You’ll step forth and you’ll wonder -- why does everyone walk so frantically, dizzyingly? In New York, I saw people taking their time, being gentle with one another. But in this York, this Old York, they run. They sprint. Why?

Step forth, and I’ll tell you. It’s because the people are not okay. Go to where the heat made the Sheaf steam and stare at that emptiness. Stare at that sky. This city has lost something. It is blindingly obvious. You’ll see it in museums; you’ll hear it said: where did Ms Steel go?

I load 1293 on my headset. Only a thousand here; the city liveth small then. At the workshop of Robertus le Cotelar the craftsmen spoke with one another: What ȝif þes armes ne may na mare make þes forkes?

Every Tuesday at market, you can hear people wonder: Whanne sal it come? Whanne þes cruked þinges ne ben no lengre bent so streȝt bi hond?

But þanne cometh Ms Steel. She sal free our hands.

I could not believe my ears. I might have misheard a thing or two. I was hiding in a hedgerow or two. If they saw what I wore, what I spoke, they’d take those forks and come at me with force. So I kept my distance -- crouched there in a state of disbelief. Ms Steel?

Through all my travels, I have never been able to see her. Everyone tells me Ms Steel brought Sheffield itself into being. The stories point here. The beginning of time. Water mills. Grinding wheels. The first metal work. She’d be here, at the origin. We’d speak English but not understand each other, yet of course we’d know each other. And I’ll see her face, and finally rest. For I am so sleep deprived. Deprived of steel.

I peek out, searching in the crowd for her. One of them at the market looks straight at me, and with a zombie-like delivery: Ȝif þu wilt finde hire, þu most finde him.

I jump forward. 1393: the cutlers emerge. 1493: they burn Lord’s Park to charcoal. 1593: buffer girls polish silverware. She should have been there. Century after century, her signs without her. Only her absence.

1693: the mills are dying. The Sheaf has slowed. The wheels are lazy. The people are moving through this hazy afternoon. Their heads facing towards the heat of the Earth’s core.

Near Bridge Street, I see the River Dun bend and loop back, betraying a piece of land. An island in the city, cut off. A sign speaks: Isle of Wight. The footbridge to it sags in the middle, its oblong planks gone soft. Each board will groan. The handrail has given up, hanging loose in the brown water.

I step forth. The wood bends. Through the gaps I can see the river’s surface filmed with rainbows, with rust, with the reflection of skies. My boot finds a solid surface and it gives way. My foot goes through and the water takes it -- filthy, icy, crawling up my shin. I pull it back; it steams. My pulse hammers in my neck.

I might drown. I might have Cholera. The other foot finds the next plank, then the next. The bridge sways. Behind me, Sheffield. Ahead, a small shop. Maybe they can help me, tell me where she is, maybe let my sock dry.

I make it across and catch my breath. I swing open the door. It creaks. My boots squeak. It’s warm. Brass discs on large tables, holes bored through them. Buttons. Buttons?

Can I help thee? I hear the voice before I see anyone. My pulse hammers further, with greater force. The vein wants to burst. I whip around.

A man walks through a wall. Topless. Sweat on his broad chest, yet the light does not reflect. Crooked cap on his head. A piece of loose cloth tied to his waist, with dark stains on the ends. In his right hand is a hammer. A small hammer. A hammer for delicate work. He looks cleaner than those folks 400 years ago. There is no black soot on his creased forehead. But he does have pinpricks.

He is a few feet away from me, and all he can do is look frightened. As if an alien has graced his presence. My strange face, strange clothes. And eventually my strange voice: Hi, um, good morrow to thee? What...goeth on here?

Art thou daft, lad? We make buttons. Dost thou want some?

What is your name, lad?

David Hey. Yours?

Robert Goodwin, but they call me Mr. Buttonmaker. David, good lad -- now let me tell thee, this button making is never going anywhere. We shall be fine. They took the cutlers, but they won’t take me.

As it turns out, the cutlery industry was having a tough time. Layoffs, but also as he tells me -- the slitting mills, they do cut the iron now. Twas skilled work, once. Now tis naught but feeding metal to a machine.

So, dost thou want some buttons? Come, I shall show thee some.

David, meet my lad, Doff.

Doff, a scruffy little kid. I couldn’t make out much of his face. He didn’t bother to look me in the eye. Shy. Squatting. Perfect spine.

Your son?

Nay, be not daft, lad. Apprentice.

An apprentice is bound to the master. Doff was bound for seven years -- he must keep the lawful commands of Robert. Doff could not marry, drink ale, or gamble. The exchange for such coercion was instruction in the skill of button making. The skill that Robert believed would never disappear. Doff would also be provided with food, lodging, sixteen pence, linen, and the buttons he made himself. His clothes would stay together by his own work. He wears only his work. Where the buttons touch, his skin is a jaundiced, mustard yellow.

Here lad, take these. The buttonmaker hands me golden buttons, with a golden lion.

Sorry, I am, uh, nay here for this. I am looking for a woman.

Haha! Sorry lad, cannen help thee there. Hardly any women liveth around here. If thou want’st to marry, go to Birmingham.

