You think your child was sweet as a singing tree in the school play? Not on social media, you don’t. You are the proudest parents ever. (Attach humble-faced smiling emoticon.)

You’re wondering what the hell is going on in parliament and how it is going to affect you? Not on social media. You’re this is a fucking shitstorm. The NHS is fucked. The trade channels are fucked. We’re all fucked.

You’re feeling incredibly lost. You lack confidence. You can’t stick at anything. You hate your job. Your kids are driving you mad. Not on social media. You’re quoting Martin Luther King and rambling about love and positivity.

This is commonplace.

Everything is back to normal.

Apathy resumed.

And that is just where The People of Choice want you.

The last twenty letters have been sent and will be opened in the morning.

PART THREE

LEGACY

109

236–255

We wait.

We don’t have to count down from three.

Or say go.

We just need the teacher.

We are the last People of Choice. The ones now with courage. That’s what brought us here.

We paid our eight pounds to go through the turnstile. We rode in the lift to the top. We laughed at the same joke told by the same man, who presses the same buttons all day long. We squeezed up the stairs while the guard was distracted and pushed our way outside to the roof of the walkways.

And now we line up, waiting for the Teacher.

We sold you bad stocks. We took care of your kids while you pursued your career. We cooked you that meal from the specials board you liked so much, the one you told your friends about. We put you forward for that job you just interviewed for.

This is it. One solution. One certainty.

It could be the wind or the situation, but up here, it’s silent. Like the world has been turned down. We are not talking. We don’t have to. But everything below seems quiet. We know that people are looking at us. And they know who we are. What we are going to do. But we look out across the capital. Not down at them. They hold their breath. We breathe in, hold, one-two-three, out. And repeat.

Waiting. For the Teacher. The trigger.

Us. The People of Choice. We help run the youth club for free so your kid isn’t on the street getting into trouble again. We know your repeat prescription just by looking at your face. We pushed forward with the disciplinary hearing when you reported your supervisor for indecent behaviour. You cried on our couch when your sister passed away so suddenly.

We are still.

The teacher emerges. We don’t hear her, there is no sound, but we know she is there. She walks out to the centre spot, turns her back to the growing audience, lifts her arms out to the side and lets herself fall backwards.