“Good afternoon sir, my name is Emma. How may I help you today? 

“Do you have photo ID, sir? Good, good, you’ve come prepared.

“Now, I do have to inform you… you are currently taking part in an exciting new trial. That’s right. Now, as you may be aware…sorry sir, this will only take two minutes… as you may be aware, ok, we did away with queuing about three years ago, didn’t we? 

“But… well…we’ve conducted a survey, and it suggests, just suggests, it’s just an indication, that customers would in fact prefer to stand in line rather than sit and wait. So this is just a trial but we are reintroducing a standing queue for a limited time only. On a trial basis, ok. Now…”

God, she’s exhausting, isn’t she? She’s like this every single day. No matter how mundane her task is, Emma will perform it to letter. She watches every single episode of The Martin Lewis Money Show so that she can pretend she knows something about finance. But her entire role is simply to say hello. 

You might think this is great. You might be overjoyed with such wonderful customer service. But for me, it’s a living nightmare.

I am the voice in Emma’s head and I can’t stand it. Greeting customers who don’t care, who don’t see her, who would be no less content to be greeted by a robot. And nothing ever happens. People come in, they put some money in, they take some money out, they leave. Sometimes they’re rude, sometimes they’re fine, but nothing ever happens and Emma never seems to mind. 

What I would give for something exciting to happen, something to justify the seriousness with which she takes her position. 

But not only does Emma not mind the tedium, she genuinely likes her job. It’s not fake, the big smile she puts on, the positivity she radiates, she genuinely enjoys being around members of the public, and if she notices the way they look straight through her, she doesn’t seem to mind. 

The only way I can entertain myself is by making her eat. That’s the only way I get my kicks. She’s always on one diet or another and I always manage to break her. When she lost two stone over the course of last summer, she’d go round showing everyone her before and after snaps. Well done, I kept saying. Good for you. Very impressive. Time to reward yourself, don’t you think? You deserve it. Go on, one Quality Street won’t hurt. That’s it. And another one, there you go. 

Got her to put it all back on in under three months. Plus another stone and a half. Ah, that was good. All the better because she thought it was on her terms. 

But now, she’s lost a stone and a half since Christmas and she hasn’t crumbled once. I did get her to buy a Viennetta mint chocolate chip ice cream cake last week on a whim but she’s not touched it, even though ��’v�� reminded her about it 17,459 times. 

And if I can’t make her eat, well I don’t really know what the point of me is anymore. Just buzzing around, talking to myself, while she bleats on and on…

“May I ask sir, which do you prefer? Sitting until you’re called or standing in line?

“And is that a strong preference, is it sir?

“Now, one final thing to note, sir, there’s an exit poll for you to fill out as you leave. If you wouldn’t mind taking two minutes to share your experiences, that would be most helpful. Because your opinion really, really matters to me. Thank you ever so much.”

Some of the customers know her. They’re familiar with her. They compliment her on her weight loss. And don’t mention her weight gain. 

Some are like that bodybuilder in the corner. The one who’s pouring coins into the machine that deposits them into your bank account. But it keeps spitting out a few shards of shrapnel and he’s taking personal offence.

Most customers, about 95%, I’d say, are like that poor bloke she’s talking to now. 

He comes in, probably after quite a drive — this town is surrounded by countryside — he’s mid-60s, wearing a woolly hat and glasses and a green hunting jacket with a streak of white paint smeared on the back — and all he wants to do is withdraw some money and be on his way, not listen to Emma bleating on about standing in queue. He doesn’t care if he has to sit or stand, he just wants to get his money, get out of here, get back to his wife and put his feet up.

But Emma watches him as he stands in the queue, waiting for any slight indication that there might be something she can do to help. I tell her there’s some biscuits in the staffroom but she’s not interested.

When he turns his head, she has to stop herself from lunging forward to say, “Everything ok, sir?” I tell her, shut up, nobody wants to hear from you. Then the cashier becomes available and he sees the cashier is available but Emma still has to say, “The cashier’s available, sir.” 

And even when he’s walked over to the cashier, Emma keeps an eye on him to make sure he’s being served well. Gina with the fringe, she’s new you see, and it’s up to the more experienced members of staff to be there if the newer ones need support, even though Emma is no more senior than Gina, and Gina is more than capable of serving this kindly old gentleman who simply wants to get his money and… oh my god, he’s got a gun. 

The customer, the old man with the wooly hat and the hunting jacket with the white paint smeared on the back has dropped a gun into the metal tray separating him from Gina. 

Run, Emma, run. Get out of there

“Excuse me, madam, excuse me.”

Forget the customers. 

“I’m terribly sorry…” 

Out. Get out. 

“I’m terribly sorry, madam, we are closing early today. I know, I appreciate it must be frustrating but we need to ask you to leave.” 

If they want to stay, Emma, let them stay. This maniac has a gun, he’s got a gun. Get out.

But no, no of course not, she has to go round to every single customer… and they don’t listen to her anyway. It’s only when her boss comes out, having seen that the panic button’s been pressed, that the customers listen and leave. And the boss leaves too, she doesn’t care if one or two get left behind.

Emma spends five minutes trying to get the bodybuilder to abandon his 27p, but he won’t hear it. 

“I’m terribly sorry, sir. But we are now closed. I have to ask you.” 

“Piss off,” he says. And he’s right. You should.

“I’m sorry sir, but I am going to have to ask you…”

Get out, get out. Do you have a death wish? 

The old man with the gun is wandering around the bank at this point, singing ‘I Got You Babe’, he’s a complete lunatic Emma, and he’s a few feet away from you, and he could blow your brains out.

“The chap with the spectacles,’ she says, “he appears to have a firearm on his person.” 

“You what?”  

“He’s got a gun,” says Emma and the bodybuilder drops his coins and runs out of there. 

Ok Emma, time to go. 

No, don’t look at him, this maniac, just get out of there. 

“They say our love won’t pay the rent,

“Before it’s earned, our money’s all been spent.”

Get out, Emma. Get out. He’s a madman. 

Oh no. Oh dear. Oh my… you won’t believe this. You won’t even… Emma is worrying about the man with the gun. She thinks if she leaves him alone, he might do something to harm himself. Let him, Emma. Better than him harming you, isn’t it? Forget about him and get out. 

No, don’t do that. Don’t…

“I guess that’s so, we don’t have a pot,”

Don’t sing. For god’s sake, don’t sing. 

“But at least I’m sure of all the things we got.”

He’s staring at you now. Is that what you wanted? Is it? The man with the gun is… Oh, you think he’s got kind eyes. She thinks he’s got kind eyes. 

Emma, kind eyes or not, he is not going to listen to anything you say. Why would he care what you have to say? Why would anybody care what you have to say? You are…

Ok, she’s going. She’s going, she’s going. She’s stopped, she’s turning around. 

“You’re not a bad man,” she says, so quietly he can’t possibly hear her. “I know you’re not a bad man.”

Just shut up and get out. 

“I’m terribly sorry,” he says. Well isn’t that lovely? You wanna ask for his number do you? 

When she gets outside, some police vans are pulling up, sirens blaring, and her boss and Gina with the fringe are across the street smoking. They’re saying they can’t believe this has happened. 

Emma nods along, scratches the eczema on the back of her hand, and when the conversation goes quiet she says, “I can’t help thinking… none of this would have happened… if we didn’t make him stand in line.”  

She gets back to her flat in the evening, where she lives alone. She puts a portion of The Gym Kitchen “Sweet and Sour Chicken” in the microwave. The Gym Kitchen? A healthy microwaveable meal. Come on Emma, you know it’s just marketing.

And she sits and waits for a phone call from her daughter. 

That was eventful, �ɲ�����’t it Emma? 

You’ve worked there, what, 16 years… and this is the first time anything of importance has taken place and what were you able to do? Nothing. Nobody listened when you asked them to leave. Nobody thanked you. And none of your colleagues checked on you before fleeing the scene. 

And the man in the hunting jacket? Do you think he took any notice, cos I don’t. 

Don’t see how pointless you are, Emma?

You work there 16 years waiting for something to happen and when it does you’re irrelevant. 

Cara’s not going to call. She probably has heard about it but she’s still not going to call you. 

And you can’t call her because if you do she might tell you off for waking the baby. Here’s a secret Emma, she could always put her phone on silent. She doesn’t want you to call because she doesn’t want to speak to you. Not on the day the bank gets robbed, not ever. She’s got better things to do. More interesting people to talk to. 

If you had got shot today, if that man with the hat and the specs and the kind eyes had put you out of your misery, do you think anyone would really have cared? Cara would finally be able to stop making up excuses for why you can’t be left alone with baby Selina, wouldn’t she?

Emma finishes her Gym Kitchen dinner. 

She picks it up and takes it to the sink. With the other three. Yeah, that’s right, sort that out later. 

Let your low-fat microwaveable containers stack up and then…. Oooh, hang on, this is a bit different… 

She takes out the sharpest knife from the knife rack. A huge glistening blade. Cara got them for her for Christmas but she’s never used them. She touches her finger on the top of the knife and it nearly draws blood. 

What are you doing, Emma? What are you doing with the knife? 

“I got you to hold my hand,”

Emma. 

“I got you to understand,”

��������…

“I got you to walk with me,”

��������…

“I got you to talk with me,”

��������…

“I got you to kiss goodnight.”

Yeah. Yeah, ok. Why not? Why not? 

Go on then Emma, do it. What does it matter? Who’s going to care? Who’s going to notice? 

It’s a good idea, we’ve been thinking about doing it for so long, haven’t we? It’s been there at the back of our mind. This possibility. This potential. This… This… Yes. Do it, Emma. Do it. You could have been killed today, couldn’t you? By someone else’s hands? So what does it matter? Go on, do it. Do it. Do it. Why don’t you just do it? 

And she does.

She does. 

She lifts up that sharp, glistening kitchen knife, all alone in her flat, and she cuts herself… at least a third of the Vienetta mint chocolate chip ice cream cake. And she sits eating it in front of The Martin Lewis Money Show. 

I break her just like I knew I would. She can only ignore me for so long. 

That’s it, Emma. Just eat your ice cream and sit and watch Martin Lewis. And let your whole life.

“Oh for pity’s sake,” she says, “are you still bleating on?”

“What’s the matter? Lost for words, are ya?”

“Yes, as it happens, I am gonna sit and watch Martin Lewis and eat ice cream and I’m gonna blooming well enjoy it thanks very much. And tomorrow I’m gonna go into work and I’m gonna personally call round all the customers who we know were in the branch this afternoon and I’m gonna see if they’re ok. And I’m gonna reassure all my colleagues. I’m gonna put on a big smile and help me and everyone else have as bright a day as possible.

“And in the evening I’m gonna pop round and see Cara and Selina and they’re both gonna be delighted to see me because, you know what, I’m not useless or pathetic. I might be a bit overweight but there are worse things to be.

“So if you wouldn’t mind leaving the premises right now, I’d be very grateful.

“And on the way out maybe you could fill out an exit poll.

“Because your opinion really, really matters to me.” 

So I do. I shut up. I leave the premises. I disappear through the recesses of her mind. My work here is done.

[Doe Wilmann first released this piece on his short story podcast, .]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post Short Story: “Your Opinion Matters” appeared first on 51�Թ�.

I think ye said it within a week of knowing me. I think ye did, ye know. I remember thinkin’ what a plonker. What a thing te say.

Ye definitely said it when ye put ye back out tryna learn our first dance. Ye did. I know that for certain.

When we flew on Concord. When we skied down black slope and nearly died. When the queen came to one of me productions. When you saved that little boy’s life who’d been written off. When we found the girls covered head to toe in chocolate at 3 AM.

Ye said it then. Ye couldn’t stop saying it, could ye?

[In a southern accent] “We’ll tell the grandkids about this.” Aye. That’s what ye said. Ye couldn’t say it enough.

And then, I dunno, as the years have gone past, ye’ve said it less and less.

It started out as joke, aye, that’s the trouble. We’ll tell grandkids in distant future. When we’re old. A long, long time from now. But “now” moves, durnt it? It drags ye with it. That’s the trouble.

When Lydia told us her news — no, the circumstances weren’t how we’d imagined — but I were dead happy. ’Course I were. And I looked at yer and I thought to meself, what is he playing at?

Cheer up, ye plonker. We’ve known this were coming. This is the deal, aye. Ye keep getting older. And then, if yer lucky, ye get some grandkids. Ye get to quieten down. Ye get to relax. Ye durnt mope around like a misery guts, that’s not how it works.

Since yer wer twenty-odd ye’ve been saying we’ll tell grandkids about this, we’ll tell grandkids about that. Well this is yer chance, I thought, cheer up, I thought. Ya bloody plonker, I thought that too. Aye, course I did. 

Just down a few corridor is Lydia. In all manor of pain and discomfort, aye. But any moment now… Any moment now…

Same hospital. Can you believe it’s happening in same hospital?

We did foxtrot at our wedding. Ye made it look difficult. Ye stiff plonker, scared of yer own arms. But me dad told me, he said if I can teach you I can teach anyone. And I did. I quit nursing and I taught hundreds of people how to dance. And hundreds more how to stop dancing like fools. But ye were the first. And I’m sure we said we’ll tell grandkids about that ’n’all.

That were our deal, weren’t it, aye? You’d tek a sick person. Ye’d sort ’em out, stitch ’em up, put ’em back on their feet. And I’d get ’em dancing. That were harder to co-ordinate than we might have imagined, but it were the general idea. 

But I promised yer — what?— can only’ve been three, four month ago, I promised yer I’d teach yer a new dance and we’d show it to our grandson once he were born.

Same hospital. A few corridor away. Can’t believe it’s happening in same hospital. 

Is a dance the same dance if it’s danced by different dancers?

Ye asked me that early on. I thought ye were a right plonker then ’n’ all.

Aye, it’s same dance. ’Course it is.

Me dad were dying at the time. And yer were tryna make me feel better. I didn’t really pay much attention.

But I get ye point. The dancers can stop, but the dance carries on. The dance don’t care yer name or who ye are. If ye let it, it’ll move through ye. Aye, it will.

Even if we forget a dance, mebe it finds a way of coming back, aye.

You said, in thousands of years, long after it’s forgotten, two bodies’ll find themselves doing foxtrot and they’ll have no idea why. Somehow, the instinct will simply tek hold. I think ye might be right. I think they will ye know. And they’ll say we’ll have to teach this dance to our grandkids.

There are patterns, ant there? That’s what ye always used to say. Patterns. Instincts. Things what move through us. The way we speak, the way we move our bodies. It ant us what’s doing it, ye said. Ye said it’s the weight of history. Whatever that means.

Aye, ye didn’t half say some daft things, did ya, plonker?

But I suppose I made ye do some daft things ’n’ all. Skiing and snowboarding. Following Hugh Laurie ’round Selfridges til we realised it were someone else. The UB40 gig, definitely won’t tell our grandkids about that. Cold water swimming. The school fetes. The school council. Neighbourhood watch. Always meking ye do things when yer were far happier in yer dressing gown and slipper.

But aye, I am ’n’ all, truth be told.

We’re at our best sat on settee with a cuppa watching something daft or just sitting, aye. Not talking, not dancing. Not me or you. Just us.

We’d watch I’m a Celeb, even though we hated it. Corrie even when it got shite. Gordon Ramsay, we couldn’t stand him, aye, but we kept watchin’. I couldn’t watch a second of any of that without you. 

Ye get to sit on settee a lot when yer grandparents, don’t ye. That’s the deal, that’s the idea. That’s what ye sign up to. You spend years charging around, getting into scrapes. And then finally ye get to sit on settee in yer slippers while some little tyke’s crawling all over yer.

Always wanted a grandson, didn’t ye? Surrounded by women, well it makes sense.

Ye never complained, that’s yer problem. If ye didn’t like something, ye’d lump it. Only person I know who ever took that expression seriously. “Like it or lump it. Mustn’t grumble,” that’s what ye’d say, ye big plonker.

Yer dead wrong, ye are. Ye might have been right to stop me mekkin’ a fuss in a restaurant or on a plane. But there are some things, plonker, some things ye most definitely should grumble about. Most definitely, aye.

