Chapter 5

Dail’s conversation the previous day with his friend who, he felt, was a rather ambiguous person and if he were writing a book, was the kind of character he would probably choose to fully introduce at a later date, had cast into blindingly vibrant and painfully bright light the fact that, indeed, he had still not had any luck with an idea for The Book.

The best course of action, Dail had decided, was to get out of the house and snoop around the “real world” for some sort of inspiration. Subsequently, he was strolling down the street in his North-West London-ish hometown; trying to avoid the behooded locals and the weather, which today had reached a balmy minus 2. To be fair, he conceded, it was January in London (well, he conceded yet again, just outside London, but near enough for everyone to consider London. It was at the end of the Northern Line, which was good enough for him).
Meandering into a coffee shop called Yours, he ordered a hot chocolate and, once he had collected it from the pre-designated receiving area, wandered over to a sublimely squishy armchair, which he proceeded to sink into so quickly that he assumed he must have struck an iceberg at some point during the sitting manoeuvre. In an attempt to validate this theory, he tapped out an S.O.S. distress call on the table to see if anyone might perchance come to his aid, though all he achieved in doing so was causing a look of deeply repressed fear to briefly ripple across the face of a nearby elderly gentleman. That or a draught had just entered the room and dislodged some wrinkles…
Having negotiated some sort of equilibrium within the armchair, Dail sat there for the next few hours letting his mind wander around possible book ideas. However, thanks to his terrible sense of direction, he got utterly lost and very little was achieved.

Surely Yours is a terrible name for a place where people are likely to socialise or meet, Dail’s mind pointed out. Well yes, he agreed. It could cause all sorts of misunderstandings and terribleness. Things could get very confusing for those who didn’t know it was a coffee shop…

*brrrring brrrring*
“Hello?”
“Hey man, shall we go to Yours?”
“Well I’m already here…but sure. Come on down.”
“You’re already there? Cool! See you in about 5 minutes.”

Ten minutes later

*brrrring brrrring*
“Nyello?”
“Where are you?”
“I’m at mine.”
“Why? We’re going to Yours.”
A brief silence.
“God I hate you.”

After roughly 53 minutes, Dail and his mind had strayed into an altogether stranger village of thoughts, where Mayoress Silly reigned as King, and the locals held a bi-annual carnival celebrating the birthday of the Amish God of Soiled Under-Garments. Unfortunately, today was not the day of the Great Carnival so, together, they had drunkenly stumbled into the local taverna and set about discussing, in very hushed yet serious tones, just how they would react should they wake up one morning to discover that the surface of the Earth had been covered in Tic Tacs. Probably not very well, they surmised. There would be much yelping and flailing of extremities.
“Maybe that’s why the Moon is white…” mused Dail.
“Prossibly. At least it would be minty fresh.” Counter-mused his mind.
“Unequivocally minty. What the hell does prossibly mean?”
“It’s like possibly, only more probable.”
“Outstanding.”
Evidently the local mead (the secret ingredient was rain water that was wrung out of the wool of sheep which were kept in a special field) had taken them to that wonderful state of drunkenness whereby all ‘logic’ becomes infallible.

This is insane. Surely it can’t be this hard to just come up with an idea for a book. There are loads out there. Loads. More than 36, anyway, Dail observed. Definitely more than 100. But both The Bath and The Toilet have forsaken me, and Yosh wasn’t much help either… T.V. is useless and people keep sinking in coffee shops. Maybe that’s why there are sometimes lifejackets under seats… Actually that wouldn’t work because only airplane seats really have lifejackets…and sinking into them isn’t really a problem as they’re not exactly the most comfortable seats in the world… But what is with those whistles they have attached to them? They could all at least be tuned differently, so in the event of a large group of people cast adrift at sea they could at least attempt to compose a song to while away the hours until the emergency services arrived, and hopefully keep the sharks entertained enough to not treat their legs as chew toys. Maybe they liked Beethoven… No, Dail decided. They’re probably more partial to acid jazz.

Chapter 4

“So, still no luck then I gather?"

Chapter 3

Ahh, TV. The source of all wisdom. Probably. It was either this or the internet, which, it is universally acknowledged, only really contains two things anyway; advertisements and pornography. Ok, there is a third thing; Dail conceded. All of those amazingly improbable pictures that would make people actually gasp out loud, until they realised that they were likely to be the result of hours spent in Photoshop with images of a baboon, the Eiffel Tower and a self-propelled rocket launcher. 

Advertisements; they’re everywhere. What’s that on TV? A company that sells personalised greeting cards. Called Moonpig?! A pig that lives on the moon? How does it breathe? What does it eat?, Dail pontificated. Then a gasp as the sudden realisation hit him.

“Where does it go to the toilet?!”.

