Circle & Triangle
Phil first met Bill in a record shop on the North Laines, in Brighton. He'd just finished work and he stamped the soil off his boots before he entered the shop, glad to leave the noise of the street behind.
The Laines had been busy that day. The usual rainbow of hippie flags and street performers were all out and enjoying the sun, and he'd had to weave around them as he headed to the store. He didn't resent them for not working — or most of them anyway — their CCS score was high enough to get by on and some of these guys would have been doing well for themselves. They weren't bad people by any stretch. They made the online exercise routines and motivational videos that had become the bread and butter of the post-crash economy.
Three people approached him for Attention, each preaching their own sense of progress. These were the ones he didn't like:
"Hey pal — Follow me: I'll get you firm abs in three weeks with one simple routine! Guaranteed to raise your CCS!" said one, reaching out for Phil and almost grasping at his top.
"You want the truth — send me a Like!" said another, with a conspiratorial nod. "This is everything the mainstream press won't tell you!"
"Wanna know how to get around Pilot? I'm your man. I know the algorithm and with these three simple tricks your posts will be your payday!" The last one went so far as to block Phil's path. "Mate, listen to me: you want Credit… honestly," he leant in close. "I got a system man. Perfect. Guaranteed. Enough to get you some good pussy, eh…? Bet it's been a while…"
That was far enough for Phil. "Fuck off, twat!" He barged past him and carried on his way. Then he felt his phone vibrate and knew that he'd been reported. Whoever else the guy was, he was probably in enough Credit for a negative Engagement to impact Phil and he got annoyed at himself for losing his temper. A warden glanced across at him. Phil gestured with his hands, acknowledging that he'd made a mistake, and was left alone.
The exchange left him feeling bitter. The whole idea of the CCS was to create a system of financial reward that was based on social benefit. But there were always gamers who came along and broke the system. There was nothing good you could give humanity that it couldn't turn to shit. AI should have freed us all; it was no surprise that twat-bags like that had dedicated their lives to breaking it.
Phil didn't Connect with any of them. He hardly reached out at all, which is why he still topped up his minimum Civil Credit Score with a job as a gardener. It was the only way to get by, but he also enjoyed the work. It kept him outside — which was still refreshing, despite the heat — and he was largely left alone.
He hated the way the world worked though, and the way people pretended it was all ok. He hated the Creative Economy and everything it had done, he hated the constant badgering and fear mongering and profiteering, and the desperate need for Attention. Life had somehow been reduced to a constant scream of look at me; a guttural human need that now drove the economy. It could be withdrawn or gorged upon and it was this process that created the strange combination of egotists and neurotics that seemed to make up most of society these days.
This was why Phil spent his time listening to old music, from back in the days when people used to dream that the world could still become a better place.
He was slowly flicking through some scuffed Leonard Cohen records and listening to an MP3 player on shuffle when Bill suddenly appeared at his shoulder.
"Cohen's great," Bill said; and though the line came out of nowhere — and although Phil had never seen Bill before — it didn't make him jump. In fact he barely even looked across; it was almost as though Bill's voice had come from somewhere inside of him.
"But you're similar," Bill went on. "Bitter searching of your hearts."
Phil laughed, though the line took him close to a part of himself where he kept memories of his father and he was lost momentarily. He looked across and into the eyes of the man standing next to him; almost leaning into him. For a long time his mind became empty; he was slightly spun out; and then — for the briefest moment — it was his father in front of him, as he used to be, years ago; and then it wasn't. It was the stranger again.
"You gonna ring them bells Phil?" Bill asked, squaring up slightly. "Let in the light?"
Phil withdrew, suddenly aware of how close Bill was standing.
He was about to step away when Bill grabbed his arm and held him back. Startled, Phil met his eyes again and Bill held them and for a moment Phil was lost and he didn't like it. Suddenly, everything that was warm and paternal about the stranger switched and Phil saw a glimpse of fiery rage. "Remember Graham Hall, Phil," Bill growled, through clenched teeth. Then he let go of Phil's arm and something like regret washed across his face. "Remember Graham Hall…" he repeated. "And there is still a chance that we can save your people."
