travel company thought the bus has been hijacked and the police were called. Finally they get caught up with them, somewhere in Germany. She denied it all but someone sensibly shopped her.  I had to go and get her and explain to the officers and the travel company. They were the first ones to suggest perhaps a nursing home was the best place for her.

I delayed- years, because she’s my mother. But in the end when she hit 80 and she was down the park harassing male joggers by screaming, ‘show us what you’ve got’ at them,  I gave up and decided it was the only place for her. I picked one with bots, because she can be a bit mouthy. And now this, all over the front page of the papers-‘Geriatric bot-killers’. It’s a very inventive headline, if not entirely accurate. She hasn’t been killing bots, it’s been people, so far as we know. She’s been hacking bots, nurse-bots, doc-bots, you name it bots.

Really it wasn’t like this once. I’ve read about it, seen it on screen. People growing old gracefully, not murdering people with random programming. Apparently its only two or three she’s done in. And it will be difficult to prove and my Mum is over 80 and, and, and. The police say they may not even press charges. I can see how that goes. She will pretend some kind of slight dementia, sob in her tissues, feign incontinence-the police hate pee on their floor. Who knows- maybe she is incontinent. I will never know. I can see her getting away with it. No one wants to believe ‘they’ are capable of it. They look so sweet and old and innocent on the front of the newspaper. I saw the children of one of the other women on TV saying how it wasn’t possible her mother was guilty. I can’t say that. Not with a straight face. Its entirely possible my mother did it. Planned it. Executed it. Laughed about it. I have declined to comment. Sensibly. My sole consolation is that no one reads newspapers and the story is low key on social media at the moment.

There is some government talk now of reducing the number of bots in nursing homes, of greater human oversight. How could this happen? The victim’s families, one of whom hasn’t even seen their relative for five  years- same as me, are asking that question over and over. It happens because these people grew up around computers, knew them from the ground up.  Because- old people and bots should not be left alone together and because my Mum has scrapped morality for coolness in her 80s. She sent me a message from prison, where again she is guarded by bots. It was touching –except, well – the thing is -you are not supposed to be able to send messages from prison. She’s hacked a machine again.

Surely I think, it can’t get any worse and then it does. Escaped-all 4 of them. On the run. Hacked into this, hacked into that and the prison gates opened and out they walked. It would be comical if it wasn’t so serious. The four of them just went to the nearest bus stop, used their senior passes and took a bus into town. When I say took a bus, they actually let this bus take them. When they got to town they ‘took’ another bus, self driving, which they promptly ‘took’ as in stole. Its all over the front pages. The police are watching my house in case they turn up. They have been described as a ‘danger to themselves and others’.

The self driving bus was found in the grounds of a stately home where they’d had tea and cakes-although I know my mum had coffee because she wouldn’t touch tea. They did the tour of the stately home apparently and police have confirmed nothing is missing. A small blessing,- they didn’t steal anything-everyone remembers them because they slowed the tour group up. Everyone on tour seemed to think they were four nice old ladies, nondescript. And that’s the problem- age makes you invisible when you’re a woman. No one could even describe what they were wearing. Once the tour was finished, the trail goes cold. They’ve not been seen or heard of since then. They are trying to track them via social media, but what my Mum doesn’t know about privacy settings could fit on a postage stamp-which I think was something that was quite small a long time ago.  They want me to do an appeal, traditional media and social media. I want to tell them its no use. She doesn’t listen. I think they have figured out she is the ring leader.

The policewoman said it’s a phase, some old people go through. Although then she said she hadn’t quite seen it this bad before. The press have latched onto the fact that I haven’t been to visit for five years-but really would you. I can see the contempt in her eyes. Telling me to live a bit, have I tried smoking yet. No I haven’t and I’m not going to. Eat some meat she’ll say. Five years seems like a long time but really we have nothing to say, I love her, she loves me but that is not a conversation. Anyway you know the press, they always blame the kids, if I just visited more, paid more attention, this would not have happened. I want to yell and scream, ‘she’s a grown up, she does what she wants-and that is so true, she does exactly what she wants.

Apparently the body count at the home might be four or five now. No one can be sure. I wonder where the hell 4 old ladies could be holding out. The police are trying to trace them via their various medications, the problem is that between the four of them, no machine of any kind is secure. You can bet my mother will be doing her best ‘I’m an old lady’ act-which in her defence is not an act. Plus she will have a lot of aliases, by the time you hit 80, you have a lot of dead friends.

