Five Stars

The app spoke to Daniel more than any human being did. “New order,” it announced, in its calm, cheerful voice. “Pick up in four minutes. Deliver in eleven.” Then a map appeared, a blue line showing exactly where he should go, and a timer started counting down.

Daniel had been a delivery rider for two years. He had started the job to pay for a photography course, but somewhere along the way the course had disappeared and the job had stayed. He worked twelve hours a day, six days a week, and his life was organised around a single number: his rating.

At the moment it was 4.91. If it dropped below 4.85, the algorithm would offer him fewer orders, and fewer orders meant less money. He didn’t know exactly how the system worked — nobody did — but every rider in the city had theories. Never be late. Always smile at the door. Never, ever argue with a customer.

That evening, it was raining so heavily that the streets had turned into rivers. Daniel’s jacket was supposedly waterproof, but water had found its way into his shoes, his gloves and, it seemed, his bones. He had already done fourteen deliveries and was exhausted.

The fifteenth order was a pizza for a flat on the top floor of an old building with no lift. He climbed six floors, breathing hard, and knocked. Nobody answered. The app’s timer turned orange. He knocked again.

Finally, the door opened. An elderly man stood there in a dressing gown, leaning on a walking stick.

“I’m terribly sorry,” the man said. “I can’t move very quickly these days.” He looked at Daniel, at the water dripping from his helmet onto the floor. “Good heavens. You’re soaked. Come in for a minute.”

“I can’t,” said Daniel automatically. “I’ve got another order.”

The man glanced at the phone in Daniel’s hand. “Does that thing tell you when you’re allowed to be cold?”

Daniel didn’t know how to answer. The timer on the screen was still running. Behind the man, he could see a warm, untidy living room full of books, and on the wall, dozens of black-and-white photographs: streets, markets, faces.

“Did you take those?” he asked, before he could stop himself.

“Forty years of them,” said the man. “I was a press photographer. Come and look, if you have five minutes.”

Daniel knew he didn’t have five minutes. He knew that the algorithm was watching, that his next customer was waiting, that a late delivery could cost him a star. But he stepped inside anyway.

The man’s name was Arthur. He made tea while Daniel looked at the photographs. There was a picture of a protest in the 1970s, a boy jumping over a puddle, a woman laughing at a bus stop. Each one had been taken by someone who had stopped and paid attention.

“I wanted to do this once,” Daniel said quietly. “Photography.”

“And now?”

Daniel looked at his phone. Three notifications. A complaint from the next customer. His rating had dropped to 4.88.

“Now I deliver pizzas,” he said.

Arthur was silent for a moment. Then he went to a cupboard and came back with an old film camera. “I don’t use it any more,” he said. “My hands shake too much. It deserves someone who will.”

Daniel tried to refuse, but Arthur insisted. “Bring me the photographs when they’re developed,” he said. “That’s the only payment I want.”

Daniel cycled home slowly that night, ignoring the next order. His rating fell to 4.86. For the first time in two years, he didn’t care.

The following Sunday, he switched off the app and walked around the city with Arthur’s camera. He photographed a market stall, a man asleep on a bench, rain on a window. Most of the pictures were terrible. A few of them were decent. One of them, a little girl sharing an umbrella with a stranger, was good.

He still delivers food, because rent doesn’t pay itself. But on Sundays, the app stays off, and every month he climbs six floors to show Arthur what he has seen. Arthur gives him a rating too. It’s usually about three stars, and it’s the only one that matters.