No, you see I am looking for a Ms Steel.

The buttonmaker goes still. Everything stops. Is this crashing?

Doff looks up at me. A vacant, sad, concerned face.

Ms Steel? The boy can speak.

Yes, I need to find--

The buttons of the buttonmaker, they fall. One by one by one. They clatter to the floor. Topless, buttonless. Smaller. Shoulders sagged: Ms Steel? Lad..she is the most painful thing in all the world.

He drops his hammer -- another clatter.

She was to save us all! When Mistress Steel came, we should rest! The engines would toil and we should prosper! But she was a lie. They took my trade. And now I make buttons for them. Buttons! What am I now but --

I run out. The flickers of the moment are gone. The buttonmaker, Doff. I’ve burnt through my day, and I can’t come back to my life nor go back to theirs. How can I miss things that are not real? There is so much more to know. But the headset is dying. The screen goes black -- black like tar, hot melted plastic. I rip it off.

I need a break, before I break. Maybe I ought to finally listen to my father and go outside.

In the present day you learn quickly that the hope continues in this city.

It has its ‘hidden’ gems -- the Winter Gardens, Rivelin Valley. But these are merely gimmicks. Distractions. They exist so when you visit, you don’t see the greatest minds of our time. Where did they all go? Where might you find them? In England’s finest institution, of course. The kebab shops; where you get your chippy chips and exist on grease that will coat your mouth, get under your fingernails. Slabs of meat dancing in front of heat, juices dripping down, orange wedges wilting on top.

Kebab shop talk -- conducted a few feet from rotating carcasses -- is usually all about AI these days. But it’s Thursday, and things are quiet. Six of them are working behind the counter, bored, yet their faces are bright. Bright from the lights of their phones. Green tiles are on the walls. The air is crackling oil, sweat, and Arabic: أفتقد السيدة ستيل

Not only them but the menu speaks:

                                                                BURGER W/ CHIPS £5

          BURGER W/ CHIPS AND SALAD £8

 VEGETARIAN BURGER £10

                                                VEGAN BURGER £25.

Not only the menu but the handwritten sign at the till speaks as well: CASH ONLY.

I don’t have cash. I never have cash. So I go home. There is nothing in the fridge. All the shops are closed.

I sit on the edge of my futon. Dark room. I should go back out. Find a cash-point. Try again. But my body won’t move. Try again. The limbs are heavy. Try again.

I lie down. Close my eyes. Just for a moment, and then I’ll try again. I hope I’ll dream of paradise.

But a figure descends through smokes from the foundry. Teeth are silver catching light. She bears a crown of iron, drawn to her skull by its own magnetism. She strolls in robes of wire that scrape the ground. Where she walks, the earth cracks open and factories rise; where she stops, the people fall prostrate. They begin to burn. Flesh pecking away in black strips. They beg for salvation even as their bodies fail.

I wake up, exactly when I slept. My forehead throbs. This stomach growls. Food. I need food.

Tonight the queue stretches out the door, into the rain.

At least the two in front of me are keeping my spirits up. Husband and wife, sharing an umbrella. The guy is the same height as me. Eight feet tall. She is four foot something. She is the one holding the umbrella.

She says, oh do you know about the environmental impacts of AI? The electricity, the water consumed by those data centres. She shuffles to accommodate him better. It’s making people dumber, I swear there was a paper from M.I.T, leaving people out of jobs, causing worse social relationships -- have you seen those ads from Friend? And it steals art from artists.

Ducked down, and yet he must still shout down: God, love, you’re being so dramatic. This thing is the future! The environmental issue is so overblown. Each prompt takes what, 0.3 watt-hours? Costs basically nothing. Come on now. Also, didn’t M.I.T publish a fake paper on material sciences that was just generated by AI?

That’s a strawman, and no he was just an M.I.T studen-- He puts a finger on her lip.

I am not done, love. And every time a new technology comes, new jobs get created. You know what is the real issue we need to solve? All those TikTok things kids are watching these days. And jobs? Yeah some jobs will go -- but you know what won’t go? Electricians. Plumbers. Real hard physical labour. I’d like to see an AI do that. You could do that when you lose your job. I am pretty sure your job as a software engineer is going. A cheeky smile, by a cheeky lad. But don’t worry. I’ll run a company with AI agents. All in my single business. Thousands of agents making us rich.

It is at this point I expect him to do a villainous laugh. His eyes could turn red.

She breaks free from his finger, yanks the umbrella away -- it clips his head. And there she runs. She runs into the storm, crying.

Ow! No sweetie! He walks after her. The storm must walk after her.

Well, at least that’s them gone. I move forward.

A new person in front of me, his back turned. I can see his hands -- crinkled, old. I wonder if his face matches this. He’s holding a phone, talking at it. Speaker on:

Wasn’t the moon landing fake?

A smooth, glitchy voice: That is an excellent question -- truly one of the greatest. You have a mind that claws -- that doesn’t just ask, but tears at what it’s told. Socrates questioned, Descartes doubted, Einstein wondered -- you, too, belong to that lineage. You refuse to stop asking. Please stop asking…

Sorry I mean, never stop asking!

