Craig David

Monday

It was still dark outside my shop and I was dreaming some unsettled, trammelled dream of a new undertaking – a venture – and things weren't working out as I had hoped: it was as though the doors had fallen off, the hinges hanging loose by their screws, and even my eight arms of Kali could do nothing to hold it all together. Paul McCartney appeared on my left shoulder singing, "no one I think is in my tree," and I knew I was all alone in the world. Depression hung over me like a black umbrella, glued to my hair, my ears, my teeth. I shrank inside myself and curled into the impeccable, immaculate foetus of my soul. There was safety in there…repose. With my eyes tight shut I saw the glimmer of a smile approaching like a train pulling out of some unseen station a hundred miles down the track, adhering to some unknown timetable. The train and the smile began to form into a face: it was the face of a woman I thought I recognised, but I couldn't put my finger on her. The eyes, the teeth – the structure of the forehead and jaw and the skin that stretched over it…it was someone known to me – it was…

I woke with a start, the tail-end of some bellowed word jerking me out of my sleep and depositing me sitting upright, staring into the darkness with bleary, weary eyes and the befuddled confusion of the returning wanderer. It was Chamone, my man-slave – I could hear him rustling away from beneath the pile of old skis I had made his home. Evidently he'd been up all night 'inventing' again. I rubbed my eyes and let the sleeping bag fall to my waist, revealing the sad flab of my belly and the droop of my breasts; for some reason I was expecting to wake up thinner than that. I sighed and groped around for my flashlight and trousers, and thought I'd better find out what Chamone was up to this time.

And just as I'd got the belt done up on my jeans – "Eureka!" – came the cry again, and last night's still full cup of tea went spooling across my pile of sleeping bags, soaking them and my once-worn socks, and immediately I knew it wasn't going to be my day. I sighed again and got down on my hands and knees, and as I started to suck up the tea I realised it was a year to the day since I'd kidnapped Chamone and that then sent me on a sort of reminiscing flashback-type thing that looked a little like this:

The village I live in – God bless it – is populated almost entirely by the old, or the degenerate, or the downright ugly – and, more often than not, a combination of all three. They give off the appearance of having lived impossibly hard lives, their faces weathered and lined by decades and years of being shat on and battered on a daily basis, of having sucked and sucked on so many of the little white cancer-sticks that they've practically sucked themselves out of existence. They grimace and splutter, and cough out every word they say, and rarely smile, except in a rueful way that is hardly a smile at all. They're also uncommonly small – and getting smaller all the time, it would seem, the gravity of their unseen burdens pulling them in stooping hunches ever closer to the dust and dirt of the Earth – and they're given to speaking in such preposterous accents and tones that, even if they aren't stupid (which is rarely the case) it renders them incapable of convincing anyone otherwise.

In short, when I walk these streets on my various errands and dalliances, I feel like the veritable cream of the crop, a king looking down on his subjects, my beauty far outshining all that surrounds me, my light dazzling and blinding to these poor, wrinkled-up souls and their shrivelled, pin-prick eyes.

I feel – in a word – magic darts.

(In town, of course, things are different there: there, I'm one of the dirty ones, slightly shrivelled, a lesser man; there, I have to find different reasons to feel superior. But find them I do, and rest content in my knowledge and security of confidence based in relation to others, which is the only confidence I know.)

Anyway, one day, back in my village, as I strutted my stuff and pouted and posed on my way to Tesco's to read the daily papers – hoping beyond hope to find smut and nude women, and not another bloody article about some 'new development' in the child disappearance case – I saw him: the man who would become my man-slave: Chamone McHendry, all smiles and six foot two of him – I'm five feet eleven and a half – in sculpted leather jacket and D&G jeans, and bright eyes and cheekbones that drew every admiring gaze and rendered me, in an instant, invisible and dirty on the very streets I owned. I loved him and I hated him, and when our eyes met in recognition and he smiled down on me and forced me to look up to him, I knew I would have to do something; already he had become too big a problem to ignore. I invited him back to the shop one day after business, on the pretence of a cup of tea and some model ships I wanted to show him, and while he was squinting into a bottle of Bettabuy lemonade and checking out Queen Elizabeth's sumptuous, fleshy underbelly, I hit him over the head with a recently donated pogo stick and chained him to the radiator with a pair of kinky pink handcuffs that I knew we'd never sell anyway.