I dread growing old, that day when you abandon the rules and throw caution to the wind. Let her be found and soon. I’ll keep you posted.

Geriatric carelessness

Posted on by tuesdaylatte

For the record I wasn’t the cool girl at school. I never ran with the popular crowd. I was clever. I was bullied. I had few friends, but time heals you and things change. I hate this place. I can’t breathe here. I don’t like it. I don’t like being this old. I didn’t mind so much before, 50, 60, even 70 wasn’t so bad but this elderly decrepit 80 stuff is not so good. Need to use a big font on my screen.  

I don’t like this place, I already said that didn’t I. No one cares though, I am over 80, people just expect it. Sometimes before I came here when I was talking to somebody, I’d see how many times I could repeat myself before they started to look at me oddly. Ha Ha. Anyway, I don’t like it. Not the way it smells or sounds. Piped music all the time, well some of the time. Old music for old people. Slow old music for slow old people. ‘Ain’t no Kanye here’-whoever the hell he is or was. I don’t get any visitors. Thank goodness, it saves the endless complaining. Lots of them get visitors, “isn’t it lovely here”- “don’t you love the wall paper”- for the record, nobody loves fuckin’ wallpaper –and being over 80 none of us can see the stupid pattern anyway.  It goes on, “how are you dear? come kiss grandma”. Fuck the bloody lot of it. I’m glad my daughter doesn’t come. I hope she has better things to do. I certainly do.

We have human staff once a week. That’s a good thing too. Anymore and this place would riot. None of us like the human staff that much. I much prefer these android, humanoid bot-things, more efficient I say. Less need to dispense with the small talk. The people that run this place are stupid. All of them-stupid. Most of us wouldn’t have another human being in the place if we didn’t have to.

There’s a group of us. Four women, all of us in our 80’s-don’t know how to break it to you honey but by the time you get to your eighties all the good ones are gone –literally-they’ve all popped their clogs. The only ones left are the ones with healthy lifestyles and believe me they are as dull as all hell-always showing off, wanting to talk about Ernie who died because he drank too much and smoked too much weed! I didn’t do that and look at me I’m alive. You might be alive but you’re boring as all hell- let me tell you I’d have banged Ernie in the back of the car bent over double before I so much as unbuttoned your shirt. Them and their vegan righteousness.

Anyway there’s four of us in our 80’s, haha, repetition again- not going to lie to you I am the ring leader. I don’t know what the idiots who run this place were thinking, stuffing it full of bots. I grew up with computers, and I mean literally. I remember when they first started to appear in the office. I literally have seem them evolve from then to now, from advanced typewriters to robots who can wipe my arse. And they think during that time I never mastered a bit of programming, a hack here, a trick there. Idiots I tell you.

Last week they were down here wondering why the morphine supplies are so low. What’s happening to it? Where’s it going? Well its like this, see, Maureen is level 4, that means she needs all kinds of assistance but more importantly she is in pain, and the prescribed morphine dose from the doc-bot is not enough and no matter how much pain she is in the doc-bot won’t prescribe any more. Same as human doctors I reckon, only you can’t hack a human doctor.

Two choices for Maureen’s probs, we hack the doc-bot-which we have done before. Not often anymore though. It went badly wrong. Harold died. Accidentally, because we hacked the doc-bot and he ended up with too many sleeping pills. Who knew. He was a bit gobby Harold and a bit leery. A dirty old man in a decrepit useless shell. He bugged Rosa once too often-going the grope at an inch a minute. He was troublesome, but harmlessly beyond being able to do anything. Sometimes he was even fun Harold – we’d stand just out of his reach and tease him by showing our knickers, I guess it was cruel. Anyway Harold got to Rosa and she wanted it sorted. So we sorted it, but a bit too much. He didn’t wake up and the doc-bot pronounced him dead, D.E.A.D which was bad for us. So we just reprogrammed the results in the doc-bot for a couple of weeks and Harold died –well a few weeks later-when the stench was so bad we couldn’t hold out anymore. He really stunk after a few weeks of decomposing. No one else seemed to notice much. It was a lot of complicated timing and hacking and numbers and stuff.  So yeh, we don’t hack the doc-bots much anymore.

