The Brighter Future

I’m so pleased to have our first contribution from someone other than me on The Brighter Future … and our first story: Maybe by Wellington writer Pip Adam. I’d love to have more. Contact The Brighter Future if you have a vision for our Brighter Future you’d like to share.

Jonathan

The problem might be that when she ‘finally turns up’ with the birth certificate and the bank statement and a telephone bill it won’t be the right birth certificate and they will need the signature of the other person whose name is on the bank statement and the telephone bill will be from last August. They will say they have tried and she will nod but they have no other option and she’ll collect the birth certificate and the bank statement and the telephone bill and think this is so like the 90s were, and she’ll say, as her case worker types a note onto her record, ‘Isn’t this like the 90s? It’s like a nightmare,’ and he’ll say, he doesn’t know about that and it looks like the rain’s not going to stop any time soon. And she’ll nod. She might ask if she can keep her accommodation supplement, so she can keep her accommodation – but probably not. Probably she will walk back to the course she’s on where they’re teaching her how to sew even though there are no factories in New Zealand only in the prisons. And she will sew, straight lines and button holes, she will sew zips into the trousers that the company that runs the course will sell to the prisons who will only sew things for overseas now. Maybe she’s been on the course for a very long time, maybe she has friends who she talks to about Proust and Hugo but maybe no one will read that old stuff anymore, maybe all the libraries are closed. Maybe they’ll be flying cars and everyone will be wearing the same shiny jumpsuit, maybe the rich will eat the poor and the children of the poor, there will definitely be rugby – she can tell. Maybe she will nod off, daydream as she sews and sews, imagine herself walking – without telling anyone, without registering her movements without anyone seeing. Walking down Willis Street, turning into Lambton Quay, along the train tracks to Petone, Lower Hutt, Upper Hutt, into the Akatarawa Valley, through this year, next year, years from now, past power, past government, after all that’s been tried and found wanting has been broken so it’s bits and pieces of bits and nothing, into the bush and a clear stream, a river maybe, maybe all the water will be clean again. Maybe she’ll sit, maybe she’ll stand and stretch her arms to the trees that shade and stoke soft light onto her and reach for the birds that call. But for now she’s in a meeting room in a meeting about restructuring and her manager is saying, ‘Everyone will have what they need.’