Chapter 12

Ah, 11o'clock; the perfect time to wake up. Only an hour to wait until lunch. ExceptDail noticed that this 11 o'clock had happened on a Wednesday. Wednesday... Itwas ringing a bell for some reason. However, it was entirely possible that thisbell was just a decoy; set up by another part of Dail's Brain to distract himwhilst it thought about something that it wasn't really meant to be thinkingabout. Like the custard in the fridge. What it should have been focusing allit's attention on was this book. Not even a book; a short story would do. Ashtory. No, that would just be a normal story read by Sean Connery. Get out ofbed. It is being silly.

Breakfast…whatto have, what to have. The toaster had been somewhat grumpy as of late, and,"anyway, you've given up bread because you think you might be allergic toyeast." Maybe an egg. “Yes, an egg." But what kind?"Fried". Has to be, that's the only kind of egg you can eat whenmeeting Gigi at 12 o'clock that's why Wednesday rang a bell crap crap crap crap.

Forty-twouneventful minutes later (unless you count putting your jeans on backwards aseventful, which, unfortunately, Dail did), he was sat in a coffee shop, beingsubjected to some god-awful song, the chorus of which was along the lines of"You can do it, put yo' back into it/You can do it, put yo' ass intoit". Dail could only deduce that this must be a motivational song forpeople who experienced great difficulty in getting dressed, and was just aboutto briefly outline this theorem to the lady at the table next to him, when Gigistrolled in; late as per custom.

"Andwhat time do you call this?"

"Quarter-pastwhen we were meeting?"

"Andtoday's excuse is..."

"Iwas arrested by a policeman on my way over here for being too on time."

After amoments hesitation, Dail murmured something about that actually being prettygood and 'well done.'

"Ifyou ever have kids-"

"Punctualityisn't genetic, Dail."

“Yes,well…you have cheese on your elbow.”

She did.

“Where doyou want to go?” probed Gigi, as they sauntered down the casually populatedstreet.

“Whereverit is, it will probably require money. Of which I have none. At the moment. Noton me, anyway. So, to summarise, I need to find a cash-point.”

When themood took him, these harmless money dispensers had an unerring ability to worryDail; as did many other entirely inanimate objects. For example, when theyinevitably asked if he would like to check his balance, Dail frequently bracedhimself for the two mechanical arms that would, one day, slowly but surely edgeout of the machine and attempt to push him over, before giving him a score outof ten. Every time this didn’t happen (which was every time), Dail felt that hehad won another battle in some silent war against banks everywhere. Andgravity. When they chose to strike, he’d damn well be ready for them. 

Gigi'ssomewhat impulsive nature had led them to a bakery, where she was spending theamount of time usually reserved for intense philosophical debate on picking acake.

"Gigi,I feel like we've been in here for a year. No-one should spend a year in abakery unless they're being held prisoner by Mr Kipling. Just pick acake."

"Thereare two that I can't make my mind up between."

"Whichones?". Dail felt that if he could help her pick one and get out of here,life would start looking good again. As long as it was a cake that he liked, ofcourse.

"Wellthere's that pie over there-"

"Pie'saren't cakes."

"...There'sthat pie over there, or this chocolate thing that has so much sugar in it thatI'll most probably go into a coma."

"Sowhy would you get the chocolate thing? You'll just get half way through it,start feeling sick and then wish you had the pie. Just get the pie." Dailliked pie, and therefore liked it when Gigi had pie.

"Nono" Gigi countered. "I want to do this right."

"Fantastic.Well I'm leaving." This was because Dail was getting that feeling in thepit of his stomach that meant anger was stirring. It hadn't opened its eyes yetbecause they were still welded shut with sleep dust, but it was becoming dimlyaware of its surroundings; the chirping of the birds outside, people usingtheir cars or feet to go about their daily business, the noisy house-mateupstairs stomping around because they, for some inexplicable reason, chose to wear their stupid red boots indoors...

It was onlywhen Dail got home that he realised he should have just bought a pie forhimself, and wondered if Gigi was still there. Probably. That mad woman.

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.