By Chance the Future
LONDON. 2001. It’s the new millennium, with a minute more of pre-mobile phone, pre-terrorism hysteria, pre-social media life to live. Jackie escapes Sydney suburbia, steps out into the world. She’s an outsider with a bad haircut. Wild mood swings. She knows everything. She knows nothing.
Why was Sef kicked out of the hostel?
Immigration detention, drum and bass, Berlusconi’s boys’ club. Spearmint Rhinos, capital cash flows, Stephen Lawrence’s murder... By Chance the Future is a story that shows how reflecting on where we were 20 years ago can tell us where we are today, at a distance, with hindsight—if only we look.
“I dodged pedestrians, walking in a zed until I came upon a tiny old man sitting alongside the grand entrance of an imposing edifice. L. The little man was chewing slowly, rhythmically, like a camel. I imagined him toothless. He fisted a crumpled McDonald’s bag, grubby fingers producing a few more limp chips which he mashed with his gums and a not-displeased look on his face. He had a handwritten sign that read please help.
Well, exactly.”
