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music when I’m out and about. That and keeping my LinkDiary, but that takes no effort, or even conscious thought. LinkDiary just happens when you turn it on. You don’t even realise you’re making an entry, most of the time.
    Like it’s second nature. Or habit.
    I can’t remember a precise moment when I decided to stop using the Link for everything, all the time; I’m not even certain that there was a moment where I consciously chose to cut down on my use.
    It just got so exhausting to have all those voices and images, all that data, in my head all the time. So I experimented with spending time off-Link, a little bit at a time.
    You know, I’ve been thinking that my life is getting a little weird since I signed up to study literature, but I might as well be honest with myself and say that it actually started some time before that.
    There’s something about the Link that scares me, that makes me wonder if . . .
    ? ?
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    98123754983147598137491283749385473459
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    Wow . . . that hurt . . . a headache . . . diary crashed . . . it’s never done that before . . . has it?
    What the hex was I . . .?
    Ah, yes.
    Walking.
    Home.
    Headache.
    I used my filaments to increase my endorphin levels and to block the pain. It was a crude job, but I didn’t want to use the Link to get a proper painkilling package. I didn’t want to use the Link at all, but after a few paces I could no longer remember why that might be.
    So I just kept walking.
    It’s weird but the simple act of walking distances has become alien to us now. My legs started hurting after ten minutes of walking; my knees and my feet starting to protest my decision to leave the comfort – and laziness – of the slider.
    ‘. . . your MEMORIES.’ Someone suddenly shouted, and it made me flinch.
    I looked around me.
    The human river flowed, upstream and down, tuned into the world, but no longer seeing it.
    Had I imagined the voice? It seemed disturbingly possible, a lot more likely than one of the Link-tuned crowd suddenly shouting something out.
    I was about to carry on walking when the voice tore through the air again.
    ‘MEMORIES!’
    Just then the crowd parted a little and I saw who was making the noise.
    On a street corner, a man was standing on some kind of box or crate, shouting at people as they passed him.
    ‘If all that you REMEMBER is all that you are: who are you today? And who were you yesterday?’ The man demanded.
    But no one was even looking at him; to the passers by it was as if he wasn’t even there.
    He looked wild, with a long black mane of hair plastered down on top of his skull. His face was lined and creased by age. And his eyes blazed with what I could only describe as ‘madness’.
    I was staring, but I couldn’t help myself. It was such a weird thing to see; to hear.
    ‘YOU!’ he roared, and I realised he was pointing at me.
    Don’t look at him; pretend you haven’t seen him , I thought.
    There was a scuffling noise, then a thud, and when I looked up again the man had leapt down from his makeshift platform and was standing in front of me, blocking my way. Those mad eyes of his were wide and staring.
    Staring at me.
    I suddenly remembered an odd poem that my mother used to whisper to me when I was small. Something from a long, long time ago. It used to scare me when I was small. It scared me now, too.
    We must not look at goblin men, We must not buy their fruits. Who knows upon which soil they fed Their hungry, thirsting roots?
    I shuddered. If goblin men ever really truly existed, then surely this was one of them.
    ‘They can rub away our