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 10

Think! There are thousands of unwritten books out there. All you have to do is pick one. Any one! It could be the one for kids, about the ponderous goat who finds a questionably shaped carrot, but decides to befriend it anyway because that would teach the children to be accepting of  others (and the grown ups could laugh at the pictures). Or it could be the dark and intense thriller - the blind spy known only as ‘The Mole’, trapped in a cult-like covenant behind enemy lines. Two lovers meeting on a zeppelin ride before the whole affair is cut tragically short by some ill-fated technical fault and their story is lost to the annals of history. Just pick one!

Or…you could make a sandwich. Yes. Definitely the best remedy for a mental block. Sandwiches are relaxing. Almost musical. The warm, mellow tones of the peanut butter; the zangy brass stabs of the pickles; the short, satisfying poppy percussion hits of the sweetcorn; the overpowering and dissonant string crescendo of some properly mature cheddar and, holding it all together like culinary and musical glue, the mayonnaise bass line. All on a stage made of bread. Ah yes…sandwich jazz. Mmmm.

(Approximately twenty hours later, Dail was at the house of a slightly eccentric friend, when the jazz sandwich made a casual reappearance. This, however, required the use of the see-through/glittery toilet seat which, in Dail's honest opinion, was completely lacking in taste and not conducive to sitting on and having a pleasurable, private moment. Or movement. Or both.)

 A sandwich for my thoughts. Ok, how's about this one, bread gods: a book on how to do nothing. Become something of an expert in that. Wait...no. The reviewers would be all over it like wasps on bbq chicken.

"What Mr Dail has done here in his book "7 Steps To Doing Nothing", rather than usefully inform you how to do nothing, is to merely suggest (over the course of 634 pages) several different and debatably interesting ways in which to sleep, sit, prepare rudimentary snacks and wander about aimlessly, with only occasional references to self scratching. In order to truly do nothing one would have to be dead (depending entirely upon your views of the afterlife and its relative existence). Is Mr Dail then encouraging suicide and possibly even murder amongst his readers, whilst at the same time trying to incite some kind of religious or philosophical war? How dare he. This critic for one won't stand for it (or sit, as he so vilely suggests). I say we find out where this man lives and exert some vigilante justice in retaliation for this heinous attempt at disturbing the peace. The swine." ** - The Times Literary Supplement.

Swine? Swine?! Bastards. I'll have the last laugh because I'm not even going to write that book. Ha! Try poking holes in something that doesn't even exist. Except it's possible to do that with some things...like school toilet paper. That pretty much doesn't exist, even when it does.

Dail didn't hadn't noticed he was sitting on the stairs whilst eating his sandwich until he tried to get up and walk away; realising the amount of available floor space he had on either side of him that wasn't either lower or higher than the bit he was currently on was much less than he had anticipated. Another sneak attack by the stairs. First his toe, now his brain. Whilst he would easily admit that they had their uses, he was also often prone to loathing them; because they were often pulling mischievous, bastard-like stunts like this. Luckily, he had been sitting fairly close to the bottom of the stairs and felt that he could comfortably jump down to the floor, which he subsequently endeavoured to achieve. Unluckily, he forgot that his ex-sandwich had been on a plate, which was balancing on his hand waiter-style. At this junction, he was surrounded by nothing but air and moving briskly towards the ground floor - to cut out all the boring details, Dail lost a plate but found an old sock that he'd been looking for for a long time; such a long time that he'd thrown its partner away. 

Chapter 6

“What are you doing here? I thought I lost you in the Pennines.” Dail puzzled in a confused manner, similar to that of a person who might ask ‘What?’ to no-one in particular, after having woken up in different pyjamas to those that they fell asleep in.

“Well, we’re eating lunch together and I ran out of food, so I thought I’d come over to the buffet table and get some more. What are YOU doing here?”

“Oh…pretty much the same.” Dail often forgot to clue people in on stories he’d been making up whilst he was feigning interest in conversation…

However, on this occasion he had been paying attention to the conversation, but had merely been trying to be funny, as he often felt compelled to do when hanging out with Gigi. She had been filling him in on some bank problems she’d been having, a bank that Dail already had certain strong opinions on due to their habit of creating adverts that had taken popular songs and altered their lyrics to meet their own diabolical ends, thus ruining the original (often classic) song forever. Any organisation that felt that such behaviour was acceptable would never be trusted with Dail’s money. 

