This is the second chapter of a novel that will be published in serial form in the Daily Sceptic. It’s a dystopian satire about the emergence of a social credit system in the U.K. in the near future. Read chapter one here.
By the time Ella reached the one ‘food’ store now afforded to them, a nondescript Lillicos, much like any of the U.K.’s other four and a half thousand nondescript Lillicos, she felt nauseous. There had been rumours that even the big chains were about to ‘Go Efficient’. “You do know, right, they’re going to squeeze us until we have no other option,” Theo had said over breakfast the other day. Theo was usually right.
The bile in her stomach rising, she approached tentatively, and felt a wave of relief on glimpsing that in the window there was no sign, no ‘EFFICIENTS WELCOME’, nothing other than the usual council placard outside:
“PARKING HERE ENDANGERS A CHILD’S LIFE,” no trace of irony apparent.
Previously they’d seen Lillicos as something of a last resort, little Poppy in particular taking umbrage at its endless rows of processed, packaged junk food and aisle after aisle of fizzy drinks, tinned vegetables and ready-meals. That luxury was long gone, though, and today as so many other days she felt unsettlingly grateful to be allowed through its doleful doors.
“Essential retail don’t you know,” Ella mouthed, eyes narrowing and shooting a vicious glare up towards the street camera outside. Intoning in her head, “Fuck you. I’m still allowed in,” she stepped inside.
They didn’t need much – fruit for the kids, some white-tack to put up Libby’s latest artwork, “Mama, it’s a beautiful church like in the olden days”, and, she supposed, a newspaper – but that didn’t stop her taking her time at each aisle. Walking to the space reserved for items which, defying the evidence of ones’ eyes were still labelled “FRESH FRUIT”, she noticed the area had been cut back still further, the few forlorn crates of something resembling fresh groceries dwarfed on either side by shelves displaying glossy primary colour banners.
SUGARSLIMTM : THERE’S NO SUGAR LIKE SUGARSLIMTM SUGAR
REDPILL: BEYOND FOOD, THE COUNTRY’S CHOICE
Walking on to the baked goods section she picked up something masquerading as bread and read over the ingredients on the back.
“Reconstituted Potatoes (Huh? Why? Wasn’t this meant to be bread?), High Fructose Corn Syrup, SugarSlimTM, Emulsifiers E481, E472e, Butylated Hydroxyanisole (BHA), Dough Conditioners, Sodium Sterol Lactylate, Azodicarbonamide, Monoglycerides…”
Hmmm. No way this was going to pass the Poppy test. She put it down.
In the end she settled for some anaemic fake fruit, some cans claiming to be tinned vegetable soup – more for the stockpile – and the white-tack, and headed to the checkout to pay.
“Newspaper!” she reminded herself – old habits died hard. Turning back to the magazines aisle she saw that the headlines, as ever, sung to the same tune; pictures of the late King gracing the front pages. God Save The King. God knows why, when the King would not save his country. Picking up one of the broadsheets, she cast aside the feeling that merely holding it made her complicit in some crime, and headed back to the checkout area.
Only something was different.
The checkout area. She gawped, computing the new landscape with disbelieving eyes. “The bastards,” she mouthed.
Until today there had been one checkout area of eight self-service counters for everyone. Today, though, the space had been split into two zones, a seven-foot high Perspex barrier guillotining them.
On the left there were six counters; overhead an oversized fluorescent light beamed out:
“”EFFICIENTS ONLY.”
On the right, the remaining two counters, and a noticeably duller sign:
“NON-EFFICIENTS HERE.”
Ella paused, momentarily blindsided. Stay and endure this latest insult, or leave? But then what? With online shopping no longer an option there was only so much more black-market food they could ask their local butcher, Robert, to supply them. He was risking enough as it was.
Before she had time to land on a decision, a reassuring voice broke the silence —
“Ella!”
It was Shirles, their one-time nanny, now simply a friend, queuing in the Efficients Zone. Judging by the frown on her face, she was every inch as upset with the new layout as Ella.
