New Canterbury Tales

Time to move again. It is still early in the morning, which means the sun is not too hot yet, it is even a bit chilly, travelling up north. As a modern nomad, I like to tell myself I do not need much to be happy. I travel and work when I have to. I have seen a lot of the world. When I was younger I used to travel by plane quite often. I can hardly believe we used to think that was normal, we know better now. Or do we? Is flying to the moon just for fun not even worse? Well, that is never going to happen for me anyhow. I wouldn’t even want to. Not that I am not curious, but well, I couldn’t justify that for myself.

I make a little fire to warm water to make myself some tea from locally grown herbs. Being a modern nomad is not at all about being free and careless, as some people seem to think. It is a lot about trying to live in balance with nature as much as possible. And strangely, the modern technique is a great aid to that. Using modern materials, modern devices for generating energy means not having to use or abuse nature in ways which would be necessary in the old days.

Making a fire is indeed one of the small things that are not really part of being a true modern nomad. I tell myself it is okay because I only use wood I gather on my way and dry in my tent. I just love to sit close to a fire, smell the smoke and stare into the flames while I hang my small teapot above the firepit in the sand, it calms my mind.

Staring into the flames, my hands now wrapped around a warm mug of tea, I think of my sister. We were both more thinkers than practical while growing up, talking a lot about the world we live in. Other than me, my sister was able to channel all that thinking into a career and still is. I was always restless. She did well for herself and thanks to her, I and many others are able to live like this, travelling as a modern nomad. She tells me I am still running from real life. It doesn’t feel like that for me. Well, she might actually tell me this just today, as I hope to travel the last part of this journey to visit her. I am really looking forward to seeing her for real after all these years.

Time to move, I tell myself again. I shake the last drops of herbal tea on the embers of the dying fire, leaving the cup spotless clean and dry. My large spacious tent is looking radiant in the light of the rising sun. I unbind the ropes used to secure the tent to the trees and take the strong and lightweight cloth down fumbling it all together in a small pack. Taking down the frame is amazing. Have you ever seen one of those old movies of a family putting up a tent in the 20th century? All those tubes who could only fit in one way like a puzzle? My frame is nothing like that. It is made from a new material you can squeeze together into a small ball, and taking it out, you just pull it back into its original form, some sort of memory material. It feels like magic. I have some more stuff made off these materials in my tent. Bed and bedclothes, table and chairs. All quite comfortable. I squeeze everything in little packages I can fit in the frame of my electric bike. Its frame is almost like a big cupboard, very well fitted, everything has its place.

Electric bikes, I used to be against them. Why would we waste energy on a way of transportation which worked perfectly on human muscle power? As a youngster, I would rebel against those things I thought were so stupid. At the gym people ride bikes to go nowhere, just to get the exercise and actually going somewhere we would use non-sustainable sources of energy. Can you see the irony? Thanks to some new materials, I worked on with my sister, we managed to make a new sort of batteries, small, lightweight and degradable at the end of its lifecycle. That is how I made a lot of money, I used to work on the design of this bike, running on both solar energy and manpower. I can use my bike as a generator in my tent to get some extra power if needed. Otherwise, it charges itself while I am on the road cycling or while parked in the sun. All due to the whole framework which is not just a big cupboard, but also a solar celled smart cupboard.

I started travelling while testing my first prototypes, leaving my sister behind to do the actual hard work in developing and improving the materials and running our company. My sister did not really like that, she is a scientist, not a manager. So at a certain point, we sold the whole company and I gave most of my share to my sister, figuring she earned it more than I did.

Now that I am getting older, I find myself thinking about my sister more and more. Through the years we talked sometimes, of course, modern communication keeps us in touch. But as if she felt I was thinking of her, recently she called me, telling me there was something she wanted to talk to me ‘in real life’ as she calls it. I still haven’t got a clue what it is about and find myself contemplating about it more and more as I am approaching the city. The roads are getting crowded. Once we hoped it might be possible to live only on local production, local materials, locally grown food, but of course that was no reality. And despite the big change in thinking about work locations due to the pandemic in 2020, people still travel to and from work daily. Maybe less than it used to be but big cities like New Canterbury are still very dependent on a good traffic system. I am happy that Ryanne, my sister, lives in the suburbs.

When I approach my sister’s house, she is already standing in the doorway. I guess she has been tracking me. A safety check I build in, in case I got stranded in the wilderness somewhere. She, and she alone, is the only one allowed to keep track of my movements. I look at her, standing there in the doorway of the organic rounded house which reminds me a little of a hobbit hole. It looks rather primitive, but that is just an illusion. I know it is packed with modern technology and will seem bigger in the inside, especially with its sliding walls which will change during my stay. I won’t be allowed to put up my tent in the allotment garden, city policy. So I will be staying in her house for at least a few days.

‘Amar, little brother, long time no see.’ She walks up to me to hug me. Hugging her back I am surprised to feel how much I missed her. She feels rather small and maybe a little bit frailer than I remember in my arms.

‘Ryanne, I guess I missed you,’ I admit.

‘I missed you too,’ she replies while she unwraps herself from my big brotherly bear hug. ‘Come inside, you can park your bike at the back.’

A small cleaning robot approaches my bike, probably attracted by the smell of mud. I hope it won't start cleaning me too, I prefer old fashioned water to fresh myself up.

Coming inside the house I am greeted by the smell of fresh coffee.

‘Coffee Ryanne? Here up in Scotland? Have you fallen out of your habit to buy only local food?’

Ryanne just smiles at me and walks into the living room, a nice spacious room with coloured light falling through the windows looking out over the City and its harbour. The whole house feels like my sister, nice, clean, efficient with a touch of a bohemian well hidden under the surface. The coffee pot is on the table. Ryanne sits down and pours the coffee into two mugs. She invites me to sit down.

‘I guess you might wish to refresh yourself, but sit down first and enjoy your coffee.’

I sure will, it has been a while since I tasted some real coffee. I sit back and relax, close my eyes to get a better taste and enjoy thoroughly. Ryanne allows me three minutes of utter pleasure until she cuts in.

‘Amar, I didn’t ask you to come just for a social call.’ Typical my sister, straight to the point. Something twitches in my stomach, is she ill? She is indeed looking a bit frailer than I remember.

‘I asked you to come because I need you. Remember those students I worked with years ago, when I was teaching at the Uni?’

‘You worked with a lot of students Ryanne.’

‘Yes of course, but I told you about this project. It had a lot of potential, but couldn’t be done because it had a lot of ethical and social dilemmas.’

‘I see, that project...’

‘Well, I guess I found a way to work around it. I am not sure, it needs testing, it needs prototyping. To cut it short, I need you to work with me again, I need you back in business.’

I take my last sip of coffee and slowly put down my mug on the table. There are a lot of things going through my mind right now. I feel the coffee rush in my veins, making me feel a little bit high. Maybe that’s why I do not reply that I won’t give up my freedom, won’t give up my way of life.

I get up and stretch myself, suddenly feeling a little too large for my sister's house. I see her eyes fixed on me, looking at me with anticipation.

‘Why, of course, let’s do it,’ I hear my voice without fully understanding what I just agreed too. I sit down again.

My sister smiles.

‘Good,’ she says. ‘Now let me show you where you can get yourself clean.’

I obediently follow her. I always found it hard to say no to my sister ‘in real life’.