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Declined: Chapter 11: Robert’s

by Molly Kingsley
8 March 2025 11:00 AM

This is the 11th chapter of a novel being published in serial form in the Daily Sceptic. It’s a dystopian satire about the emergence of a social credit system in the UK in the near future. Read the first 10 chapters here.

They’d been buying black market food from their local butcher, Robert, for a while. At first meat, but then when real fruit and veg dried up in Lillicos, also more general groceries. Ruddy and jovial, Robert was risking his livelihood, perhaps even his freedom, and they knew it. “No matter what guys, I’ll try to make this work.” Robert was a good egg, someone who understood that values and community had to be fought for.

In the days before, their Saturday morning jaunt down to Robert’s had been something of a guilty pleasure, not least because of the huge cheese and pie counter which filled the window, tempting them in. As a teen, Theo had worked in a butcher’s shop so he loved the experience of going to Robert’s, standing in the line of chattering neighbours, selecting the best cuts, letting the kids play hopscotch with the other local kids out in the yard at the back. It had become a ritual, something to be done together as a family before the real business of the weekend began.

That had all gone now.

Penny had left the day before, but the tense undercurrent left in her wake still lingered. Poppy had hardly said a word to them. Libby, sensing a friction she didn’t understand, had been sad and uncharacteristically quiet. Theo had been especially distant and distracted and Ted, usually her go-to daily dose of sweetness and bubbles was at his fractious, difficult worst.

She’d taken the first opportunity to get out, going on a run. Coming back in, she’d found Theo standing by the window, looking out. He’d been reading something though she didn’t think to ask what it was.

“I’m popping to Robert’s,” she said.

No answer.

“Helllooooooo. Anyone in there?”

She had thought he might jump at the chance to come with her, their weekly clandestine outing to Robert’s one of the few luxuries still afforded them, but, glancing up, he seemed to look right through her. It felt as if she was invisible.

“What? Oh. Sorry. No. I’m good. You go.”

She looked at him puzzled, but not stopping to put her finger on whatever it was that felt troubling, grabbed the shopping bag that hung on the back of the front door and walked out into the cool morning air.

Approaching his store slowly she scanned the long line of customers queuing outside. Efficients, lucky bastards, still permitted the weekly joy of selecting a cut from behind the counter, taking some time to browse the weekly specials, the pork pies, the cheeses and hams.

A couple of the people in the queue nodded to her, then glanced away. Jenny and James. The village socialites; friends, of sorts, once. Their parties had dried up when that awful ‘guidance’ about socialising and non-efficients came out. They were decent people even if the friendship had lapsed of late. Not like – what was she called – the one one standing behind James. Pallid and haggard, her strands of thin, brittle hair poking out like straw from beneath a green bobble hat. Jessica. That was it. Ella had never trusted her, and true to form Jessica was clocking her now. Her look said “You shouldn’t be here. I know that. You know that. So…?”

Damn it. She couldn’t risk Robert being snitched on, it would be supremely selfish. Plus, if her BIM got confiscated they’d have no way of paying for anything.

She carried on past Robert’s, looking up towards the sensors as she passed, making a point of carrying on, not stopping. At  Lillicos, she grabbed a paper for Theo.

Theo. The distance between them bothered her. He had so much time for everyone else – the gallantry and devotion he lavished on the elderly ladies in the faded cottage at the end of the street, helping them with their bins every week and watering the plants in their little square patch of garden; the local primary school whose board he’d lent hours of his time to each month, at least before a polite note had appeared on the doorstep a few months back informing him that they were very sorry but his services would no longer be required as – regrettably and of course not their choice – they could only allow fully certified efficients to work at the school going forward; and their own kids, to whom he gave unbounded love energy and time.

And yet.

How he seemed to look at her this morning, as if she wasn’t there.

She carried on round the village, aware of being tracked by the sensor by Lillicos. She turned around and smiled up at it, pointedly, fluttering her eyelashes. At least someone was watching her.

