This Is Yr Life

CHAPTER ONE Kyle walked home from work. As a teenager, he had never bothered getting a driver's license and then, eventually never needed one. But these new cars that drove themselves and sent signals to help you remember where you parked were expensive.        So, Kyle walked.        In the summer this was fine. He took long journeys back to his flat on the other side of the city. He walked down streets that reminded him of his youth, or at least streets that he thought would remind him of his youth. But the Elizabethan houses were gone and replaced by condominiums above ground, and six sub-storey car parks below.        But in winter, where it would be dark before he left the office, and he was always one of the last to go, it was hell. The winters got colder every year, just like the summer temperatures kept rising with each orbit of the sun. His jacket, two seasons old, often faltered, the technology lining the inside unable to cope with the often minus-fifteen degrees temperatures.        To get around this, he wrapped himself in scarfs, wore two pairs of gloves and three hats. Still, he shivered. He believed that he should be used to it by now but every day he underestimated the cold, each day more biting and frigid than the one before it. He longed for summer and the freedom it brought, but he wouldn’t see summer for a good six months or so.        It was a Friday, and he tried to distract himself from the cold outside of his jacket. His co-workers had gone to the pub down the road from the office. This happened every week, no invitation needed, but Kyle never felt like attending. He had spent all week not talking to the people around him, why should that change just because it was the end of the week.        But as much as he didn't want to drink with his colleagues, he wanted to go home even less. Sometimes during the week, he caught the bus but at this time of night on a Friday he preferred to not squeeze into the claustrophobic confines of the public transport system. The city was one of the only ones left in the country that still hadn't adopted automated public transport, and it was bad enough having to stand wedged in between people far happier, far more successful than him; discussing weekend plans with their families and friends, or reminiscing on last weekend, without fearing for his life at the hands of an overworked and underpaid public servant.        If he went home straight after work, he would need to interact with his flatmates. Kyle shared the sixth floor flat with two strangers. These two, both male, both younger than Kyle, had been friends for years, and on the rare occasions when they did talk with Kyle about such infinitesimal things; the weather, work, the football, he always felt as if he was the punchline to a joke he wasn’t clued in on.        He had heard them planning a party during infrequent trips to the kitchen for food or coffee for this Friday. From what little Kyle had picked up on, there was supposed to be around thirty people attending. His flatmates had listed names of people he didn’t know, and when they asked him if he was going to be about, he shrugged, said maybe, and that he’ll check his schedule.        But there was no schedule, nothing to check. Snow was expected but nothing had drifted down so far. On every road, grit salt glistened under the streetlamps in preparation for a coming whitewash. It would be the first snowfall of the year.        Kyle trod through streets without even paying attention. He had done this walk so many times that it had become automatic. Sometimes, he counted his steps, other times, he mazed over cracks in the pavement. Most times, though, he just walked.        The wind picked up the further he walked, so strong that it whipped into his face and burned his eyes. Cars sped past silently, aside from one of two old models which stuttered and growled at every red light before disappearing behind black smoke. Kyle breathed in the cloud. It reminded him of walking into school with his friends, stepping off the bus into a smog of exhaust, and being sent half-deaf by the roar of the engine as it lurched out of the car park.        He walked past bars and pubs with punters laughing and sharing plates of food and drink. There were Happy Hour deals that drew exhausted professionals into the welcoming warmth of relaxation and a chance to unravel their stress of the week. Tomorrow, they would lie in bed all day, order takeaway, and watch TV, selecting whatever they might feel like watching at the click of a button.        These were the type of people that Kyle had always expected to be when growing up. Sitting in class, he had imagined living in a house with more rooms than he had things to put in them. He dreamed of having enough cars for every day of the year. He wished for a future of early retirement and lounging by the side of his pool as the sun beat down and only having to go inside to make another drink.        Kyle had decided early in his life that he wanted to leave his hometown as soon as he could. He had decided to meet a girl and fall in love and marry her on a beach on the other side of the world. The girls at school had only excited him for a few years, during puberty, but soon he grew tired of them, they weren’t the same girls he watched in movies or on TV. The girls at home were boring. But he still remembered them. The ones he sat next to in class through no choice of their own. Seating plans had forced him away from his friends, the only people he felt comfortable talking to. Instead, he sat in silence next to girls who asked him occasional questions about the work but all he could offer in response was a grunt or a half-sound from the back of his throat whenever he tried to say something.        