‘But why?’ she asked in disbelief. ‘Why would you do such a thing?’

‘To share their pain.’

‘Not that; why would you delete your accounts? Have you gone insane?’

‘I just realized that I’d prefer not to be part of the social media world any more,’ he explained. ‘From now on, I simply want to enjoy my life instead of constantly documenting it. To exist in the moment and allow my memories to live up here’ – he tapped the place where his brain might have been in a more forgiving biosphere – ‘instead of in one of these.’ He pointed now towards Elizabeth’s iPhone. ‘We live on these devices now but, in reality, they’re a total waste of time. Think about it. You spent however many minutes telling strangers that you were meeting me for coffee, minutes that you could have spent doing something more productive.’

‘Like what? Lying on the floor listening to what our kitchen tiles might have to say?’

‘And ultimately,’ he said, ignoring this, ‘you achieved nothing. In the end, who cares?’

‘My followers care!’

‘No, they don’t. Look, show me that thing.’

He grabbed her phone off the table, his greasy fingers skating across the screen, leaving a slimy residue behind, and pointed towards the tweet in question. ‘Ninety-four likes and eight retweets. That’s all you got. So ninety-four people who don’t know either of us have now been given the information that you’re meeting me for coffee. And they’ll already have forgotten.’

‘But I have a blue tick!’ she cried. ‘The common people want to know how blue-ticked people fill their days. Otherwise, how can they have aspirations?’

‘Come on, Elizabeth,’ he said calmly. ‘It’s all bullshit. I had an epiphany and I’m responding to it, that’s all. Like Dylan, when he went electric.’

‘This is deeply shocking,’ she said.

‘Tell me this,’ he said. ‘Does getting likes make you happy?’

‘Of course it does! It’s like sex. Only better.’

‘If you think that, then you’re having sex with the wrong people.’

‘I’m having sex with you.’

‘Oh yes,’ he said, laughing. ‘Own goal there.’

‘Look,’ she said, reaching across to take his hand before thinking better of it. She hadn’t carried any hand sanitizer since getting the vaccination. ‘It’s not too late to fix this. You have thirty days to reactivate your account after you’ve closed it. You won’t lose any of your followers and no one will be any the wiser.’

‘But I don’t want to reactivate my account,’ he protested. ‘And anyway, I didn’t choose that option. I just deleted the entire thing. It’s over for me. I’m no longer on social media.’

‘Oh, sweet mother of Jesus,’ she cried, putting her hands to her mouth. ‘What have you done? IN THE NAME OF ALL THAT IS GOOD AND HOLY, WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?’