Abolishment of the monarchy happened as quickly as the opening of the Berlin Wall that had divided East and West Germany. Or the fascist power grab in Europe. The outbreak of encephalitis in Africa that mushroomed into an epidemic in Europe. These moments that fundamentally change some people’s lives, that seem unimaginable but that are completely wiped from the hive mind hardware a day later. Because they don’t affect most of the other eight billion.

The new king appeared in front of the cameras. He announced his resignation, he was the most modern member of the royal family and therefore the least liked. Then. Nothing. Happened. Amazingly. It had always been whispered that the monarchy was a fundamental part of social cohesion. A rock of stability in a burning sea, a foothold amid hopelessness. It had been thought that just the presence of a few anointed ones, in order to bring god into the lives of the subjects, was important in preventing revolution. And there followed—no street battles between royalists and monarchy-haters. Everyone shrugged their shoulders. The royal family packed their bags. The queen had gone to fashion shows before her death. She’d tried desperately to make the monarchy hip again. Which unfortunately didn’t work. Marriages to two commoners were the low point, the marriage to a Black woman the last straw. You know the story. The deep-seated hatred of anything nonpink among the segments of society that supported the royal family could no longer be placated. You could even say a nonpink person sealed the fate of the monarchy. The palace was transformed into a museum of the British Empire. Elements of MI5 were given space there, too. The former royal family moved to Scotland, still in possession of their billions, of course.

Another jittery blink of the eye and the whole thing was forgotten …

The mind of the world population. You know how it is. The people who came of age without the influence of mobile devices

Are dead.

Every child in the Western world spends more than five hours per day on a device. They check their social media accounts, messages, and chat forums in intervals of ten minutes, and that’s a conservative estimate. The addictiveness of an entire generation has gone up by 300 percent, the ratio of gamma-aminobutyric acid to glutamate in the anterior cingulate cortex has risen sharply, if you take the dead as a baseline value. The third generation of addicts, fear-stricken, and depressives are no longer able to concentrate on a topic for more than two minutes.

Or to develop

Creativity

Or

Empathy. They operate with reduced motor skills and exhibit significantly reduced brain power.

What are you going to do?

Later. Which is to say, now.

Everything is quiet. A different kind of quiet from Rochdale.

Thinks

DON

Excitingly quiet, she thinks.