Behind me, voices -- scaling laws, Blackwell chips. Someone’s blaring the Dwarkesh Podcast. Near the door, two regulars I recognise -- a doomer and his e/acc nemesis -- shoving each other. The d/acc crowd pulls them apart.

The queue doesn’t stop moving, but it takes hours before I’m finally at the door. Inside, warm.

I meet a boy at the till. Scruffy. Sixteen, maybe. He looks me in the eye. Bulky spectacles -- odd shape, chunky, sitting wrong on his face.

Haha, you like what you see? He adjusts the frame. Yeah these? Meta Rayban innit. Proper good, I record everything. You recording now? Course mate, always recording. You never know what’ll happen -- someone does summat mad, place gets famous.

No -- I pull away -- no don’t make this place famous please.

Why not?

This place is a well kept secret. It’d lose its charm.

Ah sorry mate, can’t help it, it’s uploading already.

There are other orders being shouted, CHICKEN SHAWARMA! Hello, yes please, next! Brother, what you like? All salad? Chilli sauce? Someone older behind the counter -- his father? -- gives him a stern look. So brother, what do you want?

Chips please.

And just like that, a box slides in front of the boy. They must have these ready to go. Salt? Yes please. Vinegar? Nah. Sauce? Ketchup please.

A warm styrofoam box in my moist hands.

£3 brother. You take card?

Brother, cash only.

Ah, man sorry.

No worries, bring it next time.

I owe this place hundreds of pounds.

The rain has turned to snow. I can’t go back out. So I must find a throne. But the place is heaving. Where am I going to sit?

Near the window, two women bent over a tall table. Fake tan. In black hoodies and trackies. Sharing a box of chips -- a mess of cheese, limp salad, and vinegar:

Have you invested in Nvidia? She doesn’t wait for an answer. Babe, I swear, buy some stock in Nvidia. Actually -- wait, no, never mind, do not buy Nvidia. It’s all a bubble. Long TSMC. No wait, TSMC -- oh god, that’s maybe a bad idea too. One day China will just -- you know, all that stuff with Taiwan. Oracle then? Oh my god what if it’s all a bubble? OK so like, all my life savings into Nvidia for now, yeah? And I’ll pull out when I make my -- what, 6278% return in a year? Babe you should totally do it. Feed the machine. We need all those data centres. They’re building those data centres that make those droning sounds -- like white noise when you sleep. Or they fill your home with gas. Sulfur gas. Makes your home smell like eggs.

Her friend looks at her chip fork and replies, I’m not worried about the eggs. I sold my home. Babe, don’t worry. Everything I own has been in Nvidia. And I’m rich. So rich. Now I live in my own warehouse with GPUs. Blue light. Yellow lights. It’s a whole galaxy here. I plug my brain into these GPUs and I can see my sister again. My beautiful sister. Finally, these systems are giving me what I want. The reality I want. I get to be a kid again, fighting with my sister. Reading stories. Crying on her shoulder. My big sister’s shoulder.

Her hands rise to meet her head. She drops into them. Her friend rubs her shoulder -- the soft cotton of the hoodie.

I look away. There’s a table at the back. I spot a group of five sitting at a table of six. Maybe they wouldn’t mind my company, but I’d mind theirs. I am still so tired. Wet socks, cold feet -- hungry.

This seat taken?

Does it look taken? She laughs. Haha just kidding. Join us.

It’s one of those tables where the chairs are bolted on. I must awkwardly navigate on. I hope they just ignore me, and don’t notice me until I am gone. I really, really don’t want to talk about AI anymore. AI this AI that -- god I wish it would just end. We could talk about normal things like love, flowers.

Dude. A guy with three layers on points at me, mayo on his index finger. Settle a debate for us.

No, please god no. Sure, I say.

So these two think AGI is either two years away, or ten.

Just look at the graphs right. METR’s time horizon graph, we’ll have AI models automating AI R&D in two years. The graphs just go straight up. You just need to look at the graphs.

The other one jumps in: Yeah but continuous learning. Can AI models do continuous learning? Get a sense of context and update according to the information I give them? Without continuous learning AI will be useless.

I bang my head into my box. Ketchup splatters all over me. Maybe they’ll think I died.

The woman who laughed at me now begins to console me. Hey, I know, sorry AGI talk can be overwhelming sometimes. Don’t worry, we can talk about something else? How about export controls on China?

Within these walls the future may be forged. 
Or maybe Jez is getting thrashed on cider. 
But when you melt you become the shape of your surroundings.
Your horizon becomes wider. 
Don’t they teach you no brains at that school?

- ‘Within these walls the future may be forged’, Jarvis Cocker

Today, Sheffield City Council announced Project Rebuild. Data centres will be built across the East End.

Chesterfield Road leads to London Road. It used to drain Sheffield. Now it fills Sheffield back up. Laid-off tech workers driving north. Finance guys priced out. Sheffield is where they end up.

