The Transition. Luke Kennard

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СКАЧАТЬ a lighthouse keeper,’ said Genevieve.

      The tablet prompted them both to keep a journal at 10 p.m. every night. There were no rules on the content, but it had to be at least 500 words and the grammar check could tell whether or not it was basically literate.

      ‘This is going to be a novel by the end of the scheme,’ Karl complained.

      Genevieve looked up from her typing.

      ‘That’s the point,’ she said. ‘The best ones are made available to future protégés. We get access to the online library in week 3. Karl, are you actually reading any of the daily bulletins?’

      ‘The what?’

      ‘Are you paying any attention at all?’

      ‘Sure.’

      ‘I get the feeling your heart’s not really in it.’

      ‘I’ve had a lot of work.’

      ‘I mean you’re the reason we’re here.’

      ‘I’m aware of that.’

      ‘I know you are.’

      ‘Well, then.’

      Genevieve laughed.

      Karl began transcribing their exchange on his tablet.

      Halfway through his first sentence he looked up. When Genevieve paused he said, ‘How does this work with our TGU vows?’

      ‘This? Oh, it’s not relevant,’ said Genevieve. ‘This is a private network. It’s not the same at all.’

      ‘I don’t know if I’m comfortable with it,’ said Karl.

      ‘So call your sponsor.’

      ‘We haven’t spoken in a year.’

      Karl hadn’t felt the need to consult his sponsor in a while. As far as he was concerned the Great Unsharing had broken the worst of his internet addiction and he no longer needed to observe its dogmas. The Great Unsharing had been founded three years previously by a child named Alathea Jeffreys. The logo was a graphical silhouette of her face at nine years old on a blue background. Alathea represented the first generation to be ‘commodified without consent’; from birth to early childhood everything about her had been documented, stored and shared with complete strangers by her parents, the first wave of social networkers whose internet use had transitioned over a decade from drunken party photos to political posturing to holiday snaps to baby scrapbook. ‘Where was our opt-out?’ asked Alathea. ‘What choice did we have? I was a public domain image when I was still in my mother’s womb.’ Alathea called for a mass strike from social networks, and then from the internet in general. A degrading, dehumanising place. The Great Unsharing gathered publicity from columnists and commentators and via the very networks from which it encouraged withdrawal. ‘I want to share something that happened to me in the coffee room after church last month,’ ran a typical editorial at the time. ‘I was there with Simon and our newborn. A young man of our acquaintance asked if he could take a photo of my baby. A little unusual, perhaps, but I tend to look for the best in people. I said yes, of course. He held up his smartphone and, flash, that was that, or so I thought. But later I saw him leaning against the wall working avidly on his phone. I approached and saw that he was playing a computer game. He made no effort to hide it from me, so I looked over him at the screen. The sick game involved drop-kicking an animated baby at a rugby goal, or over a rainbow or into the sea, and the program was able to use photographs to alter the appearance of the baby. With horror it dawned on me that he was kicking my baby.’

      The movement struck a chord with Genevieve and, after discussing it, she and Karl agreed to sign up. Karl often found himself sitting with his smartphone going between five social networks and three separate email accounts, and, if he had no new messages, a simulation of a social network called Humanatee which was entirely computer-generated and passably amusing for its similitude to the real thing, albeit with no repercussions. Achieving nothing, praying for the battery to die so that he could read a book. One night they held hands and deleted their profiles from three networks, twelve years’ worth of photos, opinions and comments on other people’s opinions. It felt like flushing a toilet. The Great Unsharing encouraged participants to delete their email accounts, too, which they both felt was a bit extreme. Within two years the movement had reduced the user base for social networks by a third.

      ‘We’re not trying to be sanctimonious or didactic,’ read Alathea’s official statement. ‘The fact is, most of the time you go online, within about five minutes you’ve directly engaged with something that makes you genuinely unhappy. You’ve either given or received indignation. This is a reduction of what you are and what you can be as a human being. Imagine if instead of doing that you asked an elderly neighbour if they needed anything from the shops? Or went for a walk. Or studied Greek. Or had a conversation with someone in your house. Just try it for a week and observe the effects on your mental health.’

      The following year it was revealed that Alathea Jeffreys didn’t exist; that she was the invention of a middle-aged American academic called Dr Cary Gill and formed part of his post-doctoral Sociology research into authenticity for the University of Bristol. By this point the followers of the Great Unsharing were no longer involved in the forums where the hoax was revealed and so they missed much of the outrage, the debates and the counter-outrage.

       10

      THURSDAY OF THE first week. It was 7 p.m. and the moon was already visible as a shadowy crescent. After finishing the very creditable pumpkin and spinach curry his wife had prepared, Karl was sent outside to pick his way through the runner beans in the dark, the collected rainwater seeping through his fuzzy trainers. He could see through the garage’s screen door. In oil-stained jeans and a white T-shirt Stu hunched over the bonnet of a bright-green Honda Civic, rubbing its immaculate paintwork with a piece of sandpaper. He looked up when Karl pulled the door open.

      ‘All right, Karl?’

      ‘Hey. Janna said you, um …’ He inhaled the smell of turps.

      ‘Yeah, first workout – just let me finish …’

      Stu went back to sanding the bonnet.

      ‘This Lime-Green Car my Prison,’ said Karl.

      ‘What?’

      ‘Came into my head. Is that for …’

      ‘Rat look,’ said Stu. ‘Security feature, really. You downgrade a fairly expensive car so it doesn’t get vandalised or stolen. Sorry. Just finish this bit.’ His sanding sped up for a moment, then he rose and sat down on a stepladder, motioning Karl towards an old paint-spattered wooden stool.

      ‘We’ll start with a little cardio,’ he said. ‘And then get straight into the weights – there’s no need to hold back. I’ve got you a kit.’

      He handed Karl a canvas bag. In it he found a pair of white running shoes, some black shorts and a black Aertex shirt, a brand he remembered the more popular kids at school wearing.

      ‘Go up and get ready and I’ll join you once I’ve washed my hands.’

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