Phil stared at him, wide-eyed and fearful. Bill looked around the shop, nervous and almost in a panic. He turned to look back at Phil and smiled briefly, sadly, and then left in a hurry.
Despite the strangeness of the situation, the name was what remained.
He did remember Graham Hall.
Where did he remember him from?
The name touched something deep and painful, and although he couldn't quite grasp it, he wanted to.
His eyes drifted down the display as he heard Bill's voice echo around his head, as though seeding and re-seeding a thought: "Remember Graham Hall… remember Graham Hall… Find a still, silent place and remember Graham Hall… remember Graham Hall."
-
Graham Hall… Graham Hall… who the fuck was Graham Hall? It rang a bell but nothing more.
He'd searched up the name a half hour later, after he'd got back home again. The only reference was a Wikipedia entry about a little-known musician from the 60s who was known for his angry verse and gravelly voice. That made sense — and it meant it was from his dad. There was a list of albums in the entry — Broken Seed, The Rabid Monk, Traveller Scholar Poet — but not much more.
He started his computer and opened his journal and stared at the cursor for a while. Then he went to the fridge and poured a glass of wine. The sun was setting and he didn't have work the next day so maybe he had some time to remember. For the first time in a while, he felt like he had a purpose.
Broken Seed, that had done it.
I'm your broken seed… that was a line from one of his songs.
He stared out of the window, across a line of grey roofs. I'm your broken seed… you're nothing but an… animal? And I'm your broken seed….
He shook his head. He didn't like it, so he picked up his phone and began to scroll.
Though he never engaged, he watched the world with the detachment of the serial scroller. It was almost like a form of meditative state that he fell into as he swiped through images and video and words of encouragement; but in his case it was a meditation on loathing.
He took a break to go to the toilet and open a bottle of whiskey, then he turned to his journal. Within a few hours, he was halfway through the whiskey and back to writing about his ex-girlfriend, Madeleine.
I'm so sorry that I wasn't more. I'd wanted to reach out, I'd wanted to connect, but I couldn't find the heart to love myself much less face someone else. I'm not surprised I managed to find a way out of that safety; to reject you; to throw it back into your face, and tear it to pieces, and destroy everything we had. If there was only a way back, but this world is not a place for livers, lovers, brothers or children with mothers…
It was gone three am before he fell into bed.
Though he couldn't remember when or how he'd done it, amidst the incoherent rambling, he wrote a single verse in his journal:
During the next day, while he cleared gardens in Queen's Park he was constantly distracted by fragments of lyrics that came to him — Our world was built out of so many mirrors / We've lost which face is our own… Don't ask me for nothing and you won't be disappointed… — on their own they were nothing… just a feeling, but he knew they connected to something bigger.
On the way home, he bought his usual wine and noodles with a strange kind of determination and then went back to his flat and tried to remember his house and his dad's records… and his dad, and he tried to place Graham Hall in the middle of it.
Phil's dad had died a few months earlier, alone and in poverty; and although they'd rarely spoken in the years beforehand, the manner of his death — he'd been dead for a week before anyone found him — had hit Phil hard.
Despite having his journal, he started a new document in Word. He stared at the blank screen for so long it grew out of focus, his hands lightly brushing the letters on the keyboard.
He could remember his dad's old house in Bristol as being always in shadow, and he moved through it in search of his father: down the blue-walled, purple-carpeted corridor — his mind's eye like a cinematic tracking shot — toward the smoke of the living room, to where his dad was drinking and thinking and listening to Graham Hall.
Then he wrote the word: I
He wrote them out slowly and deliberately, without thinking about the previous one. They were just five words that felt right.
He looked it back over: I don't want nothing more
What did Hall want?
And then he stopped and sat back and took a drink. Then he arranged the lines and added a word and read:
And a woman to share in the magic, Phil wrote, and his stomach momentarily reeled from the realisation. It was almost enough for him to lose the flow, but before he stopped he tipped over the moment and wrote:
After he finished he stayed still for a long time, feeling his body acclimatise itself to a gentle pain that moved around his core. He sat back and read it through twice.
He stayed up writing until he was so drunk he couldn't see properly and then crashed into bed, pulling the blinds shut to keep out the daylight.
