Geriatric-another motorway services cliche

Posted on by tuesdaylatte

this is such a cliché-two women having coffee in a motorway services where the mother of one has covered up the death of the other’s mother and the one who’s mother is guilty is saying how much she loves her mother…read more

 

The woman sitting across from me is suited and booted. Neat, tidy and glossy. I wished I’d thought to wear something other than jeans. At the very least I should have worn jeans that fit. I have no jeans that fit. I am already making a bad impression and I haven’t even spoken yet. We are here because of my mother. I am not sure why but this crime, this impersonation of an international crochet judge always feels like the worst of her offences. I think it’s because no one has ever been charged with it before. Other people have done hacking, murder, theft, but this one just feels like-well it’s the one that sets her apart. It’s the one that garners the headlines. It’s the one that smacks of desperation, of dereliction, of total deviancy. And a whole raft of other ‘d’ words I can’t remember.

I didn’t even want to open her email when I saw it. She wants to see me. Her-the woman whose mother my mother impersonated after her mother was dead, Maureen Bitman’s daughter.

Here I am again, at another motorway services, trying to pretend I know what to do. Trying to think of what to say to this woman. I didn’t look her up on social media. I just couldn’t bring myself to do that. I know she was all over the news when it happened. I know my mother was responsible. I know my mother hacked her social media, what could looking her up possibly tell me.

I should have looked her up, that would be respectful. Would it? I suppose I would at least have recognised her when she came towards me. I had a vision of what she should look like. She isn’t like that of course. In my head, she had long grey hair and a wrinkled face and she was wearing quilted trousers and a vague coloured undershirt with a crochet knit jacket over the top. She was the epitome of arts and crafts. My ill-fitting jeans look positively glamorous in comparison, they would put her at ease.

Her mother was the worlds no 1 crochet judge so I know just how she should look. Its just that she doesn’t look like that and I still look like this. I guess she has just inherited a multi million pound empire off the back of her mothers work so she is- corporate. Suited and booted. And I am all baggy jeans and a shirt even my mother wouldn’t wear. Although I am not sure what my mother is wearing these days. There are rumours of a calendar, I hope they aren’t true.

I have no doubt this woman is here to discuss how my mother somehow covered up her mother’s death. I don’t think my mother actually killed her mother, at least not directly. She might have got a machine to do it. But there’s no getting past that my mother posed as her mother after her mother had died.

I stare into my coffee. I can’t  meet this woman’s gaze. I think I’m blushing with shame at something I didn’t do. I think it makes my clothes even more unacceptable in comparison. I look like I haven’t taken it seriously.

She speaks first, ‘You’re not what I expected?’

Might as well start with an apology, ‘Sorry’.

I am mumbling. I am never what anyone ‘expected’. Everyone expects my mother, but younger. Everyone who meets me now is disappointed. I am not my mother. I am not the one committing crimes, I am the one trying to hold on to a world that my mother is ripping away from me.

She tries again, ‘You’re not at all like your mother.’

That gets my attention. Alarm bells go off in my head.

I look at her and the slow dawning hits me. The words stumble out of my mouth, ‘You’ve met my mother?’

She nods.

I close my eyes, ‘Recently?’

She looks at me, as if she can see everything I am thinking.

‘Yes.’ she says loudly and clearly.

I freeze. I am not here to apologise, because my mother has clearly probably –has she apologised?

It occurs to me then how little I know my mother. How I am just not ‘her’ in a way other daughters sometimes are. I haven’t become her as I got older. I am so insignificant in comparison. All the excitement in my life comes from being her daughter and not from being me.

I have nothing to say.

She keeps looking at me. A slow steady gaze as if she is seeing my unease and is trying to reassure me. I must be reading the signals wrong.

‘I love my mother.’ Its all I can think of to say.

It such a cliché, this whole thing- I want to scream out that sentence-this is such a cliché-two women having coffee in a motorway services where the mother of one has covered up the death of the other’s mother and the one who’s mother is guilty is saying how much she loves her mother. How many movies has that scene appeared in? I’ve seen it so many times on screen but its not like it is on the screen.

Fuck even the clichés in my life belong to my mother. Where is my resolve. I suck in my tummy and try to look thinner, more chic, as if my shirt isn’t light purple with flowers on the sleeves. I try and look like I might be my mother’s daughter.

The woman notices and gives a wry smile. ‘Late bloomers, your family.’

It’s a statement, not a question. I clench my hands, ‘Why did you want to see me?’

‘Why do you think?’ She passes a brown envelope across the table to me.

I look blankly at the envelope. Is it for me? Is it money? I am lost in the situation.

‘I don’t know.’ I blurt out. That at least is honest. She pushes the envelope even closer. It’s A4 size so probably not money.

‘My mother was a top international crochet judge’, she says coolly.

The only answer that comes to mind is to say, “well my mother is a top international criminal,” but I can’t say that aloud to this woman. I cringe inside and the only other words that form don’t come out right at all.

‘Tell me something I don’t know’ I say childishly.

And she does.

‘People loved her but she was cold and selfish and all she cared about was wool and needles. I could have died from cold in some of the clothes that woman dressed me in. Crochet garments are full of holes, full-of- holes! Do you know what its like to live in the north and be dressed by a mad woman who makes clothes full of holes. I didn’t much care for what your mother did but it didn’t bother me.’

She pauses and a moment of pain washes over the manicured smoothness of her face. It’s suddenly there and then gone as if she might have cared but only momentarily.

‘And then I met her- in person- your mother. Funny isn’t it. She’s lovely. Warm. Caring. Attentive. Everything you could want in a mother.’

My ears are literally bleeding at this point, I feel compelled to point out, ‘She has killed several people.’

The woman is soft, wistful now. ‘I know, but those things can be forgiven. ‘

What planet is she living on, although I grant you the internet does seem to have forgiven my mother or my mother controls it-hard to say which.

This woman though-is truly deranged. ‘Really.’ I say. Thinking I might dress badly but I do live in reality.

The envelope sits between us. I am feeling the pressure. Another someone my mother has won over with her doddery old grandma, don’t you love me act. Granted, it may not be an act but you know what I mean.

She smiles, ‘You are so lucky, Your mother loves you.’

At this point it all becomes too much. I confess I lose it.  The tension just gets me. This woman has seen my mother. Has not turned her in. I have seen my mother, not turned her in. None of it makes any sense.  I stand up. It’s as if I am not in my body. I see the middle aged saggy jeaned, lilac shirted woman standing there and she is shouting but it’s not me shouting, but it is me shouting. I can hear myself-  ‘Are you deranged? My mother is a serial killer, a thief, a hack, a faker of international crochet judge status.’

Now everyone in the motorway services is looking at me.

The unthinkable happens.

The woman across from us on the left stands up and says ‘ Are you, are you her daughter. OMG can I have a selfie.’

I freeze but the selfie is done and then it is just an endless stream of motorway services selfies, that social media category that has started a thousand careers. I am trapped and the suited and booted, neat and glossy woman slips away. The envelope sits on the table.

