The Seventh Crisis - NaNo 2015: Day 1

1. The First Weird Thing

The first weird thing happened at around quarter past four on an otherwise completely mundane and unremarkable Tuesday afternoon. Tuesdays are famed for their utter unremarkableness (which lets face it, if it isn't a real word, it should be), and surely this is a day that, moreso than Monday, truly deserves something to happen within it's folds. Mondays are Mondays. I mean, sure, we all hate Mondays don't we? Unless you are one of the minority of unhinged that move amongst us. You know who you are. You go to bed early on a Sunday, leaping out of bed before your alarm the following morning with a grin on your face, ready to face the week. Stop it. It's not right.

Weirdo.

Tuesday however, lets talk about Tuesday.

Tuesday is a day when the full horror of the working week slaps you across the face with the remains of Friday nights kebab. Tuesday says “Yeah buddy. The shock has worn off, you're back at work. You cannot pass me off in a hungover fugue as you recover from the weekend and all it's debaucheries. I'm Tuesday hombre, and this is your life!. Fire up Excel and lets get stuck in! Altogether now... Yaaaaaawn with me!”

Tuesday. Tuesday can do one.

At least - thought Brian as he slumped forward on his stool / chair / torture device - he has broken the back of this most dull and irritating day of all days. Come half past five, a mere one hour and fifteen minutes hence, it was time to vacate the premise and get his sweet arse home. He knew he had a sweet arse because his girlfriend of three years told him so, and he reckoned that he could take her word on it. He wasn't sure quite what she meant when she said it (did it taste sweet or...) but she would say it with such convinction that it would be wrong for him to question her. Brian personally thought his arse fulfilled it's function well enough but other than that he didn't really feel the need to dwell on it. Odd, as it has just been dwelled on far more than is merited. 
 
So, yes. The weird thing. Well, it was just about to happen and it was – in terms of weird things – a doozy. It all began when...

Hang on. The weirdness can wait a little. Who the hell is Brian? Where are we? I feel I have jumped ahead a little. Surely Brian is interesting enough to know a little about first of all isn't he? 
 
I can fix this.

Hold up.

Just a second.

Honestly I'll be right with you I just need to...

0. Brian Harold

That's better.

Okay, Brian Harold. The man with two first names. He was often thankful that his parents (a lovely if rather unremarkable couple of travelling salesmen) hadn't deemed fit to give him a middle name. He often mused that school would have potentially been more awkward had he basically gone about with three first names. Hell. The fact that one of his teachers had accidentally started third year by calling him Harold Brian hadn't helped matters, and left him ultimately a little confused as he struggled with his own identity in a puberty-driven existential brain party. Nonetheless Brian Harold he was. 
 
Really, he hadn't endured that many problems with his name, apart from the aforementioned existential crisis, which had only resulted in him once walking back from school instead of taking the bus and throwing one of his school shoes at a cow. The cow hadn't shown either way if it had been hurt by the size 7 black Clark's school shoe (bought new only five days prior) that had collided with it's large beefy flank, and merely continued to stare dolefully past Brian towards the small hedge and field beyond on the other side of the road. That field looked a lot greener than the one in which the cow currently resided. Brian mused afterwards, after he had taken a hiding from each of his fathers, that he could have consoled the cow and eased a small part of his guilt at having launched his shoe at it, by going over to the field in question and bringing a few handfuls of lovely fresh grass to the lonesome and rather depressed looking animal. He mused further, even later that night, that the animal probably and in all honesty didn't give a shit about what it ate and it's mournful longing was a figment of Brian's imagination. A brief flight of fancy whereupon he connected with the cow on some deep and entirely imagined subconscious level. But then he mused no further as he focused on the pain in his arse (an arse at this point a long way off from being described as sweet by a rather attractive 26 year old banking customer service representative) from where both of his fathers had taken it in turn to belt him. Baldy father always took to the task with gusto and Brian was sure that he had worn the leather belt with the metal holes specifically for the occasion, as he was sure when he had returned home to break the news of his missing shoe, he hadn't been wearing a belt at all, but a rather striking red and gold pair of braces.

