Back to the future

The year is 2030 ...

“Fancy a walk?” I said, knowing full well what the answer would be. As usual I got that big grin, those big brown eyes, and the response:

“Just give me a minute”.

Forty five minutes later we stepped into the mild spring air and started off into town. 

“Do you know” she said as we walked along “that the first lockdown was announced ten years ago today. “ I replied that I did. It was hard to avoid knowing about that anniversary if you followed the news. 

We walked along the canal and watched the moorhens splashing, a soft sun dappling the surface of the water. It was still early enough in the day to get that sense of wonder that being free to walk out and just enjoy the day gives you. 

“Silver linings” I said. She nodded. The Covid Pandemic had been devastating for so many families, but like wars and revolutions it had inevitably bought change - this time for the good. It had accelerated much that was already happening and brought forward new ways of looking at the world. One thing it had done was to reduce the polarised politics of left and right; politicians had realised, in this country at least, that people needed to be healthy, feel secure, and know they were not living on a dying planet. And they wanted a world that was fairer. That was their identity: progress towards goals rather than name calling or blind patriotism.

As we crossed the bridge the subtle hum of electric cars passed up and down the main carriageway; so much quieter than before, not just because the vehicles themselves made less noise than the old petrol driven engines but because people had rediscovered walking and using public transport. There were, simply, less cars and they were safer and less annoying. 

A comms flash came up on my watch: work. I ignored it. This was a non working day but if I was in the mood I would call in later. I was one of the lucky ones who only did a couple of days a week, mostly because it kept me young and was a pleasant challenge. But everyone had shared in the benefits from way the world had changed, with a four day working week being standard now. It had been the only way to reboot society; more people sharing the real benefits of progress such as more time with their families, and a proper distribution of the roles of housework and bringing up children. Mental health had changed as a result; far fewer people reported stress and more people talked about the value of their lives and relationships.

We sat down on one of the hundreds of seats in our local community’s town centre. They were perfectly spaced to allow people to talk but remain far enough apart to reduce infection. We had learned to manage diseases such as Covid but we knew we could never really eliminate them. Most of the time it was safe to hug but sometimes we had to revert to the old ways of social distancing. But we were a far healthier people now, as we had reduced emissions and improved diet. 

We’d had to change.The old ways were killing us.

The number of blossoming trees was stunning. Children were playing with the many games provided by the local council, and their parents were enjoying coffees in the sunshine. We had redefined the communal space. The town centre was no longer a high street, it was a gathering place. The shops were fewer and better; whole avenues now existed thanks to taking down old premises and replacing them with trees and areas where we could meet. The great irony of Covid 19: a disease that had driven us apart eventually bought us together. Other spaces had been repurposed: you could now walk into a communal work area and meet colleagues or hold video conferences, according to your mood or the practical requirements. Through a large window I could see our friend Connie with two other people present, the three of them working through some new ideas with people over a large screen. Her on-screen colleagues could be in Gateshead or Connemara, it made no difference. We had achieved a balance. Working from home, going into the office, or just finding a low rent space to work in for a morning. 

Connie saw us sitting in the sun and grinned, waved, went back to her work. 

“Our coffee is here”.

A young man with a pleasant smile and a small tray ambled towards us. We had ordered the drinks as we walked in, from our chosen coffee shop, on a mobile; the coffee shop simply followed the directions to the bench number we were sitting at, which we had supplied when we sat down. Hospitality wasn’t tied to a physical space any more. You could find tables and eat with friends and all order different food from different places, bought to you wherever you were. In winter the spaces were indoors, but at this time of year we were outside. Later, if we felt like it, one of us could order pizza and the other a curry. And ninety per cent of the food would be plant based. The word vegan didn’t exist any more. It was the norm. Food with real animal ingredients carried a warning, and most people heeded it. After all, as someone had pointed out at the height of the pandemic, the word coronavirus is an anagram of carnivorous. Meat eating had been wrecking the world’s surface, destroying rainforests and requiring enormous amounts of unhealthy interventions such as livestock fed with antibiotics that made the food chain unsafe.