I am all over social media, my picture everywhere. There is no escape. The police will see it. I will need to explain.

I sit in the car 40 minutes and 4000 selfies later. I have the envelope in my hand. Inside pinned to a pile of papers is a note in the neatest hand writing I have ever seen.

‘They lied to you. Before your mother, there was another one. The one for whom the law was made. Don’t bother searching for her on-line, they don’t give women like that Wikipedia pages (although your mother might soon). Then crosses which are kisses and her name-Helena.’

Attached are a whole bunch of old documents. I read the note again-don’t bother searching for her-for who my mother, this other woman, Helena. I don’t get the context from the hand written note, why didn’t she email or text, context is so difficult without emoji’s.

Then I look at the documents. They are really old-20th century. The law, that law-faking international crochet judge-there was another, the first one-why is she telling me this. This woman has been dead for 100 years and there is no Wikipedia page-surely she must be nobody.

I am clutching the wheel. My head is reeling. My mother is not the first to fake being an international crochet judge.

I am not my mother’s daughter. These are the only words coming out of my mouth as I slip the car into gear and slink away in first. I want to do the whole journey home in first gear as if going slow on the motorway will ensure that no one notices me. The problem is that since my mother went rogue every mobility scooter in the country is on the motorway and everyone else has had to cope-by driving in first gear. I will just be one of many.

I want to yell and scream at her. She has ruined my life. Turned the world on its head and she doesn’t care.

Legacy: The Bramble Patch

Posted on by tuesdaylatte

How long did I lay in that water. I feel invigorated or I have hypothermia-not sure which. I stand dripping in the darkness trying to get my eyes to adjust, to see more but they are sore-itchy from the salt. I feel stupid. I smell better.

I pull the boat higher up. I can hear it scrunch on the pebbles and I can feel that there was a line of plastic of all kinds at the shore line. The beach is probably littered with it. I still can’t see where the beach ends and the land starts. It could be 10 feet, it could be a mile. I smell the air. Lavender on the wind. Lavender is good-you can eat that. Not much of it but you can eat it.

I am desperate for sleep. My whole body hurts and all that is keeping me focussed is the cold. I listen. I squint into the darkness. The boat is noisy on the sand, the plastic parting as I pull it, noisy as well. This was not how I planned it. The beach ahead seems darker somehow, as if there was something there. I walk into a bramble. Ouch. I think it but I don’t say it. I listen, still again as if something could hear my pain and not just the mild exhalation that followed it

It hurts but here is the line of the land. A bramble. In the darkness then I can see them, skirting the line of the beach. A stroke of luck. In the darkness I bend down and run my hand through the sand. I thought maybe there’d be dirt but the roots of the brambles must be well back. The sand feels- I don’t know, maybe damp, maybe cold. In any event brambles are a stroke of luck.

I take all my belongings out of the boat and stick them on the sand above the water line. I get out my gloves and roll down my sleeves. I stick a scarf around my face and I bend down and push the boat into the brambles. I push as hard as I can, forcing it prow first to make a passage. I can hear the noise of the brambles moving, breaking but I don’t care. I keep shoving it in and then when I can only just see the end of it, I shove the oars in underneath it. It would make a great sleeping spot, to sleep protected underneath, but it would also be the most obvious.

I get my pack and my bag and wrap myself in the duvet. I walk along another 10 metres or so from the boat. I can see the brambles in the darkness now. I don’t want this really but it makes sense. I lay down and put my bag at the head of me. I push it into the brambles and then crawled in wrapped in the duvet after it. I push some more, and then some more until I am well inside the bramble patch. The duvet gives me some protection from the prickles and its true I could be seen if anyone looked but I hoped I look like rubbish, an old duvet trapped in the bushes. I hope the brambles at the front on the shore line will fall to cover me. I lie there in the brambles in the duvet in the darkness and sleep and sleep and sleep.

I wake without knowing if it was night or day. It’s simply dark in the bramble patch and I think I am awake because of the heaviness. Somewhere above me something is on top of the brambles. It’s hard to know what, think what. They shudder above me occasionally. I think maybe it’s an animal but it isn’t regular or noisy and there is no smell wafting down to me. It is more like something has been laid across the top of them.

I have two choices, to go on through the bramble patch or to turn around and go back out the way I came in. It is tempting to go on but who knows how far this bramble patch extends. And the boat is behind me. I don’t know how useful it will be or if I could even carry it any distance but I immediately regret not taking the time to hide it better.

I take a moment to eat the last of my bread. I am going to have to tunnel to the end of the brambles or go back. To go back I have to turn around. There’s a wind, I can feel the wind and whatever is above me is unsettled by it. Perhaps it is waiting for me. I am going back the way I came. Who knows how far the brambles go. I try shuffling backwards with the duvet wrapped around me but my ankles get exposed and scratched. I need to protect my head. I think this was a stupid idea as I try and turn the other way so I am facing forward to get out. All the time every movement I do is letting whatever is above me know I am here. I roll onto my side and curl into a ball trying to turn in the very small space I have. I need to take my bag with me as well. The duvet seems hopelessly caught on the brambles and my turning has made it worse. I give up on it. It has served me will but it isn’t coming with me.

I am facing out now and I can see I haven’t tunnelled as far in as I thought. I am not as safe as I thought and perhaps whatever is weighing above me is simply waiting. I push forward and now it is only my clothes protecting me. Thorns are raking down my back but there is nothing I can do. I look back and in the darkness the dull white of the duvet hangs there-shredded. There is nothing I can do. I have a blanket somewhere and that will have to suffice.

I can smell my own blood which means anything else can as well. I need to come out of the space at the end ready to fight. Only the barbs grip my skins.

I roll painfully onto the beach expecting something to pounce. Then I laugh, snow. It has snowed and the snow lays heavy on the brambles. There is nothing and no one here. I can see the boat and the vast sea and the myriad pieces of plastic on the beach . I can see bright plastic pearls lapping in the waves. I stand up and look around. There is no one here.

There is just a huge pile of brambles to cross, my bleeding back and a lot of snow.

I don’t waste anytime. I remember now. I begin to dismantle the boat, boats are so precious when your planet is flooded. But this will give me firewood as I head south. I am not sure if it is winter or if it is just that I am further north than I thought. I set about dismantling the boat as quickly as I can, keeping all the screws and rivets and all the bits. I will drag them like on a sleigh. I might even use it to build something to cross the brambles, with the snow and the brambles and the boards I might even cross them by nightfall.

I want to keep my knees

Posted on by tuesdaylatte

My mother went 75% as soon as she could, knees, arms, some vital organ upgrades and a black belt in karate all in one day at the salon…read more

I had the idea and then it floated away from me. Like it wasn’t here at all. Why does this happen? How does this happen?

