I don’t rush home.
Every few steps I take, I look over my shoulder.
If somebody is following me, I’ll see them. The deserted streets are my friend.
I must be the only person in the whole world not parked in front of a TV set watching the announcement.
But after today, I feel like I could make the announcement myself, feel like I know what they will say.
WOCO has to come clean. They don’t have any other option. They will try and turn it into an opportunity, cover up what they tried to keep secret. I don’t know what their long-term plan was, but they’ll need a rethink.
Another glance over my shoulder. And another to make sure. But I’m alone. The streets whistle they’re so lonely and my footsteps tap out a hollow beat.
I walk past houses, people huddled together inside. At one terrace house I peek in through the window. A family of four are mesmerized by the TV. I see Gordon Stewart giving his speech.
There are two children, a boy of around eleven, and a girl of about seven or eight. They might be members of the first immortality generation. I wonder what kinds of questions they will ask their parents. “Daddy, if I’m going to be immortal, does that mean I don’t have to go to school tomorrow?”
I carry on walking and pass a car lying on its side, burnt out. The metal is already flaking off, its carbonized frame ready to become an exhibit in a museum. I wonder what the card next to its glass case would say.
How will people will react to Stewart’s announcement?
Their aims in life will change, that’s for sure. Their primary goal will be to become immortal, to do whatever it takes. But what will it take?
For now, the way to have a chance of immortality is not to upset WOCO.
I can’t see riots flaring up again in the foreseeable future. If you get caught on camera, you’ll never be one of the chosen few. Who is going to take that risk?
I walk on.
The moon begins to emerge in the sky.
It seems to appear earlier and earlier these days. It never has any competition from the sun, so can trot out whenever it likes.
I’m dawdling when I should be rushing home.
I should be grabbing Ellie by the arm and telling her we have to go, that we have to get out of here, run as far as we can.
I turn down another street.
This one used to be cobbled years ago. I saw it in some very old photographs. I miss cobbled streets. I once went on a trip to Belgium where they still have them. But they’re expensive to maintain and can be dug up to use as weapons during a riot. So, no chance of WOCO laying new ones.
I stop at another house, look in through another window.
There’s an elderly couple watching the announcement on TV. They both look like they’re in their late eighties. I wonder what they make of WOCO’s words.
If anybody should be shouting at the TV screen, demanding the immortality treatment right now, it’s them. Time’s running out. But they sit there drinking a cup of tea, thick cardigans wrapped around them — sitting there with dignity. Letting time pass while it’s still relevant.
I have an urge to join them, to sit there, drinking in their humanity.
But I shrug it off and keep walking.
