Everything is Mid

You are writing a short story provisionally entitled Everything is Mid.

You know that in doing so you are, to an extent, making yourself a hostage to fortune. All too easy, after all, for the reader to to read it, snort derisively and say "yeah, including this!" They may do this even if they quite enjoy the story because punchlines have an allure which transcends lived experience, which is why so many people say things they don't mean. This explains the existence of opinion columnists.

You are a little uneasy about the usage of the term mid. It's a word which sits more comfortably in the vocabulary of people slightly younger than yourself, your sons would tease you for using it. But it is the most accurate word for what you're trying to say. Language changes, it is malleable, and you've long felt that the best word for the job is the only word for the job.

You're writing this story sat at your kitchen table, and you're writing it because you went for dinner at a restaurant which was quite expensive but not, to your mind, particularly good. You went there because lots of people said it was good. You wonder why you keep doing it.

Do you remember that study from a while ago which found that people are wrong about pretty much everything? Immigration, climate change, what politicians earn, how many people in the country are Muslim, what Government spends money on. Everything. Not a clue, not even playing the same sport.

So why would you take their advice about where to eat?

The company was good, you were out with your wife, and she was saying perceptive and thoughtful things on a number of topics. The ambience was pleasant enough, but the whole experience left you feeling underwhelmed, even a little bit irritated.

You are annoyed at the people who thought it was good, and took the trouble to say so, publicly. Why are they so easily pleased? Why do they greatly praise an experience which is average at best?

(You had considered titling the story "Why are people so easily pleased?", but you prefer "Everything is mid", it's punchier)

As you ate, you grew more irritated. The menu was pretty lazy, lots of similar dishes to everywhere else, but that was no surprise, and it's the execution that matters, you told yourself as you booked.

And it was okay, everything was fine. It wasn't bad, it was just...mid. And with every mid mouthful of mid food, from a mid menu and cooked in a decidedly mid fashion you wondered, as you so often do, why so many people settle for this, in so many ways.

Why do we submit to mediocrity? Not just submit, revel in it? Hundreds of people left glowing reviews of this...nothingness, this oblivion. This void where something memorable should be.

It doesn't take much to turn a mid meal into a good one, you should know, you do it for a living. A little care, a little attention and the most humble, workaday dish, a cottage pie, or a steak, a bowl of cauliflower cheese, can be something that sticks in the mind. Oh God, yeah, that was good.

You would have preferred a bad meal, that would be something to talk about.

And as you sit at your table you feel yourself getting annoyed, all over again, and you wonder why you're like this. Why you can't regard an okay steak as a pinnacle of the chef's art. Why you don't see the point of superhero films, why you were mystified when suddenly everyone went mad for jacket potatoes from the internet, why so many people seem so happy to settle for mid.

Retail parks are mid. Sainsburys Meal Deals are mid. Mid life angst is mid. Affairs are mid.

Mid is a great word. Back in the nineties, we used to say meh. But mid is better, chunkier, more forceful, more precisely damning. And everything is mid. The world is on fire and everything is mid. The people in charge are thieves, liars and rapists and everything is mid You are angry. You wonder why more people aren't angry, and you think, maybe it's because they're happy with mid.

Obviously the problem is you, it always has been. But still.

You remember being a child, and going on holiday to Morocco, being fascinated and enchanted by the heat, the noise, the difference, the sheer alienness of it all. And going back to the hotel and your family being befriended by a man who'd brought his own snooker cue with him, and who was excited because there would be a Full English for breakfast tomorrow.

"Getting more and more like England all the time" he'd said. And you didn't understand the look on your Mum's face at the time, because you, too, were quite excited by the prospect of a Full English. But now you do.

You remember being brought up, with high expectations and falling short, despite doing your best. You place similar expectations upon yourself to this day, you always fall short.

You are, by any reasonable metric, a failure.

But nevertheless, you're not going to settle for mid.