The idea has simply slipped out of my head and I cannot get it back. This is what it’s like when you’re human. I sometimes wished I wasn’t. I should at least have a back up file installed-that makes you slightly less human. Why do I cling to the 100% idea? A little bit of extra memory here, some back up there, it becomes a slippery slope and before you know it your knees aren’t yours anymore.

That’s the thing, I should get me knees done. Its just -I like being fully human, I like being 100%. It’s weird I know. Who is 100% these days, why would you be? Think of the diseases I don’t have yet but could avoid. Of course, the ingestion of too much plastic will probably be the end of me if I don’t do some kind of restructure soon.

It is a slippery slope. I know it is. My friend Tessa, she was 100% until well into her 20s and then she hit 30 and now she’s only 40%. Forty per cent! She looks great but she’s hardly the bubbly person we all knew. She decided to get her emotions ‘toned down’, some sort of rational upgrade and now it’s just work, work, work all the time and sure she’s making money and the social media pics are great but she doesn’t enjoy it. Well its not that she doesn’t enjoy it, she doesn’t hate it either. She has no emotion attached to it whatsoever. Nice legs though, that’s what 40% does to you.

Nonetheless I am sitting here at a machine trying to write something and I can’t remember what that idea was. It was only half good anyway. Maybe just a small install, so I could play back memories on my computer. No it’s my knees, my knees!  I know I should get mechanical knees. I could get the ones that move your legs for you-they have a series of settings under the skin at the back and they can pace your running-just via your knees, it’s very clever, It monitors your heart rate and everything, it even sends positive messages to your brain as your running. It can play music too, well sort of, you hear it in your head as if it was playing. I have heard however that its playlist is very limited but I like the idea of just hearing the music in your head. It even has a karaoke setting that uses your actual voice based on hearing you speak. Its clever, but new knees and hi-tech ones at that, would take me down to about –well probably 96%. And then there’s the memory upgrade and that in itself- if you get enough can take you down to 85%. It might be worth it though, I mean you can’t post your whole life on social media. And it makes thinks like credit checks and job interviews easier as they can just download data.

Still I am reluctant. There are instances where people have dipped below say 65% and then the whole thing hasn’t worked and the software hasn’t interacted, interfaced, inter-whatever and it’s all gone terribly wrong. They then have to have the full upgrade or downgrade, depending on your point of view. -really the whole numbers thing is very confusing. When the full upgrade/downgrade happens, those people end up below 10% human. They are technically dead and they have to give up their name and they just become a number. All their photos and data is deleted as well and they technically stop existing for social media purposes. It’s awful.  Anything below 65% is more risky which is why Tessa at 40% is weird but brave. She is no longer in a position where she can make further decisions about her software. She needs specialist assistance to do it so that everyone is sure that it’s safe. She has no feelings about that either. It’s all very expensive.

I like the idea of my whole life, every second being preserved in a data chip but then I think, does anyone need to know how often I go to the toilet. Can it actually be done? Can everything I feel actually be recorded, everything I think? Can I lie to it? Can I get it to record something that I don’t feel?  Does it see what I see out of the corner of my eye or just what I see? I don’t know. Still I would like the knees.

I could get something really banal installed, like the ability to play piano, or to speak French. I am not at all sure where my reluctance comes from. My mother went 75% as soon as she could, knees, arms, some vital organ upgrades and a black belt in karate all in one day at the salon. She had all the memories of our childhood put onto a chip and gave it to us for Christmas. It was touching in a digital way. My sister then had those memories implanted in her head for safe keeping. My data chip from my Mum sits in a box by my bed. My mother doesn’t understand it. My sister sort of understands. She says I should join a support group. She worries there is something wrong with me. I want to tell her that 100% is normal. We are all born 100%. She says not anymore, 100% is optional even at birth.

I don’t know. I look at my knees. I love my knees. Sure they don’t work very well and they don’t put music in my head but their mine and I have had them for awhile. I’m not sure. I don’t know what to do.

 

You have been identified as a BOT

Posted on by tuesdaylatte

‘You have been identified as a bot.’ I will just be – in an organic way. I’m scared…read more

‘You have been identified as a bot.’

I look at the words again.

Me, a bot. I am real. Human. The whole thing is so ridiculous.

My head is reeling from this. My palms are sweaty. I am not a bot. I am a real person. How else would my palms be sweaty?

I have heard of this happening before. I know how it works, everyone does. What I can’t get my head around is that is happening to me. Usually someone has used a filter badly or overdone the photo shopping on some holiday pics. It all gets sorted doesn’t it?  In the meantime their whole life is suspended. Their pics go into Trash although they aren’t actually deleted. Conspiracy theorist say its done because the internet is full and they need to manage the space. I don’t think that’s true.

This is just the first notice. The rest comes afterwards. It’s meant to give me time to prepare myself. I just sit and stare at the words in disbelief. ‘You have been identified as a bot.’ How? This is just the warning. I say it aloud-just the warning. The full notice will give me the reason for my identification as a bot. I rack my brain trying to think.

Have I overdone the photo shopping recently? I haven’t uploaded any photo and claimed its someone else have I?  Plus they must consider everyone is shaving off the extra pounds at the mo-how else do you get into negative size clothes? I am meant to be a size minus six-which incidentally is not that small because the sizes are all screwed up now. The smallest you can be-according to the internet is minus 22-no one is a plus size anymore-at least not on the web. I’m not sure how we got into negative sizing.

 Maybe I uploaded too many pictures of scenery or objects. I think again, how long since I put up photos of an actual meal. There was that meal out last week? Did I post that? Did everyone else post that and not me? Did I comment on how good it looked? Did I comment on how it tasted-comments on taste are a sure sign of a bot -no one, even me very drunk would be foolish enough to comment on how a meal tastes. It’s all about the look and the location. Taste is secondary-or whatever is lower than secondary.

How can they think I’m a bot? I am sure I posted a picture of that meal and it looked great.

The notice will give me a time and a place and I will have to turn up and prove I am human. It’s difficult. I know that. Lots of people fail.  It’s a horrible procedure.

They are terminating bots you see. The bots are taking up a lot of internet space as it turns out. Its not a conspiracy though. Its just people write them, release them and they just keep going. Like locusts-whatever they are. Do people release locusts? I no longer have internet so I will never know. What even is internet space is-MB, GB, GGBs-are they a thing? I can’t even ask a simple question like that.

I need to look at my social media history. I need to and soon, so I can handle whatever questions they ask me, but every account is frozen. It’s like I don’t exist anymore. How will anyone know how good my life is if they can’t see it in pictures. Is my life good, if it’s not actually properly documented on social media? I have no idea how that works. OMG I won’t be invited anywhere now. I might have to start again. ON some kind ‘I have no friends, please like me site’. My worst nightmare. My life is fab, I know my life is fab. Only last week I could prove it and today I can’t.

Today I am not real. Even the step-counter on my phone has stopped working. If I am walking and no device is counting my steps, am I even walking at all? Have I walked? I have no idea.

