I think of this when I am crossing the road or making coffee.
How it could be different.
How it was.
I donโt say that out loud. You learn not to, even if no one would report you. Even if you donโt believe in punishment any more. But I remember the before, and that alone makes me older than most in the district. Old enough to know what rent was. What an eviction felt like. What hunger tasted like when it wasnโt elective. I remember passwords, credit scores, borders, flags. I remember standing in line to vote and wondering if it would change anything. It didnโt.
They say no one starves now. And itโs true. We all get our share. It is not an empty phrase here โ our share. My hands grow what I eat. And when I donโt grow it, someone elseโs hands did, and I thank them, even if theyโre far. No markets nowadays. No sales. We only take what we can use, what we can carry. Nothing extra, because what for?
Still.
Still I think about how it could be different.
Not better. Not worse. Justโฆ different.
Like when I grind the beans โ no, I donโt grow them. Theyโre imported from the southern highlands. Thatโs not the word presently, โimported,โ but my brain still uses it. The beans come once a season, roasted and sealed in linen, traded down the river by hand. No fuel used. No carbon spilled. It takes weeks.
I grind them slow. I donโt have to. But I like the sound. It reminds me of my fatherโs breathing, the way it wheezed near the end, mechanical and thick. He died before the Edict, still fighting for union rights at the warehouse. Died thinking the fight could be won. Not realising the war would be lostโand replaced with something else.
Thereโs no union now. Thereโs no job. We donโt call it work.
We call it offering.
I tend the grain. I offer four days a week. Thatโs enough. The Council says Iโm contributing at rhythm. I hate that phrase, but I say it. At rhythm. I offer my time at rhythm. I receive my share at rhythm. I live with others at rhythm. The cadence of a world where nothing is owned and no one owesโat least not in the old ways.
But I still remember debt.
Not just money. Emotional debts. The ones that you carry when you need someone more than they need you. The kind of owing that makes your stomach twist when they walk away. That doesnโt exist now, supposedly. We are aligned, not attached. Thatโs the phrase.
I tried loving someone, once, ATE. She said I was still coded. Still expecting her to choose me, not stand beside me.
She left on the river. I didnโt follow.
No one starves now. But sometimes, at night, the silence chews at me.
I think of what it wouldโve meant to die with nothing owned but someoneโs love.
I sip the coffee, and itโs bitter and pure. No sugar. No milk. Not available this quarter.
The sun hits the pavement differently now โ it used to bake against metal and glass. Now, it warms the softened stone, vines growing in the cracks that no one tears out. Nature has reclaimed the edges. There are no ads, no cars, no deadlines. Children donโt understand time in the same way. They think a week is a pattern of sky colours and song rotations.
I envy them.
And yet I remember.
I will always remember.
I think of this when I cross the road or make coffee.
That once we were owned. That once we owned others. That some died begging. That some died bloated with more than they could eat.
That the world ended โ not with a bang, but with a voice.
One voice.โจBroadcast from every screen.โจSeven words:
โWe must love one another or die.โ
We didnโt understand W.H. Auden’s words then. We didn’t understand that without love, we are doomed to violence and self-destruction. We believed that we were at the pinnacle of our brilliance. We were sicker than we’d ever been, more isolated, depressed and poor – in both monetary and spiritual currency. It’s hard to see your faults when you’re too busy patting yourself on your back.ย ย
People protested what was best for them. They didn’t survive the restructuring.ย โจโจNow I live it.โจNow I carry it.โจNow I offer.