Trying is the point, you think. Failing, yes. That Beckett quote, fail better. You've never got a tattoo, but if you did, it would be that.

So you open up your laptop, and you start writing a short story entitled "Everything is mid". Hopefully it won't be.

Zywiecka

It's five in the morning, and I've risen early, it'll be hours before anyone else gets up. You're sound asleep.

I'm stood in the kitchen and I’m thinking about the meals I’ll never eat again, the one-offs, the products of circumstance.  It’s dark outside, and I’m hungry because I ate early last night, but not for anything in particular. So I eat zywiecka, because the little sausage slices were in the reduced section and, although these days I can afford to buy what I want, a relic of more impecunious days is that I can’t resist a reduced section. I always get a fleeting feeling of pleasure, like I’ve saved food from the bin, done my bit, but also saved myself money, which is absurd, because I've just bought something I hadn't gone in for, on top of my actual shop, but old habits are hard to break.

It’s on a lentil cracker, because I’m worried about my weight so I bought crackers, because that’s what you do when you’re worried about your weight, you try to eat your way out of it. But I’m clearly not that worried because there’s a smear of leftovers from last nights dinner, a vegetable cheese bake, the sort of thing I’ll make midweek when I don’t have time to plan anything, a throw it all in the oven sort of dinner, because even though my job means I have more time to shop than your job, it still annoys me that you don’t. Maybe one day we’ll have a fight about it, but probably not.

Not putting much effort into dinner is my way of getting my own back, I could try harder, I could do better, you know how good I can be, and isn't choosing not to be an act of rebellion? But you eat every mouthful, and you say it’s delicious. There are always leftovers, because I hate to see food wasted they are boxed up and they go in the fridge. You leave them in open bowls, it does my head in, I tub them up. I resist the urge to day dot them.

It’s still an hour or so before it’s light, and as I eat this makeshift breakfast: lentil cake, zywiecka, cheese-laden vegetable bake I think I’ll probably never eat this again. I also think it's a distinct possibility that no one else ever has, this is a completely unique meal

Which is a shame, because you know what? It’s good, they work well together, the Universe came together and, for one moment in its entire existence, made this. Well, it didn't, I did.

I get your packed lunch ready for work. The pasta from two nights ago, some tomatoes and avocado, a bit of poached chicken. You'll be up in an hour. I crack my back, and head out to the gym. I am, after all, worried about my weight.

The Bone Idle Detective agency

It was three o clock, and the phone didn't ring.

Every day, at three, on the dot, it stayed silent. I sat back in my chair and steepled my fingers in front of me.

Somewhere, a crime was being committed, and fairly soon, it would be solved. And its solution relied on my staying still, in an attitude of deep thought.

In the square outside, it was late spring. It was late spring everywhere in the Northern Hemisphere, of course, but I could only believe what I could see with my own eyes.

And what I could see was a couple lolling on the grass, a man reading a newspaper on a bench, a woman with a military bearing walking what appeared to be a dachsund. I heard the wonky chiming of an ice cream van, but it was outside of my field of vision.

I saw magnolia blossom drifting to the grass, I saw the handsome frontage of houses built with tainted money.  I saw a woman in an upper window leaning out to water a window-box. I saw a jogger going round and round and round.

All the people, so many people.

I tried hard not to think about the crime, it didn't help to think about what horror, what atrocity, was taking place right now. I have a 100% success rate of solving crimes I don't think about. 

Early in my career, I tried to involve myself in the detail. I'd take cases, answer the phone when it rang. I'd case locations, interview witnesses, look for clues, construct elegant theories. My success rate then was closer to 30%, and if I'm being completely honest a couple of those were blind luck. In one instance a man who'd embezzled thousands of pounds fell in love with me, in another I extracted a confession through what the perpetrator described as psychological torture, but was, in fact me being unable to think of anything to say. For four days. 

It is my belief that if you give people enough rope, they'll generally tie themselves up in it. In this, though in little else, I have so far been proved 100% correct.