Shall we talk about Brian's fathers? There really isn't much to say to be honest. They are both perfectly lovely people and work in the business that they gained employment in together shortly before they met. It was a carpet business. They sold carpets. There you go. There was Harold Booker (or baldy father, as Brian never once said to him) and John Pleasant (who had hair and a beard and could have but never was called hairy father by Brian, except in his head). Brian had apparently been adopted when he was four, but then he had also been told that hairy father had given birth to him accidentally when he was sat upon the porcelain throne, that he had been dropped off by a drunk stork and, the best one, that he had actually been sent back in time by an army of sentient machines to save the earth from destruction. Brian and hairy father were machines and baldy father was their human protector. The story altered every time Brian asked either of his fathers and would only last as long as whomever he asked could keep a straight face, so he soon didn't bother to ask. The last time he asked hairy father, he was informed in level tones that he didn't actually exist at all and was merely the figment of the imagination of an 11 year old boy from Botwsana.

So yeah, Brian took a fair bit of what they said with a pinch of salt. Although one time he did actually try and cut a bit off his arm to see if he was machine underneath.

He wasn't.

And it really bloody hurt.

So Brian grew up not really knowing about his origins that were now rooted in some indeterminable point in the past, some twenty nine years ago from the present. Saying that, he had quite a happy childhood, excusing the minor bullying - which wasn't really bullying at all and he may have exacerbated it in his own rememberings as the extent of it, bar that one teacher getting a bit confuddled, was a pair of twins the year above him calling him Harry once in a while when they passed him in the corridor. Brian didn't even know them but they would wink and whisper his name as they passed. Not really worth mentioning really. Honestly. Is it?

He had a fairly uneventful life. School, High School, College, Job. Some friends, a few silly things now and again but nothing as extreme as the cow & shoe incident. Oh apart from one incident which would have been completely forgotten about had Brian not been musing on where the scar on his knee his come from as he played on the computer at fourteen minutes past four on that Tuesday afternoon. There was that one time in college where he jumped off from a garage roof to try and land on the rather large camel that was passing by underneath. That as it turned out was the only time he'd taken to dabbling in drugs. The old lady had spent a few days in hospital due to falling into a small knee high shrubbery, some kind of evergreen thing with nasty thorn-like protrusions. Brian complained to the friendly policeman that it was the person who'd planted it so close to the pavement that should be hauled in for questioning as it was obviously a pensioner trap. She had quite the shock apparently as Brian landed three feet in front of her, exploding on to the ground like a sack of apples dropped from a high-rise. The fact that he was wearing a cape made from his jacket and was naked apart from his pants stretched over his face only (it was assumed) added to her confusion and distress, causing her to fall backwards over the aforementioned shrubbery, pension slip fluttering lazily down after her in the slight breeze.
 
Brian stuck to coffee and the occasional beer after that. Even now his limit was three bottles of Becks and a pint of shandy.

Why Harold anyway? Who gave him that surname? Neither of his fathers knew, or would tell him why they had chosen that name for him. It could be that Harold the baldy father had liked his own forename so much that he liked the thought of his son carrying it on as a surname, like he was a ruddy Pharaoh. 
 
“Why Harold anyway?” Brian had asked, giving voice to the same question at the tender age of eleven. Baldy father had just returned from a carpet conference in Stoke (having left hairy father down there for an extra day on account of some spat involving a petrol station attendant, a large sausage roll and a copy of the Daily Mail – Brian never did find out what happened).

“What do you mean why Harold anyway?” said Harold “baldy father” Booker. “It's a bloody lovely name and you should be honored to have it”. He then leaned over and patted Brian on the head, a slightly sloppy grin spreading over his face. He had quite a sloppy face come to that. Not unfortunate looking just, well, it just looked a bit lazy, like all his features could never really be bothered getting into position for any particular expression and instead were content to slide around his face, knocking haphazardly into one another. 
 
“It's just...”

“Just what?”

“It's a bit random, that's all. Having your first name as a surname.” Brian said, rubbing his head after a rather generous and heavy handed patting session. He was sure that it was a little bit flatter than it was before.

“You're lucky you've got a name at all.” Harold replied, sloppy grin gradually and haphazardly being replaced by something altogether more serious. “When you were constructed from that alien goo that was found on the moors behind...”

Brian decided against listening any further at that point. There was probably something on the telly. yes. The telly was a far better option. He left baldy father in mid-ramble and went to the telly. The blessed telly.

What then, of Brian Harold? This rather unremarkable protagonist. What of his features? his appearance? Is he a bullish rogue? A spry elf-like nimble dancer? Has he muscles on his muscles? Three legs? A wooden eye? A wooden ear? Does he wear his hair in a beehive and shrug upon his shoulders an overcoat made of human skin every morning?