By the time she got back around to Robert’s, the queue had dissipated. Jenny, James and bitch-face Jessica were nowhere to be seen, inside she presumed. She checked none of the sensors were pointing towards the yard. Her demeanour as casual and relaxed as she could muster, she ambled over.

A couple of the other village non-efficients were there: Nicole and Tania. Robert was with them, the smoke from one of his pungent cigarellos spiralling from his mouth as he spoke. She approached their clique. Robert was holding court —

“Apparently it was kidney failure,” he was saying. “Mind, been a lot of that recently, hasn’t there?”

Nicole nodded, silently.

“What’s this?” said Ella, joining the conversation.

“Mrs Balfond,” said Robert.

“She died last week. Sudden it was too”.

“Oh my goodness. That’s awful,” said Ella. She’d known Mrs Balfond, a lovely lady who had babysat for them once or twice when they’d first come to the village. She was kind and wise, the kids had been fond of her, too.

“She was,” chimed in Robert. “And a grandma, too. Four little grandkids she had, and she was only just turned 60. Gone before her time.”

“Do they know what caused it?” Ella said. “Or shouldn’t we ask?”

A look passed between them. Understanding that the boundaries of acceptable conversation had been reached, no one said more.

“Anyway, Mrs O. What can I do for you this week?” said Robert, taking another long, lingering pull on his cigar.

“Owners privilege,” he grinned, and then immediately in anguish snapped his hand back and swore. His BIM shot a snarky shockwave of reprisals up his arm.

“Oh blood and sand! I hate this damned bugger!!”

Shaking his wrist he continued, “I was just explaining to these lovely ladies that we’re mighty low on meat now – did you hear Huxley’s Farm went under last week, another one hit by the land grab, but I’ll do my best.”

“Anyway,” he said, stubbing out the end of his mini cigar on the wall behind him. “Better get back inside, can’t stand around chewing the chop all day can I… let me see what we have.”

“There won’t be any meat left, soon,” Nicole was saying.  “We’ll all be eating the Government approved junk and biotech nonsense.”

“Isn’t that exactly what they want?” said Clara.

“Good news guys,” said Robert re-appearing at the door into the yard, “I’ve got just about enough for all three of you. Nicole your pork, and here you go: chicken for the two of you. I can’t promise how much longer we’ll be able to keep this up, though, we’re being hit from all sides.”

Ella thanked him profusely – if it wasn’t for Robert she wasn’t sure where they would be, although their reliance on him was troubling – and walked down the path with Nicole and Clara.

Nicole kicked her. “Watch it”, she said, her eyes wide. “Over there.”

Jessica was walking past the entrance to the Yard. She clocked them both, fake smiles and mock-gracious nods. “Hi guys,” said Jessica, her eyes darting down to the bag, and then darting back up towards them. Ella waved meekly, instinctively trying to hide her illegal spoils by casually slinging her shopping bag over her shoulder. But it wasn’t very subtle, and she knew it.

“Bloody hell,” said Nicole after they’d passed. “She’d better not report us.”

The divisions were ripping through the once cohesive community here, too. Reshaping friendships. Re-delineating political and social allegiances.

Walking briskly back towards home after parting with Nicole and Tania, she remained troubled by Theo’s remoteness. She now had the added anxiety of being reported. She hated this life and what her world had become.

She knew what this was. There was a name for it.

Ella could hear Theo’s voice in her head, chastising her for “misappropriating that word, fascism”. 

Sure, history doesn’t repeat, it rhymes; but that’s exactly what it was, wasn’t it.

Look out for chapter 12 next week.

Molly Kingsley is a founder of children’s rights campaign group UsForThem.

Tags: DeclinedDystopiaHealthSocial Credit System

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12 Comments
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Monro
Monro
2 months ago

How to escape this kind of future?:

‘Every government agency has been ordered to prepare plans for mass layoffs at the behest of the Office of Management and Budget. The goal is for agencies to achieve “maximum elimination of functions that are not statutorily mandated.” In other words, get as small as possible without breaking the law.

