CONTENTS:
I. Introductory.
II. Monday: Nailsworth. Formerly Australia.
III. Tuesday: Blake. Formerly New Zealand.
IV. Wednesday: Brail. Formerly Fiji.
V. Thursday: Campbell. Formerly United Kingdom.
VI. Friday: Maxwell. Formerly Africa.
VII. Saturday: Tientsin. Formerly Europe.
VIII. Sunday: Diamantina. Formerly North America.
IX. The return.
In 1888, seven years before H.G. Wells published The Time Machine, Catherine Helen Spence published an SF novel called A Week in the Future. You can read the story online at Gutenberg .
In all honesty, although well-meaning, it isn’t a very good novel. It is Catherine Spence’s idea of Utopia; equality, no crime, every child cared for, family a strong unit, no advertising, no gambling, no horse-racing.
I wondered how she would imagine 2088, and have written the story with this in mind: she had not actually seen any of the developments of the 20th and 21st centuries. In the novel about 1988, for example, she couldn’t imagine a world without hats, aprons and slaves.
I wondered, though, if she wrote this near the end of her life in 1910, when perhaps none of her dreams of Utopia seemed possible, would she see a darker future?
1988 ends this way:
My week has come to an end. Short though it has been, it has been full of interest, full of all that I have accounted life. A good exchange for a year or two of mere existence.
“Now, Lord, let Thy servant depart in peace, now that I have seen the salvation wrought by brotherhood for the families of the earth.”
I. Introductory.
The idea of returning to 1888 filled me with dread. All that awaited me was a hospital bed with the sheets so tight and binding I could hardly breathe. And what good could I do then?
So very, very little.
With the tug of my true time pulling at me, the memory of the pain gnawing, I resolved that I would not go back.
I would go forward.
I would take another week in the future, whether or not it meant a lessening of my time on Earth. 1988 was so ordered, so well sorted, I could only imagine what 2088 would be like.
If Doctor Brown were here, I’m sure he would have said my heart would not take it. That I was sixty-two and beyond adventure. He would sit me in his waiting room with the large piles of Scientific American and ask me to calm myself. Fortunately, he was not here.
How to obtain the vehicle of my travel, a potion of mandragora, though? It did not seem possible that the plant still existed. I knew that the path in Doctor Brown’s back garden was lined with it, but I was far from there in time and space.
Still, needs must, and as ever, anything needed can be found, this time at the hand of a young man I caught loitering. Will there ever be a time when young men are not useful? Perhaps the future will tell. I believe the world would end at such a time. Before he departed, I said to him, “I am Emily Bethel.” I felt he needed to know my name or, more truly, I needed him to know it. He nodded, the dear young man, and left me to my travels.
I poured the contents into a wine glass (a little wine, a little water) and I drank, sinking into a sense of peace, so sweet. All illness gone, all weariness, dismay, tiredness. Such calm. I knew what was to come, though.
A spasm, so great I thought my soul would shake loose, then darkness, then…
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II. Monday: Nailsworth. Formerly Australia.
(Excerpt)
I hoped to arrive in Adelaide, South Australia. I had thought to visit my beloved home town and expected to find blue skies over our glorious buildings, with the voices of the familiar, and wide streets and a place to purchase a new hat.
Instead, I awoke sitting in a stationary train. The carriage was filthy, the floor covered with I dare guess not. Across from me, I thought a child slept, from the size, but as she woke I saw she was a grown woman, but small.
She stretched and yawned. “What is the time?” she asked me, as if I were a great clock. “Oh, no, we must rush.”
She gathered me along, much strength in her arms.
“Are we in Adelaide?” I asked.
“Adelaide? Adelaide drowned ninety years ago, along with the rest of it.”
“The rest of what?”
“The coast,” she said, looking at me sidelong. “And most of the inland. All we have left is Central Australia. Why do you think we are so crowded?”
As she spoke we stepped down into red dirt and I saw the truth. There was a mass of people thronging to and fro with purpose. The stench grew and I covered my nose.
I was to discover that this smell was ‘petrol’ from one direction, ‘coal’ from another. And ‘beer’ from a third.
Electric lights powered the streets and electric machines hummed to keep people moving.
Our beautiful country Australia was now called Nailsworth, after the place where coal was found near Adelaide.
I would find many name changes in this time.