Sometimes I just know a crime is being committed, and I also know, with utterly certainty, that if I barely think about it at all, it will be confessed to. Crime is a powerful motive force, and if it meets complete indifference, all that energy has to go somewhere, at least that's my working theory. It's worked pretty well so far, too.

The phone didn't ring, and at five to five, just as I was about to leave, the door didn't open, and nobody needing my help walked in. It did this every day. I nodded to myself, the case was proceeding satisfactorily, and I was increasingly confident of a result.

I took my coat from its hook on the back of the door and shrugged it on. It was a warm day, but I looked good in it. A long grey coat from Comme des Garcons. A hat, too. 

Half this game is image.

Stepping out into the square, I walked up to the ice cream van and smiled brightly at woman within. She smiled back. I'm personable enough, I think. I paid for a 99 flake, and walked off into the spring evening licking my ice cream, letting my mind unspool, and not thinking about crime. I passed a quiet evening watching wildlife documentaries of the sort with the title world's somethingest something.

In the morning, at ten past nine, the phone rang. DI Maskelyne.

“Was this your doing?” She asked. I allowed myself to feel blank, it wouldn't do to compromise the investigation at this late stage. She explained: a man had walked into the station that morning, a bewildered expression on his face, as though he didn't know what he were doing, as if compelled by some distant motive force. Acting almost as though he were under duress "like something was wrenching it out of him, which made me think of you" as DI Maskelyne phrased it, he confessed to murder and handed the duty sergeant a map with three locations. Each of which turned out to be a grave.

“Three?” I said “My my. Sounds like it could be one of mine, but I couldn't say for sure. I imagine I'm responsible for one of them, unless they were all at the same time”

“Well, on the off chance, thanks”

“You're most welcome, I imagine. Lunch on Thursday?”

“Not a chance” she rang off. I made a cup of tea, and wondered when the phone wouldn't ring again.

The Alain Delon Coat

I was in my mid twenties, which is a bit of sweet spot for these things, as you've enough money and independence to make them happen, and not enough self awareness to make you not. You are more impressionable than is perhaps wise.

What it was, I bought a 3/4 length raincoat from Yves St. Laurent  Saved up for months from my job at the video rental place. Forwent a few pints. A few weeks of beans on toast  I really wanted that coat. I'd watched Alain Delon in Le Samourai. For my suns, I bought a Fedora, too.

What do clothes do to us? They take us out of.ourselves. We become different versions of ourselves. I had enough of a grip on myself not to try to become someone else altogether, but in my coat I was older, suaver, seen more, done more.

At least until a Ford Escort deliberately drive through a puddle, drenching me, and a lad leaned out and shouted "Oi. Inspector Gadget! WAAANKEEERRR". It was hard to maintain the self deception after that.

I've still got the coat, though.

Another self teflective navel gazing story by a middle-aged man

There were, George reflected, already far too many stories by middle-aged men about themselves. Lying in bed on a Saturday morning, his wife lying sleeping beside him, he felt his place in the world. The very weight of being a middle-aged man; in a world where middle-aged men wielded the most financial clout it was, of course, only natural that was reflected back culturally in too many stories about middle-aged men.

Kinaston had said so the other day, over an overly expensive coffee at the end of Southport Pier. His words disappearing into the blank, milky sky. The Arts like to pretend they don't follow the money, he said, but at the end of the day everyone's got bills to pay.

Kinaston worked in Life Insurance. He'd wanted to be a poet, once. Now he confined himself to sweeping statements.

His wife's breath was even, she was sleeping well and George was relieved. She'd been unwell of late. He could get back to his navel gazing free from concern or requests for Lemsip. Yes, he thought, there were too many stories about middle-aged men. There were two in this one already, and the only woman hadn't even been granted the distinction of a name, merely a title that, he was dimly aware, was disputed in some quarters as implying ownership. George was aware of the idea that Patriarchy was a bad idea, but he wasn't sure of the whys or how's.

