The Second Sleep

by Robert Harris

Lives were short, burials were frequent; he knew the service off by heart.

Thirty years ago, the average British household contained enough food to last eight days; today the average is two days. It is no exaggeration to say that London, at any time, exists only six meals away from starvation.

we also know that almost every person, including children, was issued with a device that enabled them to see and hear one another, however far apart in the world they might be; that these devices were small enough to be carried in the palm of one’s hand; that they gave instant access to all the knowledge and music and opinions and writings in the world; and that in due course they displaced human memory and reasoning and even normal social intercourse—an enfeebling and narcotic power that some say drove their possessors mad, to the extent that their introduction marked the beginning of the end of advanced civilisation.”

A man as wise as Morgenstern would have foreseen the danger, and might well have had the prudence to lay down a store of gold—the only safe money since the beginning of time. Might I trouble you for more gin, Captain?” Hancock leaned over and filled his glass. “If the ancients were foolish enough to trade with airy tokens, ’tis no wonder they were ruined.” “It both made their vast trade possible and rendered them beggars when it failed. Consider waking up one morning entirely destitute, with skills no longer of value or of any use in the struggle for life! Their world was based upon imagining—mere castles made of vapour. The wind blew; it vanished.”

Once one thing failed, so did another, and another. Their society became harder to recover with each day that passed. It was like a ship that had slipped its anchor and drifted off, leaving its crew stranded helpless on the shore. And that was when the Great Exodus began—but this was an Exodus without a Moses to lead it.”