by Limmy
‘What are you thinking?’ she asked.
He didn’t answer. His eyes were looking downward, then they moved to the side, as he thought about whatever he was thinking. His brow furrowed, then it relaxed.
Kim had to ask again. ‘Hellooooo,’ she said, waving her hand in front of his face.
Sean looked at her. ‘Sorry, what?’
‘I said, what are you thinking? Are you all right?’
Sean put a hand on his drink. ‘I was just thinking …’, then he shook his head.
‘What?’ asked Kim. She spoke more gently. ‘Your mum?’
‘No,’ said Sean. ‘No.’
He moved in his chair and raised his hands to try and help him word what he was about to say. He said, ‘I was just wondering where the days go.’
Kim nodded and looked around at the people walking by. She looked at a lassie across the road who was about ten years younger than herself, and said, ‘I know. Time flies.’
‘No,’ said Sean. ‘I don’t mean like that.’
She looked at him.
He tapped his right temple and said, ‘I mean the days in here.’
Kim thought for a second, then shook her head. ‘Hmm?’
She took a sip of her Diet Coke. She wasn’t thirsty. She was just trying to appear relaxed and not concerned about him. He’d told her before to stop worrying about him, but it was hard not to. Especially when he tapped his head.
‘I mean, where do they go?’ he said. ‘But I don’t mean the days you remember. I mean the ones you don’t. Where do they go?’
‘I don’t know what you’re getting at,’ said Kim. ‘You mean the days you forget? Are you asking what happens when you forget?’ She shrugged. ‘I don’t know. You just … forget.’
She laughed, but she tried not to sound like she was laughing at him. ‘Simple as that, I suppose.’
‘I don’t know,’ said Sean, not content with the answer. ‘I’m not sure.’ Then he had a sip of his own drink.
Kim was going to end the conversation there. She wasn’t sure if it was good for Sean to get into all of this. But maybe it was a good thing. She didn’t know. But she decided to ask.
‘What kind of things were you thinking?’ she said. ‘Things like what?’
He moved his seat to face her. He’d been facing out towards the road, but now he turned his seat so that he could lean forward towards her to say what was on his mind.
‘I was just trying to think of happy memories,’ he said. ‘Happier times. Like, have I ever said to you that my favourite time was when I was eight?’
‘Eight,’ said Kim. ‘Aye. You’ve mentioned it a few times.’
She had another sip of her drink.
‘Well,’ said Sean. ‘I’ve been thinking about it, and I cannae actually remember it.’
She put down her drink and shrugged. ‘Well, it was a long time ago. I cannae remember being eight.’
‘I know,’ said Sean. Then he pointed to himself. ‘But I can.’
He saw that she was confused.
‘What I mean is, what I mean is, I thought I did. I thought I remembered it. I had it in my head that it was one of the happiest times of my life. I always go on about it, don’t I? I know I do.’
Kim looked away. ‘It’s fine, though,’ she said. ‘There’s nothing wrong with happy memories. You should cherish your memories.’
‘Aye, but.’ He shook his head. ‘But. When I go to try and remember things, all the good things that happened, I can only remember one or two things. And I mean that. Just one or two things.’
He tapped on the table with the edge of his hand to emphasise. ‘Literally one or two things.’
Kim looked at his hand.
He smiled and said, ‘You’d think that I’d remember more, win’t you? Considering it was supposed to be the happiest time of my life, considering I go on about it so much. Yet when I try to remember, all I get in my head is just one or two things, and that’s it. That’s the lot, Kim. I mean it.’
‘Well,’ she said. ‘The main thing is that you remember that it was a happy time. I think that’s the main thing.’
‘But was it?’ asked Sean. ‘Was it a happy time? I can only remember, like, two things. Honestly. I was thinking about it there, that’s what I was thinking about. I asked myself, right, see what you can remember. Go. See what you can remember. And all I could remember was this …’
He counted on his fingers. One: ‘A fence that I used to vault when me and my mum went to Saltcoats.’ Two: ‘The weather was nice.’