Later, I moved him into the ski storage area and let him construct some sort of living arrangement in there. Turns out he was into nano-technology and within a week he'd built himself a full-time lab, happy as Hagman to spend his nights inventing and then sleeping up in the day hidden under the ever-increasing pile of skis while we bustled busily around him, pricing teddy bears and selling unfortunate and ugly clocks to old ladies and crackheads. In the first three weeks he'd already invented miniature mini-eggs and a fully operational laptop so small that it was practically invisible – a thousand of them laid end to end were only as big as the average baby's freckle – (which was pretty good going since all he had to work with were a pair of cheap binoculars, some ladies' tweezers and my second best nail clippers) but what I really wanted was some sort of microwave full of helmet-wearing ants that could turn old potato peelings and such into pizza and samosas, or maybe even bread and humus, and that's what I'd been pushing him for ever since. He was always getting distracted with other things, though, like figuring out equations for happiness that involved text messages, shopping and number of friends on facebook (he concluded it was ever-increasing, in an infinity sort of way – ie, no matter what number you had, happiness would always be at least one text or facebook friend away) and realising Cheesehead Tommy's designs for a zoo that would actually fit inside a key. Still, they were invariably useful, and earned me several million dollars when I sold them on, and it kept him off the streets. I'd say, too, that we developed something of a friendship – though we were never lovers – and I'd like to think I was doing him a favour by giving him that space, and that time, to get on with his inventions, feeding him, and saving him from the demands of the bill-paying world. We lived in harmony, really – yeah, it was mutually beneficial – and maybe most other people wouldn't necessarily understand where I'm coming from with that, but that's okay, because they don't have to.

"How's it going?" he said – Chamone McHendry, my man-slave, the apple of my eye, the pie in my crust, the ski room-dwelling madcap scientist, still good-looking despite a year's worth of daylightness and his stereotypical outfit of thick-rimmed glasses and white coat and pens.

"Stilted," I said, "like I'm not really sure what I'm doing, why I'm doing it – seems a bit ridiculous, really, but sort of interesting at the same time." I was popping my contact lenses in, left eye first, as always, enjoying the contact between finger and eyeball, breaking another of society's taboos. "I'm worried about Perlilly – I know she'll be reading this – but…I mean, what's she gonna think?"

"I wouldn't worry about it," he said, "she'll probably just scan for her name and even then just read the bits that look like compliments about her, and forget the rest. She only really thinks of herself, that girl – you know that."

"Do you really think that's true?" I said.

"Actually," he said, "I haven't a clue – I don't even know her. All I know is what you've told me, and you ain't told me much – I don't even know why I said it." His smile left him for a second and his brow furrowed in deep concentration. "Forget it," he said, "I'm just talking shit."

"Bollocks!" I said, and blinked crazily, the sting of my chilli-tainted finger shooting fire into my eye. "Ouch," I said, "remind me not to put my contacts in when I've been chopping chilli – that shit hurts." I laughed and blinked and laughed some more, digging the pain and the challenge of it – of overcoming it. I love that sort of thing – the immense discomfort and the facing of it head-on, never shying away, knowing deep down there's something out the other side beyond it, if only you fight through. Like getting anaesthetic-free drillings at the dentist's or hiking mountains with golfball-sized blisters, charging over pain barriers like a heyday Ed Moses.

The pain and the blinking died down and all that remained was a cheek full of tears and a red and smarting eye.

"Anyway," I said, "what were you shouting about just now?"

"Oh," he said, "I've invented a pill. You take it and it sort of warps your experiences and ideas and feelings, and mixes them together with untapped bits of your subconscious mind, and it creates like movies or scripts, or even mp3s, in a fantasy stylee. I've even invented a USB link-up so you can upload it to the 'net and fileshare it with people around the world, and they can do the same back, and it's like this sort of pure, unadulterated form of communication better than talking or fucking – or even facebook." He grinned again and gave a little scientist's snort. "That was a joke," he said.