The second time he saw Bill, Phil was sitting on a bench in Preston Cemetery. He'd spent the morning tending to the plots, clearing them of bramble and nettles. At the time, he'd been eating his lunch and staring into the distance and dreaming about changing the world. His current fantasy had been running for a couple of weeks, on and off. He replayed large parts of it like a film he edited as he watched.
In it, he'd been declared a wanted man by the Government for expressing dangerously liberal views and garnering so much support that it seemed revolution wouldn't be far off. In one last-ditch attempt to stop him he was captured by idealistic young hicks (who he suspected were wardens in disguise) who tortured him, streaming the video live on the internet. He escaped moments before an execution that would have been seen by millions. After killing his captors he drove cross-country to London, where, with helicopter cameras circling, he was reunited tearfully with his ex-girlfriend, Madeleine, who told him she loved him, and only him, and always had, and always would. And then he died in her arms, because he couldn't imagine a better way to end it.
Phil was just building up to the big reunion — he was driving the truck and nursing a bullet wound in his side — when Bill suddenly piped up: "Amazing places, cemeteries," he said. This time, Phil did jump, like he'd been caught out.
"I honestly think," Bill went on. "That the world would be a better place if people spent a little longer reflecting on the condition of the dead." Then he looked across at Phil and smiled. And despite his outfit — he was dressed in a rough woollen jumper and jeans, and short wellington boots with a ring of fur around the top (he looked like he should be reading the Sunday papers in a country pub somewhere in Surrey) — Bill's smile did nothing to soften the strange fire that still burnt in his eyes.
"You ok?" Bill asked, after Phil had stared for long enough to establish that he wasn't.
Bill waited.
Phil stared some more.
"You remembered Graham Hall yet?" Bill asked brightly. Then he smiled and waited for Phil to pull himself together.
"Yeah, I…" He was about to start answering questions when it occurred to him to ask: "Who are you?"
"I'm just… visiting some relatives," Bill said, gesturing indiscriminately at the graves. "Don't worry." Then he breathed deeply and that seemed to settle the discussion. Then he repeated his question: "Have you remembered Graham Hall yet?"
"Well, yeah, maybe…" Phil was unable to shake the feeling that he was still in the middle of a dream. "I wrote this… I remembered it earlier today." He opened the notes app on his phone. "I think it's him…"
Bill smiled and took the phone:
Bill looked up when he'd finished but seemed to roll his eyes a little in a strange kind of disappointment. "That's him for sure," he said and then sat forward and rested his elbows on his knees. "But don't dwell on… that side of things, you know." He looked like he'd checked himself in thought and then sat back. "There's a lot of… Graham Hall was very hurt," he said. "But don't turn it all inwards. Don't blame yourself, son. You were born perfect, and then…" he wafted a hand around at the world… "all this happened and… that's what broke you, really. I understand the pain, Phil, I really do… but don't blame yourself." He looked across at Phil and the fire in his eyes was now a warming Christmas hearth: "It's the world that needs to change, you see, not you."
Phil hung his head. "Yeah," was all he said.
"Dark days are coming Philip," Bill said with a slightly melodramatic sense of gravitas. "And you might be the only one who can stop them now."
That took Phil by surprise. I mean, the whole thing should have done, but for some reason Bill's appearance seemed so natural and the memories of Graham Hall seemed so real that he wasn't really taken aback until Bill suggested that he might be the one who could fix it. "What do you mean by that?" Phil asked.
Bill was looking across at two mourners standing at a nearby grave, who stared back at him curiously.
"Keep looking back," Bill said. "There's a lot more." He returned Phil's phone. "But don't get dragged into self-pity. Your father was an amazing man, and so are you. Remember the best of him, the strength he showed, and try to speak with the voice he never had."
Phil didn't reply. The couple seemed to be making a move in his direction which led him to sit upright and wave as though to check that everything was ok.
"I better get going," Bill said and left in a hurry.
Phil watched him go, lost in thought. But it wasn't until he walked behind a tree and didn't come out the other side that he took a double-take on how weird the whole thing was.