Shirley, or Shirles as she was affectionately known to Ella and the kids, the curves of the letter ’S’ reflecting the brand of matronly common sense and kind concern that were her hallmark, had been a Good Citizen. Unlike Ella, Shirles had done what she’d been told. At first trustingly and obediently, then somewhat more sceptically, but always bowing to what was asked of her, Shirles had kept safe, kept everyone else safe. Only she hadn’t, because three months after keeping everyone safe for the third or fourth time – she forgets which – Shirles collapsed in the kitchen, struck down by a stroke. In Shirley’s own words, she’d “never been the same since”.
But, more of that later. As Shirles would say, you can’t start with such misery, and “anyway, I was one of the lucky ones”, or some such.
In something intended as a loud whisper but really more of a general broadcast, Shirles called out from across the divide,
“You ok?!” adding for good measure, “I can’t believe my bloody eyes. The bastards!!”
“Me neither,” Ella glowered back. “I’m fine,” she said, shaking her head and feeling very far from fine indeed. She could well believe it, if anything she was surprised they’d not dared to do it sooner, but conspicuously now the only person standing in Zone Two, the Reprobate Zone, and with at least four pairs of eyes now upon her, now seemed neither the time nor place to dwell on it.
The noise from a child’s computer game breached the awkwardness, the staccato’d “BR-BR-BR, BR-BR-BR, BR-BR-BR” of machine gun fire a welcome distraction. She looked up at the owner. A little girl, couldn’t have been older than four.
“How’s the project going?” asked Shirles, distracting her.
Shirles had a distinct interest in Ella’s latest project, an investigative case, trying to force the authorities to hand over data.
“Urgh. Not good,” Ella whispered back. “They’re using every tactic in the book to withhold it from us. When they do send stuff it’s manipulated or massaged to the point of obscurity. I think we might need to try a new tack soon.”
“Well,” Shirles observed, never one to mince words, “they’re tricky devils. At least you’re putting them to trouble, though. It’s funny they don’t just outright lie, you’d have thought that’d be easier.”
“I know,” Ella replied. “Or just make up the records as they go along. Honestly I wouldn’t put it past them. For all we know they probably do that, too.”
“Anyway,” Shirles said, “Make sure you keep at it. If you keep chipping away, eventually you’ll get somewhere.”
Ella had no idea if that was true, but as ever with Shirles it sounded comforting and made her feel marginally better. If she could have reached her over the Perspex barrier, she’d have hugged her. Instead, she shook her head wryly.
Shirles, paying, mouthed a little softer this time, “I need to get back; I’ll catch up with you later, I’ll text!”
Ella needed to get back, too. The days were never as long as one expected them to be. That’s what kids do to you, she supposed, and, in what passed as a silver lining in these times, the worse things got the busier she became.
Waving goodbye to Shirles, she accepted her fate for today at least and scanned her desultory items through the self-service checkout, pushing aside the familiar and uncomfortable feeling of knowing every purchase, every item, was logged, analysed and fed to the authorities.
Flashing her BIM to pay, a comforting “TRANSACTION COMPLETE” blazed back at her. Exhaling, she stepped back out into the cool air.
Her mind briefly ran through what the rest of the day held for her – finishing writing a complaint, preparing for next week’s hearing, some more Freedom of Information Act requests, not that they ever seemed to get anywhere, collect kids 3:50PM. She needed to get a move on, especially if she wanted to cram in a jog.
Picking up her speed, Ella hurried back the way she’d come, retracing her steps past the deli, the park and the library. Scooting past LAZ she chastised herself for fleetingly rueing the watery LAZ cappuccino she almost certainly wouldn’t have drunk anyway. Opposite the Chinese she reprimanded herself for feeling something approaching nostalgia for the absence of overcooked lemon chicken on Friday nights.
Stung and forlorn she marvelled, for about the thousandth time, how they got here, but of course she knew the answer. Democracy, ethics, the rule of law and whatever it was Orwell said – “sensible constitutionalism” – stood no chance against the battering ram of riches propelled by the industrial green-food-tech-pharma-complex — she’d lost count of the number of industries involved and, besides, no one could make up a word for something which officially wasn’t acknowledged to exist.
By the time she reached home, past the butchers, the estate agents and finally, down past Hope and Faith, she felt little of either.
Look out for episode three next week.
M. Zermansky is a pseudonym.
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