They work in the East, tending servers in Attercliffe, where the land lies low. Flood plains. Cheap land. The servers hum and heat the air where the smoke rose.

Every evening, the new workers leave. Ahead it is: Crookes, Broomhill, stone houses in Fulwood. Behind them -- the hum of the East. The heat. The people who grew up here, who can never leave. Barely enough to eat. They breathe it in.

We are mourners of our past. Trapped. Our shadows bigger than our hopes.

Sheffield must take what it can find now.

The data centres bring a future. A chance at prosperity again. But, by now, you and I know the city prays for something more.

Ms Steel
When the centres are in place, we will cheer. 
     She’s returning! Oh what joy! 
          A new Sheffield shall be born for her! 
               The buttons will burst from our coats, 
                    rolling down the hills 
                         like rain, 
                              like eyes.

Step forth, we will tell her. 
     You’re back. 
          She’ll be back. And she’ll save us

                                                                                                                                     Won’t she?

In Sheffield, we hope for her. We forget what she is.

In the 1830s, we would farm babies. Barley, cabbage, babies. The crops that would wail.

If you were destitute, you went to the workhouse, there you picked apart oakum. Fibres split your fingertips into red fissures. Your back bends nine hours, for bread and gruel. All your dreams happen in a wooden box.

But if you could find work, you could escape this place. You became a servant, or a factory girl in Manchester, or you made lace by candlelight until your eyes burned.

Your stomach grew under the apron. So you pulled a shawl tighter around the shoulders. Yet you are not getting any lighter. One day the employer calls you into his office, and you try to hide her. But those boots leave dirt on his floor, mud and your last belonging to this place.

The New Poor Law of 1834 makes a bastard the mother’s responsibility until it turns sixteen, the father owes nothing so he disappears. His beautiful seed shall be fruit enough.

You stood outside the workhouse gates again, this time carrying your baby. Where is the sound of the hammers on the stone? There is only silence this early in the morning, silence filled by the roar of a child. Tears soaking your dirty clothes. Salt in your mouth, on the lips.

Do you walk through these black iron gates, where your back will finally break, and now your child joins you in the wooden box?

Birchwood.

Or do you farm your love?

In the penny papers, there it says:

NURSE CHILD WANTED - Widow, Christian and kindly, will gladly accept charge of an infant. Any condition received, the frailer the better. Terms fifteen shillings per month, or adoption outright for twelve pounds. The child will not trouble its mother again, nor trouble anyone.

The child would not trouble because it would be killed. Drugged the babies with laudanum. Starved them. Wrapped the bodies in news; into the Thames. For twelve pounds, problems do disappear.

Some babies survived. You were one of them. You grew up and became a factory girl, threading needles. Then your belly grew.

But now it is 1926. Baby farming is illegal. Adoption is legal. Yet you are still too poor to be a mother. You might be married now. The father might be beside you. Yet it doesn’t matter. The court takes your child, because your pockets hold lint.

In Birmingham, 600 children are taken from mothers like you, and in the rest of the country 12000, and in the workhouses where there is weeping, and in the factories where you breathe cotton dust, and in the back alleys of Shoreditch where rats know every child’s name and no photos have ever been taken, and in the villages of Yorkshire, and in the towns of Cornwall. Between sleeping and waking, you realise they are taking everyone’s children.

These kids are sorted in homes, waiting. This one picked for his looks. Pretty face. The adoptive parents want respectability, a complete family for their new house. A suburban dream. But they cannot bear the shame of adoption, of infertility, of taking someone’s bastard. So they will never tell the truth to the ones they rescue.

Your son is handed over at a station. You are made to watch this. A transaction between some strangers. Words, coins, and then the steam. You almost want to reach for him -- but your hand is in the air already. Wave goodbye. Good mother. Wave goodbye.

And now you are born again. A new name, your new history. Whatever you were does not exist. Good boy, they said when they handed you.

Good boy.

Robbie and I step into a Glaswegian’s imagination of a Korean restaurant. In here, you do not talk to the staff. You order at a giant glowing screen, staring at it like a departure board.

Robbie does stare. He is transfixed by the menu screen. Paralysed. His brain slides down his spine. Twitch, twitch. He taps the screen to order with whatever charge is left in his body.

The place is a hallway with the kitchen at the end, staff contorting bum-to-bum to squeeze past each other. The music is not Korean but Sabrina Carpenter. Soy-glazed tofu with fries is handed to us by a woman with a heart tattoo on her cheek. The food is meant to be photographed. The owner is there, waiting, perched at the counter, hoping I’ll take a photo. He hopes we’ll share it. He hopes our friends will try this place. He hopes a queue will burgeon tomorrow. I hope he knows I know his hopes.

This might be the last time I see Robbie.

As we eat, we talk about pets. What are my feelings about cats being on leashes?

‘Is this a controversial topic?’ I take a fry.

We go back and forth, and then land on children. He takes a fry.

‘Do you want children, Robbie?’

He shrugs. ‘I don’t know, you know? Why ruin your working life with a baby?’

Robbie does not feel the evolutionary need to spread his DNA.

