The Authenticity Project

by Clare Pooley

‘Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, today is a gift,’ she’d chant to herself as she brushed her teeth. ‘It’s not happy people who are grateful, it’s grateful people who are happy,’ she’d say as she brushed her hair.

The problem with all this new technology was people had so much choice that they just couldn’t make a decision. They carried on looking and looking until one day they realized all their eggs had hard boiled.

The English, Riley decided, were much like their weather. They were changeable and unpredictable. Complicated. It would look like it was going to be fine, then a squall would appear from nowhere and hailstones could rain from the sky, bouncing off the pavement and car bonnets. However diligently you checked the cloud formations and the forecast, you could never be quite sure what was coming next.