“Would you happen to know anyone who might be looking for the top halves of some glove fingers? Just that I have ten and I don’t know what to do with them” he inquired once they were sat back at their table.

“Why do you have the top halves of glove fingers?” quizzed Gigi, peering over her plate of Spaghetti Napoli with a look of mixed curiosity and mild concern, to which Dail held up a hand clad in the corresponding bottom half of the aforementioned glove. “Can’t help you I’m afraid. If anyone announces that they’ve bought some fingerless gloves but want to make the lateral move back to full finger coverage, I’ll get in touch with you” she grinned.

“Much appreciated” returned Dail with his half-smile (for some reason, only the right half of his mouth actually moved towards the heavens (thought he wasn’t religious) when he smiled, a biological phenomenon that he was yet to understand).

They were in a nifty little Italian all-you-can-eat near Euston station, where they frequently went to munch on tasties until they felt tired and unable to move. But move they did, back to Gigi’s Muswell Hill flat that she shared with two friends, neither of whom were in as it was a Wednesday and they were both at work (not that Dail and Gigi didn’t work; they did, just not on Wednesday afternoons, a habit that Dail in particular had picked up from university).

“So you mentioned you were writing a book or something?” probed Gigi.

“Nnnyes, I am indeed.”

“How’s that going?”

“Well its not really going at all. Somewhat stationary. Not even trundling along at a merry pace, like a car that’s been left on a slight incline with the handbrake off. Oh bums.”

“What have you done this time?”

“Spilled some water.”

Dail was making some tea, evidently employing the ‘new-school’ method, which required you to make it on the worktop first, then move it into the mug after. A paper towel and the awkward, yet mandatory, ‘carrying-a-mug-of-scaling-hot-liquid-walk’ later, they were sat on the sofa watching a DVD.

“So this book, what’s happening?”

“Oh yeah, nothing. Don’t have any ideas for it, and believe me, I’ve been trying.”

“You could write a children’s book? You’re fairly childish.”

“Already tried, nada.”

“Hmm…well, you’re fairly funny and pretty decent at drawing,” there were two paintings in the living room that Dail had effectively been commissioned to do for the flat, “so I guess you could just fill a book with your random thoughts and doodles?”.

“Yeah, could do. Actually, that’s quite a good idea.” That’s a terrible idea.

“Really?” gasped Gigi, with all the excitement of a child who had just been told that Santa Clause and the Easter Bunny frequently went on special ‘fun-making’ holidays together, whilst the adult who was doing the telling inwardly giggled at the possible innuendos that a ‘fun-making’ holiday could entail.

“Yeah.” No. It would end up being a diary and no-one, would want to read that. The only thing that might beat it in the “things-that-people-are-not-likely-to-read” stakes would be a 946 page book that documented, in far more detail than was necessary by any standards, the bowel movements of a small woodland vole. It’s name might even be Gerald. ‘Tis a good name for a vole, albeit a somewhat unnecessary one, given the other voles can’t say it…or write it. Or even mime it. Ha, vole mime shows. I would so pay to see that. A miming vole … a mole! No wait, they already exist. Bum hats. Ah well, can’t all b- Wait, has she been talking this whole time?!

“So what should I do?” she asked in a tone that suggested the situation in question was a somewhat serious and that it would take every last grain of blagging skill that Dail possessed to execute his next words successfully.

“I think…” come on Dail “you should…” think of something “probably…” soon… “just…” any time now… “end up…” …bugger it  “…improvising.”

“Improvising?”

“Improvising. It’s the purest form of expression.” Grinned Dail.

“You think…that I should improvise…paying my rent.”

“Of course." Bugger. "Do some stand up for your landlord. Some interpretive dance. Throw some shapes!”

“…And your real answer?” sighed Gigi with an almost imperceptible raise of the eyebrow (so imperceptible it may have just been a face muscle getting bored and shifting position slightly, just to shake things up a bit).

“I have no idea. Sell your body to science?”

“We’ve been over this. No.”

“Well then my thought well has dried up. How much short are you?”

“About £100.”

“Hmm…” hmm’d Dail and then, after a pause that was the kind of length that implies deep thought is occurring… “Science!”. The cushion (which Gigi insisted was only ‘playfully thrown’) almost took out his eye.