The same hospital. A few corridors away. What are the chances of that?

We were gonna live near mountains, remember? We been saying that almost as long as we’ve been talking about grandkids. Ever since our holiday to Alps, when ye couldn’t ski or snowboard fer toffee, we’ve wanted to wake up and see peaks from our bedroom window. That were our promise, aye, that were how we stopped being scared of getting old. Grandkids, slippers and mountains.

You’d point at clouds over yonder, wouldn’t ya? On days when sky were bottom half white, top half blue, and ye’d tell me, “Look love, mountains in West London.” And somedays it did look like it ’n’ all. And you said, I know ye said it, ye said that’s what we’ll tell our grandkids.

So, you know what plonker, I think I will grumble, if it’s all the same to you. I think I’ll grumble and complain and mek a fuss. I’m gonna speak to manager, whoever that is, and I’m gonna grumble until I’m thrown out. Because we had a deal. We had an understanding. And this, like this, fer it to be like this in same hospital, it in’t right, it in’t fair, it in’t how it’s supposed to be, it in’t… it in’t… it in’t the way it’s meant to…

You know, the end of a dance, that an’t the bit people remember. That an’t the reason for dancing, to get to end. No. No, there an’t no reason for dancing at all. That’s what makes it what it is. That’s why we love it. Ye keep moving without travelling.

And when everyone remembers, they remember the middle of dance, as though it’s still going on, aye.

I dunno how I’m gonna do it, love. I dunno how I’m gonna stand up and move meself, aye, even if it is just down a few corridors. To go from here to there, from your bed to hers. I dunno how I’m gonna do it.

The same hospital. But the other end of the world, that’s how it feels.

I just know, somehow I just know, them two things are gonna happen at same time. I just know.

You’re gonna pass… and…and, at same moment, he’s gonna arrive. And summit. I dunno what exactly. But summit is gonna carry on.

He’ll have an instinct. A pattern.

And I know what I’ll tell him, our grandson.

I’ll tell him, I’ll say, “Ay up Plonker, I’d recognise that smile anywhere.”

[Doe Wilmann first released this piece on his short story podcast, .]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post Short Story: “Plonker” appeared first on 51�Թ�.

I don’t say anything. I can’t say anything. Words don’t seem to… language… it’s like language is… is… is… but even if I could say something, I wouldn’t.

No. Don’t want to create alarm. I go through the motions.

Shower. Shake myself dry. Get changed. Huge breakfast. Morning kisses and hugs. I don’t think the family notices anything peculiar. Once they’re gone, I stare into the hallway mirror, searching for a glint of recognition. But no. No, this isn’t me.

This morning, ok, ��’v�� woken up in someone else’s body. These enormous hands with long, spindly fingers do not belong to me. Nor these heavy, achy legs. And certainly not this tired, jowly face. That �ɲ�����’t my wife. Those weren’t my children. This is not my house. This is not my body. This is not who I am.

Ok, so, clearly, just like in the movies, I need to find my true self and swap back.

The trouble is I can’t remember who that is. My true self. I can’t remember who I was. In the movies, they switch bodies but somehow hold on to their original minds. But in real life, of course, there is no separation between mind and body. ��’v�� not just swapped into someone else’s body, ��’v�� swapped into their mind too.

I am inside the mind of a data analyst called Mike Evans. I have his memories, his preferences. I have, of course, his manner of speaking and of thinking. His thoughts too. I can hear them, right now, telling me to get myself to work.

But I’m not going to listen, because I know, I know, that this isn’t who I am. I am not a data analyst called Mike Evans. I don’t need to be at the office on Bishopsgate in 45 minutes where I will have to admit to Mike’s manager, Poppy, that the report still isn’t ready.

Just the thought of Poppy, the things she’ll say, the way she slinks around the office like a cat, puts you at ease and digs her claws in when you’re least expecting… No. No. I’m not going to let Mike’s thoughts take hold of me. They’re his thoughts, they’re not mine. This is not who I am.

I am not Mike Evans.

I only know about the report, the one about customers’ preferences as regards queuing in line at the bank, the one that’s three weeks late already, the one that keeps him up at night, the one Poppy is breathing down his neck about, the one he wonders if he’ll ever be able to complete… I only know about it because it’s one of Mike’s memories. But like all of Mike’s memories, like all of Mike’s thoughts, I know them only because I have been transported into his body against my will.

So I’m not going to the bank’s head office on Bishopsgate. I’m going to find my true self. I’m going to find my way home. 

I leave the house and head for the woods. It was these woods that first made my wife want to move here. Mike’s wife. I am not Mike, I am not married to Natalia. It’s not my children who are having behavioral difficulties at school. It’s not me. None of it is me.

But whoever I am, I surely haven’t gone far.

On the main road that separates my… that separates Mike’s house from the woods, I feel an urge to launch myself into the road, traffic be damned.

I pace up and down beside the traffic lights next to a teenager eating a Peparami that smells so exquisite. A woman rides past on a bicycle, I want to chase after her, I have so much energy. I’m sweating into Mike’s suit. 

A man in high-vis is taking a discreet wee behind a lamppost. Hmmm. That looks like fun, but no. 

No. No. No. None of them. None of the others either. But I can’t have got far. And surely I’ll know me when I see me. 

Old women. Young men. Old men. Young women. None of them. None of them. None of them.

I’m in the woods and I feel… I feel as though I can finally breathe. Through these lungs that feel like they’ve not properly breathed for many years.

Enormous oak trees and fir trees and birds and squirrels. So many squirrels. And the sun inches its way through, not rushing, happy to give each leaf its share of attention.

This. Yes. This is where I belong, in the woods. Among nature. The birds, the trees, the squirrels. It all smells so beautiful.

For a moment, I forget I’m trapped in Mike Evans’s body. And the thought comes back to me like the pinch of a tight suit.

Then I see him. As I come out into the clearing, onto the unmowed grass in the middle of the woods, I see him. About forty yards ahead, there’s an old man, sitting on a tree stump, watching his German shepherd chasing butterflies. The man wears a beige flatcap and the smile of someone who has nowhere to be and nothing to do. Yes. Yes, there’s no doubt whatsoever.

As I approach him, I feel Mike’s phone vibrating in Mike’s pocket. It’s Poppy, no doubt wondering where Mike is, and where his report is. Well, Poppy, he’s right here. Let me get him for you. I press ignore.

“Hello,” I say to the old man, “What a glorious morning.”

He nods. “Aye, yer not wrong.”

“Beautiful,” I say, “beautiful,” and I pat the dog’s head as it dances around me.

“He’s a lively fella,” says the man.

“Look,” I say, “Might sound a bit odd. But did you notice anything strange this morning?”

He looks at me and nods. “A bit warm for this time of year, aye.”

“No, no. Yes but… Look.” I point to the suit I’m wearing, to the polished shoes caked in mud. I feel my saggy chin and the bags around my eyes. “This isn’t who I am, you see. This isn’t my body. This isn’t my mind. It’s like in the films where two people swap places but, in this case, it’s the whole hog. Body and mind.”

“Aye,” says the old man, putting the German Shepherd back on his lead. “We can all feel like tha sometimes.”

“No, but it’s not…” I try and smile, but I’m not sure if that’s the right thing to do. “There’s a reason,” I say, “there’s a reason I’m saying this to you. ��’v�� been wandering around, looking for… and the minute I came through the clearing just now, it was obvious to me that I had found myself. My true self. I’m not this…I’m not… we’ve switched, you see.”

The man smiles. He doesn’t look remotely surprised by anything ��’v�� said. “��’v�� had two divorces. An hip replacement. A pacemaker. Can barely afford to heat me bungalow. No kids. No friends to speak of, other than Pickles here. Trust me, son, if you and me have swapped places, you should keep stum. I know I would.” He stands up from the tree stump, touches me on the arm, gives me a wink and says he’ll be on his way.

“No, no,” I say, and I’m laughing now. “No, sorry, I should’ve been… It’s not you and me who have swapped places. It’s me and Pickles.” And as I say his name, the dog yelps in recognition and jumps up at me. “That’s who I am. That’s my true self. I am Pickles the German shepherd. And right now, inside that dog, there’s a married-with-kids data analyst who’s late for work and overdue on his report.”

“Come on, boy,” says the old man. But Pickles, or should I say Mike Evans, the real Mike Evans, he doesn’t want to leave. He won’t take his eyes from me. He knows, he knows he’s looking at his true self. And I know it too. No wonder these thoughts, these worded thoughts, no wonder they felt so alien to me. It �ɲ�����’t just that they were in a different voice, they were in a language of which I had no comprehension until I woke up with Mike Evans’s mind this morning. I’m not Mike. I’m not even human.

I grab hold of the dog’s collar. My collar.

“Ere, what do you think yer doing?” says the old man.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. But we need to swap back. It’ll make no difference to you, but the world of difference to the two of us.”

“For god’s sake man, I dunno what yer playing, at but you’re not me dog.” At these words, the true Mike Evans, dressed in the suit of a German shepherd, barks and barks and barks.

“You see. You see. He understands. He knows it too. We are in the wrong place he and I, we’ve swapped, and we need to swap back.”

“Let him go now.”

“I can’t. I’m sorry but I can’t.”

Mike barks and barks.

“If yer Pickles, what did we do yesterday eh? Where do we live? How far is it from here?”

“No, no, you see. I can’t answer any of that. ��’v�� got Mike’s memories and he’s got mine. We swapped everything, that’s what makes this so difficult.”

“Listen lad, yer not me dog. And ye durnt wanna hold him like that.”

“Come on, Mike, if we close our eyes, if we focus, we can do this.”

“I’m warning yer.”

‘Come on Mike. Think of Natalia, you remember Natalia, don’t you? Your beautiful wife. And Antoni and Angelica, your kids. Come on. Do it for them. You’re not a dog, are you? You’re not a dog, you’re a data analyst.”

I hold tight to the collar as the man tries to pull my doggy body away. I close Mike’s eyes and I think Mike closes mine and I try, I try to go beyond Mike’s thoughts, beyond language, I listen to the barking and try and become…

Ow, ow, owwww! Oh my god.

“I did warn yer.”

He’s bitten me. Mike Evans, trapped in my body, has bitten his own right hand. Oh god, it hurts.

“Ey,” says the old man, “Ye brought that on yerself. I did warn ye.” The pair of them walk away, into the cover of the trees.

“No, please, you don’t understand. I’m trapped here, I need to…” But the pain in my hand… even if it isn’t my hand, I need to get it looked at.

Mike Evans, the bastard. I could see the recognition in my eyes. He knew it as surely as I did but he… he didn’t want to swap back. He came face to face with his true self and he preferred to remain as a dog.

Well, of course he did.

The phone is vibrating in my pocket. It’s Poppy. I answer it.

She purrs down the phone. “Hello, Mike. Am I right to assume we won’t be getting the report this morning? What’s the excuse this time? Let me guess. Did a dog eat your homework?”

I feel the sting on my right hand where his teeth breached the skin. “No,” I say, “he’s done a lot more than that.”

[Doe Wilmann first released this piece on his short story podcast, .]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post Short Story: “My True Self” appeared first on 51�Թ�.

My name is Harry Bow. Friends call me Starmix. 

I’m a full-time life coach. And a part-time waiter. 

When I’m not satiating people’s hunger for food, I’m ramping up their hunger for life. For years ��’v�� kept these twin passions strictly separate. But I recently made a profound discovery. On YouTube.

I discovered that all living beings share a single consciousness. The universe is one giant min,d and you and I are simply windows through which it makes sense of itself. You’re not a person experiencing the universe. You’re the universe experiencing a person. 

Yeah. I know, right? 

Once I discovered this, I realized that it was no good for me to use my life coaching skills simply to help my clients. Oh no. I needed to help every person ��’v�� ever met. Because if we all share the same consciousness, then that means I am everyone. Yes, even you. 

So, no longer will I stand idly by and ignore other people’s bad behavior. Complete stranger or close friend, if you’re doing something wrong, it’s my job, it’s my duty, to put it right. 

I used to be a waiter. But I got tired of waiting. 

“Harry, can you take table five’s order please?”

“Yeah, one minute.”

You and I, dear listener, we are one and the same.

That might be hard to believe when you consider my eloquence, my articulacy, my athleticism which you can’t appreciate, this is audio only, but it probably doesn’t shock you to learn that I take very good care of myself. I was a rugby player in my school days. I had the best tackle in south London. Wasn’t bad defensively either (or it’s why I couldn’t wear lycra). 

But I digress. Despite all of those areas in which I may seem vastly superior, you and I really are the same. 

If I were to take a journey to the ground of your being, before your thoughts, before your sensations, your memories, your preferences, if I were to journey deep into the center of who you are, I’d say, “Hello there, you look familiar.”

So now I’m asking you. Or I’m asking me, in the form of you, to join me, who is really you, in this journey as I improve the lives of random strangers. 

What will seem like a hero selflessly helping others is in fact you helping yourself. 

You are me. You are the hero you’ve always wanted to be. 

“Oi, Tangfastic, table five now!”

“On it, I’m on it.” 

The minute I get to table five, I realize, I don’t like them one bit.

I went to a rough school. The worst-performing grammar school in the area. And I know bad news when I see it. The bloke’s got a black leather jacket and tattoos on his neck, and he keeps saying everything’s wonderful, everything’s perfect, but with a conspiratorial smile that suggests he and I are sharing an in-joke. His partner, wearing these long lime-green gladiator boots, has asked me three times now in her thick Eastern European accent — and that’s not the reason I think they’re dodgy, before you get on your high horse — she’s asked whether Angela is working today, even though ��’v�� told her on each occasion that there’s no one here by that name. 

I’m pretty sure it’s a ploy to distract me so the two of them can run off without paying. But I am not giving Brigid, the restaurant’s manager, the satisfaction of making me pay for their bill. That’s the policy here, as she reminded us in this morning’s meeting. If a table runs off without paying, the waiter has to cover the cost. 

Brigid is a real test of my new, profound discovery. I find her so annoying I want to pick up a table and crack it in two, which I could do with ease by the way. And yet I am her. She and I share the same universal consciousness. So gradually, bit by bit, I am going to mold her. I’m going to make her a better, far less annoying person. 

She spent ten minutes this morning banging on about some ridiculous safety policy and how it’s our job to protect our customers from harm blah, blah, blah. She made me put up posters about it in the women’s toilets. I live to protect others, that’s who I am. I don’t need a lecture about it. And I certainly don’t need a poster. 

Oh, bollocks. Table five have gone. They’ve chucked their napkins on top of their half-eaten pasta and disappeared. There’s no bill on their table and no cash pinned beneath either of their plates.

A little bald man with a mullet is waving two menus in the air like he’s guiding a plane along a runway. But he’s going to have to wait because outside, standing by the traffic lights leading to the tube station, about fifty feet from the restaurant, is the woman in the lime green gladiator boots. 

I take a deep breath, put my head down and sprint off after her.

I’m not doing this for my benefit; I’m doing it for hers. I can lose 50 quid. What I can’t lose is the opportunity to make someone a better person. 

��’v�� nearly reached the traffic lights by the time they turn red, at which point the woman runs across the road as fast as her gladiator boots can carry her, which isn’t particularly fast. When you play rugby, you quickly learn that the more you commit to a tackle, the less likely you are to get hurt. So, as soon as she reaches the pavement, I leap forward and lock my arms around her legs, pulling us both to the ground. And because I’m a gentleman, and an expert at the art of tackling, I make sure my body cushions her fall. Her heel scratches my chest. My right knee clangs against the concrete. It’s absolute agony. But she’s fine. Psychically at least. 

And now we’re surrounded by people demanding to know why an abnormally strong male has just physically (although, very safely) apprehended a rather dainty woman. “She’s a thief,” I say, “she’s stolen from the restaurant.” They see my tie and my apron and my innate virtue and the story checks out. 

I demand to know where my money is, but all she can say is “Angela, Angela, Angela.”

“Money,” I say, “dinero, la monnaie.”

“Angela, Angela, I tell you, I tell you.”

From the startled look in her eyes, and the way she now seems unable to stand, I am beginning to doubt whether she was in fact trying to steal from the restaurant. 