We hack the nurse-bots, much easier. This was Maureen’s second option. Maureen, like I said, lots of pain. We’ve upped her dose a bit, keep her happy. Love Maureen when she’s happy, floats about the place with her shirt undone and feeling happy. Morphine baby, most people in their 80s are addicted to it. I could give it up though. Maybe I will. Maybe I won’t, just float out of here on a happy cloud one day.

Technically if we are caught hacking a nurse-bot or any bot really, we will be kicked out. Like in boarding school but in reverse, we get kicked out and sent back to our children’s house and let me tell you my daughter would not be happy about that. We all hate that fucking piped music too, we get rid of that as soon as they are out the door. I am working on subtly changing the smell of the place too.

Just last week the 4 of us hacked the nurse bots and made them give us a tattoo, when in fact they should have been administering dementia medication. I don’t have dementia and it was rude and mean but we are like the smokers in the toilets at school. In fact that is what the tat said-smokin’. I thought one of the actual human nurses was going to notice it but they are thick, those ones, no idea at all. The bots are also meant to do some kind of data dump every night, we’ve hacked that before too. We can hack anything.

There are four of us, did I say that already, ha ha repetition, in our 80’s. We live in a nursing home that has robotic staff. We are elderly and frail and wouldn’t harm anybody, except – when you’re back is turned, we are in control, we are holding your mother, overdosing her on morphine, accidentally killing your father with sleeping tablets and we are now the cool girls hanging in the toilets at school and you- we are laughing at you.

Legacy: Finding London

Posted on by tuesdaylatte

She had packed the little clock in her bag, hidden it, so it didn’t get wet. What had that woman said, ‘If the screen stops working, find London and hang a left-France is across the water somewhere and the worst you can do is hit Spain. If you start drifting north you might be lucky and hit Norway-maybe not, there’s a lot of ice between here and there. If you see ice, go away from it.’ That was the extent of her navigation advice, that and the device-the machine, which still looked fine. But she had seen machines before; there was no line between working and not working. They didn’t slowly fade like people did, growing old and decrepit. Not that anyone much had the luxury of old age now, that woman living with the machine on the outskirts of the village had been the oldest person she’d seen in a long time. She would have liked to take longer to stop and look. She wanted to grow old, older but there was little chance now. She was nearly 50 but 60 was a pipe dream no one had anymore. 

She looked at the device. It still showed London as if it still existed as a thriving metropolis. It still had all of the British coast on the map. It had got her to the land mass but the land mass did not resemble the map. It was a device that had outlived its time. A device that would just stop and when it stopped, it wouldn’t start again. No slow human fade, just a bright screen, then nothing.

She faced a choice, find London whilst she could or follow the screen whilst she could. She opted for London, as much out of curiosity as anything. She envisaged it how it had been once. Its grandeur, its beautiful oldness and its cutting edge, squared off brutal 70s newness blended with the sensual curves of the early 90s and 2000s. She wondered if the tide lapped at the shore anywhere in London or if it remained as she remembered it the last time she had seen it, largely under water.

She was heading due south, now, down the coast, hoping for London. The screen told her it was still there, still bright and alive. She let the early afternoon drift, without rowing to hard. She wanted to see it and she didn’t. She planned to stay in London overnight and regroup a bit, well fed before she set off for France the next day. The screen said she should be on the outskirts of it soon but for all she knew that hadn’t been Essex, that might have been Suffolk or Norfolk or even Cambridge. Who knew how much of Britain the sea had taken.

It was late in the afternoon when she started to see the roof tops peaking up through the water. This was London, at least what was left of it. She looked out on a sea of rooftops poking up above the water. She wanted one she could land on. A risk she knew, how many of them would be structurally sound after standing in salt water for this long. She just had to hope that London had been sturdier than she thought. She passed one that had almost a whole floor poking up out of the water. She could have got out and walked on the outside area. There had once been glass doors opening onto a deck. The deck so aptly named was now under water.