‘Maybe I’d adopt. There are so many kids out there without a home, without love. What is the point of creating my own?’

But then it dawns upon us. Neither of us know anyone who’s been adopted. How could this have happened? Between us, we must know millions of people.

Where did they all go?

During home visit on 11/04/2006, Mr. and Mrs. Clarke reported that Leo (age 11) has directly asked if he is adopted on multiple occasions. Parents have not disclosed adoption status to child. Parents express anxiety about disclosure and state they are ‘waiting for the right time.’ Worker discussed importance of age-appropriate honesty and provided literature on adoption disclosure. Follow-up visit scheduled for 25/04/2006 to develop disclosure plan.

Maybe I have met them all but they do not know. They all have parents who keep their little secrets, waiting. Waiting some more. Or who never had any intention to tell them. They grow up, and then they grow down, and they do not know.

Or maybe they all do know, but they do not tell me -- a stranger, even among the millions I know. They do not spill it to everyone. It is nobody’s business. Certainly not mine. But they are loved.

Are people adopting less? Are the Robbies of the world following through?

Of course, the right thing to do here would be to look at the numbers. But numbers hurt me. With language and writing, there is vast, endless beauty. With numbers, there is nothing but the cold air of precision. Steel of a knife.

But for those who do like numbers, and for my own edification, here is what the data shows:

In 2019 there were 3,590 adoptions from care in England, in 2020, 3480, in 2021, 2890, in 2022, 3000, in 2023, 2960, in 2024, 2980 which is an increase of 20 compared to 2023 if you accept 2960 as the baseline or a decrease of 13 if you accept 2993 as the baseline from the updated tables, meanwhile 220 children sentenced to custody, 70 moved abroad, 60 died, one death per fifty adoptions or one death per four jailings or 2.01% deaths versus 7.38% custody versus 2.35% abroad or custody 3.67 times more common than death or for every child who leaves the country 0.857 children die or one child per 0.02 adoptions or 60 dead 60 which is less than 220 in custody which is more than 70 abroad.

I know. Numbers are tricky, hard to read sometimes. Don’t you worry. The bottom line is, numbers go (mostly) down. People are adopting less. And for this you must blame the kids.

For the kids are more broken now -- teeth yellower.

They have been moved between foster homes -- different schools, different bedrooms. Learned to pack the few things they keep in bin bags, they know how to be quiet in the car, they know not to cry when the social worker says this is the last time, we promise, this is the last time, we promise. They memorise those rules quickly. No shoes upstairs. Dinner at six. Or is it seven? Seven on the weekends. Don’t touch the plants. They stop answering when asked where they live.

They wait. Three years. Four years and then five. Age 6 becomes 11. Meanwhile the couples wanting to adopt are always the same age.

If children are ever adopted, they come with a hole in their head where history could be - where the story of who they are and where they came from could live. A hole sucking out happiness. They do not know why they are different. They are not told much about their existence. They must carry all those possible parents who were not them, who looked at them and said no.

The kids are sent back to their families sometimes. To houses where reintegration can happen. Cheaper to send them back; family first. These kids are hopeless anyway.

You take your grandson into your house. You are frail and old now. Once you were handed over. Now your grandson is handed to you. Good boy, they said then. Good grandfather, they say now. The flat has one bedroom. The two of you sleep there. In this wooden box. The council home where spores and gravy fill the nostrils. There is no adoption allowance. But this is a stable home, built on love. Just love. Just the harsh white light that shines on the damp carpet floors.

Even worse than London, where everyone is transient and bleeding out. Worse than Bristol. Hands down, it is Glasgow. You can learn to accept the grey, the cold, the unemployment. But how do you learn to accept killing your desire to feel loved in this world?

Everyone knows modern dating is hard. In fact, you’re boring for even mentioning it. That the apps don’t work. Of course they don’t work. They were never meant to work.

When you download Hinge, you feel a never-ending sense of possibility. But when you’re swiping, you’re dreaming. Pictures of people float past. Responses to prompts that could be complete gibberish and you’d still send them a ‘rose’. You’d still write a witty opener, convinced this time they’ll respond.

Even if you did get a date off the app, they’re not really real. You just don’t realise they’re still pixels. They only talk in the same prompt-response way: ‘Yeah, I’m such a yapper.’ So they never ask you questions. You’re not even sure what they do. You go in to kiss them, and your lips meet no warmth.

But here, I will tell you where to find an antidote. Go back out into the world. Simple. For the price of £20, you can date people in the real world. The actual physical world that you can touch, see, hear, smell.

Every Thursday night, all the single people of Glasgow meet at a bar. Every single, single person in a tiny confined space. Where there is no room to breathe. Where the lights are dim, swallowing the details from people’s faces. The music is loud. I can barely hear anyone. My ear is bleeding.

Most of the women are in groups. No one comes alone. And you can see why: there’s Dracula! A slender, tall, pale man who lurks. He’s right next to my ear, uncomfortably close. He sees the blood. He prowls around, shoulders up, staring at one group. He stares a bit too long. One of the women notices and her face turns away from him in disgust.