No. No he does not.

Brian Harold is an average looking man. Just shy of thirty years of age. His hair is dark and thinning slightly (but only slightly, right?). He has it cut short and neat, the beginnings of a widows peak forming. A bit of a five o'clock shadow on his relatively slender face. A face that the features of, I may add, move into their allotted position promptly. There's no sloppiness about Brian's face. His eyes are a pale grey and sharp, and one can see the intelligence burning there, when he's not thinking about unintelligent things, like what would happen if he was somehow able to fill the automated money dispensing machines with crisps instead of money, and if he did that, would the world be a happier, or distinctly less happy place? He supposed it was determined by the flavour of crisps. Cheese and Onion may prompt a civil war. Did he want that? Maybe. It would make Tuesday a little more interesting.

Brian hated Tuesdays. One big yawn.

Where were we? Ah, yes. He was of slight build, not overly lean but not chunky either. He walked and went on his bike and did a few other bits and bobs to keep himself in shape (normally involving the rather lovely 26 year old that was mentioned back a bit. Just read up, she's there somewhere). But he wasn't obsessive and was quite content to let himself slide a little. He wasn't planning to compete in anything Olympic events so he would allow himself pizza and three bottles of becks (and one pint of shandy) on occasion.

How tall is Brian?

I honestly don't think it matters. Are you ready for the weird event yet?

Wait. His girlfriend's name is Stacy.

Think that's about it. Now. Where were we...

1. The First Weird Thing (again)

The first weird thing happened at around quarter past four on an otherwise completely mundane and unrem...wait. We've done this bit.

Okay so the rest of the day up until that point had been your typical day. From his seated / perched / tortured position on his stool, Brian had a clear view of most of the bank's floor, the front door and could see the high street beyond the windows.

Oh. A bank. Brian works in a bank. The Royal National Scotland Bank of Banking and General Finance. The RNSBBGF for short. It's a stupid name, but was brought about by the merger and acquisition of numerous other banks after the Big Money Explosion and Financial Crash (as it was termed by no one really). The board couldn't decide what to call it and it came down to either The RNSBBGF or rather obtusely the Bank of Crap. The Bank of Crap actually got 45% of the votes. Not sure it would actually have been a worse name. No one was. The worst thing about it all was that the bank was never abbreviated on any corporate stationery, branding or anything else. Consequently, for example, Brian's name badge was seven inches long. He had to pin it in the centre of his shirt and even then it clunked off everything. He wasn't alone in this of course, and commiserated with the females that worked there, often bringing up the cumbersome name badges in conversation so as to give him an opportunity to possibly if he was very quick (and really rather subtle) to just possibly get the briefest of glances at the female in question's bosom. It's not that he was that kind of man, he really wasn't. Well, he didn't think so, and especially shouldn't have been now he was spoken for (and Stacy had a most impressive bosom come to that). But he either had the small joys that he could get from a day or succumb himself to gazing out the large window, across the dismal high street towards Land of Reduced Items and Various Other Bargains Most of Which Are One Pound But Not All. Brian could only commiserate with the staff of that particular bargain outlet. He watched workers come and go all day and every single one had to enter sideways or else their name badges would get stuck in the door. So yes. Small joys and all that. Of course if Stacy caught him doing it, sweet arse or not, she would quite possibly remove him of his testicles. Mind you it was getting to the point where Brian wasn't really too bothered about possessing his testicles or not, or going out with Stacy for that matter. She was lovely (and far too good looking for him) but in truth he was rather bored of it all.

Of everything in fact.

So bored he nearly missed the weird thing, too engrossed was he in playing Candy Crumble that had recently been accidentally installed alongside the new operating systems on the computers. None of the big chaps upstairs had the slightest clue about computers, computing or computat... combutatio... something something. So Brian knew that they didn't know that he knew that there was a game that he could waste hours on in stead of doing anything constructive. So the joke then, and indeed the punchline, was squarely on them not knowing that he knew about them not knowing and they didn't know about his knowing of them not knowing about him knowing about... Right that's enough.

To be upfront. This was probably the weirdest thing that had ever happened to Brian. I think we've established that nothing amazingly untoward has happened in Brian's life (including the camel incident) so he definitely saw it as a bit weird. Well. Actually there was another weird thing and actually rather a sad thing that happened but I've not mentioned that yet. Apart from when I did there. But we'll get to that. First thing's first.

Are you ready?

Right. The clock had just gone four fifteen when...