Lost her last job a few weeks ago. She was a social media specialist at a big real estate firm. Had been. A company primarily concerned with privatizing public housing. With her look, i.e., the gender-fluid one, the communications consultant didn’t necessarily find favor among the overwhelmingly conservative male workforce. After a week a film clip that, thanks to new software looked deceptively real, went around the internal office mail system. The face and voice of the communications consultant had been placed in a bestiality porno. Keyword: stallion. Though viewers knew better, the fake news, images, videos that made social media a battlefield always left a lingering doubt. One knew better, but could there be something to it? And hadn’t the communications consultant paged through a horse calendar at a rather slow gallop? Didn’t she look at the office pooch with an unmistakable desire?

So she was let go. And subsequently, thanks to the fraught economic situation, didn’t find a new job. Not at an established firm or a startup. Not even one of the one-pound jobs was available, and the communications consultant bounced from one shared flat to the next, always having to leave after a short time because someone always came along who could pay more. It was as if the weeks and months ran together into one day that always consisted of the communications consultant standing in some apartment, being greeted indifferently by the occupant, and then lying down in a dark room. And she was always afraid to go onto the street. Because outside, with her ambiguous look, the communications consultant got beaten up once a week. And someone always recorded it. Humiliation was a powerful and always effective weapon. She huddled in her room. Looked into the courtyard. A shadow in the window on the opposite side. Tomorrow she’d register and then she’d have a basic income. Then everything would be okay.

And it wasn’t raining.

“They’ve gone mad.”

Said

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