-
Phil had written a lot when he was younger, scribbling on jotter pads that had remained in his mother's loft until her death and their destruction. More recently, he'd dedicated hours to free-writing in his diary, to hear the sound of his own voice as much as anything. But remembering Hall was different. Hall was found in a feeling that grew in his guts; a rush of adrenaline that set his heart racing. He felt like something had become alive inside of him, and if he didn't feed it, it would eat him up from within. It was hungry and he was becoming addicted.
And then — because he was remembering the lyrics to songs — music began taking shape in his mind: an echo of clean-cut strings and an icy guitar line chilled the corridor that ran through his dad's house like a crooked spine. He could smell the damp carpets, smoke and drink. And his dad was silently listening to Hall pluck strings on his guitar like a funeral march, while a single violin rose above it like a phantom.
It was warlike, but intensely sad; like the sound of impotent rage:
In spare moments in the gardens, he'd trawl the net looking for any other references to Hall but even the Wikipedia article had been removed. It seemed like he was the only person who remembered him now and it became Phil's mission to preserve this work for the world.
He went to a local print shop and printed it up on A4 sheets and began cutting round the words and sticking them to the walls of his flat, designing layouts that would highlight ideas or themes.
Though it was all written by Hall, it seemed like there were whole sections about relationships — and it felt as though the breakdown of his relationship with Madeleine was written in these lines — and reams about his parents (Hall's parents.) The crossover was astonishing. And now that he could see it all, spread out in lines and stanzas, he could see how clearly the collapse of one had led to the inevitable collapse of the other: he'd inherited his parents' mess and it had doomed his chance of love.
It was all here, in Hall's lyrics:
Eventually he ran out of wall space, and so he started sticking string to the ceiling and hanging pieces of verse in the middle of the room that spun gently, like dark dream catchers. As he did this he'd often be reminded of something new, and he'd return to the desk and begin writing again:
For forty days and nights he worked incessantly; barely sleeping, rarely eating. When the well was dry, he'd stand in his room and perform verse to the wall, remembering the songs that went along with them.
Over time something changed in Phil, as though the beast he'd awoken was absorbing itself into him and it turned the quiet, uncomfortable, passive man into a quiet, uncomfortable, angry man.
He hated his world. He'd always hated it, but in a passive way. Over the course of that month or so he learnt to hate it deeply and passionately and with a venom and a purpose that he'd never seen before. It was like a moment of sobriety, or an epiphany — something he'd always known but never fully understood.
Who were these fucking people?
Who did they think they were?
Not just the influencers — the shallow, narcissistic, vain, egotistical beggars, desperate to be seen and accepted — but the ring-masters as well. The luxurious rich who watched over it all and pretended it was ok and they were deserving of their position by virtue of the fact that they were simply so adept at enjoying it.
He often worked on the gardens in Withdean or Roedean or Tongdean; huge houses with long lawns he manicured, and bushes he carefully pruned. He never saw the residents: their gates were opened automatically, security monitored with AI; he held conversations with housekeeping robots who spoke with an imitation of enthusiasm that made him want to smash them into pieces.
The wealth he saw was astonishing. While he worked he ran it over in his head: he earned a few hundred tokens a day for what he did, and a dozen tokens was a Credit, and a few hundred of them was a Sat and a hundred million of them was a Coin. A hundred million… he did the maths as he sifted the soil and trimmed the bushes and looked at the blades of grass… Their wealth was astonishing.
And generated from what?
Everyone knew it was just a matter of luck; thousands of years of economic development had all come down to a game of musical chairs: if you'd ended up Coined after the AI Crash, you were set for life on another level.
Admittedly, some of these people would have sat on the high end of the Civil Credit Score, but most of them were Coined and this was just their seaside pad. These guys worked for the banks, the server centres, and CCTV control rooms; they set the targets, monitored behaviour, and ran the algorithms that ensured compliance. They were the reason his father's payments had been stopped; the reason his father had died alone, in the Slums.
He'd died alone, and in the Slums.
The fucking Slums.
They'd left his father to die in the Slums.
Whatever else he'd done, he hadn't deserved that.