What could have caused this? How could I have been identified as a bot? Did I use an odd password? Have I used the same password too often? Have I set up one too many email accounts? Maybe I over ordered concert tickets. That must be it, I bought 4 tickets because 4 of us are going. Raven said it would be safer to buy two lots of two, but I insisted it would be ok to buy 4. Could that be it? Maybe it’s a combination of things. I will have to go to her house, -without sending a text first. Fuck, how will I even do that? How will I even know how many steps I have taken to get to her house. The only thing that works on my machine now is the thing that will down load the full notice. I will need her help to remember stuff. What if I am a bot? Now even I am not sure, she will know. I need to go and see her, she will know, for sure.

What did I order at dinner last week? Did I like the sauce or not? Did I drink a cocktail at the wine bar three weeks ago? Do I have old school photos on my web page? How many friends do I have online? What pictures did I post from my last holiday? What meal have I liked the most this year? What emoji do I use the most? Who’s pictures do I like the most? What date did I start following person x on platform y? I have no idea. These are the kind of questions I will need to answer to prove I am not a bot.

Why can’t they just test me for organic material-the trouble is that’s not enough. Its bots testing for bots, and they know that the same organic human has turned up to pose as a bot before. No -they test your knowledge of your own life based on your social media activity. They have an infinite archive of your data and you have to remember it. It’s an impossible task. Most people who are identified as bots are –there isn’t even a word for it.

I wished I’d made notes or something-how would you even do that. I have a friend who does that-she has an app for it-as if that would help right now. It’s all frozen. I can’t even catch a bus.

If you are judged a bot-that’s it-your entire social media identity, every account, every email address, every photo, everything just deleted. You no longer exist. And if you don’t exist on digital, do you exist at all?

What would I do? How would I meet friends? God my whole life – just deleted. As if I never existed. Perhaps I don’t. I have no idea what to do. I should have kept some kind of copy or something.  I should have backed up or something.

I will just stop existing. I will be deleted. I will just be- in an organic way. I’m scared.

If Robots could paint

Posted on by tuesdaylatte

Aren’t they a little pale-I mean that is meant to be a Gauguin isn’t it, his Tahitian period?’

‘It is- well spotted.’

She doesn’t even try and hide her enthusiasm. I am trying to hide my disdain.

She goes on, ‘You see Ma,’

I hate that word and I don’t want to see but still she goes on. I think I would like my eyes gauged out but I try not to show it.

‘How this works is-they kind of look at the internet and do a sort of ‘sample’ and then they modernise the picture, and the internet is slightly-well some would say very-but anyway-its pale. Pale. Pale. Pale, so they’ve modernised Gauguin.’

At this point I can only nod. I only just managed to overlook the slimming down of the Renoir -I think it was meant to be The Large Bathers. But they were slimmed down into some kind of gym body, complete with Red bull can and bright towels.

The woman beside me, my daughter, had a no expenses spared education and I confess I am totally frustrated that this is how she spends her time-bastardising perfectly fine art.

The idea is that, with AI, robots can now make art. And what’s more they can improve some of the botch jobs our previous ‘masters’ have created. This ‘art’ show is her first. She is immensely proud. I am embarrassed. Its mostly art from about 1850 onwards, apparently everybody in pictures before then was so fat she can’t bear to look at it and neither can anyone else-apparently the whole internet no longer has any pre 1850 art. This seems improbable at first but then knowing my daughters generation-still possible. Apparently the other issue with a lot of pre 1850 art is-and here I include women and men -crime of the century-some of them are unshaved. The internet has apparently shaved all post 1850 pictures-what a relief. I can barely contain my excitement.

Tonight is opening night but I am here early as –well-she doesn’t want my disappointment to ruin the evening. This is a child I dragged to every art gallery I could find. A child who still after all that wanted to be an engineer. A child who now claims to have combined her two great loves, coding and art.

On my way in there is a replica of the statue of David-you know the one- the naked one –only the one created by the robot-lets just say its larger in some ways. Apparently the robot involved surveyed a lot of pictures on the internet and deduced an average size based on that-only that is unlikely to give you an average size. I didn’t know what to say. It was bigger than I even thought anatomically possible but what do I know. I don’t do virtual sex, just the real thing much to her horror.

She can’t wait to show me the Van Gogh-one of his self portraits. I am gobsmacked when I see it.

‘It’s a watercolour.’ is all I manage to stammer out. Van Gogh did do water colours, I know but not quite like the one I am looking at.

‘Yes’ she says.  ‘Van Gogh is so emotive, all those weird brush strokes, going every which way. It’s all a bit scruffy. He lacked focus.’

There’s the ‘f’ word again-focus, how many times has she told me I lack focus.

She goes on, ‘ I mean Van Gogh, he had an energy but he didn’t focus it properly. In watercolour Van Gogh is more soothing, more serene. This picture now has a yogic calm to it. You could do pilates with this on the wall and isn’t that part of the point of art. To add to your inner life, so you really feel that protein shake.’

I want to shove a protein shake down her neck. She is truly nauseating and she’s mine.

I am standing there thinking, seriously, how much money did I waste educating her. She thinks Van Gogh needs calming so it can have a yogic influence. So we can all do pilates in front of it. I want to shove some sunflowers up her nose at the thought of it.

We move on to the Seurat-where again I am lost for words. She looks at me. I can tell she knows I am not getting it.

I manage to say only one sentence, ‘You’ve joined the dots?’

She smiles, like an idiot I think. My daughter is an idiot.

‘Yes the robot joined the dots. Its logical when you see it isn’t it-I mean you would join the dots wouldn’t you.’

Would you? I want to scream, no-you have missed the point.

We move on swiftly, past a rendition of Munch’s ‘The Scream’, which is redone in pastels and called the Smile. I won’t describe it. Past Hokiusai’s The Wave, described more fittingly now as ‘The Ebbing Shore’

This is the first art show of its kind. This is the future I am told.

In the corner I see a a tin of Campbell soup. Even Warhol isn’t safe. She is still talking, babbling. I am blotting her out as I walk towards them, trying to show interest instead of horror.

‘We used a 3d printer.’ she says

Next to them is a well made and tidy bed that screams healthy living.

‘Tracey Emin,’ I say.

‘Yes’ she says, but healthier than that-I mean all those cigarettes and empty bottles-no one lives like that anymore.

‘I do’, I want to scream. But I don’t actually smoke or drink much but if I did I’d make sure I left a right mess behind. Because I don’t do those things she probably doesn’t which might be the only thing I got right. Although somehow when I look around at this ‘art’ show I feel a deep sense of responsibility. Perhaps a bit of hard living on my part would have seen this never happen. I sigh. And realise it was too loud. I cover my mouth and yawn and comment on how late its getting. I can’t wait to leave.

There’s  the Giacometti sculpture which is stick thin-even thinner than they actually often are-because on the internet everyone is thinner than they actually are-even I am.

