Friday 14th August

Diary Entry – 20660425

“I am getting stronger every day now.  I realise how fortunate I was to have been found by Dan and Emily; I could so easily have been found by ordinary people, who would have turned me in to the Polis.  But actually no-one could be more ordinary than Dan and Emily.  Let me tell you a bit about them, because I doubt there are many people like them left, unaffected simple country folk, they remind me of those 2D photos I was telling you about from the last century, they have the same inner smiles.

Dan must be nearly eighty I suppose, but he is far fitter than I have ever been (even with three gym visits a week).   He has a ruddy complexion and a stubbly face, I’m not even sure if he shaves his body let alone his face.  Emily is a bit younger but still a good fifteen years older than me.  She is rather overweight; she obviously hasn’t heard of slimming drugs, or maybe she just doesn’t care.  I have never met a woman yet who doesn’t care about her looks, but Emily seems the exception.  They have neither of them married and as far as I can tell they don’t even own a syn-sex module, so what they do for sex I have no idea.  Maybe some people just get by without it, or do that old-fashioned wanking stuff.  I have had to do without sex now for a few weeks and to tell the truth I miss it, even syn, which I used to complain about so much.  I wouldn’t mind a session now actually; so maybe that’s a sign that I am getting better.

But lonely as their existence is, they seem relatively happy.  I wonder if they regret never having married or the lack of children.  Maybe they just never met anyone, or did Dan do all he could to keep his sister single and by his side.  I wonder what will happen to the farm when they die.  But idyllic in some ways as their life is, they are still really just existing, aren’t they? Apart from the satisfaction of growing their own organic food they have no real future; there isn’t any prospect of change in their future.  But maybe that is the key to their happiness.   Everyone in our society is so hooked on the idea of progressing to the next level that we have forgotten what real achievement is; we have forgotten what life is supposed to be about.  No matter how clever the hypercoms are, surely life cannot be boiled down to a digital formula, an economic system that caters for all but satisfies nobody.

I would like to stay on the farm a bit longer, but I know I will have to move on.  At least I may be better prepared this time.  Emily keeps giving me these wistful sad looks, and really I cannot reciprocate, even to be kind.  She is the sweetest woman, but I cannot get involved.  Dan keeps giving me suspicious glances and asking if I am well yet.  So, it is time to move on, and we all know it.

Dan has looked out a decent pair of shoes for me, and Emily has found an Atlas of Southern England so I might know where I am.  It is obviously a few decades out of date, but it is the first real paper artefact I’ve seen in years.  She has also given me some cheese and a few tubs of beanz and a shoulder bag to carry them in.  My old handbag is almost worn out now, though it has kept the laptop safe all this time.

Dan even shook my hand and wished me good luck, but Emily was all weepy and couldn’t say goodbye properly.  I am leaving as soon as it gets dark tonight.  Dan’s idea; travel at night, avoid the roads in daylight, even driverless lorries may have cams in them, sleep in the woods away from the roads during the day.  He has even begrudgingly given me an old wind-up torch; I haven’t seen one of these in decades.   But where am I going?  Hastings.  It’s a town on the coast, Emily says that a lot of poor people live there, or so she has heard.  I need to find somewhere I can just blend in, where no-one asks any questions, and critically where I can exist without cred.  I am nervous, of course; I am shit-scared actually.  But I started this thing so I have to see where my journey takes me.  If it all ends badly, if I get caught, clagged even – at least I have tried, in my own way, to be free (is that the words of an old song from the last century– I seem to remember it from somewhere).”