FOURTEEN
PRESTBURY, CHESHIRE, 2023 AD
Jake set his alarm and rose an hour before the sun. Throwing open the bedroom window, he concentrated and assumed the familiar form of a peregrine falcon. When he had flapped away, Alice closed the sliding frame of the sash window, yawned, and hurried back to the warmth of the bed. The falcon, after several minutes of disorientation, picked up the motorway near Bristol and followed it north. Jake marvelled at how many people used the M5 even at night. What were they doing? Where were they going?
As to the second question, it seemed that many were headed to Birmingham, but he flew right across the great conglomeration and recognised the pottery town of Stoke-on-Trent. How the ceramics industry had declined in that once-rich city! Alice loved the Roya