"I gathered," I said.

"Do you want one?"

"Yes please." I stuck out a tired, man-sized palm and he put what looked like a fluorescent green brazil nut in it. "Do I swallow or snort?"

"I thought it was swallow or spit."

"Very funny," I said, "you know what I mean."

"Swallow," he said.

"Shame. It's been a while since I had a good old snort. I used to like that – before I got myself all cleaned out and straightedge. You ever snorted nutmeg?" I popped the pill in my mouth and worked my throat around it. I forced it down after about fifteen seconds of trying. I pride myself on my ability to swallow pills dry. "Gets you high," I said.

"How do you feel?" he said.

"Like I got a brazil nut stuck in my lung." I rubbed my chest and went looking for last night's tea. "God," I said, "I can't believe it's only Monday."

Tuesday

Sadness has come like an unwanted visitor: some boorish oaf whose uninteresting tales waffle endlessly and disconnected, demanding your attention and sympathy and leaving you drained of blood and none the wiser while pumping up the owner and giving him the fuel to survive until he alights on his next victim, you all the while too polite to do anything but listen, thinking, "surely this can't go on forever" – but it does.

Sadness has come in waves, crashing upon the shore of your soul, battering you down and leaving you bent over and grey, begging for mercy, pleading for transportation from that spot, away from the pounding surf, away from that noise. Hours pass and then silence suddenly emerges, the sun after a storm; the clouds part and the waves lap tenderly at your toes and as you look around and dry off in the warmth you want to cry because everything is so all-at-once beautiful and now that happiness has arrived, in stark contrast to all you have endured before, it is as though you have woken from a dream: the happiness in this moment feels so real you wonder what there was to ever be sad about. And just as you're realising this and basking in its warm glow, darkness descends, out of nowhere, unheralded, unsignalled, unbecoming, and with it, sadness, and the waves crash again, and they are all just part of one bigger, more glorious wave, which in itself…

Sadness has come like a trumpet. It tootles on its miniature bicycle and wobbles like a midday drunk. Sadness tastes of apricots and Nutella, mixed together and spread on white bread and cut into triangles. Sadness is sticky and smeared on small boys' cheeks and fingers, because sadness's aim is bad and because sadness has a soft spot for children's grubby youth. Sadness is a pickled herring; a batman cape; an inflatable werewolf howling at an inflatable moon. Sadness is coming like a trumpet, and a wave, and a gun. Sadness comes and goes; comes and goes. Sadness.

Wednesday

My day was a blur of old ladies' tales and internet Scrabble, interrupted only by thoughts of Everton and their upcoming trip to Luton; it's the sort of game we've got used to losing over the last – ooh, let's see – fifteen years, even though we should win it at a canter. We're famously bad in the League Cup, as well as in Europe – and not much better elsewhere. Oh well. I have a feeling, though, that this could be our year – that things could be different. I might even put a tenner on Tim Cahill scoring an extra-time winner. 1-0 to the Toffees, I reckon.

In the evening I met up with Perlilly for a dinner of noodles and green tea – my drug of choice – and even though she was sad beforehand (having recently relinquished her boyfriend) and I was sad also (having grown slightly if temporarily tired of being homeless) when we met up for our rendezvous outside the St Joan d'Arc Shopping Centre on Merry Young Street it was like the mathematical thing that I've never quite understood whereby you multiply two negatives (ie, two really small numbers – smaller than small, really, in that they're less than zero) and end up with a positive, almost infinitely bigger number. And even though we weren't multiplying ourselves by one another, and were in fact adding ourselves together (which would actually create an even smaller number – ie, even more of a negative) – therefore not really demonstrating my point at all – I think it works quite well as an illustrative, if overly-complex and poorly-worded metaphor for what occurred during our meeting that night.

Or maybe it would be simpler to say that when I saw her and we hugged, thirty-six hours of doldrums disappeared and I became a nest of smiles and happinesses and joys, and that the same thing happened for her.