He had hoped to become more comfortable talking to them as the year progressed. He had hoped that some of the girls, with their exotic smelling perfume, soft skin, and shining hair would perhaps grow to like him and he spent many nights imagining relationships blossoming from these smallest of classroom interactions. His teenage mind saw so far into the future that he would concoct scenarios where they met again, later in life somewhere else in the world. But all that happened was that he said so little during class, that the girl would just talk to everyone else around them. At a crossing, Kyle realised that he had taken a wrong turn, too busy thinking about the past. He checked the time, it was nearly five PM, and he knew his flatmates had taken the day off to prepare for the party, there was no chance of him going home just yet, he didn’t want to say hello and ask the how are yous and shake hands and then hide away in his room, with everybody else all too aware that he was not joining in.        The light changed from a stationary red man to the speedy jaunt of green skipping across the display. The crowd surrounding Kyle bustled and shoved past, knocking him side to side as tired workers barged through and stamped across the road, back to their families, to hot dinners, to the comforts of their homes. But Kyle didn’t move. He stood at the edge of the curb watching cars glide past silently, the owners reclined in their seats, resting after a hard week’s work.        Kyle stared straight ahead for so long his vision blurred and before long people crowded beside and behind him, waiting for their chance to cross. Again, the light changed, and the people moved past him, but Kyle remained still.        And as the light changed back and headlights zoomed past him yet again only then did he feel compelled to walk out into the road. He turned his head and saw an upcoming vehicle rolling towards him. Standing in the middle of the road with street lamps shining down on him, and with the headlights of cars fast approaching he faced the oncoming traffic, tired and elated and ready.        He stood there for some time and the only reason he opened his eyes was because of the blaring of horns that interrupted him imagining something other than life.        The cars had stopped and awoken the passengers which led them to smash their hands onto the seldom-used car horns.        ‘What are you doing?’ came one voice, and then tens and hundreds of others all cancelling each other out, but Kyle knew they were telling him to leave.        He looked at his feet and walked across to the other side of the road, turning back once to see the cars move along and a crowd of people standing staring at him from the other side. He continued walking.        He continued walking but he didn’t know where he was going. Despite living there his whole life, too long spent inside, and the evolution of the city over the past decade had made it unrecognisable. But he didn’t care where he went. He was no longer cold. His heart pumped so loud he could hear it in his ears over the noise of footsteps and tires treading across asphalt.        He walked past a cemetery, dragging his fingers over the fence creating a dinging tempo that reverberated into the evening. At the entrance, he stopped and peered in. All through the graveyard were lights glowing from gravestones. A couple, older than him and wrapped up in winter coats with their breath smoking out and evaporating into the cold. The man was crying, he was trying to suppress it, but the evening had become so quiet that it was unmistakable. The woman, his wife Kyle assumed, held his arm tight, she promised they would come back tomorrow, maybe it would be fixed by then.        What would be fixed? Kyle wondered. The man kissed his wife on the cheek, and they walked away, and Kyle watched them disappear around the corner. He stared back into the cemetery and walked in. He passed gravestones. He had been here before, something like ten or eleven years ago. He had stood in the shade of his sister’s umbrella attired in the conventional black suit, tie, white shirt, and shoes; all brand new, bought just half a day before, for the first funeral he’d ever been to.        And his sister, the one he hasn’t seen in nearly three years, had held his hand as his shoulder jutted up and down as he fought against the tears that no one would have judged him for. And his father tried to read a poem, one he can’t remember, perhaps one written by his father for the occasion, to say goodbye. On that day they had said goodbye to his grandmother. His dad’s mum. His mum’s parents still about, retired to Monaco to live out their days in the sun, watching Formula 1, sipping cocktails at noon, taking pictures to post to social media for their friends and family. This was all before everything became digitalised. Every memory uploaded to an ever-growing cloud. When he was younger, clouds meant rain, sitting inside at school, drawing in his rainy-day book. Clouds meant called off football matches, damp and grey days, staring out the window watching the playground flood, or people racing with shopping bags, umbrella-less into their homes, fiddling with keys until they finally reached salvation. The decision was made to save everything. It didn’t even need any manual effort, a picture taken, a video recorded, a song sung, a meal prepped; all of it instantly saved forever for future generations to study.        But also to remember what they lost. Along with the advent of digitalisation came the idea of showing off people’s highlights on their gravestones; little screens attached to the front with clips of their lives playing foreverconstantly. Kyle had heard about them, but never seen one. His grandmother had died before they were implemented.