I offer her my hand to help her up when a huge shadow appears from behind us.

It’s the big bloke with the leather jacket and the neck tattoos. He helps her to her feet and she shouts something that, despite being a skilled linguist, I am unable to translate. But it doesn’t sound good. He pulls her into his chest and kisses the back of her head. He looks at me and, brandishing the bill and a credit card receipt, says very softly, “I pay to your manager.”

If we were to come to blows, there’s half a chance this bloke would win, and I don’t say that about many people. Or worse, he could go back to the restaurant and tell Brigid what ��’v�� done. 

”I am so sorry,” I say. “I haven’t had much sleep, we were in early for a staff meeting…”

”Is ok,” he says, “Is honest mistake.”

Is it? Really? Running after someone and rugby tackling them to the ground purely because they probably wanted to get a head start on the clothes shopping? 

He smiles at me. “Many peoples, they try and run from restaurant. Is not ok. I am glad you are not accepting this menace. If I you, I do the same.” At this point he actually proffers his fist, which I duly bump. He says something to the woman who looks up at me and forces a smile and a nod. “Is ok,” she says and nods again. 

“Right, sure,” I say, “Yeah, well, thank you.”

That bloke must have watched the same YouTube videos I have, that’s the only explanation. He didn’t hurt me because he knows deep down he is me. The two of us, seemingly separate beings, are in fact one. And what a world it would be if we all understood this, ey?

“Did she get away?” says Brigid.

“H������?”

“Table Five, she was asking for Angela �ɲ�����’t she? …. Our new safety policy, Harry. The one I spent ten minutes explaining this morning? The posters you put up in the women’s toilets? ‘Ask for Angela.’ If a woman is in danger, she needs to ask for Angela and we’ll help her get to safety? That’s why I took him upstairs to pay, and I deliberately took my time about it, giving her the opportunity to run away.”

I feel a sharp pain in my chest from where she grazed me with her heel.

“Yeah,” I say, “yeah, yeah, she got away. I saw her running off into the tube, safe and sound.”

“Great,” she says, “Good work, Tangfastic.”

I deal with the rest of my tables on auto-pilot. I know I should be attending to their needs, and not just gustatory needs either. But I’m so shook up by what happened. That woman who may well be in serious danger right now, she is me. That’s me experiencing that danger. And that bloke, that bad man, whatever awful combination of nature and nurture have led to him… well, he’s me ’n’ all. I could have done some good there. I really could. And now I don’t know if I’ll ever get the chance to see them again.

But there’s a lesson in all of this. Communication. Communication. We are all the mouths and ears of the universe and we must communicate. Because if Brigid had only explained the new safety policy that little bit more clearly, none of this would’ve happened.

[Doe Wilmann first released this piece on his short story podcast, .]

The post Short Story: “Starmix and the Runaway Table” appeared first on 51�Թ�.

It’s just a trick, see. It’s just a silly old trick. That’s all it is. 

Takeoff was delayed so they could get a coffin into the hold. And the whole time, we’re sitting there this guy next to me is having some kinda meltdown. 

When we die, we come back as the person to whom we caused the most harm. 

My name is Alvin Rikard. The year is 2043. And I am a writer. I am still a writer. 

I think I can pinpoint where it all went wrong. The moment humanity decided to swallow itself up. It was with a phrase: “We think you might like this.”

He �ɲ�����’t anything like Poppy had been expecting. Not that she’d ever been expecting to meet him. But, if she were to do so, she’d always imagined he’d have had, well, a bit more about him. 

The writer took the mug of tea upstairs and placed it on the floor next to the shower.

Just before opening night of his final play, Alvin Rikard was killed when a spear was shot through his heart. But this was not the most surprising thing about his death. 

No. The most surprising thing was what happened next. 

Alvin woke up with a headache unlike any he had experienced before. He had the taste of metal in his mouth. His whole body creaked and ached and, looking down, he realized it �ɲ�����’t his body at all. In fact, it �ɲ�����’t even a body. It was a… was a… was a cloud of what looked like green mist. It was as though he was at the center of some extremely localized fog. Only, there was no centre. Just fog. 

Gina watched her husband coming through the door, smiling, full of energy, filled with the joys of spring. And, well, it really pissed her off.

“I could murder a banana,” he said.

And she thought, I could murder you.

“Where’s our fruit bowl?” he said.

And she thought, no, she said this time, she said, “Sod the fruit bowl, we need to talk about our son.”

“Oh, he’s not still moping, is he?” said Martin. “Don’t worry, he’ll get over it.”

“‘Don’t worry?’” she said, “‘He’ll get over it?’ Have you taken something?”

“No, but I would like to take a banana and I can’t find our…”

“Sod the sodding fruit bowl!” She gave him that look, the one he hated. “For 19 years, we have put everything into this,” she said. “All the weekends we’ve given up, all the weeknights. All the sacrifices… all the sacrifices he’s made, too.”

Gina had spent the day poring over pictures of their son, James, in his rugby kits. Remembering the time he ran through the entire team at the under-15 county championships, crossed the try line and made a point of placing the ball right in front of where his parents were standing. For James’s whole life, his dad, her husband, had drilled it into him that he was going to play professionally. And today, at the age of 19, he’d been rejected from another trial, the one they all agreed was make or break.

“And there you are,” she said, “acting like he’s just been picked for England.”

“We always leave it by the microwave,” said Martin, “That’s where it lives. Look, you can see the circle where the dust has accumulated around it…”

“If you mention that sodding fruit bowl one more time!” said Gina. “Our son’s whole life was built around rugby. From the moment I taught him to catch. And you, you Martin, you have done nothing but encourage him. You put these dreams into his head, you made him believe, you made me believe, they weren’t just possible, but that they were guaranteed. I thought, I thought they were gonna…. I thought we were gonna… I thought, Martin, I really thought!”

He carried on searching for the fruit bowl without looking up. “I know,” he said. “I know, I get that. It’ll take time.”

“But this is all down to you!” she said. “You pushed him. You encouraged him.”

“Yes,” he said, “I know that.”

“And now he’s failed. It’s never going to happen for him.”

“I understand that, Gina.”

“So why are you so bloody relaxed about the whole thing?”

He took a deep breath, bracing himself for her reaction and wishing he had a banana right now to take the edge off. “Because,” he said, “because I always knew this would happen.”

Gina blew the air up into her fringe to try and calm herself down. Was he being serious?

“Deep down,” said Martin, “I always expected him to fail. That was, if I’m honest, the whole point. Look, you know how much I care about my art, don’t you? In my mind I firmly believe I should be able to earn a living doing nothing else. Our garage is a studio. Our attic is a dormant goldmine. ��’v�� sold a few pieces, ��’v�� garnered a decent amount of praise. And even now I can’t help but dream that one day someone will understand the brilliance of my lilies or the wonder of the one where that woman in the red coat is chasing after the leprechaun. I can’t let it go, Gina, I can’t give it up. It’s there for me, this mad, impossible dream. And at times it drives me mad.”

She gave him that look he couldn’t stand. “So you wanted your son to feel the same way you do, is that it? Because that would somehow make your failure okay? Is that what you’re saying to me?”

“No, no, the opposite, the opposite. The minute James got into rugby, I was so excited because I knew that he would find out.” He scanned the kitchen again. Where was that fruit bowl?

“At a young age,” he said, “in adolescence or as a young man, James would find out if it was going to happen or not. He would know one way or the other. Throughout his childhood, he had all the upside of the dream, the passion, the thing to motivate you to get up in the morning. But now he also gets something I never will, which is closure.

“He gets to know that it’s over. He gave it his best and it didn’t work out. And now he can live the rest of his life free from the crippling ambition I seem to have passed onto him. He can have a job, he can have a family, he can have fun, without being dragged down by this gnawing sense that maybe one day, maybe tomorrow, all his dreams will come true.

“Look, I know it will be tough for a while. But today is the beginning of our son’s life. Unlike his old man, he gets to spend it in the real world.”

Gina gave him that look again, but this time, she didn’t let it drop. All the car journeys; all the freezing, muddy mornings; all the ruined footwear; all the stress; all the sacrifice and now this.

“Your little theory,” she said, “is all well and good. But our son isn’t interested in the real world. Our son isn’t interested in giving up his dreams. Our son told me this morning that he wants to be an artist. He’s in the garage right now, painting a sodding picture.”

Martin paused. This plan of his had been more than ten years in the making. It had been at the back of his mind during every tackle and every dropped catch. He had looked forward to his son’s failure the way a normal father looks forward to the birth of a grandchild. But now, come to think of it, he should probably, at some point, have discussed it with his wife.

“On the plus side,” he said at last, not daring to make eye contact, “At least we know where the fruit bowl is.”

[ edited this piece.]

[Doe Wilmann first released this piece on his short story podcast, .]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post Short Story: “Failing Our Son” appeared first on 51�Թ�.

For years, I was searching for a guru.

I’m not nervous. I can’t be nervous. She’s seen me wee behind a McDonald’s drive-thru. 

“You never listen,” she says. “That’s your trouble. You never listen.” Kevin has heard Barbara say these exact words a thousand times. But she’s right. Hearing isn’t the same as listening. And she’s not the only one he’s stopped listening to. 

In history, man has realized that there must be a God that transcended everything, although he cannot perceive this deity with his usual senses. As time passed, the spontaneous realization of God gradually evolved into institutions that we now refer to as religion. People sought religion to address their concerns about natural phenomena and the powers that control them. Therefore, it is not surprising that the essence of all major world religions remains the unity of mankind. It is founded on the belief in the one and only God, which is worshiped through the multitude of idols in Hinduism, the Trinity in Christianity and the oneness in Islam.

When these three major religions are cleared of all man-made innovations, they boil down to many of the same virtues. They promote honesty, trust, compassion, love, peace, cooperation and brotherhood. They prohibit dishonesty, betrayal, theft, rape and murder. They inspire us to help the poor and disadvantaged. The following is a brief discussion of God as he is presented in these religions.

God in Hinduism

Among the world’s major religions, Hinduism is believed to be the oldest, between . It is rooted in monotheism, the belief in a single omnipotent God. In about 2,000 BC, an early Vedic hymn titled, Origin of All Things, set the foundation for by referring to God as the source of life:

There was neither aught nor naught, nor air, nor sky beyond.

What covered all? Where rested all? In watery gulf profound?

Nor death was then, nor deathlessness, nor change of night and day.

The One breathed calmly, self-sustained; nought else beyond it lay.

As time passed, the deity was called the Brahman — “supreme, lord, eternal, unborn, imperishable.” He put in motion “creation, preservation, and destruction.”

Over time, Hindu writers went overboard in creating deities to illustrate the Brahman. He is now represented by over gods, vying for superiority. This is head-scratching for many. However, the hymn leads wise believers to one conclusion: “God alone knew how the world came into being.”

Hinduism’s core values are based on the purpose of life and ethical virtues. It teaches that given how our universe is created, it is in our best interest to work together for the well-being of mankind and other species. The primary belief of Hinduism is of a universal God. It perceives a pure, wakeful, omnipresent intelligence that created and maintains the universe. It professes the mindset that a clever person should have: He knows that God is beyond the grasp of knowledge, he sees God in every being and he does not get fixated on his choices in achieving eternal life.

Hinduism has influenced and been influenced by other religions. In particular, the faith has influenced Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism and Zoroastrianism. It shares numerous concepts with the Abrahamic religions — Judaism, Christianity and Islam — including the soul (atman) and personal, loving devotion to a deity (bhakti).

The peaceful spirit of Hinduism must not be confused with the bigoted zeal of its followers in attacking minorities in India, especially and . The country is considered extremely for women. The (BJP) led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi has disgraced the faith by the minority Muslims and polarizing Hindus against them. In the 2002 Gujarat massacres, Modi allegedly other officials not to intervene as Hindu mobs killed Muslims. As punishment for failing to stop the massacres, the United States banned Modi from entering the country for years.

God in Christianity

Around 2,000 years ago in the early 1st century AD, Jesus Christ was miraculously conceived by the Holy Spirit in the womb of his virgin mother, Mary. He was one of Abraham’s descendants. He rose among the Israelites and performed countless miracles.

According to biblical scholars, Jesus’s ministry began with his baptism by . He that besides worshiping the one God, people should treat others the way they want to be treated. His kind demeanor and peaceful approach provided a positive passivity permeated with intense love and charity toward others.

In his lifetime, Jesus attracted a few dedicated followers. But his message of compassion resonated in the hearts of millions long after him. His teachings became the doctrine of a new religion, dubbed Christianity.

Jesus called the to return to God and observe the commandments laid out in the , the Jewish holy law. In Jesus’s spoken language of Aramaic, God is called . This is cognate to the Arabic word ilah, the root of Allah (al-ilah, “the God”), the name Arabs and Muslims would go on to use when referring to God.

In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus , “Why callest thou me good? There is none good but one, that is, God.” He , “Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.” Even as the Romans crucified him, he , “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”

The were written years after Jesus. So, some contradictions and inaccuracies are not surprising. However, one thing is clear in all four gospels: Jesus preached the worship of only one God. On occasion, the scribe’s imagination scandalously stretched, Jesus or the Holy Spirit with God.

His message clearly shows that Jesus worshiped the single God, Alaha. This defies the Trinity, an innovation that emerged years after he was gone. The idea of the , rooted in “threefold”, was first used by (d. 200) in his small circle. 

In the 4th century, the (325), discussed Christ’s relationship with the Father and formalized the doctrine of the Trinity, declaring Jesus to be “of the same substance” as God. Yet the word “trinity” does not appear anywhere in the four Gospels. Matthew does appear to refer to it with the formula, “baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.” However, that statement does not imply that the three are equal or the same. 

As for the , Jesus’s teachings hang on two : First, you must love God with all your heart, soul and mind. Second, you must love other people as you love yourself.

Jesus’s early followers considered themselves Jews by birth or conversion. They believed in the Jewish God and Jesus as the Savior, considering him the prophesized Jewish mashiach, or messiah. They insisted on following Jewish laws and rituals. They believed God would destroy their enemies and set the stage for the coming . He would gather all Jews and bring justice and peace, specifically to Egypt.

Jesus’s disciples lived alongside other Jewish sects, such as Essenes, Sadducees and Pharisees. Some of them were referred to as and . Jesus’s early followers closely obeyed his teachings. These peaceful people lived by loving their neighbors, adversaries and persecutors. In the Bible, they never referred to themselves as , although that name was given to them in the pagan city of Antioch. Jesus never gave a name to the faith or followers. However, they considered themselves those Jews who worshiped the one God and exercised for one another.

Christ preached for people to love one another unconditionally. The aggressively vicious behaviors of Christendom must not be bemused with his teachings. In his , The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, wrote: “Jesus did not bring peace on the earth, but a sword; his patient and humble virtues should not be confounded with the intolerant zeal of princes and bishops, who have disgraced the name of his disciples.”

God in Islam

In 610 AD, in a forgotten land that interested neither Romans nor Persians, a middle-aged man undertook a task no man had ever achieved: to unite mankind. His only weapon was his passionate conviction in the oneness of God, and thus the oneness of humanity. Like Noah, he was patient, persistent and faithful to God. Like Abraham, he reasoned to explain his ideas in a simple language that his people could easily comprehend. Like Moses, he spoke only a few words, filled with wisdom and meaning. Like Jesus, he was humble, compassionate, forgiving and looked after the sick and orphaned. His eloquence pierced the hearts of his listeners.

In his early years of preaching, no one beyond his close family joined him for fear of retribution from the tribal chiefs. After preaching for 13 years in his hometown of Mecca in Saudi Arabia, few people followed him. That only made him more determined. His perseverance finally paid off when he left his home; his teachings changed the desolate Arabian peninsula and the world. This brilliant man was , the Prophet of Islam.

Muhammad preached , an Arabic word meaning, “submission to the will of God.” This was the continuation of God’s message to Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses and Jesus. He spoke of the one God, , Who him:

Say: He, God is one.

God is He on whom all depend.

He begets not, nor is He begotten.

And none is like Him.

