Assholes.

Inside this club it’s like every other club ever. The young people feel superior to old people, they’re immortal, and, of course, they believe they’re the first ones to experience everything. No living being had ever felt the way they feel. Nobody had ever been so wild, had engaged so intensely with oneself and one’s fears of adulthood—that time when everything will be gray and over. Here in the club, everyone has just grown out of childhood. Grown out of total denial, no longer cute but also not yet full of greed and duplicity, not yet calculating, something that will also affect their willingness to couple up. The perception that well-being is dependent on others choosing you. Is not helpful.

Grime is playing. It’s made it into the mainstream. Yet another revolution that’s been sold out.

Many of those present are wearing their bodycam glasses so they can post cool videos of their antics. Hannah is uneasy and young and longs for something but doesn’t know what. She looks at men. Well, okay. Men.

Boys in uniforms with army caps. With bulletproof vests, helmets. There’s an oddly controlled atmosphere in the club. Everyone is standing up straight, nobody pukes behind the bar, no pogoing, no fistfighting. Civilized young people with the expectation of an event. Orderly young people. Even grime suddenly seems sweet-natured. Gentle. No longer angry. Nobody’s angry anymore. Nobody dares to chat anyone else up, it could be unwanted. It could be intrusive. After a brief phase of civil revolt against political correctness, which was catalyzed by right-wing nationalist bots, after a brief pause in the British collective agreement that openly stated hate and racism are lower-class matters, after a brief time of offensive hate and contempt, now

A new era of progress has been reached. Well-trained people having fun.

The music is loud, the young people stand around shyly and wait for another shy person who is less shy to save them from their own shyness. Hannah has spotted a boy she can imagine engaging in a sex act with. The sex act she can imagine has its origins in a thousand pornos that served for her like everyone else as her only sexual education. The boy looks at Hannah, and Hannah looks at the boy, then she brushes past him toward the washrooms. She probably saw this move in a TV series. Or a porno. The boy follows her. Right. And now, now Hannah stands in a bright, unisex washroom. The boy enters the room, and at this point Hannah’s fantasy ends. She stands opposite a stranger in a too-bright washroom kitted out with too many mirrors. What good are all these technological advances when people are still people?