“We were on the brink ten years ago” I said as we sipped our drinks. “Things are better now”.

“Lots still to do” she replied. “We’ve moved away from fossil fuels and meat eating, and we’re meeting our energy needs from sustainable sources. But inequality is still massive. Just ask any woman or black person or any SDI.” The last was a phrase that had crept into our language over the last few years: Socially Displaced Individual. It meant people who hadn’t been able to adjust yet to the shock of all the changes, who found it difficult to retrain or even accept that the world had changed. They fell into all age groups, gender groups, races and cultures. People who had been left behind. Not so much economically; we had got better at helping people with the basics of life but we hadn’t really worked out how to relate to each other. No matter what we did, some people still seemed to get left behind.

We shopped. Slowly, casually, happily. I bought some bread. She rented an outfit for a wedding we were going to - from Flock Shop, where nothing was for sale but anything could be hired, whatever you were in terms of gender or persuasion. Men could be seen trying on dresses, women trouser suits, or one of the more anodyne outfits that couldn’t really be pinned down. Last year had seen a big toga revival during a sweltering hot summer. Those ancient Greeks and Romans had known a thing or two about how to dress and we were revisiting their style. 

As if reading my mind she said “you may be getting older but you still have sexy legs”. 

“I just need to remember to wear pants” I said.

The old fashioned town centre, empty at dawn, busy between nine and five, and semi-deserted in the evenings was a thing of the past. You came and went as you saw fit. Some people would work from lunchtime until eight or nine pm then go out to eat, meet friends, or read a book in a communal space. Families might congregate at any time of day, depending on how they managed their working lives and the children’s education, since schooling was now flexible. The rigidity of terms and classes had been displaced. The key thing was peer and personal support. If you were falling behind you got more; if you were okay working with friends and doing it yourself then you were just monitored to make sure you were doing okay. And, more to the point, were happy. That had been a huge benefit of Covid: focusing on mental health at all ages.

Connie messaged us and we met for lunch. It was warm enough to find a table under a tree and we ordered sandwiches and fries and tucked in. I treated myself to a glass of wine which was bought to me by an old guy on roller blades. I watched in fascination as he skated towards us without spilling a drop. Connie wanted help with getting some people together locally to refurbish a neighbourhood on the edge of town; it would make a good space for open air entertainment. We put some messages out on groups that I knew about that might be able to help. The old saying “it’s not what you know, it’s who you know” had been supplanted; nowadays it was about making connections. And sometimes letting go of them too. If someone could help better than you it was wrong to not say so. It wasn’t who you knew anymore, it was how you helped move things forward.

And yet when all was said and done, we were still private individuals. When we got home later in the day we cooked, played cards and sat reading in the quiet space that was ours. Children and friends called on video and we spoke to them or made apologies according to our mood. We still climbed into a traditional bed at the end of the day, with cats curled up on the duvet. We were still better off than many but knew that at least there was a commitment to all, out there somewhere that we could tap into it.

Come the evening we did the Guardian quick crossword on the iPad. Seven across, two words. “Old fashioned shopping area”, four and six letters. I filled in HIGH STREET and paused. 

“You remember all that stuff about saving the high street” I said.

“You mean that scruffy old thing with chain shops and miserable people” she said. “It rings a bell”.

“We didn’t really get it did we? Thank god people realised we had to reinvent rather than hang on for grim death.” Critically a balance had been struck between online and physical shopping. Clothes, food, beautiful things for the home, eating out, shared learning ... these were the realm of the new town centres. The boring stuff, the baked beans, bleach and toilet rolls were nearly all bought online. The big out of town supermarkets were pretty much warehouses from which food was delivered now. Communities had been revitalised because they focused on the things that bought meaning to lives.

“It was never the high street that was the problem” she said. “It was about taking joy in everyday existence. We’d taken the pleasure out being together as people. Once we put the fun back in to going out and exploited what we already had to the full, people could start to make the world better. Give me another clue.”

“Three words. What you say at the end of each day. Four, three and -“

“Time for bed” she smiled. And so it was.