As for the oneness of God:

If there were, in the universe, other gods besides God, there would have been confusion!

1,400 years ago, Muhammad superstitions and the tradition of following the paths of ancestors. He called people to think, reason and reflect.

At a time when women had little value, Muhammad men and women equally. When men considered daughters shame and killed them, Muhammad preached rights and privileges for women and forbade the people from molesting and hurting them. When the economy ran on the toil of slaves, Muhammad encouraged people to set them for and . He championed opportunity and people to give to those less fortunate what they loved for themselves.

These days, we must all have a keen mind when absorbing information. The propaganda against Islam must not fool us that the US has disseminated across the globe. It is perpetuated to distract from domestic issues, cover for atrocities and justify interventions in Muslim countries. The Western support of the Israeli against Palestinians clearly demonstrates that the West has long abandoned its Christian values.

To retake a page from , we can say: “[Islam] is free from suspicion or ambiguity; and the Koran is a glorious testimony to the unity of God. The prophet of Mecca [Muhammad] rejected the worship of idols and men, of stars and planets, on the rational principle that whatever rises must set, that whatever is born must die, that whatever is corruptible must decay and perish.”

[ edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post How to Know God in Religion appeared first on 51�Թ�.

“I’m terribly sorry, I was in the garden,” said Bernard opening the door with a certain resignation. This smiley young woman with a gold-colored lanyard and clipboard was probably going to ask him to set up a direct debit for a charity. And Bernard was almost certainly going to accept. Great Ormond Street. The Air Ambulances. Refuge. They’d all come to Bernard’s door and left with a sale.

“Gardening,” said the woman with the golden lanyard, “I suspected as much. The sunshine, the closeness to nature, the responsibility over primitive life. I’m sure yours is resplendent.”

“Oh no,” said Bernard, “I plant a few things here and a few things there.”

The woman shrieked and smiled even more so than before. “Modesty as well,” she said, “Why am I not surprised?

“Sorry,” said Bernard, “can I help you?”

“Politeness too,” she said, making another note on her clipboard. “Twice now you’ve said the word sorry though you have nothing to apologize for. I imagine you never want to put anyone out, do you Mr. Appleby? I suspect you eat well don’t you but not obsessively? Exercise, but not too much? How’s your digestion? I bet it’s terrific.”

“I’m uh… it’s uh… regular, yes.”

“And your profession? Retired?” He nodded. “Of course you are.” She made another note.

“I was a school taker for thirty-five years.”

“Mmm. A sense of purpose, responsibility. And you got to use your hands, your body.”

Never in Bernard’s life had anyone ever taken so much interest in him. He’d never met this woman before but here she was at his door. Delighting in every facet of his life.

“Here you are Mr. Appleby.” And from a pocket in her waistcoat, she pulled out a small copper disk. It was old and worn. It had an inscription on it which Bernard couldn’t quite read.

(Beat)

“Sorry,” he said, “what uhm…?”

“It’s your award, Mr. Appleby sir. That’s why I’m here.”

He laughed. “I haven’t won an award. ��’v�� never won an award.”

“Well that’s what I’m here to tell you,” she said. “This is the award for The Happiest Person in the World.”

“Oh, I see.” And he was genuinely impressed at how convincing she sounded. “This is some sort of joke.”

“No, no. Not at all. Here’s my accreditation.”

She showed him her ID card, dangling at the bottom of her golden lanyard. It had a picture of her with her beaming smile. And the words, “Sandra Bright, Director General (UK), The Global League for Assessing Delight.”

“We monitor happiness,” she said. “That’s what we do. Other companies might take your personal details. All we do is take your happiness. We monitor the levels of every person in the entire world and we hand out this award to the happiest. It’s not been a Brit for over fifty years so this is the first one ��’v�� ever presented, and I’m pretty chuffed about it, Mr. Appleby, though not as happy as you I’d imagine. Ey, ey.”

(Beat)

“I don’t know what to say,” said Bernard.

“You don’t have to say anything.”

“The Happiest Person in the World?”

“Yes you are. Yes you are. And this is all the more wonderful, Mr. Appleby, because our records indicate you were once one of the world’s unhappiest three hundred million people. So to get from there to here in just, what is it, eleven years, I mean it’s remarkable.”

“One of the…?”

“One of the unhappiest three hundred million, yes. You were down there with the starving, victims of torture, and fans of Tottenham Hotspur.”

“Eleven years ago?”

“That’s what it says here.”

Bernard nodded. “That’s when my first wife passed.”

“Sorry to hear that.”

“No, no.”

“Sometimes these great sadnesses can give us a layer of resilience other people don’t have. Remarried are you?”

“Last year.”

“Children?”

“One daughter. She’s in her first year at Cambridge.”

“Knock me down with a feather.”

“First in the family to even go to university. I don’t know where she gets it from.”

“It tallies, it all tallies. We don’t hold any private information you know. All we know is the happiness levels. But, well, if I may say, you do fit the mould.”

“Sorry, would you like to come in?”

“There you go again, you see, politeness.” She whacked him affectionately on the shoulder. “Putting others ahead of yourself. No, I won’t keep you Mr. Appleby.”

“So… uhmm… is there a ceremony or…?”

“No, no. We don’t do ceremonies or any publicity at all. That’s why you haven’t heard of us. No one has. Except the winners. You’re relieved, aren’t you?”

“I am a bit.”

“Wouldn’t want any fuss?”

“Ah well, I mean…”

“Classic, classic. All the… If I had a bingo card, Mr. Appleby, I’d be well on my way to a column. Ooh, do I detect a fellow bingo player in my midst?”

He felt himself flush. “Uh… well, I do uh… I uhm, I’m the caller at a local residential home.”

“Of course you are. You do lots of volunteering, I suppose?”

“Uhm… not so much, not so much. Bits and bobs at the Church, you know. But aside from that.”

“The Church. The Church. I’d be calling it now, Mr. Appleby. I’d be calling Bingo. I’d have to. All the ingredients are there. Is yours a fiery and unwavering faith in the almighty is it, Mr. Appleby?”

“No, no,” he said, “I always like to keep an open mind.”

“Of course you do, of course you do. Look, ��’v�� taken up too much of your time.”

“Oh don’t worry.”

“You enjoy your award now.”

“I’ll do my best.”

“You take care.”

“And you.”

Bernard closed the door behind her and looked again at the dirty copper disk. Had that conversation really just happened? Was he, Bernard Appleby, seriously the happiest person in the entire world? And if so, shouldn’t he be jumping for joy, popping the Champagne, knee-sliding along the grass outside?

He went upstairs and retrieved his mobile phone from the bottom drawer of his desk. It was an old Nokia that could only do calls and texts. He turned it on and, once it had loaded up, dialed his daughter’s number.

The phone rang out. So he called again. And again.

“Yeah,” came the answer at last.

“Flora,” he said, “it’s dad.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“How are you getting on?”

“What do you want?”

“Ah well. Nothing, don’t worry.”

“What is it? It’s not Pickles?”

“No, no,” he laughed. “The cat’s fine. Uhm… it’s silly really but uh…” And he explained what had just happened.

“Dad,” she said, “have you checked you’ve not been burgled?”

“What?”

“Was this woman with the big smile distracting you so someone could burgle the house?”

“Oh uhm… No, no.”

“Have you checked?”

“Look.”

“Check dad, check. They could’ve snuck in round the back while you were at the front door. Pickles is a pure breed and ��’v�� heard there are groups who go around and…”

“No, Flora, listen…”

“��’v�� got to go dad. Text me when you’ve checked.”

“���ܳ�…”

She hung up.

Bernard did as his daughter asked. He checked the house, checked the side gate, found the cat sleeping peacefully underneath the picnic bench. And he called his wife. The wonderful Stella who he’d met six years ago, when he’d given up any hope of ever finding love again. Stella had rebuilt Bernard’s confidence piece by piece. If this was a genuine award, it was hers as much as his.

“Hiya,” she said.

“Stella, it’s me.”

“You durnt have to say that, love. I know it’s you, your name comes up.”

“Stella, do you think I’m the happiest person in the world?”

“You been drinking?”

He explained what had happened and she laughed hysterically. “In the world, Bernie. The happiest person in the world? What about millionaires? What about super models? Sports stars? How could you…? You are winding me up?”

“She says they don’t have any information apart from…”

“You don’t believe her, do you? She’s on a wind up, she must be.”

“I am very happy,” he said. And he couldn’t help laughing himself.

“I know you are petal. And this is adorable but…”

“She said gardening is a big…”

“If I have to hear about that sodding garden one more time.”

“She knew I was… eleven years ago… my numbers were very low. But… meeting you… I…”

“Stop it, will you? ��’v�� just had me lunch. Don’t wanna throw it up. I’ll grab a bottle on the way home and we’ll have a good chuckle about this, eh? Happiest man in the world. You do make me laugh.” (Hangs up)

Not just the happiest man, he said to himself, the happiest person in the world.

He googled the organisation. The Global League for the Assessment of Delight. And nothing came up. But then she… Sandra Bright, the Director General (UK) had said they don’t do publicity.

He decided to put it on Facebook, just to see if anyone could shed any light.

But what’s my password? He thought. Oh good, the computer’s done it for me. Oh no, incorrect. I need to… what’s this? Send a password reset to my email. Ok. Not a problem. Can’t see it in the email. Refresh page. Refresh page. Refresh page… Ah, there it is. Here we go. New password. Very clever. That was easy enough. Ok, I’m in. Not posted for, ooh, eleven years. That’s uh… here we go.’

He took a picture of the copper disk. Added a brief explanation and pressed post.

Then he made himself a cup of tea, and asked Pickles the cat if she thought he was the happiest person in the world. “I must be, right Pick? Free to sit with you and drink tea in the middle of the afternoon. It’s not a bad life.

“Now then, let’s have a look at my post. Zero likes. Zero comments. Ok. Well… you’d think somebody would uh… Refresh page. No, still zero.”

He scrolled down and saw something from Alan Clark, his old neighbor. A joke about someone robbing a bank. And not a particularly pleasant one either. Fifty-two likes, Bernard said aloud, “For that. And mine… refresh page… still zero.”

He saw a post from Stella. She does like Facebook. Pictures of the two of them. In Tenerife. On a River Cruise along the Thames.

Oh dear, thought Bernard, maybe that’s why nobody’s liking my… A lot my friends on here are joint friends with Scarlett. Maybe they don’t… the idea of me with another woman. It has been eleven years, I… Surely they’d want me to meet someone else. I… I’m being silly, being very silly.

“Refresh page. Still zero.

Log out. Log out. Log out, Bernard. Come on, man. Although, what was it that I was posting eleven years ago? Oh dear. Oh no.”

He looked back on his own timeline, eleven years ago. Political rant after political rant. Complaints about his internet provider. Screenshots of companies making grammar errors. This person was useless. That person was horrible.

He didn’t recognize himself. The passion. The vitriol.

“Come on Bernard,” he thought, “I can’t beat myself up, that was a difficult time. That was the hardest time of my… of my…”

“Oh dear,” he thought, “That must be what some of my old friends still think of me. No wonder my new post is… Refresh page. Still zero.”

Bernard closed the laptop and there was a ring at the door. As he approached, he could see the gold shimmer through the glass and he felt his spirits rise at the thought of another conversation with Sandra Bright.

But this time she �ɲ�����’t smiling. Her face was solemn, stony. She couldn’t look him in the eye.

“Fraid we’re gonna have to take that back, Mr. Appleby,” she said.

“Sorry.”

She nodded. “Fraid so.”

“You’re not… you’re joking.”

She took a deep breath. “Our numbers are updated in real time you see. And, since I gave you this award, I’m afraid to say you’ve dropped from happiest person in the world to six hundred and thirty seven million, one hundred and sixty one thousand, three hundred and forty seventh happiest person in the world. Still not bad but…

“Come on,” said Bernard, “I…”

“You’re miles away mate. And oh dear…” she was looking at something on her clipboard. “It’s getting worse. You’re not even in the top billion now. Go on, hand it over.”

Bernard felt his hand tightening its grip on the disk. “Why should I?” he said.

She shook her head. “This award is for the happiest person in the world. You’re not even close.”

“I was until you knocked on my door.”

“Oh yes,” she said. “Blame the messenger. That’s the route to happiness alright. Come on, I won’t ask you again.”

No, shove this, thought Bernard. I won it, I’m keeping it.

“I won it,” he said, “I’m keeping it.”

“Now don’t make this difficult.” And she pounced. Sandra Bright dropped the clipboard and used one hand to grab Bernard’s right wrist while using the other to prize open his fingers.

“What do you think you’re doing?” He said. “Get off. Get off.”

“Let go, Mr. Appleby. This award is the property of the GLAD.”

“You gave it to me.”

“And now I’m taking it back.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

“Stop it.”

“Just doing my job.”

“Stop it, stop it, stop it.”

The disk fell from Bernard’s hand and struck the pavement. Sandra scurried after it, picked it up and secured it in the pocket of her waistcoat. “I’m sorry it’s come to this,” she said, “I hope you have a wonderful rest of your day, Mr. Appleby.”

“How can I?” said Bernard. He folded his arms and clenched his teeth. “You come to my house, give me this award and then take it back? I didn’t ask for it, I didn’t want to get laughed at by my wife and daughter and go on Facebook and find that nobody’s interested in anything I do. I was having a great day until you came along and now you’ve ruined it. It’s an outrage. It’s an absolute outrage.”

Sandra Bright collected her clipboard from the floor, reconnected her lanyard which had popped apart in the struggle, looked Bernard straight in the eyes, and said, “Oh cheer up, you miserable old sod.”

[Doe Wilmann first released this piece on his short story podcast, .]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post Short Story: “The World’s Happiest Person” appeared first on 51�Թ�.

You wouldn’t recognize me but you have seen me. You’ve seen me many times.

The day your partner left you.

When you were fired from your job.

The time you felt like you couldn’t go on.

��’v�� been there for several of your hangovers. And those times when you just feel bad for no reason.

There you are, walking along, lost in your internal inferno and bam, you see me. And you feel instantly better.

The , penned with co-authors from University of Washington and at California State University, Fullerton, found that about one-quarter of the nine-percentage-point increase between 2000 and 2021 can be explained by the decline in housing affordability, along with higher unemployment and delays in people getting married and rearing children.

Recent census data underscores the magnitude of this trend, with almost half of those aged 18–29 currently dwelling with their parents, marking the highest level observed since the Great Depression era (1929–1941). After the economic boom following the end of World War II, the number of young adults living with their parents dropped to a low of 27% in 1960. Since then, this figure has been steadily increasing, reaching 40% in 2000, 47% in 2019, and 49% in 2021.

Despite increasing salaries, Gen Z and Millennials can’t afford houses

“This is a resilient response to the very dramatic increase in rental burden. The average proportion of a person’s income that goes to rent was 25% in 2000, and it’s now 40%. That’s really a striking increase,” Wachter said.

Overall, the paper found that delays in getting married and having kids account for most of the increase in Gen Z and Millennials living with their parents. But the study focused on the period from 2000 to 2021, during which housing affordability significantly deteriorated. Since 2021, both household income and housing costs have risen, but rent and housing prices have outpaced wage growth. The study’s estimates suggest that the worsening affordability explains one-fourth of the increase in the share of young adults living with their parents in the aggregate and as much as twice that for minorities.

Notably, the connection between soaring housing prices and young adults residing with their parents is particularly strong in areas where housing costs are highest. “This reflects the deepening affordability crisis in the US,” Wachter said. “There would be two million more households occupying housing units but for this alternative solution of seeking financial shelter with one’s parents. So the excess demand for housing is lessened, which is a good thing in the current housing affordability crisis where there’s high demand and lack of supply.”

Broader economic conditions also affecting trends

From 1960 to 2000, the increase in young adults living with their parents was primarily due to fewer young men participating in the workforce. However, the decline in housing affordability has driven an even more rapid increase in co-residence in the past two decades, reaching 49% in March 2021 from 39.9% in 2000, according to the study. 

Moreover, this may explain why, despite a surge in co-residence during the Great Recession, the number of individuals living with their parents did not significantly decrease during the subsequent economic recovery period. “This is happening due to housing costs outpacing income growth,” said Wachter.