TV adverts are not, decided Dail, a good source of inspiration. Maybe a children’s channel will be. They’re full of mad things like talking sponges and animals that hang around fairground rides aren’t they?

Hold on for just one sheep-shearing second, maybe a children’s book is the answer! A book for children! Yes! It could be about a pig that lives…on…the…

“Moon!” yelped Dail, surprising even himself that the final word of that thought was said out loud. It must have got lost whilst travelling between the part of his brain that comes up with ideas and the part that evaluates them for worth; before finding itself at The Mouth and then thinking ‘Well, I’m not asking for directions… Oh well. Here will do’, assuming, that is, that thoughts could think, which Dail didn’t think they could. This hurt Dail’s thoughts feelings and led to a mild headache that would follow him around for the rest of the day, jumping out from behind the sofa and yelling “boo” when he least suspected it to achieve maximum effect.

Oh yeah, children’s book, Dail recalled. Ok, maybe not a pig that lives on the moon. Various flaws with that lifestyle have already been brought into light. Damn you, advertising companies. You’ve beaten me again with your somewhat less than adequate inspirational qualities. Freestyle a possible beginning to a book…

“There once was an elf called Billy.

Billy was not an elf.

The end.”

...It’s a cautionary tale.

Maybe I could write my own encyclopaedia. Facts that no-one knew. Because you made them up; that’s why no-one knew them, Dail grinned to himself. ‘The Lion King is actually set in Holland, which, contrary to common belief, is not part of The Netherlands.’ No way, no-one would believe that. If Stephen Fry said it they would believe it, though. Maybe I could put his name on the book. Loads of authors use a nom de plume, so would it really be that bad if I just happened to accidentally choose one that was the same as that of a national treasure?

Ok, maybe it could be that bad; an idea that is fraught with silliness. The public backlash could potentially be gargantuan, concluded Dail. Possibly a joke book? But alas, you are rubbish at jokes. Then perhaps a book that’s full of punch-lines? Leave the hard work to the reader. Quick! Write down the first ones that come into your head. Bums! No paper! Paper plates, that will do (why do I have so many of these?!). Maybe if you get it published you could get it done on paper plates. Then it would be funny and practical. ‘Jokes so good you can eat your dinner off them.’ Ok, seriously now; punch-lines.

- … But it turns out that orangutans can’t even play the tuba!

- … They found Kevin Keegan three days later, dancing on a table in the KFC in Camden in nothing but his boxers and a pirates eye-patch.

- … Tuesdays would never be the same.

- … Monica Lewinsky.

These are crap! Comedy poison! Bleurgh. The only worse idea than this to have been farted into existence must have been when you decided that two Terry’s Chocolate Orange’s could be comfortably eaten in less than 10 minutes without any conceivably ill-fated consequences, reminisced Dail, somewhat bitterly. Ok, don’t try and force the idea, it has to be natural. Just let it flow. To The Toilet!

Chapter 2

“You’re writing a book?”

“Yup.”

“What’s the point?”

“There isn’t one.”

After outlining his toaster theory, which Dail felt was vital to understand in order to see why exactly he was writing a book, the conversation turned to what the book was about.

“What’s the book about?” inquired Yosh, Dail’s friend of many years, inquisitively.

“No idea.”

“Ok, who is it about?”

“No-one, at the moment.”

“So it’s going well then?”

“In a manner of speaking, yes.”

Many conversations between Yosh and Dail were similar to this, so much so that they had it down to a science of sorts. But not the good “lets-find-out-stuff-about-the-universe-we-live-in” kind of science. This was more along the lines of the mad “lets-grow-an-ear-on-the-back-of-a-mouse” science.

“I’ve got it!” announced Yosh, accompanying himself with a very unprofessional sounding drum roll on the table they were sat at. “Write it about your experience of writing a book, but make it read like a novel.”

“You think I should write a book about a person trying to write a book?”

“Yes! Why not? It’s brilliant.”

“No, no it isn’t Yosh. It’s one of the least appealing sounding ideas these think sessions have produced since we decided it would be a good idea to go into your room at night, turn on a strobe light and throw dead batteries at each other. No-one would pay to read a book about a guy writing a book. Even then I would still need something for the character in the book to write about! What you’ve managed to achieve here, quite skilfully, yet completely and utterly accidently, is the literary equivalent of those Russian dolls.”

“Kind of a Catch 22?”

“Sure, why not.”

Catch 22, Dail then realised, sounded like it could be a playground game that kids might play. It would most likely involve the number twenty-two being written on a piece of paper, probably A4 (a good size for the sake of visibility from a distance) and then attached somehow to the weakest member of the group, whilst the rest of the children then proceeded to chase and, if they were doing it right, catch the “22” and then win the game by kicking, punching, flicking or sneezing on (or whatever it was that kids did these days) them.