Were we still British-run, I wondered? Or had Asia come to the fore, or Russia? I thought perhaps the churches would tell me. Religion is a clear indicator of who rules. I hoped that perhaps religion was not sectarian and very much separate from state. I found instead there was no religion at all, unless you consider worship of the coin, and of alcohol, a religion.
While 1988 had seemed almost familiar, 2088 was as strange to me as my world would seem to a creature from the beginning of time.
In 1988, families had shared large homes.
Now, families were so displaced by all the distillation factories for coal, petrol, and beer that they lived in enormous buildings, one family to a room. In 1988 such things existed but they were pleasantly communal. With a three-child limit then, there had been no chance of overcrowding.
Here, the country half drowned by the surrounding oceans, with millions moved here to work in the mines and the distillation factories, they were literally on top of each other. The children were kept inside, I supposed, because I had not seen a single one, boy or girl.
I travelled to the very edge of the remaining country only to find it edged in steel wire. “For Your Safety, signed the Examiner of Interferences”. In my day, this role considered inventions and their uses; I supposed this at least had not changed.
I walked along the steel wire, hoping to find somebody real.
I saw no one. I wondered where the children were. I saw none.
I have some contempt for deserting fathers, but here, too, it seemed, were abandoning mothers. Children who become orphans no longer have protection; too many have died showing this.
I came to a large railway station and asked to where they travelled.
“New Zealand.”
I must admit I laughed, thinking this a fine jest. New Zealand was many days by sea voyage! And yet they sold me a ticket (somehow I had money in my pocket) and I settled down for the journey.
It seemed that differences amongst the nations had become so extreme that each island (because they were all such now) had its own purpose.
Australia was a distillation plant.
New Zealand, it seemed, a floating laboratory.
What else would I discover?
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III. Tuesday: Blake. Formerly New Zealand.
(Excerpt)
It was a long journey, but I spent the time talking to my fellow passengers to ascertain the nature of this world we now lived in. I found them, on the whole, uninformed dullards.
They knew nothing of developments with the incandescent lamp, nor of the journey to the North Pole of Besancon and Hermitt. In the end, I allowed them to tell me odd little stories that amused them greatly, while we ate ever more curious and yet tasty foods.
As we approached New Zealand, I saw massive metal cranes, dozens of them. “The anchors,” my companions told me. The North Island drowned and the South floats. So they keep it anchored, until they want to move it.”
“Why would they want to move it?”
“It is a laboratory. It travels the ocean making tests, seeking answers.”
The Good Ship Blake was a Floating Laboratory in 1888 and thus came the name of this country.
“To what?” I asked, but they did not seem to know.
To the future, I ventured, but that was not something they cared to consider. All they cared about was tabling their results, with little analysis. They were blind to all else.
All who lived here were involved with science. I admit I found it difficult to fathom. They lived in cubicles, alone, isolated socially for the most part, communicating little.
“Where are the schools”, I asked. “Where are the children?”
“We are sterile, here. All of us asexual and sterile. How else would we get our work done? Children are nothing but time drains.”
“But they are your future,” I said, appalled.
Again, the concept of the future seemed to hold little meaning for them.
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IV. Wednesday: Brail. Formerly Fiji.
(Excerpt)
Another train journey, this time to Brail (Fiji).
I think Louis Braille may be pleased in some ways but saddened in others.
On this island, all are blind. There is not one sighted person amongst them. My fellow passengers were all blind, and chattered excitedly about their new life ahead. Certainly it seemed idyllic.
They did not use electricity so there was none of that awful hum. There was no sin, no violence, no crime. All were married (but children? Where were the children?) and there was no disease. The early vaccinators were right.
I only say Braille would be saddened because none read here in this place named for him.
Still, they seemed very happy and I would have liked to stay but the train beckoned, a new destination.
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V. Thursday: Campbell. Formerly the United Kingdom.
(Excerpt)
On the journey to Campbell (Dr Campbell was a well-known vegetarian advocate) I wondered if the deadly war between labour and capital had ended, or if the cutthroat competition for cheapness had led to catastrophe. It was not hard to imagine.
In this place, gambling had a frightening presence. Horse racing! As vile a sport as any devised, and yet they were obsessed. I spoke to an anxious man, who said that his family relied on his winnings. I must have tutted, because he said, “Your family?”
