‘Soon the cars will be driving themselves.’

As I’m about to clean my teeth I catch sight of myself in the mirror. My hair is bouffant, my jaw is slack, my eyes sit in craters accentuated by the unkind up-lighting, and I’m gaunt. I can make out the skull underneath the skin – that’s my skull! It’s a different version of me to the fat happy photo on my driver profile, taken down the pub before I started. I look tired. I look like I need some pampering. If I’d have caught sight of myself half an hour ago it would have been a different picture – animated, alert, sur le qui-vive; riding a wave of energy. The last ride of the night was a corker, taking me back to Crystal Palace; taking me too close to home to resist turning in.

[…]

‘You’ve got a good vibe about you,’ the man in the modern day beret tells me.

I love a bit of flattery.

That good vibe is the smile I’m wearing because I haven’t had to force my way through the ravaged streets of Shoreditch to pick this couple up. It broadens when I find out they’re taking me home. I’ve learnt not to let on about that though – let it be their guilt to feel like they’ve dragged me into the wilderness for a handful of almonds.

‘Do you enjoy your work?’ he asks.

‘The work isn’t bad, it’s just the pay which is lousy.’

‘Well, enjoy it while you can, I’d say, because soon the cars will be driving themselves.’

‘Like in Total Recall?’

‘Better than in Total Recall! You’ll be able to black out the windows and sit back and relax like it’s your own home. If you want to get your groove on, there’ll be nobody to stop you from getting your groove on. If you’re feeling peckish, then you’ll be served up some Southern Fried Chicken and a bottle of Red Stripe. The future is a beautiful place, man.’

‘Well, I’m sorry I haven’t got any chicken for you, but I’ve got a cable if you want to play your own tunes.’

‘You’re doing fine as you are, my man. I’m just enjoying being in 2015 – happy for you to be my guide tonight! I want to cherish these final moments of human interaction.’

‘They’ll be something to tell your kids about, hey?’

His girlfriend sleeps in his lap as he talks excitedly around subject after subject: the singularity, biphasic sleep, the benefits of fasting for cancer patients, stretchable glass, electromagnetic skyscraper towers reaching into space. He may be talking shite because he’s been smoking, but he’s completely engaging and I love his enthusiasm.

‘If everyone could just do what they wanted in life,’ he says, ‘then 90% of the jobs would be filled.’

‘Is that from TED Talks?’

‘No, that’s just something I’ve been thinking about myself.’

‘And how do the other 10% of jobs get filled?’

‘They’d be filled by transgressors.’

‘What, like if you pick up parking tickets?’

‘Yeah, any kind of anti-social behaviour would require a pay-back to society. That would get everybody out prison and working for a start.’

I see myself trapped in a cycle of parking tickets and driving to pay them off in his world. Come to think of it, that is the world I’m trapped in!

‘Would my job be filled with transgressors?’ I ask.

‘No, you said yourself the work isn’t bad. People enjoy driving. You’d be allowed to just drive.’

‘Would you give me a car?’

‘Society would give you a car because you enjoy driving.’

‘Would I still have to wash it?’

‘Other people wash cars.’

‘I’m starting to like your new system. Would you give me a place to live?’

‘Society would.’

‘I’m going vote for you then. What is it you do?’

‘I’m the MD of a PR company,’ he says.

‘Have you ever thought about going into politics?’

PUT YOUR MONEY WHERE MY MOUTH IS – BAD UBER – IN PAPERBACK AND ON KINDLE