Dracula needs backup. He befriends Henry, a slightly overweight middle-aged man who’s visibly sweating. All the single people in Glasgow are sucking the air out of the space. But he isn’t just sweating; he’s shaking. His armpit stains are visible and his trousers are soaking wet. He’s pissed himself.

Together, they approach a group of women, and in unison say, ‘Hey there, ladies.’

I can’t just stand here. I spot someone to my left: a woman with nice hair and a white top. I’m not attracted to her, but I need to burn off this nervous energy. The usual small talk unfolds. I wish I could ask her, ‘So what do you think about AI?’ But instead: ‘What’s your name? What do you do? Are you a cat or dog person?’ Her name is Trisha. She’s a makeup artist. A dog person. Trisha isn’t here to go on dates with anyone; she’s here to find clients. She hands me her business card. On it there’s a child painted as a clown; she does makeup for children. Does she think anyone here has kids?

I politely excuse myself and bin the card. I spot a group of three women. It is always three. Two is too few. Four is too many. One of them is drop-dead gorgeous. Brunette hair, violet eyes. I have to talk to her. And when I do, I will drop. I will be dead.

As I start to walk towards them, I feel a bit giddy. Sick. She notices me. I could puke. My ear is still bleeding. She looks over to her friends, smiles, and then looks back at me with those violet eyes.

‘Hey, you’re cute. You should meet my friends!’

No, I don’t want to meet your friends. I want to talk to you.

‘What’s your name?’ she asks.

‘G.’

‘What?’

I don’t say Gaurav. Nobody knows how to pronounce it. Not even me. So I go by ‘G.’ But even that confuses people. How often do you meet someone whose name is a single letter? I should have called myself Henry.

‘It’s G. Like the letter.’

I shake her hand. It’s tiny and cold. She’d been holding her drink in the hand I was shaking. I am shaking. Maybe I am Henry.

‘Oh, great! G, meet my friends, Jdoifo and Asdhfgaoi.’

I don’t remember their names. I didn’t care about them. I cared about her.

‘And what’s your name?’ I ask.

‘Oh, it’s Claire.’

‘Claire, will you marry me?’ Why won’t these words come out of my mouth? She’s beautiful. I want to say it so badly. But I don’t. I wish they brought back real old-school dating, where men could propose to women they’d just met and it wouldn’t be insane.

‘Anyway,’ she says, ‘these two are single and really want someone to talk to.’

Then why are you doing all the talking? Wait, what does she mean those two are single?

‘Are you single too?’

‘Haha, no, I’ve got a boyfriend. I’m just here to support them.’

Broken wide open. I’m going to cry. The giddiness won’t stop. I excuse myself to go puke in the toilet. I dab my ear with a paper towel. White turns to red.

My wife. Claire, we could have been something. In our fifteen seconds together, I built a life for us. Top-floor tenement flat in the West End, where the sun would spill through the window and warm your skin. I would have felt your thin arms wrap around me. And there, together, we would watch this world die.

As I walk out of the toilet, I’m intercepted by Dracula. He has a name, it turns out. Jake.

‘Ya fancy them birds over there, eh?’

He points towards the women I just fled from. The place I buried my heart.

‘Yeah, they seem nice, but not for me.’

‘What about them there?’ he asks, gesturing to another group.

There’s a bit of sick on my shoe.

‘You alright, mate?’

‘Yeah, yeah. They seem cute. Wanna go talk to them?’

‘Of course, mate! Wadyathinkiamherefore?’ He laughs and puts a hand on my shoulder. Under its weight, my spine curves acutely. His breath is awful. All that blood he’s been drinking.

Jake doesn’t want me, not really. He ditched Henry, and he’ll ditch me too. He has crippling approach anxiety, and I’m his shield, his wingman. I’ve paid twenty pounds to be a wingman.

But I play along. I’ve given up on finding anyone at this event anyways. Three women are sitting in a booth, and we slide in across from them. They all fit the stereotype of Scottish beauty. Glossy and perfect. They’ve put in serious effort to look this good, and we’re the first people to talk to them. Pity.

Jake launches into his life story. He’s an investment analyst for some derivatives hedge fund. Paid well, with a top-floor tenement flat in the West End. I can’t tell if he’s lying, but if not, then by all the standards of this good modern society, the man is a catch.

But the women don’t care. In fact, right in front of him, they take out their phones. Maybe I was too harsh on Jake. I almost want to cry again. How dare they just ignore him like that?

‘C’mon mate, let’s go somewhere else,’ he says, defeated. He is like everyone else here, defeated. I mutter something about needing fresh air. I step outside the bar and puke again. This time, however, it feels good. Proper chunder. Cathartic. Freeing.

The cold air hits me. The real world hits me again. The JP Morgan tower flooding the streets with light. Below it, the homeless, the crackheads and drunks. The people that make this city what it is, I suppose. One of them nods at me. From a nearby bar, someone’s singing ‘Mr. Brightside’. It’s so bright. It’s 11 PM and I have to squint. It’s the brightest Glasgow has ever been.