Looking into specific time periods, the study finds that both housing affordability and job market conditions played a key role in more people living together — both during the COVID-19 outbreak and earlier in the 2000s. For instance, during the pandemic when unemployment rates surged, more individuals resorted to living with their parents, akin to trends observed during the 2009 global financial crisis.

Affordable housing issues disproportionately impact minority groups

Moreover, the study highlights the disproportionate impact of housing affordability on minority populations, particularly Asian, Black and Hispanic young adults, who are more likely to live at home with their parents. “These groups tend to start off with fewer people living with parents but then see a quicker increase, surpassing the average for white non-Hispanic people,” said Wachter.

The findings further suggest that the increasing trend of young adults living with their parents might be influenced by factors related to wealth and limitations on borrowing money — a subject warranting further research. “Previous studies have shown that when housing becomes less affordable, fewer people can afford to buy homes. An alternative for those who can’t afford high rents or home prices is to live with their parents,” said Wachter.

[ first published this piece.]

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Ankita M. Kumar: Your style of writing is quite conversational for a book based on your life experiences. Why did you decide to opt for such a style?

V. Shruti Devi: It portrays my present socio-political stance. I believe one has an informal rapport with citizens at large and that one is politically approachable. 

I think a conversational style serves to draw hard news, facts and technical analyses into the zone of reading-for-leisure to an expanded readership.

However, I didn’t consciously choose this style. I speak in the first person in the book, which automatically brings in a conversational tone for any writer.

In terms of style, I think ��’v�� managed to speak in a 1998 voice in many parts of the book. In a sense, you travel, not with me, but the twenty-five-year-old me, to all these places. 

I think the interplay between the author’s past and present voice is a point of self-discovery with reference to my writing technique for this work and a phenomenon that I discovered as I wrote!

I wanted to write a book that would fit the History genre and I think that is reflected in some of the tone of the writing- a commentator’s distance and, occasionally, a folk story-tellers summarizing finality and sense of assurance gleaned from history books and ballads alike.

Kumar: You traveled across the US during the time of your fellowship. Which place in particular stood out to you, and why?

VSD: Yes, I did visit a number of states during my stay in the USA, using various modes of public transport and occasionally being chauffeured by family, friends and other designated people.

In contrast to pre-conceived images of capitalistic America, one discovered a world of quiet redwoods (the Muir Woods that I write about), vast stretches of apparently untouched land and forests, indigenous peoples struggling to keep the best practices of Earth Culture alive through legal processes and conferences such as at the annual Public Interest Environmental Law Conference at Eugene, Oregon; towns with histories of the subjugation of women, such as at Salem, Massachusetts.

I admired the Americans’ ingenuity in recognizing and upgrading the value of their tiniest resources: natural, historical and those from contemporary culture. 

Kumar: You touch upon the inclusion of diverse voices in your book, and it’s exhilarating to see your stance on diversity and inclusion almost 25 years ago. What changes have you seen in US politics today that can be contrasted with your experience back in 1998?

VSD: I’m glad that my 1998 position on diversity and inclusion articulated in my 2023 travelogue generates euphoria in the minds of readers! 

My staunch stance on social inclusion in the public sphere, irrespective of a person’s state of monetary affluence, my responses and observations to the question of race, and my human rights-defending tone with reference to the LGBT community, would probably draw those appreciative responses.

In US politics today, the race gap has definitely narrowed, as have gender stereotypes in the workplace. Indigenous leaders hold positions of great political responsibility. There seems to be a move towards reviving the multi-party nature of US democracy. I would not be surprised if a Libertarian-backed Independent Candidate won the next presidential race.

The role of technology puts countries like mine on a comparatively commanding pedestal, and this possibly extends to the funding of political activity.

California has had to introduce legislation to combat social evils, such as the caste system, associated with a predominant phase of Hinduism, an indicator of the overarching accelerated role of global diversity in American society and politics.

Kumar: Why did you choose to cover several themes in the book – fashion, law, politics and the environment?

VSD: The sub-title of the book is Fashions in Law, Politics, Environment, Winter/Spring 1998.

It’s a memoir of when one was an India Visiting Environmental Law Fellow in the USA, and the themes succinctly encapsulate the precise confluence of the elements that defined the fellowship. 

The word ‘fashion’ has also been used to figuratively allude to laws and legal devices that are sometimes seasonally in vogue.

Kumar: Your book references several personal events, but one that stood out for me was your love for your great-grandmother. You valued her energy and joy and enjoyed NYC despite being in grief. What advice would you give to Indian students today, heading out to countries as far as the US, away from their loved ones? How can they stay as positive as you did in the face of immense hardship?

VSD: ��’v�� never thought of my time in the US as having been one of hardship. As ��’v�� mentioned in the book, I had facilities very similar to what I was accustomed to in New Delhi in the 1900s.

Anyone who thinks that having participated in the India visiting environmental fellowship program involved immense hardship probably doesn’t know the true meaning of immense hardship!

I mention my mother’s father’s mother in the context of having heard of her demise as I set out for NYC and write in fond terms about what she symbolized to me. 

That’s the power of the oral tradition of storytelling. Ancestors and their personal histories take on legendary proportions even if you meet them infrequently.

The youth today have communication technologies that would have been thought of as revolutionary twenty-five years ago. It’s always a good idea to consolidate one’s strengths and to be truthful and socially responsive.

Kumar: Your book touches upon the fact that children’s voices need to be heard as independent entities and acted upon by policymakers. Today, the voices of children like Greta Thunberg are being silenced by climate change deniers. How did you foresee this almost 30 years ago, and how can we integrate children’s voices more in environmental activism and environmental law?

VSD:  That opinion was directed towards the overall system of education and was expressed in the context of one having been a panelist speaking on environmental-legal education at a law conference. As the development paradigm transforms, so will the ingredients of education. It just needs to be in the correct neck of the woods.

Kumar: You are an advocate and environmentalist. Why did you decide to venture into politics? Was your father a big motivator on the journey?

VSD: ��’v�� been involved with political thought and activity since my childhood because I belong to the Deo political family. Yes, in the 1980s and early 1990s, I was inspired by my father’s politics.

Kumar: How can women increase their political participation in India? How has your political journey differed from men?

VSD: Electoral politics is only one aspect of political participation. There is no set formula for how anyone could increase their political participation. There are as many political journeys as there are politicians, so your question is not logical.

Kumar: Do you see your life panning out differently had you accepted the admission and scholarship offer from Pace, or followed up with UC Berkeley? (You have written in your book that your plan was to return to India after studying and working in the US, but I am curious to know if you ever thought of your life panning out in another direction)

VSD: No. I’m a politician, and as of today, there is a glass ceiling in the USA regarding who can or cannot run for president!

[V. Shruti Devi gave these written responses as a reference for the article on her book, Spirit of the Constitution: Fashions in Law, Politics, Environment, Winter/Spring 1998.]

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Shruti Devi meticulously documents her firsthand experiences of these seminal political changes throughout the course of four months. She particularly details her tenure as an India Visiting Environmental Law Fellow at Golden Gate University in San Francisco, California. Her narrative extends beyond the confines of California, offering vivid accounts of her travel across the United States. 

The book delves into a variety of topics, ranging from politics and environmental issues to the intricacies of law. Of particular interest are Shruti Devi’s personal anecdotes, including her discerning sartorial choices, which add an engaging dimension to the narrative. The use of the word “fashion” in the title cleverly alludes to the ever-evolving nature of law and the seasonal trends observed within the legal realm.

 
Readers may wonder if Spirit of the Constitution offers a glimpse into the mind of Shruti Devi, a prominent lawyer and politician. Written in a conversational style, the book reveals her perspective as a progressive lawyer deeply concerned with the law’s impact on policy, especially regarding the environment.

Devi starts informally, perhaps easing readers into complex topics. Her fondness for cranberry juice becomes a symbol of her four-month American experience. We follow her journey as a young scholar in a new country, exploring both her own development and broader societal issues. Through her daily life, she subtly introduces readers to important socio-political issues. However, the book’s layered approach with socio-political analogies requires patient readers willing to question their own views on environmental law, tribal rights, and child rights.

While the author astutely contrasts the political landscapes of India and the United States, she refrains from critiquing the American political system or delving into its shortcomings. An example of this is her brief mention of an altercation witnessed on public transport in San Francisco. The city, to this day, grapples with issues of violence and homelessness, exacerbated by the 2008 financial crisis and the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic. The book would have benefited from a more detailed analysis of the trends in the United States during the late 1990s, especially when contrasted with current social, political, and economic realities.

Shruti Devi chooses to remain focused on the past without drawing parallels to the present, perhaps to maintain the reader’s attention on the issues relevant at that time. However, there is a valid concern that readers unfamiliar with Indian and American political events of the late 90s may find the book less accessible.

Shruti Devi’s Spirit of the Constitution is a thought-provoking book that offers a glimpse into her ideas and the times she lived in. Even though it deals with the complex subject of environmental law, Devi explains it in a way that’s easy to understand, avoiding confusing legal jargon. Many justifiably consider this, her fifth book, to be her best one yet.

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When the struggling playwright Alvin Rikard and his wife Poppy return home from the theatre, having watched a performance of one of his plays, Poppy announces that she wants to kill herself. “It �ɲ�����’t that bad was it?” says Alvin, but Poppy doesn’t laugh. She sits down, her coat still on, and stares vacantly at nothing. 

ACT ONE

It �ɲ�����’t really my favorite movie. But it was the last thing we had.

I always enjoy a good graveyard. I do. 

— Murray Dobbin

Have you ever noticed how religions have changed over human history? In the The Art of Loving, author Erich Fromm lays out a timeline unlike any I had ever seen before.

In the beginning (to borrow a phrase), primitive humans did not see themselves as separate and distinct from the natural world. The earliest religions used animal masks and nature totems. If a village depended on hunting deer, for example, their tribe might have a deer god that they worshiped. Because they were dependent on that animal for survival, it was fetishized, in the religious sense of the word. Objects or icons associated with that animal might be venerated and imbued with supernatural potency.

In the next phase, according to Fromm, mankind was no longer completely dependent on nature. As humans left the Stone Age, the development of newer and better tools led to a kind of recognition of humanity’s mastery over nature. As artists and artisans developed the ability to shape metals, and hunting and gathering gave way to more complex agriculture, gods changed too. This period was marked with idols made of clay, silver and gold. Think of the Chachapoyan Fertility Idol stolen by Indiana Jones at the beginning of Raiders of the Lost Ark. At this point man transformed the product of his own hand into a god. As Fromm says, mankind projected his own powers and skills onto the things he made, imbuing them with magical properties.

God in our own image

Moving on from there, mankind finally struck on what a god must really look like: Himself. With man’s ultimate mastery over nature, Fromm says, humankind began to perceive itself as the highest, most dignified thing in the universe. Likewise, humanity’s gods reflected this. At this point in history, graven images were replaced with an assortment of gods that possessed human traits and looked like us. Here the Greek, Roman or Norse pantheons spring to mind. These polytheistic gods behaved like humans, with very human weaknesses and grudges against one another.

It was only in the most recent period that humanity began to worship singular deities — though, Fromm says, this too transformed over time. Early monotheistic religions went through what he called a “matriarchal” phase — emphasizing the godhead’s unconditional love for people, who were all equal in the eyes of God. Later monotheistic religions developed into a “patriarchal” phase — with conditional love based on following the laws of a father God. Those who obeyed the demands and principles of the Lord were the only ones who would be accepted by Him.

Fromm posits that monotheism is the final stage in God’s evolution. But isn’t it possible that something might come after that? Could it be that a new religion might spring up without anyone noticing? One that perhaps includes many of the elements of the earlier iterations of human development, but is also unmistakably modern? One that blends science, the mastery of mankind over nature, and a patriarchal godhead that rewards devotion and punishes the unworthy?

The newest stage in human religion

Obviously the answer, in my opinion, is yes. But what, exactly, am I implying?

There is a new religion on the block. One that does not care if you still worship at your traditional church, synagogue, mosque, or temple. This new religion is a blend of man’s ancient tendency to worship his own handiwork and marvel at his mastery over nature combined with an all-powerful entity that rewards the faithful and punishes the weak. This religion has its own sacred texts, holy men and even cable channels. This new religion has spread to every corner of the globe and won converts in the halls of power in just about every nation on earth. This religion has its own priestly class preserving orthodoxy and excommunicating heretics. The religion is known as Free-Market Capitalism — and its all-powerful deity is called The Market.

A bit too far? Perhaps. But it is worth taking the time to examine the ways that free-market capitalism is like a religion. We should also think about the ways that this brand of economics is the science that it pretends to be.

We should also understand how modern free-market capitalism is incompatible with the proud traditions of humanity’s major religions, especially (and most ironically) Christianity.

This is part one of my series on why free market economics is a false religion. Stay tuned for the rest!

[ edited this piece.]

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The invitation was from Nathan Norrie, asking me to run a retreat for him and his colleagues at his country mansion. ��’v�� met some deep thinkers in my time. And ��’v�� met some kind, compassionate souls. Nathan Norrie is neither of these things. We were at university together, where his only concern was being stronger, better looking, funnier, more successful, a better drinker than everyone else. Life was a competition and he was determined to win.

When I enter the prime minister’s oak-paneled office, she launches into a monologue about the ingratitude of the nation’s key workers, before staring at me and narrowing her eyes. “You’re doing that thing,” she says, “with your face.”

There’s something about Tony that no one can quite put their finger on. He goes for a job interview and gets everything spot on. Firm handshake. Strong eye contact. He smiles. Answers their questions. Asks some of his own. He’s well-presented, articulate, enthusiastic. But when he leaves, the interviewers look at each other. And pull a face. And one of them says, “I don’t know what it is, I just didn’t like his vibe.”

If there’s one thing ��’v�� learnt from a decade as a member of parliament, and I’ll grant you it is a big “if”, it’s that you should never trust your instincts. No, that’s not right. You should trust them, without fail, to let you down.

Bernard’s back roared with pain as he settled into his chair in the far corner of his local pub.

The writer took the mug of tea upstairs and placed it on the floor next to the shower.

Recently, when the question of God was raised, a good and canny friend of mine said, “I find the very idea of an omnipotent, omniscient god frightening.” That remark shocked me as if someone denied the light in the middle of the day. The truth is, I am indebted to an all-powerful, all-knowing higher power. I wish to share some of my reasons for having this perspective.

You see, all cultures regardless of language, race or religion have some sort of faith in the supernatural. People throughout the world have independently envisioned a unique, transcendent source. Aristotle christened it the First Cause, Hindus know it as Brahman and Muslims call it Allah. Many Native Americans refer to it as the Great Spirit. Others call it Father, Lord, Spirit, Source, Universe, Supreme Intelligence, etc.

In April 2022, a found that more than two-thirds of the world’s population believe in God, an afterlife and heaven and hell. Around of the US population believes. This implies that God exists and that we are accountable for our actions before Him. That is, we each must assume responsibility and act wisely. Knowing this truth, we will thrive in a healthier, more peaceful world.

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Despite this, there are doubters. These people shy away from God, thinking such a concept contradicts science. On the contrary, the belief in Him strengthens science and directs scientific results for good purposes.

Sir Isaac Newton, who is considered by many the father of classical physics, was a theist. In his book, Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica, he , “This most beautiful system of the sun, planets and comets, could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent and powerful Being.” Michael Faraday, who gave us electromagnetism, that “everything was created by God in a unified way—that if you opened up one little part of it you could see how everything was connected.” Max Planck, who initiated the concept of quantum physics, that being humble before a supernatural power “controls our weal and woe.”

God binds us together

The modern man sees himself as uniquely intelligent and separate from everything else. He fanatically strives to subordinate the world to his whim. He arrogantly asserts the theory of the Big Bang, insisting that the universe spontaneously sprung into existence 14 billion years ago without causation. He holds to Herbert Spencer’s social Darwinian theory of the “survival of the fittest” to explain human destiny. It never occurs to him that taking a silent pause, freeing all his senses from preconceptions and allowing himself to sense his inner peace might show him that he is one with the whole universe. Moreover, man’s role in this world is not to dominate the universe but to serve it. But that reality is achievable by knowing his actions imply accountability.

