I could see the corner of the laptop sticking out of the leaves, under the tree that Darius had described.

I connected the old ThinkPad to the hanging cable that led to a solar panel, that was strapped to the highest branches.

There hadn't been a wall post or notification in ten months, and we were hoping that this time I checked, someone would have managed to get online and there'd be news from somewhere.

Privately I hoped you had been online, but I knew the wifi was terrible out at sea.

This forest was the nearest wifi spot to our place, which we had built twenty miles away, by the river.

That was where Darius, Mona and I lived.

I got online and saw that Alex had posted a photo of her son, who was now seven. He had never met anyone irl besides his mother.

I posted a recent photo of me, Darius and Mona standing by our cottage with the waterwheel we had built, but there wasn't much news since I'd posted four months ago.