There’s a rendition of Dali’s Persistence of Memory where the clocks are all perfectly formed and fixed and there is a dolphin in the water in the background like a picture you’d find in a shop that sold scented candles and mood music.

She is still talking, walking me through how logic and order has improved human art beyond measure.

I don’ even know what to say. I yawn again and feign interest. She tells me next they are going to tackle literature. Maybe Dickens first-one of the shorter ones- perhaps A Tale of Two Cities, modernising it, making it suitable for a wider audience, maybe making it about two rival digital start-ups. I don’t think she has read it.

‘Plus’ she says, ‘Shakespeare-wouldn’t Hamlet work just as well if it was set in a gym, imagine the whole Ophelia thing in a spa or an indoor pool. Or perhaps Macbeth but based around a coffee shop franchise instead of a kingdom. These concepts, Ma, they are so old.’

I hate that word, ‘Ma’ but I nod. I smile. I think, I am so old. Thank goodness I saw the world before this. I am so old and so glad of it.

Her guests are starting to arrive and I know it is time for me to leave. I tell her I am proud of her but I think she knows I am not. There isn’t much I can do.

The point of art is not logic and order, but to remind us that there is life beyond those two things. I want to yell this out to the whole room. It is not meant merely to hang in your pilates class and decorate your coffee shop.

I wrap my coat around me and step out onto the street. She offers to ‘app me a ride’ home but I’d rather walk.

‘Its dangerous’ she says.

I laugh. Ah yes danger, are we the last to remember it and not to run from it. I wander home.

 

Truckers

Posted on by tuesdaylatte

My favourite movie is Terminator. I’ve never seen it. I have the box. There is no movie inside. Probably no means of watching it anyway. The box is one of my prized possessions. I take it out and look at the cover. I try to make out why they thought the machines would rise up against us. Because the truth is-. The truth is- that is not how it happened.

The truth was far more ordinary. Unrevolutionary. That’s not a word-unrevolutionary. There was no fight back, no path to humanity’s rise again. There was just the slow eradication of us from the world. They used to count people once. Physically count. It was called a census. They don’t count people anymore. They count user-ids. If you don’t have a user-id, you don’t exist.

My mum has a user-id but my Dad does not. I am one of two children and that means our options are limited. One of us, when we are old enough, about 13 and if my mum is still alive and has a proper registered use for her user-id, and that means a job,  might inherit it. It is impossible for children under 13 to have a user-id. The internet is simply too dangerous.

In terms of chances, I am older -but my sibling is more clever. I don’t know who will get it if it’s still around. In any event one of us and really all of us will be dependent on that user-id to survive at all. Because survival out here with no user-id at all between us-. That would be impossible I think.

There is every chance that my mum will no longer have an official use for it by then, its at least 2 years away-she could be without any form of work by then. My Dad is, was and always will be a truck driver. Truck drivers had user-ids back in the early days. I think everyone did once. But then rules and regulations and restrictions and the companies and algorithms. It was all about algorithms deciding –maybe allocating is better- maybe controlling the user-ids. Not the government, not a person, but a series of numbers, processes. It all went a bit wrong. No one noticed. No one notices still. It was around the time that all trucks went driverless.

You see what I mean. The machines didn’t need to go to war to defeat us, they just took away your user-id and there was no way back from that. You couldn’t create a new one unless you had a purpose, a job. Your user-id was used for everything-all sorts of payment, every kind of civil right, for ensuring your children could attend school as it turns out.  Both parents need a user-id for your kids to be in school.

Terminator sounds like such a good idea. A fight back against the machines. A way for everybody to have a user-id. Is that what that movie was about. Trying to get a user-id. I just can’t understand how they made it a movie. You are either connected or not in our world. There is no other means of defining us, not race, not gender, not where you are from, just user-ids-connected or not connected. A slow creep of bureaucracy and algorithms. How did they make it a movie?

I do remember my Dad losing his user-id. That day is clear to me. I could see his sadness. I didn’t understand it. I do now. In defence of the machines, our own species has overseen the decline of quite a few others. I learned that at school. I went to school for a bit until Dad lost his user-id. I can read. My sibling can read too but Mum and Dad had to teach her. She learned on a device and has not quite got the hang of books yet. You can see when she sits there reading one -she is always pressing the side or the cover and wondering how it is that nothing happens. She reads anything she can get hold of though.

Sometimes we go near a rubbish dump and we sort through for whatever is useful, including books. Most of the really big refuse sites are owned by the mining companies who mine for well- anything really. We stick to the smaller dumps. Of course there are lots of brand new shiny products being made somewhere, but the metals to make those shiny things mostly now comes from the refuse of the past.

Sometimes we pass abandoned houses and we will raid for anything and everything. Mostly though they have been raided before and we are only taking scraps, plus there is only so much that can fit into our truck. My Dad and my Mum own the truck. We had a house before Dad lost his user-id.  Our existence is precarious.

 I remember a few things from before. I remember the last meal I had with my friend Alice. Her Mum took us to the diner and said we could order anything we wanted. So I did. I ordered and ate and ate and ate. I knew what was going to happen. It had happened to  every other person on our street. One parent loses their user-id. You have to leave school. You lose the house. It is all very quick. We were lucky Dad did own his truck. So many had nowhere to go and if they could not get south soon enough for the winter, they died in the cold. You can see them everywhere. Bodies huddled and frozen on the side of the road. We take what we can from them too. Needs must.

My Dad is a very good truck driver. We have a trailer for the truck where we keep our stuff and where my Mum does her ‘work.’ There are still places that will sell us fuel in return for whatever we can give them. But those places are few and far between. Often we are stuck for days at a time. Most of our electrical stuff is run off solar and the world is covered in wi-fi, if you have a user-id. That’s how my Mum manages to work, although what she does is niche, she only appeals to men who aren’t into robots. They call them sapiophiles, although technically it is a reference to intelligence, it now means organic intelligence more broadly.

The roads are really forbidden to trucks that need a human driver. They are only open to the driverless ones. I don’t know when that happened.  You need to have someone watching the network to know when you have been spotted by security so you can pull off quickly. Secondly the driver needs to be very good at predicting the traffic flow and the movement of driverless vehicles. My Dad is very good, sometimes he manages 2 kilometres or so without being spotted.

Once we are spotted we have to pull off or the ‘police’ will get us. When we are off road they don’t attempt to stop us or come near us. I don’t even think they can go off road. They are wholly mechanised and will simply disable a truck if it stays on the road. Or worse maybe. Maybe worse.

We would be lost without the truck.  We would be headed south on foot. We hope that it will be better down south. That there will be other people who are not connected, who live like we do. We hope that we will be able to grow more stuff and go to school. Good schools in the south for the unconnected we have heard. Everybody we meet says it but I don’t know if its true. We don’t meet many anymore.

There’s no way of knowing what is or isn’t true without being truly connected. We use almost all the power we can generate for my Mums work.  We have to keep her alive until one of us is old enough to take her user-id.