He opened out his empty palms to show that there was nothing else there.
Kim said, ‘Sean, it’s the same for everybody. I cannae remember being eight.’ She laughed. ‘I’m not even sure if I can remember what happened eight weeks ago!’
‘But Kim! I need … you don’t have the … it isn’t the …’
She waited for him to calm down. He usually did.
He took a breath and looked away. ‘There’s got to be more than that.’
He lifted his glass to take a drink, then stopped halfway to put it back down on the table to talk some more. ‘Look,’ he said, calmly. ‘Look, right. It’s like this. I’m sorry, by the way, I’m just …’
‘It’s fine,’ she said. ‘Go.’
He took another breath.
‘It’s like. It’s as if. Imagine you’ve got all this money in the bank, right?’
‘Right,’ she said. She put a hand on her drink.
‘Imagine you’ve got all this money that you’ve been saving up. Saving up for years. Saving for a rainy day, right?’
She nodded.
‘But then,’ he said, ‘you go to check your account one day. Maybe you need to take some of it out, I don’t know. And you look. And it’s gone. Somebody’s snatched it. It’s all gone.’
‘It’s not all gone.’
‘All right, maybe not all gone. But all you’ve got left is just a wee pile of change. A wee pile of coppers. A wee pile of manky fucking two-pence pieces, a wee pile of twos and ones that you don’t want.’
She smiled, she thought he was being funny. But he didn’t smile back.
‘Sean, I think that’s quite a negative way of looking at it.’ She leaned forward. ‘I cannae remember everything about being eight, nobody can.’
‘It’s not just that,’ said Sean. He opened his mouth to speak, then closed it.
‘I know,’ said Kim. ‘I know.’ She leaned forward to take his hand. ‘But you don’t have to remember every single thing to have happy memories.’
Sean looked at her, then looked down the street over her shoulder. She thought he was thinking, but Kim could tell from his eyes that he was looking at something. He began to smile, so she turned to see what he was smiling at.
There was an old woman in the distance, walking along the pavement in their direction. She was pushing a tartan shopping trolley in front of her. It looked like it was also helping her walk, like a Zimmer frame.
Kim watched Sean watching the woman. He said nothing for a while, then he spoke.
‘I’m not being negative,’ he said, looking in the direction of the woman. ‘I’m not. In fact, it’s funny.’
He laughed a wee laugh. Kim smiled, but not fully, as she waited to see what kind of laugh he was laughing.
‘It is funny,’ he said, still watching the woman. ‘You check your account, thinking it’ll be stacked with all these gold bars. All these happy memories. All these memories of all these happy days you’re sure you had. And they’ve been snatched.’ He pointed to the woman in the distance and said, ‘Snatched by her.’
Kim turned around to look at the woman, then she turned back to Sean.
She laughed politely, but she didn’t think it was funny.
She watched him as he watched the woman. His eyes moved down then up again, looking between the woman’s face and her trolley and everything in between.
‘The Daysnatcher,’ he said to himself.
He looked
at Kim. She was looking at him, but with her head turned slightly towards the old woman behind, listening. She knew the woman was close, because of the squeak coming from one of the wheels on the trolley.
‘Imagine it,’ said Sean. ‘Imagine such a thing.’
‘It’s funny,’ said Kim.
‘Aye,’ said Sean. ‘And I widnae mind. Now that I think about it, I really widnae. I really don’t. I had good days, I know I did.’
‘Of course you did. You widnae have they feelings if you didnae.’
‘Aye,’ he said. ‘So I don’t mind if she wants to snatch a few. Take a few of the good memories for herself. And I’m not judging, maybe she needs them more than me!’
Kim nodded.
‘It’s just,’ he said. ‘I don’t know.’
Kim finished for him. ‘You just wish she’d take some of the bad ones as well.’
Sean looked at her and nodded. ‘I just wish she would take some of the bad ones as well.’ He laughed another wee laugh. They both laughed.