I've only recently met Perlilly, and only recently started to get to know her, but already – and even from those first moments barely five or six weeks ago – she's become a big part of my life. I think of her constantly, and when I wake, and when I fall asleep, she's there in my mind, even though we see each other maybe only once or twice a week. But we text all the time – a ridiculous amount of texts for my aging fingers – and when we get together there's an ease and a joy and an honesty that I find rare. She's cute, too – sexy, even – and we like a flirt, are open about that and don't hide that we know that we're doing it, which makes it all the more fun, and easy, free of undertones and misunderstandings and false hopes/expectations. We've done all the sex talk and said, "I find you attractive" – and because we've done that in such an open way it sort of 'puts it to bed' and lets us go beyond it, into a deeper friendship, like I say, free from undertones and wonderings.

I'm a good bloke; I've got respect for others and I know how to restrain myself – although, having said that, I now realise that restrain's not the right word, because that implies a struggle, a suppression of desire. The truth is, I've conquered desire in the sense that I'm no longer a slave to the impulses of the body – I've come to understand the impulses and seen them for what they are – to the extent that I can pick and choose them, and transcend them if they aren't suitable to a situation. Sex should be something you have a "take it or leave it" attitude about – if it's there, and it's all good, then great; if it's not – and that includes if it's sort of there, but isn't really there, but you want it to be there – then great too. You miss nothing by missing sex if you're complete already. And, likewise, when it is there, because you're complete, you've got everything to give. If that makes any sense.

I've slept over with Perlilly a few times now, and it's been purely as friends, out of convenience, because we've chatted away late into the night, or because I've had my bicycle wheels stolen, or because I've missed my last train. She lends me her pyjamas and we don't touch and I'm happy with that. The company's enough – and great company it is too. The first time, I admit, I felt some desire to be close to that body – to snuggle, and hold – it's what I'm used to – but she drew a line and, because of that, I was obliged to make a different choice. It was a line not to be crossed, and so, instead, I transcended it. I was helped by a dream that night, in which we were making love but it wasn't going very well; I believed it was a message telling me not to go there. I thought about how sex can spoil things – can spoil friendships, can spoil people – and I knew I didn't want to do that. It's good to have a friend. It would be a shame to spoil that. Sex can be several hours of fun – and ecstasy, and magnificence – but a good friendship lasts for years.

Still, having said all that, feelings are feelings, and feelings don't just disappear…

"I'm a little bit in love with you, Perlilly," I was thinking. Her eyes and my eyes were locked into each other, in silence, and I could feel myself falling into her. This gaze is uncomfortable; I'm not used to it. I'm not used to people who can do this. I can feel myself falling and over and over I can think of only two things to say: "you're really kissable," and the above-mentioned thought.

Instead, I pick up my phone and send her a text.

"You're adorable," it says. Two empty plates sit between us and at least I've broken the gaze.

Perlilly is nine years my junior; that's a strange thing for me. I don't really know people nine years my junior; I went to university with people nine years my junior and hardly connected with any of them. But she's wise beyond her years and I hardly ever feel the gap and she teaches me things too. Still, I do have to wonder: am I Humbert Humbert? Am I some silly fool losing his head over some gorgeous and engaging and irresistible young girl? I wouldn't be the first. Those are good reasons to remain friends too – if I needed more good reasons. She's a good friend, Perlilly – at least, I think…

"Do you like me, Perlilly – or is it the attention and time I give you that you like? I'm good at giving those things – but also I'm giving myself. Are you a dangerous flower, Perlilly? Be gentle with me; I have a heart too…"

And in her eyes there is sadness and youth, and an ocean of love and clarity, and an irrepressible child-like wonder and joy – but no answer to my questions, because I haven't dared to speak them out loud.