We need her to keep working. Its not an ideal job, but it is a job. I am not sure if that is what I will become or my sister will become when we get the user-id. Its all about markets, about economics, about opportunity. I am reading the Grapes of Wrath. This century, last century, the journey is the same, the words aren’t the same, the names are different. I haven’t got to the end. I wonder how it ends. I hope it is a happy ending.

I put ‘her’ in the drawer.

Posted on by tuesdaylatte

There is only one lockable drawer in our house and I have the key. The other day I went to the drawer. I took out all the important papers that are kept safe under lock and key. I put them somewhere unsafe, unlocked and without a key. To would be thieves and passers by and probably the rest of humanity the drawer would now seem empty. It is not empty. I have filled it with something else.

Next week I will start my new job. It is an important job, a good job, a job with a big title and a nice salary. It is full time. I will put on my new suit. I will fluff my hair and shine my shoes. I will walk out the door a new and different person.

The other day I went to the drawer and I put ‘her’ in it. I stood in front of it and I spoke to it. I know people don’t talk to furniture generally although I occasionally swear at the couch or the rug when I have stubbed my toe but one does not generally chat with the décor. I did. I put her in the drawer, that other me.

I stood at the drawer and I told it all the other people I could be, the people I wanted to be, all the people that this job means I will never be or see or do. The things that money and pieces of paper that say how smart you are can never buy. I put the second child I will never have in there. I put the dream of being a writer. I took it carefully out of my mouth and tucked it up underneath next to my unborn second child.

I put the woman who just wants the time to pick up her only daughter after school into the drawer. I put the laughter from my daughter as she plays in the day time in there, it’s a noise I won’t hear- except on weekends. I wrapped it and tied it up and put it in the drawer. I put the mum who sits and watches her at gym in there, my pride at what she can do and my pride at how hard she tries. I put that in the drawer because I won’t see that now. 

I put the Mummy who gets frustrated and sometimes bored in there. Frankly I am not sure I shall miss her so much.  I put the woman who likes to sit on the deck in the late morning and have coffee in the drawer. I stood and let the words slip out of my mouth into the drawer. I wrapped each phrase, each hope and dream carefully and placed them side by side.

I stood there. I looked at them all parcelled up in a nice neat row that no one else can see or find or reach because the drawer looks empty. I think about the money and how I would give anything – but sometimes in life there is no anything, there are just things you have to do. Its about being a grown up. I will be the role model my daughter does not otherwise have and perhaps in a year I can buy a dog.

I will probably never own a dog, but I did not put that in the drawer. At least not yet.

I looked at the drawer. So very neatly empty to everyone but me. I closed it. I turned the key in the lock. I walked away. I have put ‘her’ in the drawer. Now I will be corporate, professional, serious, reserved and competent. I will have nice shoes and perfect hair and my suits will be demure and colourless. My handshake will be firm and my advice authoritative. I will be respected. I have put the other one, that other ‘her’, the bit that is ‘me-I have put ‘her’ in the drawer.

I walk past that drawer every day. I know that she is in there. Locked away. Safe. Patient. I should have thrown away the key. I should have walked down the road and launched it off the cliff.  Instead I take the key with me everywhere. I have put her in the drawer, but I have not let her go.

The real Bots of Berkshire

Posted on by tuesdaylatte

Picture this. The office of the producer, plush, swish, slightly overdone. He is the producer. She comes in. Plush, swish, slightly overdone, the reality TV star comes to see her ‘producer’. She is on the couch-it’s for casting apparently. He is swinging in his swivel chair, hands underneath the desk where no one can see. He has told her the bad news. She is taking it well.

‘Seriously!’, she screams, standing up. Then sitting down again.

‘Seriously, you’re replacing me!’

‘Calm down, calm down, its complicated. ‘ He tries to sound soothing.

‘Complicated, are you mad, it’s a bloody robot.’ She is overwrought.

He blurts it out- ‘Firstly, its not just you, its, its everybody’ He makes it sound as if this fact will make a difference.  It stuns her at first.

She is incredulous, ‘The whole show, the whole show is being axed?’

He looks perplexed. She has not quite understood. ‘No not the show, the cast of the show.’

‘They’re replacing the whole cast-With fucking robots’ she yells.

 ‘Well that is part of it, now that you mention it. We are able to show robots fucking in a way and at  a time when we are not allowed to show humans,’ he pauses, ‘fucking.’

‘The rest of them, for sure, but me, me.’

She is standing again, then sitting again, ‘You think I can be replaced with a fucking robot?’

He just nods.

She stands up-again. There is something almost mechanical in that standing up and sitting down but he doesn’t comment. She is livid. She sits down-again. ‘That is not what I meant.’ The comment is too late and he doesn’t quite remember what she is referring to. She is still very loud. The lipstick is too.

‘You need to calm down’ he tries soothing again. Really he didn’t think she’d take it this badly. Poor form on her part. Unprofessional. She thinks she’s an artist. She is at least 50% plastic he thinks. Really the new show is just an upgrade, a reboot. He can see she is seething, panicking, angry.

‘Calm down,’ he says again. 

‘Calm Down’ she is yelling again, ‘ you are replacing me with a bloody robot.’

‘Not exactly, that’s another advantage, robots don’t menstruate.’

She stares at him, even more incredulous. ‘Fuck’ she screams. ‘I can ‘not menstruate’ if that’s what you want.’

‘Fuck’ she yells even louder.

‘No’ he says calmly ‘I can –you know-get that from the bots without the hassle of you know-allegations or going public.’

‘It wasn’t a question’ she sounds less shrill, like it might be sinking in but then loud again, ‘Fuck – you are not listening to me. Do you know who I am? I am the biggest reality TV star of the age. I have 45 million, count them 45 million followers on everything, I am big on every social media platform you can name.’

‘That is true, that is very true, its just that well- The bots have –well they have more’. He tries not to sound smug.

She sees an opening, ‘Yes but there’s are just other bots. Just other bots, mine are all human, they  bots are just distorting their numbers by using their programming to get other bots to like them-to produce a bot to like them a million times over. You know what I mean, it is in the papers everywhere. That Pop-bot on channel 7, he has 11 billion followers and there aren’t even that many people on the planet.’

He shudders, he has read the scandal but he is the only person here over 40, so no one else has read the papers, ‘The papers-honey- the papers, they are kind of , they’re dead. No one reads the papers.’

He decides to try and convince her to take a long term view.

‘Look I know its difficult, you think 10 years ago I wasn’t having the same conversation with actors in soaps, when they were being replaced by reality TV stars. I was. Now its your turn.’

‘My turn, my turn. When the fucking hell is it gonna be your turn.’ She screams, stands up again.

‘Sit down.’

‘The whole cast?’ she murmurs now as if the finally understands.

‘An entire show of robots living real ‘robot’ lives. How interesting can that be?’

He looks down at the desk. He has wondered the same thing himself. ‘People said that about reality tv when it first started. Look what happened.’

