Some hidden process in my computer has started playing bland consumer adverts. When I turn on the speakers, I only have to wait a few minutes for a deep, relaxed male voice to reassure me that just one application of Harpic Power Plus will prevent germs from breeding in the toilet bowl. While I work, a luxurious, throaty female voice claims that Airwick has the ability to take me to a heavenly place. A grand choral arrangement precedes the confident announcement that Vanish can remove even...
Stephen got up one morning during a hot July. He always woke up around the same time, because the noise of commuters driving past his bedroom window became too loud. Like every other day since his mother died, Stephen didn't have to go to work. She had left him a sum of money that allowed him to buy his small house, with plenty left over for food, essential household maintenance and the assistance of a solicitor in managing his mother's estate.
He went downstairs and picked up the...
I am a certain type of person. I can see people's ambitions. Everyone wants to be something they are not and it's obvious in their behaviour. Most people are trying to be loved.
The day in question was interesting for me because everyone was dressed up as animals. We all put on costumes that displayed our desired personalities. There were no specific instructions and we could all choose any animal, but naturally we all made the most of the opportunity.
Adam was a leopard. He...
George went out one weekend morning to buy breakfast for him and his girlfriend. They lived in a fashionable area of North London, recently populated by similarly young and comfortable people working in the creative industries. They had slept in until ten o’clock, and there were already people out buying weekend newspapers. On the way to the corner shop, he stopped at a deli to pick up a take-out coffee. "A large cappuccino for sir?", asked the proprietor in an accent from somewhere in the...