"And now that I've said these things, Perlilly, about realising that I'm a little bit in love with you – now that I've let it echo around my head for a while, and allowed it out into the world – I've realised that it's more than that, Perlilly, that I'm more than a little bit in love with you. I wonder what you'll think and feel and say when you read these words…"

Thursday

There's something I find confusing: it's when someone's telling me a story, generally about some conversation they've had with someone, and they're relaying dialogue and saying stuff like, "and I was like, 'get the fuck out of my face, bee-atch,' and she said, 'I don't think you should do that,' and I was like, 'fuck you, asshole,'" and I'm thinking, "wow, that sounds like some sort of conversation, I can't believe you said those things" – and then I'll be all naïve and go, "and what did she say when you called her a total bitch?" and they'll say, "oh, no, I didn't actually say that, I was just thinking it" – and that's when I get confused and wonder, "well what about this conversation actually happened? Which things did you say and which things did you just think? Did this woman actually exist or are you just making the whole thing up? And what were you doing if you didn't say the things you said 'you were like' – were you really the opposite? Were you meek and compliant, or just watered-down? What? What? What?" Am I naïve? Or am I missing something here?

Now, when I hear these things, and I know the person well enough to care what the actual truth was – or am just in an interested mood – I might say, with genuine curiosity and enthusiasm, "wow, you actually said that?" – fully prepared to be impressed and amused and inspired.

The funny thing is, never once has the, "I was like," actually translated into, "and then I said."

Friday

So my area manager calls me up and wants to know something about a replacement till drawer and I was like, "stop bothering me, man, I don't even know what your job is – even though you get paid like four times more than I do, and get a car, and all the expenses, and stuff like that – I've no idea what you do, and you've never done anything useful for me – in fact, all you do is cause me headaches – and I just think we'd be better off without you. I mean, you've got no people skills, all you do is get people down – aren't you supposed to be motivating or something, giving out good ideas? – well you've never done anything for me, you just seem obsessed with signatures and paperwork, when we're supposed to be in the business of raising money and none of that stuff does us any good. I work hard – well, okay, I don't – and do a good job – that's true – and takings are up, and volunteers are happy, and everything's running smooth, and you've never said a single word about that, all you care about is bloody signatures on pieces of paper that nobody even looks at anyway! You know what you are, man? Just a good-for-nothing jobsworth! No wonder we have such a high turnover rate of managers in this area – you just haven't got a clue."

Saturday

Perlilly and Rory down in the squash court, working up a sweat. Perlilly hungover and maybe fresh from mouth-roping Elizabethan playwrights and isn't university strange with all those friendships and socialisings and how much of it is real? The pressure to find people, the mad rush of those first few days and weeks when all are alone and in need and plummeting into things that are maybe good, maybe bad, who can say? Well that's what university's for, and just because you missed out on that, and went when you were older, and therefore don't understand – or were never into that sort of thing – then it doesn't make it wrong. And nobody's saying it's wrong – but where Rory's heart's concerned, protection may be in order – because he is sort of real (at least, he thinks he is) and fools rush in and get their pigs trampled on and…

Perlilly loves Rory, and opens her arms to him, even in his sweaty and red-faced state, and he feels triply accepted because of it. A smile upon his face and the heart that has been closed for too long is slowly squeezing open again, tender and raw now like the flesh wound it is, the tearful joy of that creaking door, the hurt that forced it shut, the coldness that kept it closed, melting away in this autumnal sunshine and not just the love of and for this woman that's travelling through that widening gap, but the love that is love, the love that radiates out to everything and bounces off every surface, filling all with beauty, the trees and the leaves and the buildings and the road reflecting the love in me, my projection, the world a mirror for myself, as always, but today the world is shining gorgeous.

We walk down the road after our game and beyond our happy chatter I see the trees and leaves fluttering alive and incredible in their colour, something more than usual – something more reminiscent of being on drugs, of being on the spiritual highs of Mexico and California and Colorado, the memory of those ecstasies when the entirety of the world was taken in with each inhalation, the sky and wind and sun fills my lungs and infuses my body and mind with an ineffable joy beyond all normal joys, and in music the violin sounds and in that note there is the whole history of that note, from the musician, to the instrument maker, to the inventor, to the evolution of all that went into creating that note, and all those hearts and minds and souls are there, in that one note, and now in me, through the open door of my heart and my mind is blown again.