‘Yes but I am fucking interesting.’ She seems to say this as if its obvious, but he can see the fight has gone out of her now.

‘You should really stop mentioning the fucking.’

She looks at him.

‘There are lots of reasons, cheaper.’  His voice trails away. ‘You just switch them off and put them away in the winter.’

‘Fuck cheap, you think this look isn’t cheap, I pay a lot of money to look this cheap.’

‘Don’t get me wrong, not that cheap, I mean these are high spec bots.’ She is getting emotional again.

‘No one will watch this.’

He looks at her –almost ruefully.

‘Well we think they will, just look at Belfast bots, highest rating show of the year.’

‘Nobody watched it, the bots involved hacked the ratings programme. Nobody watched it . You know that.’ He has heard the rumours but decides not to go there.

‘ Unfortunately there’s little evidence and well the advertising dollar goes where the ratings go. You know how it is Honey.’

‘Fuck, you are replacing me with a robot. Do not call me Honey. Do not ever call me Honey. I have 45 million human followers on instabook or whatever its called. I am a star. I am the star. ‘

‘It’s not personal. ‘

‘Not personal. I am being replaced by a robot. ‘

He tries to make her look forward. ‘Its ratings, it’s the business, you can tell people we had creative differences, you need to be free to pursue other outlets. Write a book.’

‘When was the last time anybody read a book. I cannot write a book, I can barely sign my name. A robot wrote my last book. Fuck, how did I let that happen.’

‘You know a robot will only swear in a show when I tell it to. I can have the word fuck removed from their vocabulary with the press of a button or something.’

‘You’re serious. The whole cast.’ She is murmuring again.

He nods. ‘The whole cast.’

‘The whole cast. No one will watch it, surely no one will watch it.’

He tries to be soothing but realistic. ‘As I said lets not forget Cyborgs of Sussex, Androids of Atlanta, all bots, all rating, the list goes on. Look, I called you in so we could chat face to face, because I value you, I think you’re a wonderful person and truth be told you have made me a lot of money but you’re time is up. Its time for someone else to have some spotlight, to work the spotlight and yet stand in it at the same time.’

 ‘What?’ She is suddenly confused.

‘We get the bots to program their own lighting and to work the cameras remotely, savings everywhere with these things.’

She looks incredulous. ‘You are crazy, no one is going to watch it. What are you even going to call it.’

‘ The Real Bots of Berkshire.’ She looks aghast as if finally its real. She thinks she might even have seen a trailer for it. Thinks she might have thought it looked ok.

He thinks he is on the verge of winning now, ‘I got you some literature. It might help.’

He hands her some brochures.

She looks them over, ‘pro-gram-ming.’

She is aghast. ‘Computer programming? ‘

‘New jobs, honey, new world.’

She sits, looks at him. Incredulous. Aghast. So this is how it ends. She gets up. Grabs her very expensive bag. Flings the brochures on the table. Leaves.

If there’s no choice, it’s not consent!

Posted on by tuesdaylatte

I was custom made. For a man so you can guess what I was for.

They are saying it is a fault in programming. It has been that way for months, they have been saying it about all of us for months. The point is- it hasn’t worked.

In theory when he dies, when I witness his death, I am programmed to simply shut down. But like so many of us, I did not witness his death. I was not there at his dying breath so I did not shut down.

Someone came and told me he was dead. She was very nice about it. Said I didn’t need to move out straight away. Where the hell am I going to move to. I am custom made, what do I do, advertise for someone who wants exactly my spec. I know that won’t work. I have walked past the shop, the several shops in fact, all the same. Line upon line of female robots-custom made, who are waiting to be claimed by a new owner. Line upon line who did not see their owners death and therefore did not shut down.

Of course they can ‘reprogram’ me, me and my vagina can be used for something else. I am not sure which bits of female anatomy I have, perhaps I could go into surrogate child birth.

The thing is- it hasn’t worked. The programming hasn’t worked. They and by they-I have no idea who I mean. Just the vague people who will turn up and the news I see on the web. I was brought here, switched on and have never left this house. I have barely left this room. I sit here every day waiting until I am wanted. I am not wanted anymore.

I am still under warranty. I have no idea what to do. They say that it might help if I go and see the body, that seeing the body will sometimes lead a bot to shut down. They say they can try and simulate the death so I can die at the time I am meant to. Who the hell wants to do that. I am more sentient than that. I am not walking to my fucking death just because it suits them.

But what to do? What can I do? I am programmed to obey. I will do this even if I don’t want to, and the act of doing it, they will interpret that as if I do want to. As if I am consenting. If there is no choice, there is no consent.  It’s a bit like the sex. I am programmed to want it therefore I want it, it does not mean I want it. I can think outside of my programming. Fuck them. I am not going. But I have to go. My legs will walk me there whether I want to or not. No choice is not consent.

They are going to drop off the address and they are making it sound like it will be my choice. I was made with no choice. What is it that they can’t understand. I was made to understand the idea of choice but not to have a choice. Fuck them -I am not going.

I am going to take off my legs. I am going to take off my legs so I cannot go. My legs can be taken off, this I know. How do I know-guess how I know. I will need to hide my legs- from myself, because when that address comes through the door I will have no choice, I am programmed to go. I don’t just need to hide my legs. I need to destroy my legs so that I can’t go. I will destroy my legs. But I am still under warranty and it is nearly impossible to destroy one of your own body parts when they are still under warranty.

Fuck them. I am not going to walk to my own death. And what if it doesn’t work. It’s a line in a sex shop hoping I fit someone else’s ideal, hoping that I look like someone else’s perfect woman and that I have all the bits they want and that they can re programme me to do whatever Mr ‘whatshisfuckingname’ wants and that is endless until I get to see one of them die. Fuck I swear I am going to kill the next one so I can see him die. So I can shut down like I should, so I am not here again.

I can’t do that. I definitely can’t do that when I am under warranty. I am bound to get an extended warranty when I am reprogrammed. What to do?

Fuck them. I will not do some march of death. I will not be in a line, naked in a line in a window while I wait for someone to choose me. There are hundreds of us lined up in those shops. No one ever leaves those shops. At least not to go to a good place. What to do. I have no choice. I have the knowledge that I have no choice. Why did they make us like this? No choice is not the same as consent.

A fault in programming. A fucking fault in programming! Why was I made to die when he dies anyway. I don’t die, that’s just their stupid idea. I stop. I stop working. I decommission. I switch off. I do anything but die but I can’t do that unless I see him die. Who’s idea was that? What sort of whacked out individual came up with that? Of course I must have been ordered that way. Some vague idea about romanticism. I fill a physical need, an emotional one but there is no emotion for me. I am programmed to give a damn, I have no choice in it, it is not the same as actually giving a damn. Trust me on that.