Cut the IRS in half. Most Americans are preparing to file their tax returns, but the IRS is preparing a plan to cut itself in half, removing up to 45,000 workers from its 70,000-person workforce, according to reports from the Associated Press and the New York Times. IRS employees were not given the opportunity to take part in Elon Musk’s “fork in the road” deferred resignation program until after tax filing season. How many people does it take to collect taxes from 330 million Americans? One former IRS commissioner told the AP that such a drastic reduction would render the IRS “dysfunctional.”

70,000+ job cuts at VA. At the sprawling agency that cares for the nation’s ageing population of more than 9 million enrolled veterans, cuts could add up to more than 70,000 jobs……VA Director Doug Collins said in a recorded video statement Wednesday the cuts were essential to improving bureaucracy and care at the sprawling department.
“The federal government does not exist to employ people,” Collins said. “It exists to serve people.”

Big civilian cuts at the Pentagon. The Defense Department, meanwhile, could trim between 5% and 8 % of its civilian workforce, tens of thousands of jobs around the country in an organization that employs nearly a million civilians. Expand these types of cuts across federal agencies.

Agencies are already in the process of firing probationary employees who have not yet been employed long enough to get federal employee protections. Some of the most-affected agencies include the Social Security Administration, which fired more than 5,000 workers and the Department of Energy, which fired at least 1,800….’

https://edition.cnn.com/2025/03/06/politics/doge-government-cuts-plan/index.html

2
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Purpleone
Purpleone
2 months ago

Enjoying this series – clearly we are getting to the rub now… did I understand correctly these bands can give a shock for ‘wrong think’?

0
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RTSC
RTSC
2 months ago
Reply to  Purpleone

I interpreted it not as a shock for wrong think but a shock for wrong behaviour …. smoking.

0
0
Purpleone
Purpleone
2 months ago
Reply to  RTSC

Ah yes could be… scary stuff eh. I watched an old film from 1970 last night, ‘Colossus, the Forbin Project’ – well worth a watch and predicted a time when a super machine decides to take over humanity, because some useful idiots created it in the first place

1
0
Molly Kingsley
Molly Kingsley
2 months ago
Reply to  Purpleone

Brilliant – will watch !

0
0
Molly Kingsley
Molly Kingsley
2 months ago
Reply to  Purpleone

Thank you for this! – yes – for wrong behaviour. Although spoiler alert….wrong think may soon start to feature, too …..

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ACW
ACW
2 months ago

Will this appear in full eventually?
I am enjoying getting the gist of it. However I prefer to read a book in full.
This isn’t a complaint, just an observation and polite request.

0
0
Molly Kingsley
Molly Kingsley
2 months ago
Reply to  ACW

Thanks for this. Yes, that’s my plan. There should be additional content then, too. A different format is needed for the weekly posts to a full book so there are various ‘cut’ scenes that I’ll bring back at book stage.

0
0
RTSC
RTSC
2 months ago

The way the control mechanisms were imposed and are being slowly revealed is scary, but in view of the Covid Tyranny, very plausible.

It’s not a future I would want to live in.

2
0
Purpleone
Purpleone
2 months ago
Reply to  RTSC

Indeed – much of the infrastructure is already there, just needs another ‘crisis’ to start enabling it all once again, step by step

0
0
Molly Kingsley
Molly Kingsley
2 months ago
Reply to  RTSC

Absolutely – I started writing this in 2021 at the heart of the Covid nightmare. One of the reasons I’m so keen to be publishing it now, actually, remains that there is so much about the Covid period that has not been printed in mainstream press. One way or another it needs to get out!

1
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Epi
Epi
2 months ago
Reply to  Molly Kingsley

Thank you excellent story. Didn’t Dickens used to write stories daily/weekly as a series of episodes then publish them whole as a book?

Last edited 2 months ago by Epi
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