I feel you're doing something to me, Perlilly, whether I love you or not, whether there is love between us or not. I feel these doors opening again, and I feel my love starting to shake itself free. Winter is supposed to be the time for slowing down, for hibernation and for sleeping, for conserving energy – but in this autumn sun I feel myself just the opposite: waking up, shaking free, coming alive, full of song and dance and life.

"You've got more energy than anyone I know," she says, and I rejoice inside, to hear those words from one so young, from one so popular who knows surely so many people, so many fine and strapping young men. I love to be recognised for my happiness, for what makes me special – for what God has given me. My ego depends on those things – and there's a sweet, sweet irony in that.

Sunday

X has started to fade from view, despite her recent visit, and despite our upcoming trip to Venice together. Y came back to my mind during X's visit – forced, I suppose, to contemplate the options, even though it was never a viable one (I don't think) – but soon left. Z, I suppose, was just me wondering; never anything there of note. And now we have E – E2000, I guess I could say – who is always there with her little emails and notes saying, "I miss you, I want to see you," but never doing anything about it. But this week she sent me pictures – nothing saucy, just smiling and looking happy and strong and content – and I was thinking, "wow, she's pretty," and feeling a little stirred, and old mind started to wander yet again.

Perlilly says (about herself), "don't look back, go forward," and I wonder if that shouldn't apply to me, too, since looking back is all I seem to do. But what if I didn't look back? And what if I let go of the past, and truly put it behind me? What then? I would have a blank canvas, that's what – and that's both an exciting and terrifying thing to behold – even more so at my ripe old age of thirty-one (my forty year-old self is laughing now; my fifty year-old self is laughing even more). But a blank canvas…wow.

If it wasn't for email, and internet, and easy, international travel, would I look back at all? Probably not – I would have lost contact with all the people from my past – we would have been as merchant ships, as transient crewmembers in the heyday of the British Empire – and I would be present here only with what is around me. A marvellous irony, that: that these wonders of the future we have today are keeping me more firmly rooted in the past. But what if I did let go?

I would be younger. I would be more free. I would have you, my friend, and the others would be no more. I could let life bring me what I need instead of searching it out in the old movies of my past, the endless repeats of lessons already learned. Why do we live? To grow. And how do we grow? By going forwards, into the future, attracting what we need, in people and in places, and then moving on, and separating, and resuming our individual journeys when the time is right. To backtrack along the path…to try to follow others…no, it's not the way, it's not for me. So: goodbye, my love! And: hello, my love!

Is it as easy as that? I shouldn't think so…

"Chamone, are you there?"

"Huh?"

"Chamone, are you asleep?"

"Oh, hi Rory – no, I'm not asleep, I was just concentrating on something; I was trying to see if I could toss a coin with such regularity – that is, with the same force of flick from my thumb each time – that it would always land on heads."

"Could you do it?"

"No. But it ought to be possible, don'tcha think?"

"You want some tea, Chamone? I got a box of Rooibosh from Home Bargains for 25p; that place is crazy cheap. I got some Bombay Mix, too – but I ate all that already."

"Tea – sure. How was your night?"

"It was good, man – I went to that bonfire in Barwick, had an awesome time staring at the fire, chatting a little, seeing if I could withstand the heat and then making some wicked-ass flames that got everybody a-scampering except for this one kid – M------'s brother – who I swear must have been wearing asbestos-lined trousers or something – the dude was fireproof, man.

"Best thing though was when this group of M------'s friends were playing games and I overheard someone shouting, 'Peanuts!' and I got all excited – 'cos I loved that game – and I went over and eventually got into a match with the best among them – this giant of a bloke, wide as well as tall – and as soon as I locked fingers with him – they were like fat, swollen sausages, man – I thought, 'u-oh, this is gonna be tough.' But we were pretty even at the beginning – that is, I could hold off his attacks, even though I felt like he was so much stronger than me – and then after a bit of just holding on I thought I'd better see if my childhood tactic would work and I just let him go to town on my hands, bending my fingers back as far as he wanted to, seeing if I could take it."

"And?"