“My mother passed over.” I felt a sudden chill to realise my mother had been dead some 200 years. That there would be nothing left of her physical self.
And yet still I struggled at times to find a life of my own.
“My mother needed care, so I didn’t find the time for my own family.” I found no trace of my family. My dear niece Florrie most certainly had children, but I found no trace of them, nor of their children, nor of their children’s children. I would need half a year to find anyone at all.
“A shame,” he said, and I realised that he was being overly pleasant with me. I supposed him to be over fifty, although it is so difficult to tell in this time when facial preservation has come far. I must look ancient beyond all measure to them.
I knew that in 1988, the process of early marriage for all and protection of family and child had minimised greatly crime, vice, poverty and illegitimacy. I see that now, all this is gone. I can only imagine what will come. The degradations of old: cannibalism, infanticide, war, pestilence, prostitution; all fail if we fail to care for our children properly.
My deepest regret should be that I had none of my own, but truly, I found no man with whom I would spend a life. Am I at fault in that? Perhaps.
Every girl in my time knew that if she was tolerably pleasant, she could be married.
I did not choose to be tolerably pleasant.
Here, I discovered all citizens to be vegetarian. At least they imagined they were. Instead, they ate meat by-products made to appear as vegetable matter.
I was summarily ejected from the island on raising this point.
As I waited at the train station, a carload of young people arrived. The citizens cheered, greatly welcoming. “New blood!” they said.
This gives me hope.
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VI. Friday: Maxwell. Formerly Africa.
(Excerpt)
When once this vast land made up many countries, now it is only one, with the coastline shrinking until only Tanzania, with Kilimanjaro, and some surrounding lands remain.
What exists here is a massive sorting demon, which appears to manipulate most of the world’s movements.
James Clark Maxwell invented this machine. What strangeness! A sorting demon so large it displaces an entire country!
It is in control of everything from the underground electric railway, which connects all, to the clothing industry. How different it is to the South Australian Co Operative clothing company!
Vanity has risen.
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VII. Saturday: Tientsin. Formerly Europe.
(Excerpt)
Chomage still weighs on my mind as it ever did. Only with employment do we find self-esteem, self-worth and self-improvement. Who would choose to be a beggar?
On the once-great continent of Europe I found little employment of any kind. I can barely speak of what I did find
Beggars everywhere, yet no one to beg from.
An opium haze from border to border. The Treaty of Tientsin 1838 saw a large amount of cocaine imported to the UK.
I thought of the mandrake that facilitated my journey here and wondered if perhaps it might be a better substance for them.
Still no children. “They are at home,” I was told time and time again.
I could not bear the smell of the place.
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VIII. Sunday: Diamantina. Formerly North America.
We travelled so quickly it was like a trip from Adelaide to Melbourne.
I remembered this: my friends saying, “You caught cold on the journey (Adelaide, from Melbourne).”
I said, “I have done nothing of the sort. I am hoarse because there were people in the carriage I am not likely to see again. I had important things to tell them.”
At last: children! The train was full of infants. The youngest were mere weeks old, cared for by a number of nurses.
There were some sullen-faced adults, and I could not establish a rapport with any of them, much as I tried.
Instead, I helped out with the babies, to the nurses’ silent gratitude.
As I travelled, I reflected on all I had seen. This was not the happy world of 1988. It had none of the potential.
There was a terrible screeching of brakes on the other track and we witnessed the most horrendous accident. Our train paused momentarily. I could only hope that lessons could be learnt, because nothing in this life comes without benefit. Not even the very, very worst. I tried to exit the train in order to help, but it seemed the doors would not open.
All I could do was watch helplessly as the carriages burned. We all sat with our faces pressed to the window. Some were weeping; others seemed distant, as if they could not bear to watch.
Three people escaped; we watched them climb through the roof. We cheered, all of us, watching these three young people, while clearly burnt and injured, run along the top of the train. They carried nothing. And there was nowhere to go but along the tracks, because we were in the middle of the ocean.
Our train departed again and I did not see what happened to them.
We arrived in Diamantina, and any hopes I had for the future were dashed.
This country was a mockery of all I had believed in. It was nothing but a poorly run, un-caring orphanage, named for Diamantina, a cruel orphanage in Brisbane.
Was the barbarous practice of war responsible? I asked a sensible-seeming girl how they came to be here.