The old woman began to pass. She glanced at Sean and saw him looking at her. She smiled at him, and he smiled back.
Sean turned his smile onto Kim. He said again, ‘I just wish she would take some of the bad ones.’
Kim had another sip of her Diet Coke, until it was finished.
Sean faced her, but with his head turned slightly towards the old woman behind. He listened to her squeaky wheel fade away.
He turned to look at the woman, to see where she was. She was far away. He shouted, ‘I just wish she would take some of the …’
Kim grabbed his arm to turn him back towards her.
Soft Play
Claire and Tom were sitting at a table in a soft play. Their daughters were running around somewhere with the other boys and lassies, playing out of sight for most of the time. They’d sometimes shout hello to their mum and dad from high up in the multi-coloured scaffolding, or come back to the table for a quick drink before running off again, but they’d mostly stay away. It was a chance for Claire and Tom to chat in peace, if they wanted to, but they sat there without saying much.
Tom was bored. He had his side turned to Claire, as he looked at a polystyrene cup of coffee on the table that somebody had left behind. He was moving the coffee inside the cup, simply by using the power of his mind. It was just something he did when he got bored. Claire looked at the coffee inside the cup as it moved around.
She didn’t like it.
Claire was about to interrupt him, when she spotted a woman that she knew, called Diane. Claire knew Diane from a class that they used to take their children to. All the mums would sit around in a circle with their babies, bouncing them up and down to music. While the dads were off doing something more fun. Something less boring.
‘Diane!’ shouted Claire.
Diane turned and saw her, and over she came to the table. ‘Claire,’ she said. ‘How are you? Long time no see.’
Diane gave Claire a cuddle and asked how she was doing. She looked to Tom and was about to say hi to him as well, but she could see that he was in a world of his own.
‘Oh, forget about him,’ said Claire. She said it with a smile, to pretend that it didn’t bother her as much as it did. ‘How you getting on? How’s Patrick?’
The last time Claire had seen Diane, she was with her son Patrick. Diane had mentioned that Patrick was going for a hearing test, because something was flagged up after a routine check-up at the doctor’s.
‘He’s good,’ said Diane, looking towards the scaffolding. ‘He’s in there somewhere. How are yours, how are the twins?’
‘Good, good,’ said Claire. ‘Hard work, but I’m coping. Oh, how did things go with Patrick’s hearing? I remember you saying he was going for a test.’
‘Ear wax. That’s all it was.’
‘Really? You’d have thought they would have saw that at the check-up.’
‘Mmm-hmm.’
Diane looked at what Tom was doing with the coffee in the cup.
Claire followed her eyes and saw what she was looking at.
‘Hmm,’ said Claire. ‘This.’
Both of them watched what he was doing. He was doing something over and over.
The coffee would start off looking like a normal cup of coffee, with the surface of the coffee being flat and horizontal. Then the coffee would slowly rise at one side of the cup, like the cup was being tipped, except the cup was flat on the table.
Then, as the coffee started to reach the lip of the cup, it would suddenly drop back down inside, as if whatever force that was causing the coffee to rise had been suddenly switched off. The surface of the coffee would rock back and forth until it came to a rest.
After a few seconds of it sitting at rest, it would begin to rise again like before.
‘You’re going to spill it,’ said Claire.
She was annoyed. She tried not to let it show to Diane, but she was annoyed.
What annoyed her wasn’t that he was about to spill the coffee. It was that he was able to move stuff with his mind, and she wasn’t. Not that she was jealous of being able to do it, it wasn’t that either.
She’d like to be able to, though. She would. She’d love to.
She’d tried it herself, in the past. She was sure that most people had tried it when they were bored. She tried it when she was younger, tried moving things just by looking at them. She’d be stuck in the house with her dad after being grounded, stuck in the living room with the telly off, with nothing to look at, nothing to read. And faced with that level of boredom, her mind would have no choice but to occupy itself with daft things to think about, like wondering if she could move something with her mind. She’d look at an ashtray or something else lying around, and give it a go, just to see if she could. But, of course, she couldn’t.