Like the realization of self-existence, the perception of a universal oneness climaxing in God represents a profound awareness that requires neither reasoning nor rationalization. Knowing one’s self or God is a feeling lying deep within our existence.

Science tells us that matter is energy, which can be visible or invisible. Energy does not have a finite boundary. One example is a lightbulb emitting light from its interior filaments.  Its light is not bound by the surface of the bulb. People on Earth can see light emitted by stars millions of lightyears away. All forms of matter, whether derived from humans, plants, animals, planets, stars or the rest of the universe, are forms of energy-emitting radiation. 

The personal radiation fields we all possess mingle with one another as well as other matters as if we are just one entity. In other words, we are one with each other, one with everything near or distant, and one with the universe as far as it stretches. And the power that perfectly connects us all as one defines the notion of God.

Creations have creators

Reason dictates that if I acknowledge the fact that most of the world’s population believes in God, I should give this further thought. Having looked at the world we inhabit and have made a few observations, I cannot escape the thought that it all points to the existence of an almighty Creator.

Let’s say you are walking in a park. Somebody tells you with a probability of 10%, 5% or even 1% that if you take one more step forward, the ground beneath you will give way and send you tumbling into a den of poisonous snakes. You quickly change direction to avoid the suggested peril. It is wise to do so. Similarly, many religious people say making ungodly choices results in damnation to hell. Wouldn’t this make some people want to believe in God?

Now let’s say you leave the park and walk through town. You see a building and instantly arrive at a builder. You see a car and find an automaker, then a piece of equipment and its manufacturer. The universe is the same way. How could you see the vastness of space and not think it has a Creator?

Then you pass through a beautiful mall, sports arena or market. You instantly know that none of it can exist without an architect, planner or intelligent designer. How can you then look at the elegance of the universe that surrounds you and dismiss the idea that this is the work of a perfect Designer?

Next, you enter a restaurant and consume a delicious meal. You immediately know that an experienced chef picked the right recipe and closely watched the stove, constantly checking on the temperature, fluid and heat. The recipe includes many ingredients like herbs and vegetables, and it was delicately assembled. Why can’t you conclude that a Master made each of those elements possible?

If the above reasoning seems too cumbersome, just look at your human body. It is composed of over 50% water and 99.9% void, constantly changing in space. But all that appears to you is connected as one, functioning without disruption. Why can you not admit that there is a perfect Operator?

Belief without seeing

Imagine you are lost somewhere, alone, and do not know the way back to safety. Or you are in a hospital bed and the doctors say there is nothing more they can do for you. Or you are in a plane facing a terrible windstorm, and you feel that death is imminent. Throughout all these ordeals, you have no time to think about money, position, family or friends. Instead, something deep within keeps giving you hope. Why can’t you admit that when you are free from the material world, you can feel God’s presence shining in your soul and giving you inner peace?

Like soothing comfort, phenomena exist in nature that you cannot see, but know with certainty they exist from their impacts on the environment. You do not see light but you know from its reflection that it exists. Astronomers do not see the dark matter in space but they know from its attractions that it is there. When you look at the universe in motion with such beauty and magnificence, why can’t you admit that it is operated and managed by an omniscient God?

As another hypothetical, let’s say you are visiting your mother across town. You get a feeling that you must hurry home. Although your mother insists you stay the whole evening, you follow the hunch and leave. That night, your phone rings. Your mother says there was a fatal car crash on that road after you left, one you unknowingly dodged. Did you fall to your knees to thank your Creator for giving you the inclination to leave early?

Eyes and brain reveal the divine

We can find more evidence of divinity by taking a closer look at the human eye. We have sight because light passes through our cornea, pupil, iris, and lens to the retina. Photoreceptors turn that light into electrical signals and send them to the optic nerve and then to the brain. For all that to work, we must have tears to keep the eye moist. This process involves 4-6 billion neurons organized in a sophisticated manner. From the cornea to the brain, if any component does not do its part correctly and in a timely way, we see nothing. For all that to repeatedly, continuously and flawlessly work, it requires a perfect Guardian.

Among the over eight billion people on Earth, no two have identical eyes. As a measure of security, our eyes may used for identification. That implies a perfect Designer and Diversifier.

The eyes also express the state of our health. A good physician can look into a patient’s eyes and tell that they are sick. Evidence shows that some illnesses in our body with about 30 trillion cells can be seen through the eye. That implies a design done by a Perfector.

The brain is another amazing body part God has blessed us with. Not only does it provide us with conscious thoughts, but unconscious ones as well. Dreams are generated while we sleep, which entertain us, warn us of danger, and help us solve problems we have during the day. That implies a super Originator.

The brain is made of about 86 billion neurons. Each receives around 10,000 synapses per second. The probability of a synapse to release the right neurotransmitter is 10-50%. Thus, the probability of any synapse releasing the right neurotransmitters is 50% at best. Doing that correctly each time for even ten seconds, mathematically speaking, is nearly impossible. Thus, there must be a higher order to keep the billion neurons and trillion synapses in such a way for the brain to work. That power has to be an omnipotent, omniscient Sustainer.

Closing remarks

Try this experiment. Just lie down on your back, relax and look at the sky on a clear night. Clear your mind of all mundane thoughts. You will see the sky decorated with shiny stars, all moving in organized paths. While you are doing this, the Earth beneath you is traveling about 30 kilometers (18.5 miles) per second around the sun. The sun is traveling about 230 kilometers (144 miles) per second around the Milky Way Galaxy. The moon that makes Earth livable is constantly revolving, circulating about every 28 days. You are created in such an ingenious way that you do not feel the impacts of all these movements. Yet all follow gravitational, centrifugal and quantum laws. Any reasoning person would conclude that there ought to be an omnipotent Creator and Lawgiver.

In God alone can we have prosperity and universal peace. His presence is so overwhelming that one has to be detached from reality to miss it. Finding Him requires no education, simply deep introspection. As the Persian proverb goes, “If something is everywhere, it cannot be seen anywhere.”

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Chapter One

Sergeant Rod Garlick had just finished telling a young officer about the full horror of the past two weeks- the pressure from the superintendent, the injury to PC Franks, the six stabbings, two murders, and the double-figure cases of domestic GBH- when she asked him if he was “feeling Christmassy.” 

You’re the one who convinced the prime minister to do it, they said, so you’re the one who should break the news. It sounded reasonable. But, although she’s made a career out of taking ambiguous stances on a number of issues, I know for a fact the prime minister is very much pro shooting the messenger.

—

What do Oprah Winfrey, Barack Obama, Shah Rukh Khan and Howard Schultz have in common? They are all masters of their craft and have redefined success in business, politics and entertainment. Equally significantly, these visionaries all weathered adversity during their formative years.

Multiple studies of leadership, success and excellence from various academic fields suggest that overcoming adversity builds a capacity for resilience and growth. In The Wall Street Journal, clinical psychologist Meg Jay points to a study of in which 75% suffered extreme adversity as children. Angela Duckworth, a US neuroscientist, in her book , states how childhood adversity can create determination and adaptability, for later success in life.

Some authors indicate adversity leads to developing toughness and , while others point to the importance of suffering for developing and compassion. The best interpretations recognize that successful leaders learn to blend multiple skills stemming from adversity: Resilience and determination mixed with empathy and understanding others.

Successful examples

Oprah Winfrey’s early life unfolded in the 1960s, a tumultuous period marked by pervasive racism and discrimination against African-Americans in the US. Her journey was fraught with challenges, including systemic racism, abject poverty, sexual abuse, harassment by family members and the lasting scars of trauma. She endured years of pain and grappling with substance abuse before ultimately rising to make an indelible impact on the world through her acting talent and savvy as a businesswoman who built an entertainment empire. 

In a candid , Winfrey revealed that the trials of her youth played a pivotal role in shaping her self-belief and instilled the unwavering confidence that empowered her to realize her most ambitious dream of becoming one of the wealthiest and most influential people today. 

Barack Obama, whose father left when he was two years old, was raised by a single mother juggling two jobs while also homeschooling him.  Though he had to navigate manhood alone, his life’s trajectory took him toward undeniable success. From living in Hawaii to moving to the southside of Chicago, Obama eventually studied at Columbia University and Harvard Law School. He became the first African-American president of the United States, serving from 2009 to 2017.

In his , Obama wrote, “Someone once said that every man is trying to live up to his father’s expectations or make up for his father’s mistakes … I suppose that may explain my particular malady.” 

Indian actor Shah Rukh Khan has unparalleled stardom in the entertainment world that transcends borders. His journey to stardom, however, is marked with significant personal challenges. Khan’s father, Taj Mohammed Khan, passed away from cancer when the actor was 15 years old. During that time, Khan’s family couldn’t afford treatments, leading him to , “I’ll never know whether he died because we didn’t have the money or he died because he had to.” 

The troubles didn’t end there. In 2021, he faced a different kind of hardship when his son was in a high-profile drug case in Mumbai, subjecting his family to immense pain and public scrutiny. After the acquittal of his son, Khan delivered two of the highest-grossing films in Bollywood history in 2023, Pathaan and Jawan. Jawan specifically addressed social issues, highlighting the unjust persecution of innocent people in India, and became a massive success, grossing over $200 million at the box office. Now, Khan is the beloved “King Khan” in the film industry.

Howard Schultz, the former chief executive officer (CEO) of Starbucks Corporation, a rough childhood that tested him and his family and also built resilience that contributed to his later success. In childhood, Schultz’s father sustained an injury on the job, leading the family to lose their sole source of income.  Without an income, the family went without food, health insurance and other basic necessities. His father added physical abuse to the mix, leaving all of the children emotionally scarred. But Schultz turned hardship into determination and resilience. He worked throughout high school and his years at Northern Michigan University to become the first person in his family to graduate college.  He went on to build Starbucks into a global coffee empire and is currently a philanthropist, dedicated to supporting veterans and other causes.

In a world filled with injustice and oppression, it is vital to understand the possible deeper meaning behind pains and trials. Although tragedy does not automatically build resilience and endurance, it can paralyze or fuel us for endless growth, as it did for Winfrey, Khan, Schultz and Obama, among many others. 

Ultimately, the challenges forged their will to succeed and tackle obstacles in their paths. Challenges helped them to understand, empathize and learn from others. Rather than fill a void, leaders search for something to strive for, build, achieve and dream.  With goals, leaders can redeem themselves and make sense of their lives. That perseverance, in combination with and empathy, builds successful leaders who thrive while bringing others along in their triumph.

[ edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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My sister has always been incapable of shutting up. And now she wants a medical procedure to make it possible. She’s gathered us together. Me, our parents (always a risk having them in the same room) and her wife Cordelia. I think it’s Cordelia who’s behind this if I’m honest.

Burt James was one of those people who hated his job but loved his life. He’d watch the clock, he’d do the bare minimum, he’d get through the day. And when work was over his world would switch from monochrome into vibrant high definition.

There was a time when almost everyone in Britain was saying they’d been driven mad by Brexit. 

“You can be a parent or you can be a success. But you can’t be both.”

I’m sitting here in my office watching an iguana crawling slowly along my keyboard. Green with dashes of red. A drooping chin. Spikes running along its back. It seems perfectly content with who and what it is, as it lifts up its head and sticks out its tongue in mockery of me.

At first, it was a way of keeping her with me. That’s all it was. 

 stony seriousness. ’It was a run, a charity run and there was no element of competition at all. It was simply about finishing, not about who finished first. Because it was a run, not a race. It was for charity. We weren’t competing. We were simply trying to finish. So in a sense we both won, although, of course, winning �ɲ�����’t the objective.’ 

         ‘Is that your way of saying you lost?’ says Joel. 

         ‘I finished about a minute, maybe two or three, ahead of Lydia,’ she says, ‘but it �ɲ�����’t a race.’  

         ‘It �ɲ�����’t a race,’ says Rachel Conan, nailing my sister’s voice to an absolute tee, ‘but Tania did finish a minute, maybe two or three, ahead of Lydia.’

         Tania nods and grinds her teeth into a smile. And Rachel Conan does exactly the same thing. Oh this is going to be a lot of fun.

         Uncle Joel tells us how he used to run marathons, and Tania says she wouldn’t have it in her, even though when I suggested it to her a few months ago she said she was keen. Granny says Grandad used to be a good runner, and Grandad says, ‘Used to be? What do you mean “used to be”?’ Dad, noticing Tania is distracted, helps himself to the second bottle of Prosecco. Marcos, his English still probably not good enough to follow the conversation, is reading something on his phone.

         The conversation moves from running, to the fact it rained for about five minutes during the run, to Tania’s insistence that it’s going to rain again even though the forecast is clear, to rain in general, to showers, and then we’re back at Tania’s new shower again.

         Isn’t it amazing, the things we’ll spend our time talking about while all the interesting stuff is off limits?

Don’t get me wrong. I love my family. I do. It’s why I put so much effort into bringing us all together. I just wish we could express how we’re feeling a bit more. Dad will always say or do whatever will keep him out of trouble. Tania always says she’s fine, even when it’s obvious she isn’t. She got divorced a few years ago, it must have been awful, and we’ve never even spoken about it. Mum might say ‘Yorkshire, Yorkshire, no bloody nonsense’ but she’s just as bad. I work in theatre, I’m surrounded by feelings but when I’m with my family we put on an act.

         When I tell them I’m pregnant, I’m not scared of what they’ll say but what they won’t. All the little comments they’ll keep to themselves or whisper behind my back.

         A normal family would berate me for being so stupid, I’d then break down in tears and tell them I’m thirty-six years old, and that Marcos seems like a good man but even if he isn’t I’m more than capable of looking after a child on my own, and ��’v�� never, never been so happy about anything in my entire life. And we’d cry and we’d argue but we’d come together and tell each other how much we love each other and it would all be ok.

         But in my family, I can guarantee, ten minutes after ��’v�� broken the news, we’ll be back talking about Tania’s bloody shower.

I try to make eye contact with Marcos but he’s eating his sandwich while staring at his phone, making absolutely no effort with anyone, which is just wonderful. The nerf ball whistles about a foot above his head and he doesn’t even notice. I’m about to ask the bloke who threw it if he can try and hit him in the face next time, when I see an enormous man with a huge black beard crouching beside my sister. 

         ‘Got any change?’ he says in a voice so rough you could light a match on it. Tania says no without giving the rest of us a chance to answer. 

         ‘Hold on,’ I say. ‘Maybe we do. I don’t personally. But…’ 

         Mum looks straight ahead. Uncle Joel pretends to check his pockets. Dad tops up his cup of Prosecco. Granny pouts her lips and shakes her head.

         ’Sorry,’ says Tania, ‘we’re not going to give you any money.’ 

         ‘Collecting for the Salvation Army?,’ says Grandad, handing him a ten pence piece, ‘have a shilling.’

         The homeless man stalks off unimpressed, and Tania proceeds to give us a big speech about why you shouldn’t give money to homeless people. ‘You can’t help people if they’re unwilling to help themselves.’ 

         ‘But he is,’ I say and the words are out of my mouth before ��’v�� had the chance to process them, ‘he’s not lying around doing nothing. He’s coming up to people and asking for help.’ 

         ‘Inside voices,’ says Tania, even though we’re quite clearly outside.

‘Back when I lived in Brighton,’ says Uncle Joel, leaning forward to let us know we’re about to hear something hilarious. ‘I let this homeless chap into my flat.’ His fake laugh turns into a genuine cough. ‘It was chucking it down and he was shivering. So I went in the kitchen to make him a cup of tea and… and he only went and pissed on my sofa.’ 

         Tania does her horrible squawky laugh, even though Joel has told us this almost-certainly-made-up story about a hundred times. 

         ‘We’re all God’s children,’ says Granny. 

         And then Rachel Conan does the exact same squawky laugh my sister just did and no one quite knows how to respond.

         ‘I think I know that chap from the cricket club,’ says Grandad, which cuts the tension.