“We are all orphans. No one can be expected to care for us, so we come here to make a life of our own.”
“Was it war?”
She looked at me sidelong. “There is no war anymore. Each of the seven countries has its role and each is happy to fulfil it.”
There was that, at least. “And where will you go? Once you are grown?”
“I won’t know what train I’m on. I could end up anywhere.”
It seemed that when they reached seventeen, they were placed on the first train, regardless of destination. They could end up in Nailsworth, in Blake, in Campbell, in Tientsin or in Maxwell or Brail.
I could think of nothing more to say to her.
In 1988 I had felt convinced that we were on the brink of a great social and industrial revolution, which would alleviate suffering, better mankind and improve our very planet Earth.
I could see now that the revolution had taken place, but, sadly, I saw little betterment at all.
In 1988 the Associated Homes with their gentle but continued pressure all but extinguished the awful and addictive habits of old.
So devastating to see this lost.
I was delighted to see the youngsters in school, although the teachers left something to be desired. It is my understanding they are sent here as an alternative to prison. Only the best of them saw this as a chance for redemption. There are teachers whose classes are a joy.
The rest of them seemed to treat the job as punishment itself.
I met one good teacher, a Miss Tosh, and we got along famously, sharing many a meal. I was not yet used to all the stares I received and she kindly explained, “They are unused to the sight of older people. Even the teachers must depart by the age of twenty-eight.”
She took me into her classroom and had me talk of history. I do believe those children were on the edge of their seats.
“Were you there when the comets landed?” one asked.
“2015,” the teacher whispered.
“No, I was not.” They did not ask me how I had missed that, given my birthdate, and none of them thought to question me further.
They excitedly explained the damage done; the tides rising, the plates shifting.
I am forthright and it shows in my eyes and face. Here, amongst the children, with their honest, if sometimes vile or unpleasant or unintelligent reactions, it was refreshing. Honesty is the way forward. I hoped they wouldn’t lose it but I was fairly sure they would.
Children went to school, and they worked to keep the basic facilities open. The drone-like adults fortunately managed most of the work.
There was little ‘good’ play, though. No gentle games. All of it wild. The young girls dressed like boys so there was no difference in the way they played or ran.
I believe that games, rhythmical, musical and orderly, which the little ones learned, with the avoidance of all horseplay, and all humiliating possibilities, are the beginnings of social, helpful intercourse.
At first glance, you might think that with proper care, these children, these apparent orphans, could grow. We have been so awful to our orphans in the past. Without a family, they have no one to care for them.
How was this not considered in establishing this hellish place? Were no lessons learnt from the past?
I came across a group of young girls. One was crying; the others appeared to have turned their backs on her.
“What is it?” I asked, hoping to comfort her. I thought again that without kind adult intervention, children would not learn kindness.
“Ah, don’t mind her. She is a very annoying girl. She is crying because her brother is a murderer and everyone knows it.”
“Not true!” the girl said. “He did not cause that accident!”
On further questioning, I understood that three young people (in fact, the ones I had seen escaping the terrible train accident I had witnessed) had been charged with causing that accident. There was no court case; as survivors, they were held to blame. One hundred and eighty-two people had died in the crash and ‘someone had to pay’, the authorities said.
“What level of insanity is this?” I said. No one would listen.
To my utter devastation, these children were charged with mass murder and sentenced to death. They were brought back to Diamantina, as if the children needed to be terrified into behaving themselves. I tried to push them to act, but not even the young men would respond. I thought, “You are weak and useless,” and I thought, “This, perhaps, is the end of the world.”
I tried and failed to stop their execution. How is such a thing even considered?
I collapsed. It seemed hopeless, and I was drained of all energy.
All health.
The children left me there in the dust. Some came to poke at me. One burnt me with a match. One tried to steal from me but I mustered a snarl that scared her off.
This was our future.
I felt destroyed.
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IX. The return
I think that I will keep travelling into the future until my past catches up with me.
When there was still hope in my heart of survival (because we do know of our own passing) I thought the world a good place. But now I am dying, the world seems dark and bent on destruction. Have I imagined it all? And yet here is the bare patch of skin burnt by that child. And I can feel the texture of these new clothes, tight and binding.
Tight
And
Binding.
“Another Week in the Future, an excerpt” by Kaaron Warren