On those days he didn't work so well at his job. On some of those days he was so angry that he either wouldn't do anything, he'd just stand and stare at a rose bush as though he was going to smash it in the face, or he'd work at small pieces of horticultural sabotage. It was pathetic really, but he'd over-trim the bushes or mis-plant the bulbs, or feed weedkiller into the wrong patch of flowers, or lay rodent bait with no trap. He'd pull healthy shoots or leave stems he should have cut, dreaming strange revenge fantasies of Triffid-style plants strangling the home-owners with bloody, thorny arms.
Why was he here anyway, giving his life over to the demands of excess?
He hated them all. Not just the rich, but the whole fucking lot of them. He'd stare at the robotic housecleaners patrolling carefully designed living rooms, imagining them as prison guards, patrolling the perimeter fence.
Besides, he didn't have to work. He had a score still; it wouldn't last him long, that was true, but long enough that he could do something that would be remembered. He wouldn't turn to anything as petty as Attention Grabbing for Credit; he'd rather go down in a blaze of glory and burn the fucking lot of them.
On some of those days, he left work feeling ten feet high, his resolution making him a king amongst men. But then he'd get home and Hall would be there waiting for him; his aching heart would be there again, still searching for love amidst the shame. It worked like a shot of cold truth that reminded him of his place.
On some of those days he'd go out walking, and get some distance, and try to forget about Graham Hall.
On one of those days he walked all across Brighton — along Hove lawns and up Kingsway and then North into Aldrington and past Hove station, Denmark Villas, and along the Shoreham Road to Seven Dials. He dropped down New England Road and past the old Duke of York's Picturehouse — the oldest cinema in the country apparently. When he'd first arrived in Brighton it was famous for still showing old movies, classics from the 20th Century, but it was bought out a few years ago and now screened the same shit as everywhere else: AI generated hero films.
He turned away from town and walked up Ditchling Rise and down the other side, then doubled back towards the Level. He stopped for a long time by St Peters Church, staring up at it and lost in thought. It was empty now. Derelict. They'd tried to turn it into a performance area a few years ago, but there was no-one left to perform and the only time anything had happened in it recently was when some kids had broken in for a stunt.
There was nothing left here. Nothing had value anymore. He looked around him, in the black of night, amidst the plastic glow of streetlights, at a barren wasteland of a space. Inside every building he'd walked past, people would have been eagerly generating digital interactions but the space itself — the real world — was lost to them. There was an alien kind of silence about it all that made Phil feel alone but exalted, because he did see it. He walked to a tree and put a hand on its trunk. He fucking loved trees. They just did their thing; there was no desire to be anymore than they were. He even laughed at himself as he thought that, but he believed in it enough to bring himself back to sobriety and think the thought again.
Suddenly there was a shout from across the street and he looked across and saw a lone male, dressed in torn jeans, with a dirty top on and no shoes. He was shouting at himself and then out and into the night and then he punched himself in the chest and collapsed to his knees. In a moment, he looked behind himself and then scrambled to his feet and began to run. A car pulled up and two wardens exited and grabbed him and dragged him, kicking and shouting, into the car. A few windows cracked light as curtains were parted and then the car drove off and the windows were blackened out again. Phil was left with his hand on the trunk in the still, silent darkness again.
He reminded himself that he couldn't lose this job.
He had nothing else.
He had no-one else.
He would remain silent and play the game and then die alone.
Sometimes he hated the fact, but the fact remained: he was his father's son.
-
In the end, the decision was made for him.
His manager was young, with a head of curls like a wire brush. He was clean-shaven and wore a suit. His hands were soft and had never touched dirt in their lives. He didn't smile as Phil entered the room, and throughout their interview never once looked like anyone other than someone who enjoyed what they did.
"Your work is simply below par," he said. "When you do anything at all."
He gestured to a monitor and tapped his keyboard. The video showed Phil, in one of the gardens in Withdean. Phil was standing, stock still, and staring at the house. The bushes near to him rustled gently in the wind, but to look at Phil it could almost have been a photograph. He let the video play for a while before speaking again.
"Plants do respond well to humans, and so, by chance, you had a good opportunity here. One of the few real jobs that remain. But I'm afraid that we won't be continuing with your contract." He smiled. "I'm sure you understand."