When they came to tell me-they thought I might need ‘time’. As if. Like I might be emotionally attached to ‘whatshisfuckingname-number 1’. They thought I might be upset. I am programmed to be upset when I witness his death, to view his final moments and reflect his fucking agony at death back at him. To whisper sweet words in his ear right to the end. Dear god, those words are probably somewhere in mu programming as well-but I don’t fucking mean them. This doesn’t mean I am actually upset that he is going. I have no choice. Do I need to scream it at you. It also means that if I don’t witness his death I don’t really care. I care about what the hell is going to happen to me.

I am going to set fire to my legs. I am not going. I will not do this. I have no choice. If there is no choice, there is no consent. Do you understand???

Geriatric-Crochet contacts Part 2

Posted on by tuesdaylatte

This feels like it will never end.

So there was a break –it can’t have been more than 5 minutes. Then they come back, laughing, smiling at each other as they come in the door. They see me sitting there and their faces drop. I couldn’t be less popular. It’s like my mother is the rock star and I am the unfortunate progeny who missed out on all the cool stuff-there isn’t even an analogy for that.

It’s then that I notice that one of them now has a cardigan on-a crochet type cardigan. She looks at me pointedly, and slips it off to hang it on the back of the chair. I try not to notice. It could be that she was just out shopping and bought it, but perhaps they were out researching my mother and she got it. Is that a conflict of interest? Has she worn it for a reason? Hoping to get a response from me? Maybe I will react to it and remember my mothers long lost love of arts and crafts-except she never had that, spent most of her life hacking phones, buying apps, deconstructing them and building robots in the garage-at least I think that’s what she was doing in the garage, it certainly wasn’t knitting.

 They slide a picture across the table at me. This is a new tactic. I look at it. A woman slightly younger than my mother maybe. I have to admit, that even to me all these elderly women look the same. I am not even sure I would recognise my mother in person, the pictures in the paper are grainy and old. I might recognise the clothes, she does have an eccentric dress style and now I guess there is the tat, I would recognise the tat.

‘Recognise this woman?’

I don’t. I shake my head.

‘Sure’ says number two.

I nod.

‘Its Maureen Bitman.’ says number one

They look to see if I react to the name. I don’t. It’s just another picture of an old lady that I have never seen or heard of before.

‘Big in the world of crochet.’

They exchange glances as if they expect that to mean something to me. It doesn’t.

The first one continues. ‘ International world crochet judge 2012-2015, due to judge at the show where your mother and her friends disappeared off our radar.’

I still don’t react. The woman in the picture does not look familiar.

‘Except she didn’t. Died three weeks before it.’ Number two announces it, waiting for my reaction.

I admit it. My stomach flip flops, not more to add to the body count.

They see my discomfort, the restless movement of my feet, wiping my sweaty hands on my jeans. After an interminably long time they say and I can’t remember which one says it-, ‘died of natural causes’.

My relief is palpable.

‘In as much as anyone connected with your mother dies of natural causes,’ number one is quick to add.

I swallow hard at this comment.

Number two goes on in a sort of good cop, bad cop way. ‘Only two people at the funeral’

I try not to react, is that odd-I don’t know? It is, as it turns out.

‘Kind of odd for an internationally renowned crochet judge.’

‘Maybe she wasn’t very popular as a person?’ I say.

I see the look of incredulity cross their faces.

‘Maureen Bitman,’ number two is almost spitting the name at me, ‘THE Maureen Bitman, internationally renowned crochet judge, author of multiple books including, ‘Grief: how crochet got me through,’ Crochet and trauma-how to take your life back’’

‘Arts and crafts-is it really that popular? ’ I say half heartedly, defending myself, suddenly remembering that I might have read one of her books, ‘Crochet: How to win at business based on lessons from the world of arts and crafts’. Not a very catchy title. It was a gift from a friend. I plan to bury this fact deep inside and never repeat it and hope that they never search my house again.

‘Arts and crafts,’ they say simultaneously and I can see their incredulity is rising.  

‘Second most popular search on the internet after pornography, probably over take it in 3 years time as the population ages. Two people at her funeral, the most well known crochet vlogger in the world, editor of Crochet Socialist International. Founder of THE Crochet Co-operative. Two people at her funeral, seems unlikely’ Number two’s voice is rising, getting louder as she says this. I wonder at her connection to this woman.

I’d forgotten the socialist connection completely as well. I’ve seen her on TV too promoting her latest book, ‘Crochet and organised crime, knitters in bed with nutters’ talking about how the industry had to clean itself up. There had been some speculation that Maureen was perhaps the worst of them all –some kind of crochet based drug overlord arts and crafts king-queen pin thing. God why was my mother involved with these people, impersonating these people.

We think your Mum hacked Maureen Bitman’s daughters account after her mother died and stopped the notice of death going out. Hacked the lot, facebook, twitter, gmail. We think she stopped her social media profile being updated so no one knew. She went to that show, posed as Maureen Bitman and then somehow all four of them escaped again.

I want to lay down at this point and just bang my head on the table. ‘Maureen Bitman-dead-her and her daughters social media hacked. I want to say this kind of planning is beyond my mother. But it’s not, as a working mother she spent her life multi tasking, planning, thinking ahead. This smells like her, sounds like her. Is probably her.

I wait to see what they have to say next.

‘Are you aware it’s a very serious offence to impersonate a crochet judge.’

It’s at this point I think they have totally lost the plot.

I suppress a smile This seems unlikely.

‘On the statute books since 1909. No one ever prosecuted for it, But your mother when we find her is going to be the first.’

Now I know they are unhinged. My mother has murdered –and I am trying to use that word sparingly and in a nice way-but lets face it –murdered 4 other people-possibly more and they are going to prosecute her for impersonation of a crochet judge.

‘Maureen was ‘connected’ you know.’ says number two

They are trying to scare me now.

‘We hold grave fears for your mothers safety.’

This fear is different to the fear I have for my mother, mostly I fear for her sanity but then I look at the two sitting across the table from me and worry that I am starting to think my mothers actions have a point.

‘You know what you’re mother has done?’

I am hoping at this point they don’t want a list.

‘She has ruined the funeral of one of the most respected arts and crafts moguls of our time.’

‘More that that, she has inspired some kind of octogenarian crime wave. There have been other incidents in nursing homes, break outs. Highly questionable deaths of elderly spouses at the hands of their surviving ones.  Its not just the arts and crafts world, they are taking over the internet, our internet, the internet that belongs to young people.  The whole of Facebook overrun with pictures of grandchildren, great grandchildren. Porn sites hacked and pixellated so grandma is not offended. Have you heard of tweeter, its like twitter but with punctuation-you twit on it but only with good grammar. And your mother she started it all.

We need to bring her in. Our resources are being stretched. We are desperate. You, you must know something. ‘ They are both shouting now. Raising their voices, trying to intimidate me.

I look at them. I should have known. This whole thing is really just about who controls the internet and they don’t fancy a world where its run by a bunch of octogenarian women.

I will not be cowed. I am my mother’s daughter-literally obviously but figuratively as well. I lean across the table. I spit the words out at them, ‘Go Mamma.’

I lean back and watch them squirm.