         I want to make the point that, even if one homeless person did, at one point in the distant reaches of the past, wee on Uncle Joel’s sofa, this does not, in any way, mean we shouldn’t give other homeless people a spare bit of change. But as I open my mouth, Tania cuts me off. ‘Ooh Lydia, we’ve got lentil crisps. Can you eat lentils?’ 

         ‘In all seriousness,’ says Uncle Joel, ‘are there specific types of food you can’t eat? Or is it just the nice stuff?’

         ‘Well…’ says Tania, whose eyes come alive as she starts reeling off all the various food types that give me trouble, growing more and more animated with each one. Just imagine how happy she’s going to be when she finds out I’m pregnant and there’s all the extra stuff I can’t eat. Oh for god’s sake, I should probably look that up. ‘And beans,’ she says, ‘can’t eat any beans, although edamame beans tend to be ok.’ I’m about to interrupt her when I suddenly feel really sick.

This is what my family do. They patronise me. They ignore everything I say. They treat me like a child. Even though: one, I’m thirty six; two, ��’v�� got a good job and I’m bloody good at it; three… Oh god, I’m actually going to be sick.

With great difficulty, I stand up and the whole of Eel Brook Common is spinning beneath my feet. I tell Tania I need to pop to her flat to use the loo.

         ‘Spicy salsa?’ she says.

         ‘Quick,’ says Uncle Joel, ‘hide your hamster.’ And everybody laughs, even Rachel Conan who has no idea why that’s funny. Marcos doesn’t laugh but that’s because Marcos is still on his bloody phone.

         Apparently when Tania and I were being potty trained, I pooed in a box of straw unaware our hamster was in there and Tania cried for a week. And this is still how they see us today. She: sensible, sensitive, always does the right thing. Me: wild, zany, you never know what she’ll do next. Just wait til I tell them I’m… Oh god, breathe Lydia, breathe. 

         I ignore Joel and my mum as they exchange jokes at my expense. I ignore dad too who’s trying to give me a sympathetic smile. I just need to get to the bathroom.

         I put my hand out to get the key from Tania and she’s struck by a sudden, devastating realisation. Her eyes widen. Her mouth narrows. Her shoulders shoot back. ‘Please, Lydia, please, please, please, please, please don’t use the shower.’ 

         I �ɲ�����’t intending to, but this really is a new low. ‘Why not?’ I say, ‘You don’t trust me not to ruin it?’

         ‘No,’ says Tania, ‘but it was only finished last night, I haven’t used it myself yet and…uhmmm…’

         And as she’s stumbling, Rachel Conan chimes in to help. ‘They finally finished it last night,’ she says, my friend’s voice and facial expressions now completely indistinguishable from Tania’s, ‘it looks exactly as Tania wanted, an absolute game changer, and she wants to be the first one to try it out, Lydia. Nothing against you. Nothing personal.’

         ‘Yes,’ says Tania, looking confused but kind of delighted, ‘Exactly. That’s exactly right.’

         Given how disgusting I am after the run, showering might not be the worst idea. My flat’s several miles away so I’ll have to be sticky and sweaty until I get home. But it simply isn’t worth the argument.

         ‘Don’t worry,’ I say, ‘I won’t use it.’ 

         ‘Inside voices,’ says Tania.

         I lean against mum’s bench to stop myself from falling over. All the sweat from earlier is turning cold. I need to get out of here. But she still hasn’t given me the key to her flat. ‘Why,’ I ask, as the group blurs into one, ‘do you have to make everything such a big deal?’

         ‘Inside voices,’ she says, and I launch into a rage ‘WE ARE OUTSIDE’ only to realise it was Rachel bloody Conan who said it.

         Marcos briefly looks up from his phone but immediately looks back.

         I take a long, deep breath.

         ‘Durnt worry, love,’ says mum, holding her nose. ‘We can barely smell ya.’

         ‘I’ll tell you what,’ says Tania, ‘I think we’ll all come back with you.’ 

         ‘Because you don’t trust me to use the bathroom without your assistance?’ I can’t keep arguing or I will throw up.

         ‘I think it might rain,’ she says.

         ‘But it’s not going to rain.’ 

         ‘It feels like it is.’ 

         ‘Mmm, it feels like it is.’ says the Rachel Conan Frankenstine’s monster ��’v�� created.

         ‘��’v�� checked the app,’ I say. ‘Look. Zero percent chance of precipitation.’ 

         ‘Yeah but it feels like it is.’ 

         ‘Zero percent chance.’ 

         ‘Durnt worry Lydia, we’ll wait here,’ says Mum, ‘but leave the shower and the hamster well alone, ay love?’  

         I let go off the bench and take a deep breath. I hear a whistling sound and by the time ��’v�� worked out what it is, the Nerf ball has smacked me in the head and knocked me to the ground.

Dad’s helping me to my feet, Uncle Joel’s got hold off the Nerf ball and is shouting at those topless pricks who were throwing it around. My mum and sister and Rachel Conan are fussing about me, and bloody Marcos is on his bloody phone, no more aware of what’s going on than grandad.

         ‘Are you ok, are you ok, are you ok,’ they all say.

         ‘Yes, I’m fine, I’m fine.’

         ‘Are ye sure?’ says mum, ‘Ye durnt sound it.’

         ‘No, actually mum, I’m not fine. I’m not fine at all. One, you all think I’m a laughing stock. Two, I’m having a baby with a man I barely even know. Three, I’m sweaty and disgusting and I feel sick. Four, it’s the first time as an adult that ��’v�� been around you lot without a drink and I don’t particularly care for it to be perfectly honest. And five, ��’v�� just been hit in the head with a fucking nerf ball and the father of my child hasn’t even looked up from his phone.’ But of course I don’t say any of that. I just say, once again, using inside voices only, ‘I’m fine.’

         ‘You know,’ says Tania, ‘if you really do want to use the shower…’

         I don’t even respond.

         I stagger across the common, through the alley, and down on to Tania’s street. My legs feel like oil drums and the top of my thighs are sticky with vaseline. I do feel slightly less sick than I did but I am now absolutely desperate for a wee.

         The door to her building has one of those annoying safety locks, where you have to turn it left and then right or right and then left. And when I finally open the door, a gruff voice behind me says, ‘Oi. Can I use your bog?’

         It’s the homeless man with the huge black beard. He must have followed me from the park. I’m about to tell him to piss off but, hearing my sister’s voice in my head, I think, yeah sure, why not. We walk up the stairs to Tania’s flat and, once ��’v�� let him in, he dives into the bathroom ahead of me. 

         I hop around the flat, past the tele, into the kitchen, back out again. The sicky feeling has gone— maybe it �ɲ�����’t morning sickness, maybe I just needed to be away from my family— but my bladder is about to burst. At one point, kneeling on the sofa and bouncing gently up and down, I briefly consider relieving myself there and then. At least that way, whenever Uncle Joel brings up his stupid story, I’ll be able to say, ‘Yeah, well I once let a homeless person into a flat and I pissed on the sofa.’ 

         Everything is in perfect order. Throws and cushions in military formation on the sofa. A bowl of bananas, apples and grapes so ripe they look plastic. A bookshelf arranged alphabetically. Everything scrubbed, sprayed and vacuumed. The absence of dust is suffocating.

         The door to the flat slams shut.

         ‘You’re welcome,’ I shout after him.

         The bathroom smells eerily warm, like returning from holiday to find you’ve left the oven on. But, with the instant relief of realising nothing has exploded, I find the toilet bowl perfectly clean. As I unleash my mini-Niagara, I mentally scold Tania and Uncle Joel for their suggestion that homeless people don’t know how to use a toilet as well as the rest of us. As someone with a lifetime of toilet visits under her belt, I can attest that this afternoon’s guest has been perfectly respectful. Warming, yes. But respectful.

Once I’m done, I help myself to some grapes and realise they are plastic.

         When she lived with Lawrence, their house was nothing like this. His papers and books were everywhere, but her stuff was all over the place too. It’s been four years and we haven’t properly spoken about it. I don’t know how we became so at each other’s throats all the time. We used to get on so well.

         I start to feel sick again but it’s not morning sickness. It’s the other kind of sick. It’s the how am I meant to do this sick? It’s the what if they disown me sick? Or laugh at me sick? Or what if Marcos does run off sick? Or turns out to be a complete and utter prick sick? It’s the how can I remove any additional foods from my diet sick without starving to death sick? It’s the I want to fucking scream sick.

         The flat door crashes open and a soaking wet Tania emerges, ushering the others after her like she’s giving directions to the escape vessel in a leaking submarine. Rachel Conan’s at the back of the party, giving the exact same commands.

         They start handing out towels and mugs of tea, while emitting an endless barrage of noise about how Tania knew it was going to rain because she just had this feeling and whenever she gets this feeling it’s normally always right. Then she grabs a towel, and says to me, very quietly, ‘You didn’t use the…?”

         ‘No I didn’t use your fucking shower.’

         ‘Inside voices, Lydia.’

         ‘We’re outside.’ I immediately realise we’re not, but still. 

         ‘I tell you what,’ she says, ‘you can use it straight after me. Sorry for being precious, I just wanted to be the first one to use it. But as soon as I’m done, go for it.‘

         ‘Yeah, thanks,’ I say, ‘but I think I’ll be ok. It looks lovely though.’ That’s a lie. I didn’t even look at it because I don’t care.

         She nods and scuttles off to the bathroom.

         I sit down next to grandad. Everyone’s looking at me and no one’s talking. My stomach feels like it’s about to start stabbing itself from the inside. This would of course be the perfect time for my IBS to start playing up.

         ‘It’s a shower,’ I say, ‘it’s a shower. How can anyone get so worked up about a bloody shower?’

         Mum looks at me and rolls her eyes, as though we’re both sharing an in-joke about someone else, even though the person she’s rolling her eyes about is me.

         Uncle Joel tries to think of a joke but he can’t quite manage it.

         Granny’s fake smile reminds me where Tania got hers.

         Dad pours himself another cup of Prosecco.

         Grandad’s fallen fast asleep.

         Marcos is on his phone, just as he will be in the delivery room if he even bothers to show up.

         Rachel Conan stretches out her neck and says, ‘It’s an absolute game changer.’

         And I sink into the sofa and try to disappear.

         And you know what… I don’t care. I don’t care what any of them think of me. I don’t care how much they judge me for Marcos. I don’t care if he runs off back to Spain. I don’t care. I’m not the crazy, zany, temperamental person they all think I am. I’m a bloody good casting director and I’m going to be a bloody good mum. When Tania’s done in the shower I’m going to tell them I’m pregnant, and I don’t care, I don’t care, I do not care what they think of me.

         I place my hands on my stomach, take a deep breath, and feel myself beginning to calm down. 

         And then Tania lets out the most abominable scream.

Mum, Marcos, Rachel Conan and I rush down the corridor to find her standing by the bathroom, clutching her collarbone with one hand and supporting her towel with the other. She looks as though she’s just been evacuated from a detonating nuclear reactor. 

         ‘Lydia has… she has… she has, well, she…she obviously �ɲ�����’t happy at not being allowed to use the shower, even though I was only trying to protect it because it was brand new, and I wanted to be the first one to use it, but maybe I was just being silly and I should’ve let her use it, but at least we would have been able to discuss it because I was just trying to protect it and look after it, and we could have just had a conversation but instead she’s, she’s…’ We squeeze past her into the bathroom and it’s only then, once we’ve seen the physical proof of the scene she’s trying to depict, that she feels sufficiently prepared to let the words out. ‘Lydia has taken a shit in the shower.’ 

         She rushes past us and into her bedroom. Mum looks at me blankly and rushes after her. Uncle Joel and Granny, who have just now reached the bathroom and inspected the scene, look at me with genuine concern. Rachel Conan’s dropped all pretence of being my sister; her look of disgust is entirely her own. Marcos, finally awoken from his iPhone-induced haze, is starting to regret his recent life choices. Dad, still holding the Prosecco, drinks directly from the bottle.

         The warm smell is, if anything, more apparent than when I first entered the bathroom mere moments after the homeless man had delivered it into this world. And, as I peer through the shower pane and assess the thing, with its shape, solidity and purpose, noting that it is undoubtedly the product of a well-functioning digestive system, I must admit I feel not a small amount of envy. 

         You know, I think I’ll wait until next week to tell them about the baby.

[Doe Wilmann first released this piece on his short story podcast, .]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post Short Story: “Inside Voices” appeared first on 51�Թ�.

The intrinsic value of searching

This is not searching motivated by fortune or fame. This is searching for the sake of searching: to possibly see something few have seen and therefore achieve a sense of accomplishment and differentiate ourselves from the rest of humanity; to hopefully see something supposedly meaningful and thereby validate our existence; to participate, together with others, in an enjoyable process where the outcome is unpredictable; to be – if found – part of something bigger (physically, ecologically, philosophically) than ourselves; to feel alive.

Playwright Eugene O’Neill said “Obsessed by a fairy tale, we spend our lives searching for a magic door and a lost kingdom of peace”. David Bowie said “Searching for music is like searching for God”; both are “an effort to reclaim the unmentionable, the unsayable, the unseeable, the unspeakable”. Vincent van Gogh said “If I cease searching, then, woe is me, I am lost”. 

Paulo Coelho said “The search for something can prove as interesting as finding it”; I propose that the search may be more interesting and more essential. Dostoyevsky said “The mystery of human existence lies not in just staying alive, but in finding something to live for”; I think it lies in the searching for something to live for. Perhaps that’s what Ralph Waldo Emerson meant when he said “It’s not the destination; it’s the journey”. 

To look for the elusive vicariously through books and movies

For those of us who don’t have the time or energy to make the searching journey – or don’t know what to search for – we could try to do it vicariously through books and movies. 

There are several renowned novels on the search for the more elusive but important things in life. In Miguel de Cervantes’ Don Quixote, aging nobleman Alonso Quixano rides off from his Spanish village in search of adventure and glory. In Herman Melville’s Moby Dick, Captain Ahab takes to the high seas in search of revenge and the whale that took his leg. And one among many spiritual non-fictions is Paulo Coelho’s The Pilgrimage, based on his own walk across northern Spain along the Camino de Santiago in search of the simplicity of life.

There are also many movies about ‘the search’: from that famous quartet searching for home, heart, brains, and courage in the 1939 classic The Wizard of Oz; to Victor Laslo searching for an exit visa in the 1942 Casablanca; to veteran Ethan Edwards searching for his nieces in the 1956 western The Searchers; to Michael Corleone searching for respectability and forgiveness in the 1990 Godfather III; to clownfish Marlin searching for his son in the 2003 Finding Nemo; to Professor Gregorius searching for an alluring author in the 2013 Night Train to Lisbon; to most recently Barbie searching for the meaning of life in the real world in the 2023 Barbie. However, the quintessential searching show has to be the iconic, original Star Trek, where Captain Kirk and his crew simply travel for years and millions of miles – boldly going where no one has gone before – searching for the new and the different.

To search in the age of information

In some sense, we are now living in the age of ‘the search’. We’re constantly googling something or other. And the fact that we so often go from search to search to search indicates that it’s not the finding that satisfies us, rather the searching that addicts us. However, searching for something on the internet is a bit different in that there is an immediate and often a plethora of results. Here, we’re referring to a search where the target is elusive.

We whale watchers – and yes, birdwatchers too – are just some of a long line of such searchers. Over the millennia and around the world, people have been searching for and continue to search for the elusive. Some ancient Greeks started us off by inscribing “Gnothi seauton” or “Know Thyself” over the doorway to the Temple of Apollo in Delphi. Many of us are looking for what Plato referred to as our missing half – whether that be found in another or within ourselves. Philosophers in general are said to be searching for ‘the truth’ – which, in today’s world of fake news and AI – is becoming increasingly elusive. 

From elusive to extraterrestrials

And then there are those who search for the Loch Ness Monster. This August saw the biggest hunt for the in more than five decades. Nothing conclusive was found but the organizers and hundreds of volunteers seem to have had a wonderful time. It would not be surprising if this became an annual event.

There are those searching for extraterrestrials – even though physicist has warned us of dangerous consequences once we find them and worse, if they find us. But that has not stopped us. In 1974, the Arecibo Radio Telescope broadcast an interstellar radio message into space. Now, scientists are planning to send an updated . 

