Shortly before the anesthesia starts to work. His body is lost. But he’ll live on. His brain will live on, the specialists have promised him that. Then a suitable body will be sought out. The bodies he’d been offered thus far belonged to homeless people; he didn’t want that. He doesn’t want that, living on in a substandard homeless body. So he’ll wait. For now his brain will continue to exist in body-like conditions in a nutrient solution. Unfortunately you can’t transfer it onto a chip. So, a last look at his Polish woman. He whispers: “I’m so very fond of you.” Then the propofol courses through his veins.

Exciting, the squishiness of the appendages,

With which

HANNAH

Runs through the city with Peter. They have not noticed that they’ve been under way for more than two hours; they didn’t want to use the tube or bus, with other people; they wanted to stop every few meters and bite each other on the neck or breathe each other in or press against each other and talk nonsense. The city center is full of people and shops and restaurants, images of happy women soldiers appear on the flat-screens. Tourist buses drive through swinging London, the hotels are booked out, that is, the boxes, you know the story, the boxes where people lie like sardines. It’s a cheerful atmosphere in a modern metropole. There’s hope. And a new administration. It’s like before, when depression had not yet taken over. Earlier, when things were moving forward for many. In the late 1990s perhaps, when nearly everyone in London was a banker. Liberalized markets, minimally taxed and barely regulated. Anglo-Saxon capitalism, the cradle of disequilibrium.

Yeah, well, the old days.

Prosperity for many and misery for the low performers. Then came the depression, the crisis, the stagnation, the unrest before the new beginning, and now everyone believes in the fiction of capitalism again. Utopia is back. An elegant British version of upheaval prevails. Only if you look very closely does it occur that life in the city center has changed once again. Notice how everything is sped up, the accelerated pace at which things are changing. Brilliant. The number of luxury shops with Chinese and Russian writing has dropped, the bulk of the businesses belong to corporate chains, offering goods unlovingly assembled in Sudan under Chinese supervision. Fast-food restaurants have replaced organic food shops. The locals look bedraggled, their teeth are bad, their skin yellow. But they smile a lot, because it has a positive effect on their point count. They stand there well-mannered and wait at street crossings, the streets are clean, no beggars or pickpockets, no wastepaper or rats in sight. They left the island in boats.

Peter stares at Hannah. He can’t think anymore. He wants to kiss her. Peter wants to kiss again, and Hannah moans inside.

It’s enough for

THOME