Tom could, though.
He would never say how, but he didn’t have to. Claire had worked it out. It was because in order to be able to do it, you couldn’t just be bored. You couldn’t just be the type of bored you get when there’s nothing to watch on the telly. You had to be a special type of bored. The type of bored you get when you’re stuck in a soft play with no connection on your phone, stuck with a family that you’re bored of. Stuck with a life that you’re bored of.
What, and she wasn’t? Did he think that she wasn’t also bored?
Claire and Diane continued to watch what Tom was doing with the cup of coffee. It was now floating above the table by a centimetre or so. There was a shadow underneath.
‘Mum,’ said a voice.
Claire looked and saw it was Diane’s son Patrick, who was walking over with his jacket on.
‘Well just look at you!’ said Claire.
He’d grown. He was the same age and height as Claire’s daughter, but the last time she’d seen Patrick, he was no more than a baby. Now he was a walking, talking boy.
Patrick didn’t respond, he was more interested in what Tom was doing.
‘Look!’ said Patrick, pointing to the cup.
The cup was now upside down, in mid-air, with the coffee spiralling around the outside like a helter-skelter.
‘Do you like it?’ asked Claire. ‘Can your daddy do that?’
‘No,’ said Patrick.
No, of course he can’t, Patrick. That’s because he isn’t bored with his life. He isn’t bored with his family. He isn’t bored with your mum.
And even if he is, he doesn’t let everybody know about it by doing shite like this.
Claire hoped Diane wouldn’t say something to make her feel better, something like ‘Oh, Tom’s good at that, isn’t he, Patrick?’
Claire just wanted her to go.
The New Icon
There once was this guy called Malcolm.
Malcolm had a company that made apps. Apps for phones and tablets. Some of them were games, and some of them were apps that he thought people would find useful. But they were all shite. They were all flops. Each of them only had about 400 downloads and they weren’
t rated very highly, no more than 3 out of 5 stars. People would leave comments under the ratings, saying that the apps were a waste of time, and that other apps did more stuff and did it better. The comments and ratings for the games were just as bad, with people saying the games were just rip-offs of Candy Crush and Angry Birds. They were all flops, each and every one of them.
Well, except one.
There was one that wasn’t a flop. It was quite a success. It was called YoonifEye, pronounced ‘Unify’. It sort of unified all your social-media stuff, like Twitter and Facebook and things like that. It brought them all together. It unified them.
The app was very popular, it had just under a million downloads, and an average rating of 4.5 out of 5. The free version was ad supported, with the ad-free version costing £2.99. It brought in a good income for Malcolm’s company, MalcolmApps, which helped him to employ a small team of five people. Nobody in his position would have any reason to go and fuck with a success like that. YoonifEye looked good, it worked good, everybody liked it, there was no reason to change a thing. There was just no reason to change it at all.
Malcolm decided that he wanted to change it.
Despite everybody liking it the way it was, despite everything else being a failure and this one app being a success, he wanted to change it.
He called a Monday morning meeting, and told his staff that he’d been using the app over the weekend. He wanted to make a very small change. ‘It’s nothing, really,’ he said. ‘I’m getting a bit bored of the icon. The app icon.’ Then he clapped his hands and rubbed them together. ‘I think it’s time for a change!’ He was all excited.
He was a fucking fool.
‘What’s wrong with it?’ asked Jen, the designer. It was her that designed the original icon, the current icon. It was a fair question, because there was absolutely fuck-all wrong with it. The icon was kind of like an eye, because of the word ‘Eye’ in ‘YoonifEye’, but the eye spiralled into the centre, like it was taking all these things from around, and spiralling it together. To unify them. D’you get it?
I think that’s quite clever.
Now why would you want to go and change that?
‘I’m not looking for any major changes,’ said Malcolm, raising his hand, smiling. ‘Don’t worry, nothing major. I just think it’s time to freshen it up a bit, and I’m sure a lot of users would agree.’