Daft Wee Stories (19 page)

Mind you, he did look kind of … happy.

Brian stood at his cooker, boiling an egg. Just the one. It was all he had left, and it fucked everything up. The timing.

All he wanted was a soft-boiled egg. A soft-boiled egg. But it was never right. Well, it was sometimes right, but he wanted it right every time. If it's only right some of the time then it's never right, it's wrong. The recipe, that is. Five minutes, they say. Five minutes. But it isn't as simple as that, is it? Depends if you start from hot or cold water. If it's from cold, how cold? If it's hot, how hot? Boiling? What about the size of the pot? How much water do you stick in? And what if the pot only contained one egg, like now, rather than three or four? What then? Did anybody know?

Maybe it was just four minutes, actually.

Just then a man from the future appeared, right out of thin air. It was Brian. Another Brian. A Brian from the future.

They looked at each other for a bit, not sure who should speak first. Future Brian decided that since he was the one who had appeared out of nowhere, he should try to explain himself.

‘I'm from the future, I think,' said Future Brian.

Normal Brian looked him up and down. Future Brian didn't look from the future. He didn't have a hoverboard or a visor. He didn't look like he came from the year 5000. He looked more like he came from five minutes from now. And as it turned out, he did.

‘I was boiling an egg,' said Future Brian. ‘That egg. Just trying to work it out, the timing and everything. And then that magnet fell in the water.'

They both looked at the wee magnetic picture frame that was on the steel extractor fan above the pan. It had a picture of Brian and his ex-girlfriend. The steam from the pan was steaming up the steel, making the frame slide slowly down the extractor fan, towards the edge.

‘So what you're saying is …?' asked Normal Brian.

‘Aye,' said Future Brian.

‘Boiling a magnet turns back time,' they both said in unison.

And for a while, they said nothing. They just stared at each other. It was quite a lot to take in.

‘What d'you want to do?' asked Future Brian.

‘We could, um …' Normal Brian had a think. ‘We could … I don't know. Go back to the dinosaurs or something.'

‘No,' said Future Brian. ‘How would we get back? Back to here, back to now? And how do we get that far back in time in the first place? Dinosaurs? What you on about?'

‘Aye, all right,' said Normal Brian.

They had a think.

‘Can we go into the future?' asked Normal Brian.

‘How would I know?' said Future Brian.

‘Because if we could, we could maybe, I don't know. We could … I don't know.'

‘Deary me,' said Future Brian.

‘You're putting me on the fucking spot,' said Normal Brian. ‘You come up with something.'

Normal Brian wondered why Future Brian was such a dick. He wondered if coming from the future made you less patient, like you don't have the time for any jibber jabber, because coming from the future meant you had less time left in your life. Or maybe it meant you had more time, and it was boring because you had to relive everything again. Either way, Normal Brian had better come up with something before Future Brian lost it.

‘Look,' said Normal Brian. ‘Maybe we should forget about the past and future and think about the present.'

Future Brian didn't know what he meant.

‘Like, what can we do right now, me and you?' Normal Brian continued.

They wondered.

‘What can me and you do,' said Normal Brian, ‘that's only possible because there's two of us? Something we maybe couldn't or wouldn't do with somebody else.'

They wondered. And then wondered some more. Normal Brian looked out the window, as if he'd find the answer out there.

Then he felt Future Brian hold his hand.

Normal Brian looked at Future Brian's hand, and then his face. Future Brian's cheeks were slightly flushed, his mouth was parted and he had a hard-on. To Normal Brian's surprise, it started to give him a hard-on as well. Normal Brian began to squeeze Future Brian's knob through his tight jeans, as Future Brian went in for the kill, unzipping Normal Brian's jeans and gently coaxing out Normal Brian's stiff, veiny prick.

Just as things were about to get hot and nasty, another man from the future appeared and broke it up. It was another Brian. This one was from a slightly more distant future than Future Brian, about another five minutes.

