Кори Доктороу - Make Shift - Dispatches from the Post-Pandemic Future

“Mate, it’s all set up. It’ll be great.”

“So many people, though. It makes me nervous.”

And I think, yeah, no shit, as it should. We’re on lockdown for a reason. The latest coronavirus isn’t as deadly as the Big One, but it spreads fast and parties are like petri dishes. These little twerps are endangering themselves and their neighbors and the grandmothers who probably make knedlíky for them.

The taller of the two teens just shrugs. “Wait until you see the place, mate. It’s perfect.”

“Next stop: working class.”

That last bit comes from the tram itself, which is pulling away from the Pražská tržnice stop where nobody ever gets on, seeing as it’s an open-air market and those are all closed during a spike. The translator app got overzealous. It meant to say next stop: Dělnická, a street that hasn’t been industrial or working class for a very long time but still bears the name.

The teens are still chattering about their party, but I’ve got my own concerns now. Getting out of a seat is a lot slower than it used to be.

THE TRAM BANKS ONTO KOMUNARDŮ, PAST THE NEW DRONE-PAINTED GRAFFITIinstallation. That means I’ve got about ninety seconds to prepare myself. I scoot all the way to the edge of the molded plastic, hinge myself over to grab the straps of the grocery bags, then brace the better of my two shoulders against the seat in front of me.

When the tram slides to a halt just outside the Vietnamese restaurant, I use the rock-back momentum to heave up onto my feet. It’s smooth, which makes me feel proud, and then feeling proud of getting smoothly out of a seat makes me feel vaguely ashamed—that old cycle. The tram doors whisk open and I stump down the steps.

The teens spill off too, which means I heard them right about Dělnická, and start ambling toward the zebra crossing. Even the way they walk is obnoxious. All free and flappy and gangly. Their vertebral columns are still stretching skyward, talking back to gravity. Every bit of them’s still on the way up instead of on the way down—which makes it even more infuriating that they’re planning a corona party. They have no idea what it’s like to be on the way down. To be fragile.

One of them elbows the button for the zebra crossing. They’re heading the same way as me, down my very street, so I speed up a little and follow them across the tram track. I used to have a bad knee and a good knee; now I’ve got a bad knee and a worse knee. Both of them click. One’s just a bit more sore.

Fortunately, the kids are in no rush. They’re both buried in their phones again, meandering along, and they don’t notice me tailing them. Tailing them. Ha. Like I’m some sort of spy. Some sort of arthritic James Bond. It’s stupid, but I sort of like imagining it. I keep my chin tucked to my chest, breathing my own hot breath inside my mask, as we move down Dělnická.

My hearing imp picks up bits and pieces of the conversation, but the translator app doesn’t have much to go on. They might be talking about farts. Actual farts, not boring old farts who go around spying on illicit party planners.

“Mine are always silent. That’s my gift.”

“They’re not always silent. I’ve heard them.”

“Maybe hearing them is your gift.”

We pass the Žabka, where an employee on break is tugging her mask down to vape. I know she recognizes me—I go to her convenience store every third day or so—but her eyes slide right off. People aren’t big on eye contact in Prague, or smiling, or waving. It used to drive Jan mad. He grew up in Brno, and always swore it’s much friendlier.

We pass Vnitroblock, which is all shut down for the wave, all its little studios and shoe shops put into stasis. Then the pizza place, which has shrunk to a single delivery window. Then the boarded-up pub that didn’t make it through the last big spike and had to close for good. We’re getting close to my apartment, so close for a wild second I think that’s where they’re headed.

Then the teens look both ways, dart across the road, and head into the abandoned building across the street. I can’t exactly dart these days, so I just watch them go. Construction crawls in this city—Jan said it was like that even before the Big One. That building’s been half-finished since we moved here, and people mostly ignore it, although one night I remember some musicians from Cape Verde shot a music video there.

But that was during a lull, not a lockdown. I should hobble over there and wait, and when they come back out I should tell them to get their act together, tell them there’s no way I’m letting them throw an infectious party right across the street from me. I can’t remember the Czech word for irresponsible, but I can app it. Or probably just talk English, since they’re young.

That would mean getting right up close to them, though. All that breathing, all that misted saliva. And if they’re irresponsible enough to break basic bug policy, they might be carriers already. Plus, I hate confrontations. Just raising my voice at someone makes my heart beat double-time for the next three hours or so.

Somebody else can shut down their stupid koronapárty . I head the opposite way, toward my apartment building, and start fishing out my key.

BACK WHEN JAN AND I FIRST MOVED IN, WE HAD THIS SILLY GAME WHERE IF THE LIFTwas on an odd-numbered floor, we had to take the stairs. Jan was always in unfairly good shape for his age—jogged along the river every morning—and I only had one bad knee back then. Now walking up six flights of stairs sounds unrealistic and frankly unneighborly, since someone would end up finding my carcass and scaring themselves.

So I take the lift. I use my key to push the button, and then me and my groceries rattle on up to the top floor. There’s a film of smart plastic on the metal wall, playing some reminder tutorials, pixelated people washing their hands and handling their masks correctly. I puzzle out a few of the accompanying Czech words.

The lift doors slide open. I brace myself, haul my grocery bags up off the floor again, and stump down the short hall to apartment 21A. They put a little yellow sticker on my door, to indicate I’m at increased risk during a spike. It’s a good thing for them to indicate, but it still feels a bit like they’re rubbing my face in how old I’m getting.

I key the door, shoulder it open, and walk inside. It feels good to be back inside. Safe. I won’t have to get groceries for another three days.

“Hello, Ivan!” the housebot calls, aggravatingly genial—I can tone down its enthusiasm, but it always resets during updates. “Remember to wash your hands, you asshole!”

At least the vocabulary modifications stuck. I don’t get a lot of laughs lately, but hearing the housebot cussing like a very chipper, electronic sailor is good for at least a couple smiles per day. It was a gift from my sister, same as the VR goggles she gave me for facecalls that I hardly ever use.

“I always do, dumbshit,” I say back, unhooking my mask and dropping it straight into the laundry.

After Jan died, my sister floated the idea of me moving to Seattle to live nearer her and her family, maybe even live with them for a while—she has a heart two sizes too big. And it’s true Seattle has bounced back better than most cities over in the USA. But moving felt like running away, so I told her I was staying.

And a week later a little yellow Amazombie dropped the housebot off at my door, machines delivering machines, very Escher. My sister programmed it herself, and the two of us generally get along okay. I just hate it when it starts trying to run therapy routines.

“There were only twelve new cases in Czechia today,” the housebot chirps as I lug the groceries to the kitchen. “Lockdown is expected to end Wednesday.”