Read by Carrie Cohen
I may be the last typesetter in England. And like the last speaker of a tribal language I am increasingly in a world of my own. I speak of ink levels and typefaces, margins and frames, and the young activists nod at me but they cannot really grasp it. They have seen printed works of course – exquisite books in libraries and newspapers in museums. Artefacts from a more beautiful and a more primitive age. Metal. Ink. Paper. To think we once had to cut down forests to share our stories. The clamour of presses, the stink of chemicals.
Light fades from south to north in winter and also from east to west. Out here in the reeds and mud of the estuary it’s possible to time it by the carolling of the terns and gulls rising up as the sun falls away. Winter is our time. We crave the darkness, and we cannot show lights out here. This hour of dusk is our window. An hour is all we really have in any case. If we do not interact with the web at least once every ninety minutes an alarm goes off somewhere. I don’t know where and it’s probably not a real geographical place but somewhere in the system an alert, a tag is generated against a string of code and they will start to monitor more closely.
We leave our devices where we can best retrieve them later. At home, in bike panniers at Greenwich station or inside a decrepit concrete garage close to the old Tilbury dock. Wherever we can ditch them, but not all together. That would make a cluster and clusters also attract increased monitoring. For now, we are off the grid, out of the net and as close to freedom as is possible in this world. For the next hour, the system does not know where we are.
This evening we are expecting two deliveries, one coming upriver from Canvey Island and one coming down. I am the first receiver, lying flat in the wet grass in the dying day. Clammy inside waterproofs, listening for the skim of oars in the water. They won’t risk the outboard so close to the shore. Patrols are few but are known to shoot on sight to deter people smugglers. Migrants still come, though there’s no point without a device. The system will pick them up as soon as they try to interact or transact.
I think of Dickens and Magwitch and prison hulks on the river, some of them still sunk out there in the mud. These marshes lawless and abandoned then. And now again become a place of renegades and outcasts. The barrier failed and the sea reclaimed the flood plains. The city is retreating west now. And north and south to higher ground.
The boat comes so quiet that I almost miss it – an inky shadow against the grey twilight. The crew manoeuvres it to the shore - just a slightly dryer hummock on the edge of the flats. I know these women by reputation, the dragon-boat captain from Oxford and a fish-gutter on leave from the off-shore trawlers out of Grimsby who carries a knife strapped to her thigh. I am a flabby old bird by comparison, with at least thirty years on the oldest of them.
I wade over and steady the ancient wooden skiff. Fish-gutter nods and passes me the waterproof pouch. Too big to go into my pocket so I remove the velvet bag and hand the pouch back.
“Can we see?” she says
“You didn’t look?”
“No. Direct into your hands, we were told.”
We check the horizon on all sides. Nothing,
I open the drawstring and spill them into my hand. Three of them. J, Q, and W. Golden letters lying in my palm. They stare at them. Dragon-Boat touches J with the tip of her finger.
“Beautiful.”
J and Q have travelled all the way from Uganda. W found under the floorboards of an abandoned works in Leipzig. I wrap them carefully and zip them into the inside pocket of my fleece.
“When?”
“Soon.”
I’d like to share more. Their courage is immense. To slip through the shipping channel takes time. Hours out of the net. Alerts will be raised. Monitoring applied.
I push the boat off and in seconds they disappear into the cold. A light fog is swimming helpfully up the river. I trek back to the garage and hand over my cargo.
“Any news?”
“Heard they’re landing it near Gravesend.”
The final piece. If we succeed this night we will soon have a working press. The thought is exhilarating. Knowledge and ideas printed on paper. Passed hand to hand. Shared but not monitored. Outside the system.
I retrieve my device; 35 minutes until I need to interact. Enough time to get back to Greenwich at least and fall in with the evening commuters. Check the weather or some other innocuous transaction
What we are doing is dangerous. Seditious, even. You can’t just walk into a shop and buy paper. You can’t order it on the net. It is contraband. Purchase of materials likely to be of use to terrorists. If you’re innocent you’ve nothing to hide
I board a train at Greenwich. Buy a coffee at London Bridge. Get back on the grid.
But a boat is landing at Gravesend. Soon the clatter of words will spill out again onto pamphlets, posters, news sheets. Unmonitored. Anonymous. Free.
(c) Aileen O'Farrell, 2019
Aileen O’Farrell is a London-based freelance writer and psychotherapist. She writes short stories and flash fiction and has completed her first novel. She has had stories chosen for Liars' League and been listed for awards including Bath Flash and TSS Flash Fiction. Her first short play was staged last year and has since been adapted into a short film.
Carrie Cohen’s theatre includes Sandra in Tick Tock, Penny in Blackstar (both at Arcola Theatre), SLAMinutes at Pleasance & Mrs Tarleton in Misalliance (Tabard). Recent film includes the lead roles of Grace in Just Saying and Rose in Skeletons. Radio includes lead role of Ziggy in Retribution for Write Hour drama podcast. Full CV, showreel and Spotlight link at: www.CarrieCohen.co.uk
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