‘Stop it, stop that right now,' said Distant Future Brian, shoving Normal Brian's cock back into his jeans. If anybody else did that, thought Normal Brian, if anybody else grabbed his cock and shoved it back in his jeans like that, they'd get their jaw cracked. But somehow this other Brian doing it made it all right. It was all their cock after all.

‘You better have a good reason for this, mate,' said Future Brian to Distant Future Brian, his hard-on losing steam.

‘It didn't work out,' said Distant Future Brian. ‘Let's just leave it there.' Future Brian was about to ask Distant Future Brian to go into more detail, but there was a certain look in his eyes, a certain experience, that told him all he needed to know.

‘Anyway, we had a better idea,' said Distant Future Brian. ‘Listen up.'

And he went on to describe an elaborate plan to get rich. Filthy rich.

‘A casino!' said Normal Brian. ‘Of course! Why did I not—'

‘Fucking shut up and listen,' said Distant Future Brian. Normal Brian noted that Distant Future Brian was even less patient than Future Brian. It looked like his theory was right, whatever that was. He thought he'd better fucking shut up and listen before he had the pair of them at him.

The idea involved one of them playing roulette, another one of them standing nearby and taking note of the numbers as they came in, and then that one telling those numbers to the third one. That third one would be ready to do the magnet-boiling thing in the toilet cubicle, and he'd do that by using one of those wee gas camping stove things that he'd have to smuggle into the casino under a big raincoat along with a pot of water and a magnet. Simple as that.

‘Simple as that,' said Normal Brian sarcastically. ‘Fucking what?'

They argued. Their argument led to a fight. And their fight, inevitably, led to more hard-ons.

Just then a man from the future appeared. Another Brian. Fuck this. Seriously, fuck this. There would be no stopping the cocks this time around, just let him try. But then the three Brians saw what was in the hands of this last and Final Brian. Poly bags, stuffed full of notes. £353,890 worth of notes, to be precise.

‘It worked!' cried Normal Brian, clawing at the bags. ‘It worked!'

‘Hold on,' said Future Brian, pushing Normal Brian back. ‘It's not all yours, mate.'

‘He never said it was,' said Distant Future Brian. ‘It belongs to all of us.'

‘Aye,' said Normal Brian, reaching for the bags again. ‘In fact, I should get most of it. Yous wouldn't be here if it wasn't for me.'

‘Don't talk shite,' said Future Brian, slapping Normal Brian's hand out the way. ‘It was me that told you about boiling the magnet, I should get the most. Half, at least.'

‘Sorry, whose fucking idea was the casino?' asked Distant Future Brian, barging between them both.

‘You said “we” had the idea,' replied Future Brian. ‘You said “we”. Why are you making out it was just you? Why are you lying? Why are you lying? Why are you—'

Final Brian raised his hands slowly and smiled.

‘Easy, lads, easy,' he said. ‘You don't have to worry about any of that. Not one bit.'

‘How come?' asked Normal Brian. Then he noticed something. ‘Wait a minute,' he said. ‘Where are the others?'

‘Aye,' said Future Brian. ‘Where are they? How come you've got all the money?'

‘Maybe that isn't all the money,' wondered Distant Future Brian. ‘Am I right?'

Final Brian reached down into one of the cupboards.

‘The answer, boys,' he said, ‘is right here.'

He brought out a large cast-iron pot.

‘Iron,' said Normal Brian, starting to get it. ‘Magnets are attracted to iron. Whereas the other pot …'

‘Is just steel,' said Future Brian.

The three Brians turned to look into the steel pot on the gas and the boiling magnet within, as Final Brian carried the iron pot over from the cupboard.

‘I see, so if we were to boil a magnet in an iron pot,' theorised Distant Future Brian, before going blank. ‘Em … what would that do? Sorry.'

‘Aye,' said Future Brian. ‘What can an iron pot do that this one can't?'

‘It can do this,' said Final Brian behind them, before bashing in their skulls.

As they lay there with the tops of their heads cracked open, Final Brian was reminded of something. The egg! The egg, of course, oh my God, he nearly forgot.