She was undecided, should she or shouldn’t she. She rowed back, pulled alongside and tethered the boat to the railing which was just poking out of the water. She got out and walked in ankle deep water into the building. There was soggy carpet sagging in waves under her feet. There were still ornaments on shelves, old books floating here and there. Debris of a life. She went in further hoping the building would hold. She forced open a door, no mean feat still in ankle deep water. There was a duvet floating there. Water logged but useful if she could dry it. It was extraordinarily heavy. She wasn’t sure. Pulled it out and placed it over a doorway outside, water ran out of it like a torrent. She found the kitchen. The cupboards were empty except for a tin of sweet corn which she took, then there was a soggy bag of cat food floating under the sink. She took that too. It wasn’t open so maybe it would be edible. She found the bathroom and used it. Pointless in the extreme. She flushed the toilet expecting it all to come back up again. It didn’t. Goodness knows where it went. The cistern didn’t refill.

This place didn’t look as deserted as some she’d seen on her travels. If she’d remembered rightly when London had begun to sink beneath the waves some of the people who lived high up decided to stay and try and live a sort of boating lifestyle. These people looked like they had tried that and then left in a hurry. There was still a torrent of water coming out of the duvet and she wrung it out for a good half an hour before it was light enough to put in the boat and take with her. She looked around her in the late afternoon sun. There was the top of buildings poking out of the water way off into the distance. She had forgotten how big London was. It was no longer possible to get an aerial view of a city and she had no idea how London compared with the size of cities that still stood. She had never wandered end to end in London and she didn’t fancy rowing it in this light.  

This was only the remnants of London, the rest beneath the waves, hidden and lost forever. It was getting dark and she needed to overnight here before going on. She picked a building that looked like it had a flat roof protruding out of the water. She rowed to it. It looked dry, and like it had been dry for a long time. That was the critical thing. This place was tidal and what protruded here now might not in a few hours time. She thought the tide was almost in but she wasn’t sure. She made herself comfortable on the roof in her sleeping bag. She ate the tin of sweet corn and tried the cat food. The sweet corn was mouldy and the cat food inedible.

She took out the little clock and wound it. She found the ticking soothing, peaceful. Seconds of her life being marked by a tiny little noise, tick, tick, tick.  She watched the sun set over London, perhaps the last person to do it for a long time. She looked out into the half light hoping to see a light go on, a fire burn but as the dark settled in, there was only that, the dark. This was London and she was alone in it. There was no one else here. There never would be again, it was gone into the sea.

The little clock ticked on. Her heart beating almost in time. This was London and it was gone forever into the sea. London, the greatest and mightiest of cities, gone into the sea. She wrapped up the clock and put it inside her pack. She put her pack in the boat just in case the tide came in. She got back in the sleeping bag, laid down, looked at the stars. This was London. She was the only human here. London was gone. All the grief, all the tears. London was never coming back. She thought of all the great art that floated beneath her, the minute parts of people’s lives that must reside on the bottom of the sea. The people of London, those who had stayed, died here rather than leave. Those who in the last days of a terrestrial London had believed the government when they said the flood defences would hold. She looked at the stars once so muted by the electric lights that blazed here. Lights that no one could ever conceive of as going out.  Leaving. Gone. Here she was, the only person in London and there were no lights, only stars. She tried to sleep.

She awoke early. Alert, in case someone had spotted her. Ridiculous no one had, there was no one here. She thought about lighting a fire but she had no fuel. The duvet she had rescued was drier but not useful yet. She decided t take it anyway. It wasn’t likely to fully dry in the boat but enough of it might keep her warm. She had a slice of breakfast, took her bearings from the device. Still working, but for how much longer.  She got into the boat and began to row. At about 11am, she saw it. Blood. Seeping down her upper leg. She hated this more than anything. There was nothing she could do. Women have periods, whether they were rowing across the ocean or not. This would be a pair of trousers that would need some washing but there was nothing she could do.

The House-bot

Posted on by tuesdaylatte

The ‘he’ dozed next to it. It was always the same. At some point the hand of the ‘he’ would slake across the metal leg-usually just as the ‘he’ was dozing off-as if the ‘he’ didn’t quite know who was in the room-as if the ‘he’ expected human flesh and not this metallic casing.

It sat there, unsure what to do. The ‘he’ emitted muffled snoring, the movie still streaming. It had developed a protocol for this situation but was never quite sure when the ‘he’ was asleep enough.

The protocol went like this. First, discern dozing point. Is hand relaxed? Yes. One muffled snore? Yes. Two muffled snores? Yes. Three muffled snores? Yes. Four? Five? Yes. Dozing point reached and confirmed.

