None of the children here in the villa think to flee, because their past in old sewer pipes, in train stations, and in cellars is of limited use in luring them out of a heated flat. They don’t even speak English. They speak Russian, Polish, Romanian, Bosnian, Hindi, so the communication among them is also very limited. For the most part the children sit in front of computers and look at the websites they are allowed to view. Cartoons and porn. Nobody here cries. Or looks particularly unhappy. They’ve accepted their destiny, you could say, like hundreds of thousands of children in the country who are superfluous at a time when others are already being born with modified DNA. There is a right to genetic modification that one should make use of if one wishes to enable a good start for one’s children into the bright future. Without inherited diseases, without dwarfism, without brain deformities, without an overly pronounced sensitivity to pain. Without resentment of authority. You just have to be willing to pay for it.

All the stories about the great, unconditional love of parents for their children had never been anything more than a moral construct. Occupational therapy for people who even then were already extraneous. Who were bored to death by their existence and invested all their creative energy into their offspring. That’s now become unnecessary as the middle class no longer exists. Showing excessive attention to your offspring no longer occurs to anyone. No person loves another unconditionally. Nobody even loves anymore.

Societal standards which had long held sway, the reenactment of morals and benevolence, have been pulverized as quickly as an acquaintance bids farewell. Had been. The new system of order is to be embraced for that reason as well—the era when every second British child was abused, wives were beaten half to death, when firemen or rubbish collectors were assaulted because they caused backups is over.

At last

There’s something to do.

THE PROFESSOR

Bids farewell.

He knows his old life is over. He’ll never again live on an elegant street, stroll past antique shops, quote classics. And now there are two children sitting here. No idea why. Maybe it’s about the feeling of having power again. Even if it is bought. And now there are two children sitting here. Not that he’d be interested in children; he isn’t interested in anyone living today. A little girl of indeterminate skin color, a sign of the transformation of the world he knew into one where whites were slowly dying off. Overrun by yellow and all shades of darker people who exhibit a better mating performance.