Literally No One Asked Where I'd Been
I have spent the past two weeks of the school holidays travelling.
I spent several days in London, although not the London most tourists see. I found myself tucked away in an obscure corner of Regent's Park, watching bureaucratic infighting inside one of the least glamorous branches of MI5. I watched as the spooks, who for one reason or another had been deemed useless and shuffled off to said branch of MI5, stumbled into conspiracy theories and, occasionally, actual work. I watched the maneuverings of the acting head of Regency Park as she tried to wrangle her way into more notoriety and prestige for herself, potentially at the cost of the First Desk.
My next stop was Seattle. Seattle was considerably stranger. By the time I arrived, civilisation had already ended, an alien corporation had taken over, and humanity had collectively decided that reality television was apparently the appropriate response. And I fell in love with a barefoot guy in boxer shorts—although it sounds like I have competition for him from a mysterious AI with a foot fetish—and an adorable Grand Champion Persian cat. Things got weird, repeatedly, but I was there for it.
My final destination was the future—year unknown—of what was once called the United States, but all governments had been disestablished, so it’s now just the continent of Merica, divided into West Merica, Mid Merica, and East Merica. I learned how the human race had beaten death, established a benevolent sentient AI that took care of the people, and also how they controlled the population with a select group of humans trained to ‘glean’ people. This starred two headstrong young adults, who made some dubious decisions, but I came to love them and their supporters, despite their flaws.
And in between each trip, I surfaced back home briefly. I did the usual things at home — caught up on sleep, stayed up entirely too late, played with Penny, ran some errands. Once all that was done, I took off travelling again.
And that's the problem with travelling. Eventually, you have to come home. At least, that's the problem with travelling through books. The only downside is how abruptly reality reasserts itself afterwards. It wasn't that I disliked my own life. It was more that my brain was still somewhere else. Part of me was still in Regency Park, or descending another dungeon level, or arguing ethics with immortal teenagers. It’s not that my life is boring; I’m sure there are plenty of people who would love to swap places. The world right now is on fire, and I pay close attention to much of the political machinations going on around me, but feel relatively powerless to do anything about it, particularly as I closely follow the politics of a country that affects me—and the rest of the world—yet that I don’t live in.
On the other hand, I’ve noticed that I have plenty of time for reading, because most of my reading time has not taken away from anything that I’d rather be doing, or that I miss doing. Rather, I’m spending significantly less time on my phone, less time in the doom loops of algorithms, and less time wondering where the day has gone. That’s not to say that I haven’t spent hours engrossed in reading, because that’s exactly what I’ve done. Reading asks something of me. It rewards attention. It stretches my imagination, makes me think, makes me laugh, occasionally makes me cry. Social media asks almost nothing except that I keep looking.
We all spend our days somewhere. Mine this fortnight were spent in London, Seattle and a post—death America. The important question is whether you chose the journey—or whether an algorithm chose it for you.