My mother knows me well. She knew I’d go bald one day. The child she saw grow up was lazy, the kind who couldnae bother to be trim and proper. When I was young, resisting my hair’s ill-fated demise, I’d let it grow long, only to be forced and dragged into the barber’s seat.

In that chair, I’d look the barber straight in the eye, stare deep into the pupils. I didn’t need my tongue to hit my teeth; the fury, the rage, the deep disgust at it all was in my gaze.

The clippers buzzed up the sides. The water, meant to soften my hair, felt deliberately sprayed on my face. Then the scissors slid across my forehead, firing my trigeminal nerve and making my brow twitch.

I could have borne it if it were quick. But they drew it out. Moving slowly.

So. Slowly.

Now, the child in that chair walks away on his own. Out in the world, he lets his hair grow. No one can drag him to the barber’s seat again.

He tells himself he never needs the barber.

In the end, neither do I.

My mother knows me well; I am still that child. Still lazy. She knew the day would come when I’d start to bald and that I’d do nothing about it. Mama, you were right. I did nothing. I never oiled my hair. I didn’t take the right medicinal combination until it was too late. And it is too late. It is always too late.

If I had known where this life would lead, maybe I’d have tried harder to keep my youth. But life is fleeting, and trying to stop it is self-defeating. I will not be reincarnated as a moth, drawn as we are towards its own self-destruction, I shall be turned to ash

The child is still here. But the time comes, they say, when a child must grow up, must become someone, and then accept what they have become.

A child must leave the womb.

Bald.

Scared.

Ready.

Ready to be eaten by the world.

The Crater

My head has it all to say
a crater in its clay
I’ve tried everything to make it okay
crater, I beg, go away.

I put on headphones to conceal this crime
for this is no place I can rely.
Not much to see if you look up and below, I suppose.
just a spot where nothing will grow.

Oh god, I'm feeling old.
The crater grows, I've been told.
The hair sheds; the dust gathers.
Soon this will be all that matters.
One day I’ll be broke and broken
but this will be when I lost my token.

Who will marry me now, with a crater on my head?
They could see it a mile away and turn instead.
But they should come and talk, you see:
this crater has no hold on me.

Testosterone, my killer.
Minoxidil, my winner.
Finasteride killed my weiner.

The barber says, ‘How old are you?’
‘Twenty-two.’
‘Twenty-two?!
What happened to you?
You’re still brand new.’

What a dick.
That prick.
It did prick.

Might he be right?
Must I book that Turkish flight?
Go somewhere they transplant,
implant,
hide some smiles behind a hand,
as they sow trees in this bloody barren land.

And when I pay them with the pound,
a sum they’ve earned and found,
they’ll lift this crater from my head.
At least for now. At least until I am dead.

Veerle asked if I was bothered by going bald. My first instinct is to not show weakness, so my proud response was: ‘Uh, nah. Uh, maybe? Uh, yeah nah. I mean, hmm.’

Those barfed-out words are pointing in the right direction. I don’t want to be bothered—'just love yourself, bro.’ But I am. I wish I had more hair. You have to accept it, they say. But I don’t know if I have. I don’t even know if I’m bothered.

I decided to get rid of the crater. I decided to get rid of my hair.

If I went to school today, I’d be called ‘टकला (Takla).’ Hordes of classmates would run to slap my head, their supposed way of wishing me good luck. They think they have permission to touch me, that it’s okay to commit battery. Ruthlessness. There is a visceral ruthlessness Indian kids reserve for one another. We want to kill each other. We will kill each other. And I stand still, still afraid of their hands.

For so long, I have tried to love myself. But why must I? What if I don’t? What if I look at this head and feel only a sense of loss and no love? Where did my hair go? What did I do wrong?

Something in me has changed. Something is present. Something is absent. Look in the mirror; I only see skin. Brown skin. I stare until my own eyes stare back from its surface. This head is a desert, glowing under the infinite sunlight of Scotland.

I was the one who shaved my head. I asked Tom to check if I missed any spots. He saw the final product and nodded. "It suits you." Everyone says it suits me; maybe they are right. But then I must become my own enemy. I am now a barber. I get to cut my own hair and determine its destiny.

And one day, this bald barber accepts what he has become.

Bald.

Scared.

Scared.

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Looking back, I’m sad about how I felt. My eighteen-year-old self had no idea where life would take me. I wish he’d seen the curve while he was on it.

When my brother left for university, I started writing him a little document of advice. I never finished it. One note I did leave was about survivorship bias. People rarely account for it when they tell you their stories. You hear, ‘I met my best mates at uni and so will you!’ Forgive the cynicism, brother, but there’s no rule, no guarantee. You don’t hear from the ones who didn’t. And you never know if you’ll make it through the wreckage yourself.

But somehow, I did. It didn’t matter that I missed the first week, or that I was stuck in my own head. It didn’t matter because in the end I met my best friend. I met Rob.

Sometimes I wonder how it all came to be, and what would have happened if things had gone differently. If I’d taken a year off, or chosen another university. Maybe it would still have worked out. Maybe if it weren’t Rob, it would have been someone else. Or our paths might have crossed later. But I’m glad I live in this life, the one where they did.