“Kids can be such bastards…” murmured Dail, more to himself than as any form of conversation starter.

“What?” chimed Yosh. “I couldn’t hear you. You were murmuring to yourself again.”

“Never mind. I’m off. Going to head home and try find some sort of inspiration.”

“May the force be with you.”, which was escorted towards Dail with some sort of hand gesture that mildly resembled a half-hearted wave but which, in some cultures, was probably regarded as an insult.

Chapter 1

For The Hell Of It - A short story about short story writing.

The provisional front cover I have designed.

Chapter 1

Marinade. Just let them marinade. Let them marinade, and let yourself marinade, thought Dail. Clearly The Bath was the best place for letting ideas formulate in your head and stew in their own juices, slowly maturing like a fine wine. Or cheese. But Dail wasn’t entirely fond of the idea of having cheese or wine in his head. How would he explain it to the doctors?! Well he liked having them in his head, but only his mouth. And even then, that was only a sort of toll road on the way to his stomach…

“Snap out of it man!” he cried with unorthodox theatricality, taking delight at the way his voice reverberated around the tiled bathroom, then wondering why he’d said ‘Snap out of it man!’ aloud, considering there was no one else around, then realising this should not have surprised him, given that he was in the bath and was not prone to taking baths when other people were in the room, before ultimately returning to his original idea of letting thoughts marinade. But this was only the thought of letting them marinade, not actually having any sort of constructive ideas and letting them slowly mature, like cheese or…

Get out of The Bath; it’s the only way. The Bath is bad for ideas. It’s all the reverberation and water.

Much better. Clearly The Toilet was vastly superior to The Bath for thought formulation, though so far the only ideas that had snuck up on his brain were entirely related to why The Toilet was better for thinking than The Bath, and even then these thought processes were predominantly cyclical. ‘I should document these thoughts’, he thought, but following that decisive plan of action his brain was emptier than The Bath he had just drained because it wasn’t allowing his thoughts to blossom.

“Bugger.”

How hard could it be to write a book?! Start with something simple. A name for a character. Kenneth? No, nobody is called Kenneth anymore. Steve? Too obvious. Murray? Too minty. Chad? Way too American. Barry? Too ‘unreliable builder’-ee. Ok. Get inventive. How about your name backwards? Liad. What the hell, man?! That’s not even a real name! To hell with this, character names are a minor detail and can always be put in later. Why not just not have names at all? Person #1, Person #2 etc. That could work…

“Good morning!” chirped Person #1, a little too enthusiastically for Person #2’s liking, considering it was a Monday morning and it had been foggy for two weeks in a row.

“Morning”, mumbled back Person #2, all the while loathing Person #1 for their morning-person-chippery-ness. What kind of stupid name was ‘Person #1’ anyway? A silly name. That’s what kind.

No. It’s not going to work. People need, at the very least, names, concluded Dail. Hmm, this is a much more cumbersome undertaking than originally anticipated. Is there even a point in writing a book? Of course there isn’t. Just like there’s no point in trying to guess what state your bread is going to come out of the toaster in. It depends entirely on the mood of the toaster. Will it be a bastard and burn it? Probably, and you're usually in a rush when it does. Ah, breakfast roulette, helping to stave off the insanity of mornings those few precious moments longer…

Ok, how about a face? Imagine a face. Vital features; eyes, nose, ears, mouth, hair, philtrum… just need to decide on size and arrangement.

Ten minutes later and Dail was making as little progress as a Thing that was attempting something that it was grossly ill-equipped to attempt, yet still approaching the task with a great deal of pluck and determination, despite ultimately being doomed to an inevitable and wholly soul crushing failure.

Why can’t I even decide on a face?! All that’s happening in my head is this confounded humming to a non-specific tune! What if there were little people looking to buy a brain and they were walking around checking the place out as if it were a house? How would the estate agent get around that one?

“I say, Mr. Fancy-Estate-Agent-Man, what on Earth is that semi-tuneful humming sound?”

“Oh don’t mind that, it’s just one of the house noises. As this house was constructed using fairly un-traditional methods and designs, it is prone to some odd squeaks, creaks and leaks. But don’t worry, you’ll get used to them though and may even come to love them like a member of the family. It all adds to the charm of the house. Now if you’d like to follow me through to the master bedroom with en-suite tennis court…”

Great googely-moogely, proclaimed Dail to no-one in particular within the confines of his own head. My legs appear to have descended into a light slumber. How long have I been on The Toilet for?! Ok, take it slowly, nothing fancy. Just try to stand up…

It was later argued that the only thing to fall with more drama and outrageousness than Dail when he tried standing up was the British Empire.

“Bugger.”