I’ve had the mixed fortune to be seeing a woman who lives in a place called The Mailbox in Birmingham. On the one hand it’s good because I’m still amazed any woman out there would want to spend time with a tubby curmudgeon like myself, as I’m not much to look at, sexually arousing as a smear test and equally about as much fun to be with. On the other hand it’s rotten because on those lucky nights where she is too tired to object and I end up staying over, sleep is completely impossible.
Trying to explain what the Mailbox is to a rational human being is probably like trying to explain colours to someone who was born blind. And I know Rocky Dennis did it in Mask before his skull got too big and split, but in general I’m of the opinion that you’d have to see it to believe it. A sinister combination of “luxury” apartments and a sprawling mall, it is the dream for shoppers that never want to leave. In the not so distant future entire planets will be like this. Star Trek had it wrong – we won’t be divided by race or federation, simply corporate allegiance. In that sense the Mailbox is like a glimpse of life on Planet Nandos.
Of course, the inhabitants won’t have much of a military presence. Not just because the population will be mostly smug twats talking at volume into their Blackberrys, more concerned with impressing the female of the twat species, but because everyone will be too knackered to fight.
When I first managed to sneak back to this person’s apartment it didn’t look all that bad. A balcony view that looks out over industrial Birmingham might remind some of Bladerunner, but it is a rare thing to be able to sit outside, high above the rabble, chugging beers and tossing the off the side and watch tiny tramps scrabble for the backwash. That was before I had ventured anywhere near a bedroom, and such petty amusements are no substitute for the all important requirement of sleep.
The first thing that struck me was the lighting. Like some form of interrogation technique employed in Guantanamo Bay – minus the sodomy with vegetables and being force fed pages of the Koran – it is always daylight outside. Even with the blinds drawn that artificial lighting creeps through, confusing you as to what the time of day actually is. This sort of uncertainty keeps you off kilter, never sure where you will have to dive out of bed and spur yourself into action…
Worse is the noise. The constant shutting of shops and security checks through the night creates a series of beeps, bleeps and buzzes that echo around the cavernous building long into the early hours. Think R2-D2 being given hand relief by a cashpoint while a car alarm fingers his arsehole and you’re probably about there.
After that the morons come home. They are completely unaware of their surroundings or indeed the existence of anyone else outside their little tribe of the terminally thick, and they talk loudly about all the things they have done that day, even though their fellow morons were right there with them. It’s either that, or they engage in that other popular pastime of the terminally stupid: public arguing. Yes, ever since the advent of reality TV, the common or garden moron believes that their life is of such importance that everyone wants to hear about it, the louder the better. They argue into their phones, repeating the parts we can’t hear just so we know what’s going on. They emphasise the parts they like to imagine are dramatic. They add emphasis by shouting. In The Mailbox they just generally stand around outside their apartments arguing over what shops are better, who paid for what, who is better dressed. They only pause to pout into the CCTV cameras and then ask the concierge for a copy of the tape in the morning to tide them over until Big Brother comes back on air.
Once the morons realise it isn’t really daylight and decide to go to bed, the security come out to do their final sweep of the building. It’s empty now, the floorspace no longer occupied by slovenly consumers and they spend their time playing impromptu sports and riding around in those little buggies like the underlings used in Moonraker. It’s their playground now.
When they get bored there is a window of a few hours where sleep is possible, briefly. When the morning arrives, the sound of shutters being opened snaps you out of it before the music they play to put shoppers into a hypnotic trance starts wafting up the escalators. The drone of idle chatter, coupled with the shuffling of heavy footsteps, isn’t far behind it. Every day is like this. No escape, no rest.
As you leave, the security like to ask you questions. Your story rarely checks out as you are too tired to answer. They try and detain you before they realise it’s counterproductive to keep an intruder in the building they don’t want you occupying in the first place. As you leave they vow to keep an eye out for you in future, yet when you return they have forgotten who you are, too busy thinking about their late night game of British Bulldog.
The bad news is that this is the face of progress. Soon, all houses will have to built within malls and inhabitants won’t be allowed to shop anywhere else. Their identichip will stop them. Those complaining about lack of sleep will have their water drugged by the Residence Manager. The good news? She’s had to move out and I’ll be long dead by the time the Nandos empire has colonised anywhere else.