He fished it out the water and stuck it in an egg cup next to some toast and a cup of tea. He sliced the top off with his teaspoon and looked inside.

It was perfect.

Absolutely perfect!

He was to put together this pitch. They asked him last week. He was to put together this pitch, this presentation, type the thing up, get it rehearsed and present the thing to the client tomorrow. He asked his bosses if he could work from home; it just helped him be more creative. They preferred it if he did it in the office, so they could see how it was going, but he insisted, and they said OK. That was a week now, that was a week he'd been working on it. He was to send it off to his bosses by 5 p.m. today, and then, pending their approval, he'd present the thing tomorrow. A big job. A big, big job. Very important. And he hadn't written a thing.

It was just the pressure. It was a lot of pressure, and that sort of thing got in the way of creativity, it got in the way of ideas. So he took it easy for the first few days. In other words, he did nothing. When he finally got started, he just couldn't do it, he just wasn't feeling it. It was that blank screen staring back at you, so many options, it was like looking at a menu with too many things on it, it made it so hard just to go for it. He felt he needed to loosen up, so last night he got hammered.

He woke up at 11 a.m. this morning. Only six hours left. There were emails waiting for him, missed calls. He texted back to assure his bosses he was on it, he'd have it to them by 5 p.m., as promised. He switched on his laptop and stared at the screen, that big white screen, until 1 p.m. He'd had no breakfast, no shower. He decided to head to a cafe, he'd take the laptop, he just needed out the house, that was it. A change of scenery.

He sat in the cafe, staring at the screen. He checked the time – it was just after two. Less than three hours left. He put his hands on the keyboard. He was going to get started. He was just about to get started. Any time now, he'd start typing and get started. There was just one problem.

His laces were too tight.

It sounds like a trivial problem, but it was quite annoying. It was a niggling wee thing, like a pea under a hundred mattresses. It was the lace on his right shoe; he'd tied it too tight when he rushed to get out the house. It felt like the tongue of his shoe was pressed against the veins in his foot, like it was cutting off the blood flow, he wasn't sure, but it was just this wee nuisance that he really didn't want right now. He wasn't blaming it for the fact that he hadn't typed anything, he'd had all week to do that, but he thought he should sort them out before he got cracking.

He bent over and poked his head under the cafe table, and untied the lace on his right shoe. He gave the rest of the lace a tug here and there to loosen it all up. Ahhh, that felt better. Much better. He could get started now.

It was quite nice down there, he thought. It was a wee booth he was in, not a lot of light getting under the table. It was quite nice, nice and dark. Not like up there, up there on the table where the laptop was, with that screen. That big, bright white screen, that big, bright white light shining in your face. It was better down below. It was a welcome break. You needed a break, a break from that light, it's bad for your eyes, that. Looking into screens for too long can be bad for you.

Maybe he should stay down there for a wee bit longer. What's the rush? Can a man not duck under a table to loosen his laces and then maybe stay a while? Does everything have to be done on time and done with determination, must you always do what you say you were going to do? Why must we rush to get something done if it's only to move onto something else immediately after? Can a man not just linger in the gaps between?

Two hours he stayed under there.

They had to phone the police.

There was something up with Sally, she wasn't feeling too well. She felt sluggish and stiff, she felt heavy, and that wasn't right, not for somebody like her, somebody who kept herself fit and active. Yet she felt like an old woman. An old woman who smokes sixty a day and eats burgers for breakfast.

She went to the doctor, and right away he could tell something was up, so much so that when she walked into the room, he sprung out his chair to help her get to her seat. She was in a bad way. When she sat down, he asked her if she'd been getting enough exercise. She told him that wasn't it. He asked if she smoked or liked a drink or whatever. She shook her head. He asked her if she'd been feeling down, if there had been a bereavement, if she was prone to mood swings. She said it was none of that, it was nothing she could explain; she'd looked it all up on the NHS site and forums and everything else, there was just no explanation, there weren't any lumps, there wasn't any pain, the stiffness wasn't in any one place, it was all over. She was starting to lose her patience. And then she collapsed.