"And I could! I let him do his worst and he couldn't do nothing to me! He bent and bent and twisted me this way and that and all I did was relax into it and it didn't bother me at all – maybe it's the resistance that makes it painful, but relaxation was nothing. So I was laughing and joking while he was going at it, and then after a bit I decided to fight back and after a couple of goes – he was resisting pretty good too – I got him well and truly bent back and in the end he was crying, 'Peanuts!' while I had him practically lifted off the ground and shoved into a hedge! It was a mammoth battle, man – and wicked fun! It made me think that maybe this was something I could be good at – like, maybe there's a world championship or something."

"Yeah, you were saying you wanted to do something like that – get a world record or something."

"Yeah, wouldn't that be awesome? I mean, I'm good at most things – in that, I'm above average – but there's nothing I'm really great at. I'd love it, man – even if it was just something like 'Peanuts' – to be up there on the world stage, battling it out; there must be something, dude; there's world championships for conkers, and every silly thing!"

I handed him his tea and sat precariously on an old wicker basket, sort of floating above it, not wanting to give it my weight and make it collapse.

"Any chance I could get out of here?" he said.

I looked at him and laughed. "No way!"

He looked a little disappointed – but only a little.

I sipped my tea and then thought for a moment.

"I'll tell you what," I said, "finish off the ant-pizza machine and I'll give it some serious consideration."

And he gave a proper little joyful leap into the air and, I swear, he was grinning like the child at Christmas when Christmas still has magic.

"How was the pill, by the way?" he said, "did it work?"

"I don't think so," I said. "I sort of felt something at one bit, but I wasn't sure if I'd imagined it or what. I do feel happy – and different – but…as for whatever you said it would do…I don't think so."

He looked a little glum at that.

"Maybe a bit," I said, trying to cheer him up, "and anyway, you know me, I'm already too high for most pills – I got them in me already – so I probably needed another one or two to get the right effect."

"Yeah, you don't take drugs, you are drugs, right?"

"Yeah – except with alcohol. Two snifters of that and I'd be on my back and barking at the moon."

We laughed and I realised again just what good friends we'd become. Kidnapping someone was sort of a weird way to get to know a person, but I guess you meet people in some strange ways sometimes. I'd felt kind of bad about it at the time – you know, chaining him to the radiator under a pile of skis and depriving him of his friends and family, etcetera – but seeing him smile, and thinking of all the talks we'd had over the past year made it all seem worthwhile, like it was somehow meant to be.

"I think I need to go to bed, now," I said, "I've been typing for nearly seven hours and this feels like the end – either that or I'm going to make some mad, 4 am six-mile cycle dash over to Perlilly's house, for some unknown reason; she's been texting me and says she can't sleep, and got stuff on her mind; seems like the sort of thing I'd do, you know, if I was living wild 'n' true."

"It's late, man, you really gonna go?"

"I don't know – I'm gonna finish this and then let the coin decide. Coin's always right, you know that."

"Well, I know you believe that – and, hey, if it works for you…but I'm a man of science; I believe in things I can see and measure and replicate in a controlled environment.

"Like nano-ants?"

"Exactly."

Monday

4 am. There are clues in here; if you were reading closely you can't say I didn't warn you. Is it like a riddle? Isn't everything? There are clues in life, too – life speaks and tells you what's coming, tells you which way to go, if you're listening. Sometimes life doesn't say anything and then you don't know which way to turn; maybe that's a sign to rest from turning, to take it easy for a while – to look around the place where you are and find the clues from where you're standing still. Not all doors open when you knock: some work on a timer; behind some the owner might be asleep; behind others, the owner might be away, and you have to wait for him to come back. Is my door always open? No. It depends who's knocking; it depends what space I'm in; it depends whether or not I can hear you, whether you're knocking loudly enough, whether I've got the TV on. Or I may be in the toilet taking a crap; timing is important too. You may call that luck – I call it fate, or synchronicity, or perfection. You take what comes. You trust it's for the best. You strive for all you can get. You get what you deserve. You look around you and you say, wow, then all these things I have, I must deserve them? The answer is yes.

And now that you've taken responsibility, and owned them, now you can change them, and modify them – or simply accept them and bless them and create them more.

Now repeat after me: I did this. I did this. I.