Just an ordinary morning in biohazard Britain

I peeled myself from my hypoallergenic pillow and headed to the bathroom for the standard ablutions: a quick deep scrape of the tonsils and a sample uploaded to the government servers.

Only when they gave me the “all clear” did I get dressed, pick up my keys, and triple-mask for the day ahead. I must have been in a good mood. I almost left without my latex arm sheaths and biohazard goggles.

My favourite coffee shop had survived the Great Pandemic of 2020 and was doing strong business now that life had returned to normal. I flashed my vaccine passport at the door, which slowly opened with celebratory green lights flashing and a honking siren warning the unvaccinated to stand well back. I felt myself relax once I was inside the airlock but that was probably just the natural analgesic effect of the cleansing sprays penetrating my every orifice.

The café is one of the more upmarket and progressive outlets in town, but they do make good fair-trade coffee (transported, of course, via solar balloon to avoid the faddishly verboten Suez route). Admittedly, they are also a bit too progressive and scanned my belongings for offensive material. It resulted in my fourth warning of the week for the copy of P.G. Wodehouse’s “Right Ho, Jeeves” in my trouser pocket and a sixth health and safety violation for improper use of a trouser pocket. I had been hoping to have the book finished before I’d be compelled to sign another open letter to The Guardian condemning misogyny in Edwardian settings involving tall patriarchs in non-organic bowler hats.

Once inside, I waited for a table and spent the time signing the usual contracts: no coughing, sneezing, yawning, burping, scratching, picking, poking, sighing, blinking, or doing anything that might be construed as “bodily”. You know. The usual niceties that pass for good manners these days.

I was lucky when my favourite window seat became free. I sat down and smiled at the patron at the next table, eighteen feet away.

No sooner had I sat down than the waitress approached. 

“Ready to order?” she asked as she stuck a thermometer in my ear. She had a winning smile, even from inside the Perspex bubble mandated by the government’s Department for Overreliance on Gimmicky Technology.

“A coffee,” I said.

“You want sugar with that?”

“Two,” I replied, at which point the house orthodontist came over and gave my teeth a quick inspection.

“No more than one,” he said. “He’s not flossed today.”

Ordering eggs and bacon left me feeling a little dizzy. “You need to eat more fibre,” advised the man reading the results of my rectal probe.

Yet the food when it came was delicious, the bacon having that lovely salty edge from the chlorine bath and the vegan eggs still retaining the residual taste of the test tubes.

I paid contactless – of course – and received the electronic receipt from the company’s offices in the off-world tax haven of Muskville. Then it was time for another trip through the airlocks as a friendly voice said “Come again” as the exact time and geolocation were stamped onto my forehead in indelible ink for the purposes of track and trace.

With that, I could start my day, feeling like everything was so right with the world… Which, of course, I’d already signed paperwork to confirm that it was.