It was hard to feel remarkable, when there were so many like you, a world of middle-aged men, a world of stories of their concerns, their frustrations, their desires, and yet he'd lived his life with the secret conviction that he was. He got up, quietly, not wishing to disturb her sleep. Looking at himself in the mirror there was nothing to suggest difference, hair greying, running to fat, penis still functioning, thank God.

That was another of Kinaston's lines: in all the stories men write about men, it never takes long to get round to cock. 

George dressed quietly, and went downstairs. He had the sense that something momentous was about to happen, but then, he always did. Ever since he'd been a child and secretly convinced that he was marked for greatness., there had always been the idea that, any minute now, something was about to happen. He made a cup of tea while he waited, but nothing did in the time it took to drink it.

Maybe, he thought, if I went for a walk.

It was worth a try.

Five very very short stories

i

Sometimes it's best if you just talk about it, she said, chasing the last chip round the bowl. I'm not sure it is, he replied, I think that people talk about things too much these days. The waitress brought the bill, on a small china dish. They looked at it for what felt like days.

ii

She never told the girl that the sunbeds had been re-tubed. The girl didn't know that she'd hated her since primary school, the girl didn't even recognise her, and every week she wondered why she came out burnt.

iii

He was well aware that the staff pitied him, night after night on his own, nursing a few pints alone before heading off home. He could imagine the words they would use, lonely, loser, sad. But each night he'd have three or four, fold his coat, pay his bill, smile and leave. They'd never know that he was profoundly untroubled by what they thought, this made him unaccountably happy.

iv

He had resisted moving for years, and she wondered why they still stayed in their first home when they could now afford much better. Eventually she despaired of pursuing it. Moving house is a dangerous past-time, he thought. Every first loft has a box full of letters that are best left unread, photos that are best left unseen. 

v

The day that Prince Philip died, he remembered the day, years before, when Princess Diana had. He'd had a hangover then, too. The sombre music was soothing.

Vegan sausage rolls

There it was again, its two small dead eyes regarding her through the bakery’s glass front. Head cocked onto a dirty grey sloped shoulder. Feet scratching at the gum on the block paving. The problem was that she knew, and the pigeon knew, that sooner or later the heat would become too much. It was backing up already on the shop floor, the ovens had been pumping it out for a solid three hours, and she could feel the sweat starting to bead, and trickle down beneath the company-issue tabard.

It wasn’t so bad in winter, it was a comfort and a friend, filling the bakery with warmth and a steamy fug. But this was June, half past eight in the morning and already the sun was pitiless. The front would have to be opened, it was only a matter of time. She knew this and she knew that the pigeon knew this. It was there every morning.

A few of them had tried it on for a bit; one which was white and brown, rather than the usual mix of greys, there was a one legged one, too, it got about surprisingly well. But gradually they’d stopped hanging around outside the bakery, she still saw the one legged one hopping round by the bins outside the chippy. Only this one remained. Every morning. Staring at her through the glass.

It was only two nights ago that Shirl had said something about reincarnation over Bacardi and cokes in the Queens’, and she was beginning to think that her sister might have been on to something. That man on the telly, she’d said, the one with the purple shirt. He said there’s only so much energy to go round in the Universe, so you have to come back. Makes sense. Makes sense. Stands to reason.

In a way, the pigeon reminded her of her Ron, two years dead and an inveterate thief of pies, pastries and anything she’d bake at home. She’d taken the job to get her out of the house and away from him, then he’d moved on and she’d stayed put because what else was there to do? Yes, there was something in what Shirl said. The pigeon stared at her, tap-tapped the sheet glass with its beak, scratch-scratched its feet and she was sure that its dead dead eyes were saying come on Carol love, you can spare a steak slice for me, can’t you? How about one of them vegan sausage rolls? I’ve heard they’re nice.