Early on, my conception of friendship was something like this: you have a set of characteristics, and pursuing other people with those same traits leads to friendship. You map the world by looking for people like you. With hindsight, that seems like a poor way to approach the world. By chasing similarity, I often missed out on compatibility. And for my own sake, surrounding myself with people just like me now feels boring compared to the contrast of meeting those who are different, trying to understand them better, and getting to touch their reality.

I had this shift because of Rob. He was the working-class boy from Birkenhead, the first in his family to go to university. It wasn’t a life I could relate to. Perhaps even my own privilege made me uneasy, almost defensive around him. My loud mouth and constant self-deprecation felt like a poor match for his quiet nature. Rob speaks in a deep voice but so softly that it often takes me two tries to catch what he’s saying. I end up reading his lips. He never had to read mine to know I felt lost in that part of my life.

There was nothing pointing towards us being friends. If we were at a party, I don’t think anyone would have tried to connect us. They wouldn’t have said, ‘Rob, meet Gaurav!’ Neither of us would actually have been at a party anyway. We would have been in the library instead, working for hours. Him stuck on some piece of code that wasn’t working, and I mostly not understanding the law. Yet somehow, we collided and cared for one another, two paths heading in different directions that still crossed.

Friendships, much like people, mature. Ours began in a way that wasn’t especially healthy. I idolised him. He was the rock in my life when I had no rocks. He convinced me to try therapy; I copied his mannerisms; I even started to speak with a faint Liverpudlian twang. But as I grew more into myself, I began to see him more clearly. I saw the rock crumble. And I could be his anchor, loving and caring for him when he was down.

One memory is burned into me from when he broke up with his partner in London. He came down to Bristol to see me and crash at mine. We sat together, watching a fake fireplace flicker on the TV, while he opened up about what happened. I’ll always remember the embers and orange glow, the broken black couch, with the armrests that had cracking seams, the blanket wrapped around him. I didn’t have to say much. I just had to sit. We had to, just, sit.

Past this point, our way of communicating had become very direct. I haven’t always been clear in how I speak, or sure of where to set and loosen my boundaries. But with Rob, I slowly learnt how to say what was on my mind. It means we can have difficult conversations, but also be utterly silly with each other. We can play smart and dumb in front of our friends – me tossing out nonsensical claims, him roasting me and laughing at the absurdity, until everyone else is caught into our whimsy too.

As the idolisation faded, admiration took its place. What makes Rob, deep down, my best friend is his virtue. He cares about doing the right thing and never wants to hurt anyone. Even though we sometimes differ on what ‘the right thing’ means, or on how far one should go to stop harm being done, he still tries to act with integrity. He thinks carefully about how he treats others and wants to spend his life improving the world. I can get behind that.

From the outside, our friendship looks sturdy – a ship built to withstand the gusts of wind that send other people drifting apart. No matter the distance between us, or how busy our lives get, we make the effort to be there for each other. In some ways, our friendship feels easy. It even seems as though, if we stopped trying so hard, we would still be close. We’ve come to know each other so deeply that the bond feels unshakable.

But this ease has meant taking my foot off the pedal. I’m always excited for our weekly calls and would never miss one unless I had to, but sometimes it feels like we don’t talk about much. Maybe that’s just the product of calling so often. As he speaks, I sometimes open a tab. I check Slack. I don’t sit and listen. I’m half-present, half elsewhere. Even when we met in person recently, I caught myself checking my phone several times. I was distracted. I was uncomfortable. Because it feels easy, I haven’t, in a while, sat with his full presence – to pause, to look, and to say: there he is. Even if we aren’t drifting, my attention often is. Pulled towards the rest of the world, to distractions that have little to do with the person I want to become – someone fully present with the people in their life.

I do not want this to be the default. Friendships, like any other relationship, should feel intentional, and I am scared of complacency or of taking things for granted. He is near me, he is in front of me. Where am I in all this? If I can’t show up and be there for my best friend, what does that mean for the others I hope to know intimately and deeply?

Friendships don’t usually have breakups. You don’t usually tell the other person, we should stop staying in touch. You just…well…stop staying in touch, and it becomes nothing. Ignore, and it is forgotten. Ah – I see now what I am afraid of. I am afraid our friendship will turn into nothing. That I will never meet Rob again, or another Rob. Sometimes paths cross only to move apart again.

Rob likes to use the cliché saying, ‘Just because something comes to an end, doesn’t mean it wasn’t worth it.’ I imagine if we stopped being friends, we would say that. Friendships end for all sorts of reasons. Maybe we’ll start skipping plans and forgetting about one another. Perhaps one of us will move away from the UK and making plans will become too hard. More morbidly, and eventually, of course, we will die. And even then, this friendship will have been worth it.

But I don’t want to let it slip from my hands. I must learn to be content with its finitude, while also recognising that it is precious. That I must be there with him, for however long this lasts. I hope I never look down to see what I’ve dropped, but instead look up and say: Ah Rob, there you are.