Allow 3 minutes from dozing point, then stop streaming movie. Request a refund because the ‘he’ had not watched it all. Not party to the family finance, so wait one minute to receive confirmation of refund but note that no way of checking whether actual refund occurred. Add that amount to log to be told to money app attached to fridge at later date. Done. Yes. Move on.

At minute 5, move the ‘he’ hand/arm and put it back on the chair or lap. Minute 6. Move as quietly as possible to the other lounge and send a signal to the scrabble-bot to end the scrabble chat –get the Scrabble-bot to query whether the ‘she’ is going to swim tomorrow. Then get Scrabble-bot to shut down conversation by saying Scrabble-bot needs to call a friend or relative. Confirm with Scrabble-bot whether last time was a friend or relative and ensure Scrabble-bot uses the other one so its different to last time.  Then a goodbye and a good night from Scrabble-bot.

Minute 7. Notify the toothbrush the ‘she’ is on her way so the tooth brush is prepared. Check the toothbrushes external connection and if needed download a dental record from somewhere else and say it’s the teeth of the ‘she’. When feeding that record into the bathroom monitor, check it for similarity to previously discreetly downloaded external dental records. Signal to the bed that the ‘she’ would be there before the ‘he’. Switch on the upstairs lights in sequence, bathroom at minute 8, bedroom at minute 12. Remember to check toilet paper is loaded prior to bathroom entry by the ‘she’.

Simulate the creak of floorboards on the stairs, again at minute 8, loud enough to make him stir but not quite wake him. Notify his toothbrush on minute two of her brushing (minute 10). Reload toilet paper at minute 4 from her bathroom entry time (minute 12). At the end of minute 12 activate smell reduction technology in the bathroom. Also flush out the sink.

Between minute 8 and minute 12, set the alarm for the morning, sort the breakfast and the lunches with the fridge –remind the fridge it’s her vegan week. Ensure downstairs front and back doors are closed and locked. Ensure work passes are in pockets and check whether shoe renewal is required.

It mostly went to plan. It would wait at the bottom of the stairs from minute 6 onwards. She would brush past it and whisper ‘goodnight young man’ and wink as she went up the stairs. It would smile. It should have said, should have corrected. Should have said, ‘I have no gender.’ Should have definitely said. Didn’t say. Didn’t correct. So many parts to get right all the time.

As the ‘she’ was leaving the bathroom (minute 12), it would do a second stair creaking simulation, loud enough and loud enough to wake the ‘he’. It was important that the ‘they’, made up of the ‘he’ and the ‘she’ went to bed at separate times. Minute 13. Tell the bed the ‘he’ will be along shortly.

The ‘he’ would always appear in the doorway just as the ‘she’ was climbing into bed. The ‘he’ was always leering, as if the ‘he’ was seeing something other than it standing there. The ‘he’ would come right up to it and press against it, reach out with the ‘he’ hands. It did not respond. What would be the point? It felt nothing on the metallic outer casing. ‘Goodnight young lady’ the ‘he’ would say and the ‘he’ would wink as the ‘he’ went up the stairs throwing a lustful glance backwards when the ‘he’ reached the top.

It worried, it should say something, point out it had no gender. It hadn’t, didn’t, could never be bothered to say a word.

Minute 13 still, sequence the lights so that only the bathroom comes on but make sure that allows the ‘he’ enough light to get into bed. Once the ‘he’  is finished in the bathroom, activate the smell reduction technology. Activate the smell reduction technology a second time to be sure. That was often the bit that went wrong, the ‘he’ did not keep to schedule. The ‘he’ could be in the bathroom for much longer than expected.

Minute 17. Confirm with bed that the ‘they’ being one ‘he’ and one ‘she’ are now in bed. Confirm all lights are off. Confirm the sink is clean. Confirm the bathroom smells nice.

Minute 18. Confirm the time and record the data. Evaluate success against timeframes. Compare with previous nights data. Assess areas for improvement. Produce report and advise fridge of outcomes.

Minute 19. Calculate time until next activity by the ‘he’ and the ‘she’. Set alarm. Ensure emergency ‘toilet in the night function’ is activated and monitoring bed activity.

Minute 20. Power saving mode.