I’m writing you this letter from London in the island of the United Kingdom.
I haven’t been back since Brexit, when they kicked all the foreigners out of the country, including me. I have a special visa for teaching, having shut down the island for the last 20 years, the population has become inbred and widely uneducated, it only took 20 years to admit the mistake they have made.
I’m used to traveling in style in Europe, but having missed on EU funding and collaborations between universities and agencies, the island of the UK is a lot behind.
First of all, I had to use the Internet! how 2025! to book my ticket which were emailed in PDF! I had to download a software to read and print that, it’s been so long since I’ve used that format. Also, the visa approval took ages, I had to wait a day to get the confirmation. Far from any other travel I have ever organized.
The dingy Eurostar and run down tracks it rolls onto were not what I would describe a nice journey but I know why I go there for. There is not much else that links the island of the UK to the rest of the continent. Since they have shut down air travel after 2020, the train is the only transport available, over priced but mostly empty, it looks like to me that it hasn’t changed since I was forced into one of those in the winter of 2019, leaving London, never to come back.
I arrived in London to a not so welcoming armed guards, the security is high even though very few people go to London these days. Time stands still there, I recognized the cafe shop, the shoe polisher and loads of children are selling all sorts of things: matches, newspaper, water; the few foreigners who cross the border come with wealth, something that is cruelly lacking here.
I decided to get an autonomous car to the hotel, but I’m afraid those don’t exist here. I had to wave a car driven by a person! I felt like a glamourous American in one of those black and white movies from the 20th century. I forgot how awkward that is: making small talk, having to direct the driver as he didn’t know the route and paying with banknotes!
I arrived at the hotel to find out that my room wasn’t ready. I thought the master Roomba might have been broken but no! the cleaning lady was running late. That’s an old job we used to have back in the day but it became automated. Everywhere I go it seems that I need to talk to people: the hotel front desk is manned by a tired looking guy in a tweed jacket with corduroy patches on his elbow, I feel I’ve been catapulted into an episode of Mr Bean. I usually spend around 10 hours on my mega super smartphone but was at below 5 hours having to talk to people for all manners of things. It’s exhausting, I miss the silence.
In between classes, I had wanted to visit a few places but had no luck, Buckingham Palace, ravaged by mould had his west wing collapsed and the rest of the structure is compromised. Also, the House of Parliament has sunk into the sea last year. Maybe, I’ll just wander around town, walk to where I used to work, where I used to live, where my life once was.
I hope to see you very soon, I will bring you a gift and tell you more about this forgotten island that once was a Kingdom.
Tata D
Travel in 2039 