And going one step further, there is the search for God, which will hopefully end on a much happier note

The tradition of searching is not lonely

Searching for the elusive is so widespread that entire institutions have been set up to monitor and guide the process. There are numerous national and international organizations related to whale watching (e.g., Pacific Whale Watch Association, Animal Welfare Institute, International Whaling Commission) and birdwatching (e.g., Birds Canada, American Birding Association, BirdLife International). The Loch Ness Project has been gathering data for over 30 years and the Loch Ness Centre organized this year’s gathering. The SETI (Searching for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) Institute describes itself as “America’s only organization wholly dedicated to searching for life in the universe”. One of its most recent projects in collaboration with Cornell University and Breakthrough Initiatives is called the Listen Investigation for Periodic Spectral Signals; it is searching for signals coming from a star-dense area near the core of our galaxy. And of course, there are a plethora of temples, synagogues, churches, mosques, and their myriad associations helping us in our search for God. We searchers of the elusive are not alone, nor are we unsupported.

In some way, perhaps all elusive searches are similar: they occupy us for a long time; they take us out of ourselves and yet put us in the moment; and they give us a sense of purpose. As autumn changes to winter, we walk along the seashore of Vancouver Island – searching for any manner of treasure or sight or insight or peace of mind or just closure – which we may or may not find.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post Search of the Elusive Is a Human Thing appeared first on 51�Թ�.

There’s a bench, in Eel Brook Common in West London, dedicated to the memory of a dog.

��’v�� probably met this shop assistant loads of times, but he acts like he doesn’t recognize me. “I’m sorry sir,” he says, “we can’t do that.”

“Whatever you choose,” says the consultant, “will be the best decision. There’s no right or wrong option here. It’s not my place to tell you what’s best for your daughter.”

And of course, they are correct. At no time has any civilization like that ever existed. But at no time has humanity ever been in the situation it’s in currently, either.

At no other time in history have humans been so close to destroying the biosphere with their profit-driven behavior. At no time have there ever been this many humans on this planet. At no time have there ever been billions of human brains networked with each other in real time the way ours are now, via the internet. 

That last one’s kind of a big deal, by the way. The fact that billions of human beings now have access to (a) all the information known to man and (b) instantaneous communication with each other is far and away the most significant thing ever to happen to our species since the evolution of the human brain. It will get even more significant as improved translation services network us even further. Although, from the outside, we might look more or less the same way we looked three decades ago, in reality there have probably been more significant changes in our species in the last three decades than in the previous three millennia. Humans are functionally a very, very different kind of organism than they were before I, and probably you, were born.

We have literally never been here before. We’ve never seen anything remotely like this. Not even close. We are in completely uncharted territory.

These are wildly unprecedented times, and unprecedented times call for unprecedented measures. Because our situation is so dramatically unlike anything we’ve ever seen before, the same must also necessarily be true of the solutions to the problems we now face. If there’s a way out of this mess, it’s going to look unlike anything we’ve ever seen before. 

Our species is at an adaptation-or-extinction juncture at this point in spacetime. We’re staring down the barrel of total extinction via nuclear armageddon or environmental collapse. Everything that got us to this point is the result of the behavior patterns we’ve been moving in for the centuries leading up to it. 

What this means is that any deviation away from our trajectory toward annihilation will necessarily entail a drastic unpatterning, since you cannot separate our circumstances from the patterns that gave rise to it. Even if you could wave a magic wand and have our biosphere perfectly healthy again and all nuclear weapons reduced to atoms, our behavior patterns would just cause us to destroy the biosphere again and rebuild the nukes in a matter of years.

So if we are to survive into the future, we’re going to have to drastically change our patterns. We’re going to have to begin acting in ways we have never acted before so that we can begin organizing civilization in a way that it has never before existed.

So, sure, maybe I am being unrealistic in describing the radically divergent kind of civilization we’re going to have to create … but it’s also the only kind of future civilization that can possibly exist. If it’s impossible to create a wildly different kind of civilization than the kind we’ve been living in, then it’s also impossible for humans to exist in future centuries, because we will necessarily wipe ourselves out with our self-destructive patterns otherwise.

So, while I am talking about a future civilization that sounds utopian, I am also talking about the only kind of future civilization that can possibly exist. If there are future generations, they will necessarily be living in a society that functions in a completely different way from our current one.

And I personally believe it’s possible. I really think we can make the adaptation-or-extinction jump if we want to. In wildly unprecedented times, no possibility is off the table.

[ first published this piece.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post The World Has Changed Suddenly. Can We Change Our Politics Too? appeared first on 51�Թ�.

I’m a cheek biter. Mmm. That’s what she says to her assistant every time I come in. In the middle of a session or whatever you call it. She’ll count the teeth. “1, 2, 3, 4, he’s a cheek biter, 5,6, keep an eye on 6, 7, 8.” It surprises me every time.

A father and a husband, that’s how other people might think of me. That’s what they’d put on my tombstone presumably, or my memorial bench. But you can’t be two things, not at the same time. 

What about husband? Am I a husband every time I speak to my wife, or am I simply just someone to speak to? If the postman can speak to her without becoming her husband, why can’t I? 

I’m not attached to my dentist like some people. ��’v�� seen her for what, five years now. But I wouldn’t have cared if today she’d been someone else. My doctor’s always changing, it doesn’t bother me at all. Some people really don’t like that. 

[Doe Wilmann first released this piece on his short story podcast, .]

The views expressed in this article/podcast are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post Short Story: “Cheek Biter” appeared first on 51�Թ�.

Eventually, we acquired Macintosh computers, trekking to a local copy shop to pay $0.25 a page for laser-printed originals. We still had to paste them together the old-fashioned way to create our tabloid-sized pages. The finished boards would then go to a local commercial printing press where our run of 2,000 copies would be printed.

This was, of course, before ordinary people had even heard of email. Our entire editorial process was mediated through the US Postal Service, with letters flying constantly between our two cities. On the upside, through 12 years and 48 issues, we only had to hold four in-person meetings.

All of which is to say that I’m old. That fact, along with recent events in the lives of several friends, has brought to mind the first article I ever published in LesCon: “Who’s Going to Run the Old Dykes’ Home?” It’s a question that’s no less pertinent today, and not just for lesbians. My worldview was more parochial back then; I naively believed that someone — the state or families — would look out for heterosexual elders, but that we lesbians were on our own. It turns out that we, the people of this country, are all on our own.

Aging is not easy

These days, my partner and I seem to be doing a lot of elder care. Actually, ��’v�� long been a source of tech support for the octogenarian set, beginning with my own father. (“OK, you’re sure you saved the file? Can you remember what name you gave it?”) With our aging friends, we also help out with transport to doctors’ offices, communications issues (with landlines, cell phones, and the Internet) and occasionally just relieving the loneliness of it all.

In recent months, elderly friends of ours have faced losing their housing, their spouses, their mobility or their cognitive abilities. I find it terrifying, and I ache because there’s so little I can do to help them.

I shouldn’t be surprised, but I’m daily reminded that getting older can indeed be frustrating and frightening. It pains me to know that my bones are weakening, that I don’t hear as well as I used to, that my skin’s drier and wrinkling, that my once familiar face in the mirror is growing ever stranger. I’m lucky that — like my father who used to say, “After 70, it’s all maintenance” — ��’v�� managed to maintain a fair amount of brown hair on my head. But I especially hate the way words that used to leap down my tongue in merry cadence now frequently lurk sullenly in the backwaters of my brain.

In a piece about our aging political class, Robert Reich, secretary of labor for President Bill Clinton, charmingly about the “diminutions” that come with growing older and his own decision to stop teaching after decades of doing so. His take on is similar to mine. He laments his trouble remembering people’s names, noting that some “nouns have disappeared altogether. Even when rediscovered, they have a diabolical way of disappearing again.” I know what he means. For some years now, whenever I want to talk about cashew nuts, all I can initially think of is “carob.” Some devious gremlin has switched those words somewhere in the card catalog of my brain.

But even as I grieve for capacities lost and departing, I’m still not ready to come face to face with the only true alternative to aging: not some tech bro’s , but the reality of death. I’m opposed to dying, and had the universe consulted me, I’d have left mortality out of its design completely.

Aging people need help — and not just the lesbians

Written more than 40 years ago, parts of my piece “The Old Dykes’ Home” are flat-out embarrassing now. Getting old seemed so strange and far off before I was 30. When I imagined being aged then, I think it was with the piercing sorrow of Paul Simon’s song “Old Friends/Bookends”:

Can you imagine us years from today

Sharing a park bench quietly?

How terribly strange to be seventy

In other ways, my article was depressingly prescient about just how much this country would expect aging people to fend for themselves by the time I reached that strange period of my own life. Not only old dykes, but pretty much anyone who isn’t affluent, can find that old age brings economic desperation.

Yes, US citizens and permanent residents over 65 can get medical attention through Medicare, but the standard program only covers 80% of your bills. , we gained access to some prescription drug coverage, but that requires sifting through an ever-changing menu of medications and the ability to predict today what meds you might need tomorrow.

Most people who live long enough will receive some monthly income from Social Security, although the amount depends in part on how much they were able to earn during their working lives. But we’re constantly staving off attacks on Social Security, including attempts to it, reduce benefit amounts or increase the age at which people can collect because Americans are living longer. That last proposal, as economist Paul Krugman , is really another way of penalizing low-wage workers. As he wrote,

Life expectancy has indeed risen a lot for the affluent, but for the less well-paid members of the working class, it has hardly risen at all. What this means is that calling for an increase in the retirement age is, in effect, saying that janitors can’t be allowed to retire because lawyers are living longer. Not a very nice position to take.

Suppose the disabilities of age mean you can no longer safely live in your own home. Well, you’re on your own. Unless you can afford to move to some kind of assisted living facility, you’re in real trouble. Your main alternative is to most of what you own, so you qualify for the pittance that your state Medicaid program will pay a (most likely for-profit) nursing home to warehouse you until you die.

The threat of being old and unhoused is very real. A recent major study of unhoused people in California that almost half of them are over 50 and 7% over 65. As housing costs continue to rise, we can only expect that more old people will find themselves on the street.

Back then, I wrote that, under capitalism, we could expect the “owners of wealth” to do very little for people who are no longer creating profits through their labor — or indirectly, by doing the work “to make it physically and emotionally possible for the paid laborers to go out in the world and work one more day.” Why, after all, should capital take any interest in people who are no longer a source of profit?

These are the people — old, disabled, permanently unemployed — who, to the political philosopher Iris Marion Young, experience a particularly sinister form of oppression: marginalization. “Marginalization,” writes Young, “is perhaps the most dangerous form of oppression. A whole category of people is expelled from useful participation in social life and thus potentially subjected to severe material deprivation and even extermination.”

Volunteering isn’t going to fix the problem by itself

There were some other missing pieces in that article. I left out the fact that it’s easier to justify low pay for the art (and science) of caregiving when most of its practitioners are women. I failed to envision caretakers organizing on their own. I never imagined that, decades later, a National Domestic Workers would arise to represent the interests of the poorly paid, disrespected workforce of immigrants and women of color who largely do the work of caring for the aged in this country.

I had just lived through an episode in which on the bus to work I suddenly fainted from pain caused by a herniated disk in my back. I found myself lying on my bed for several months recovering while living on a monthly welfare check of $185 and food stamps. Still, the lesson I drew was that the solution to caring for people with chronic disabilities was what had then worked for me: drawing on a community of volunteers, a roster of almost 30 women who took turns shopping for my groceries, doing my laundry and ferrying me to doctors’ appointments. Why couldn’t that work for everyone?

That network of support existed, however, because I belonged to a lesbian community self-consciously constructing a parallel society tucked inside the larger city of Portland, Oregon. It was packed with institutions like a women’s bookstore, a drop-in community center, a women’s mental health project and a feminist credit union, among others. I acted with a women’s theater company and, at times, worked as a secretary at a women’s law cooperative.

In reality, though, we weren’t nearly as independent as we thought we were. Most of those institutions were staffed by women paid through the Comprehensive Education and Training , passed during the presidency of Richard Nixon and continued under Jimmy Carter. When Ronald Reagan and his new brand of Republicans took over in Washington in 1981, those salaries disappeared almost overnight — and with them, most of our community’s infrastructure.

So, my answer to the problem of aging then was to endorse an ethic of volunteerism rooted in specific communities, like our lesbian one. “Feminists,” I wrote, “are rightly uneasy about asking each other to perform any more unpaid work in our lives than we, and centuries of women before us, have already done.”

Nevertheless, I argued, “The truth is … no one is going to pay us to take care of each other … and we can’t afford to believe the capitalist and patriarchal lie that we are cheating each other when we ask each other — even strangers — to do that work for free.”

In retrospect, it seems clear to me that I was then inching my way toward an ethos that could free the project of caring for each other from the claws of capitalism. But I was naïve about the amount of time and energy people would be able to spare outside of their day’s labor — especially as real wages were about to stagnate and then begin to fall. I didn’t imagine a time to come when people without much money would need to work two or even three jobs just to get by. I didn’t think, as I do now, that it would be better, instead, to focus on raising the status and pay of caring work.

Even back in the 1980s, however, I recognized the limits of volunteerism. I knew that I’d been lucky during my period of temporary disability. I was an outgoing person with quite a sizeable set of acquaintances. With a reasonable levity of spirit and a dependable store of gossip, I knew then that I could make taking care of me relatively pleasant.

But I also knew that no one’s survival should depend on having a winning personality. Instead, as I wrote at the time, we needed to “develop simple, dependable structures to serve those among us who require physical care.”

How hard could that be, after all? “A file of volunteers and a rotating coordinator could do the job,” I wrote then. Here, too, I was more sadly prescient than I even realized. In recent years, the market for aging care has indeed found a way to commercialize volunteer efforts like the ones I imagined in the form of Internet-based options like and .

Mutual aid is not an emergency measure, but a fundamental principle

My point back then was that, as lesbians, we were on our own. No one was going to run the Old Dykes’ Home if we didn’t do it ourselves. (Perhaps I should have foreseen then that someone might indeed run it, if they could make money doing so!) I figured we had 10 to 15 years to develop “formal networks of support to deal with illness and disability,” because eventually each of us would need such structures. We lesbians would have to look out for ourselves because we lived then “on the edges of society.” I didn’t realize at the time that we shared those edges with so many other people.

Building volunteer structures was, I thought, just the short-term goal. The longer-term project was something much more ambitious: to build “a world in which the work of caring for each other happens not at the fringes of society, but at its heart.”

I still believe in that larger goal, and not because it’s a lovely fantasy, but because it’s a response to a fundamental reality of life. It’s a fact that human beings, like all beings, live in a web of interdependence. Every one of us is implicated, folded into that web, simultaneously depending on others, while others depend on us. The self-reliant individual is an illusion, which means that constructing societies based on that chimera is a doomed enterprise, bound in the end (just as we’ve seen) to fail so many on whom — though we may not know it — we depend.

Aging really is a roulette game. My partner and I are gambling that good genes, regular exercise, a reasonable diet and sufficient mental stimulation will keep our limbs, organs and minds healthy enough to, as they say, “age in place.” We plan to stay in the house we’ve occupied for more than 30 years, in the neighborhood where we can walk to the library and the grocery store. We don’t plan to get Parkinson’s or Alzheimer’s or congestive heart failure or (like yet another friend) take a life-changing fall down a flight of stairs. Having somehow forgotten to have children (and never wanting to burden even our hypothetical offspring in any case), we’re planning to take care of ourselves.

The truth is that we have much less control than we’d like to believe over how we’ll age. Tomorrow, one of us could lose the disability lottery, and like so many of our friends, we could be staring at the reality of growing old in a society that treats preparation for — and survival during — old age as a matter of individual personal responsibility.

It’s time to take a more realistic approach to the fact that all of us lucky enough to live that long will become ever more dependent as we age. It’s time to face reality and place caring for one another at the heart of the human endeavor.

[ first published this piece.]

[ edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post Aging Alone Isn’t Just for Lesbians: We Are All Vulnerable appeared first on 51�Թ�.