Daft Wee Stories (27 page)

‘The, um …' His voice sounded weak, his throat felt tight. It felt like the room had got smaller, like the walls had closed in a touch, bringing everybody inside just that wee bit closer to him. He closed his eyes to think, but had to open them right away – it made him feel like he was in a fucking coffin. He suddenly wished this wasn't being broadcast live after all. He glanced over to the cameraman to see that yawning face, to get some perspective, to remind him that all this mattered not one jot, but the cameraman was alert, his brow furrowed like the rest. Even he, a guy who took no interest in this religious atheism bollocks, knew that the smart-arse guy on stage was in trouble.

Richard was about to go for a jokey response after all, he almost wanted to say that it was easily the most ridiculous question he had ever been asked; he knew it was a risky thing to say to somebody who potentially had something wrong with them, but he was getting desperate. Fortunately, the chairwoman stepped in. Richard looked down to the notepad on his lap, to hide his face from the audience. He hoped she'd now be bringing the event to an end. But no.

‘Correct me if I'm wrong, sir,' said the chairwoman to the slob, ‘but you're asking where exactly does that knowledge come from?'

‘Aye,' said the man. ‘That wee dance that he does. The pigeon. Like this.' Richard didn't look up. He couldn't bring himself to raise his head to that crowd, and to the cameras; his face felt chained to the floor. He didn't need to look anyway, he could tell what the slob was doing just by the sounds. He could hear his feet tapping against the lino floor, trotting away like a pigeon. He could tell when the guy was turning on the spot, because he could hear the guy's trainers squeak and hear his arse bump his seat out the way. It would normally be a cause for hilarity, a guy like that doing a thing like that right in the middle of an event like that, especially because the guy's big arse and wee head sort of made him look like a pigeon anyway, but the place was silent, except for the guy.

Dawkins glanced up without moving his head, towards the faces of his enemies in the crowd. All eyes on him. He glanced to his opponent on the stage. Was that a faint smile on his face? Dawkins opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came out. It was as if somebody had a Richard Dawkins voodoo doll and was holding it underwater. He couldn't breathe. He was choking. He had the fucking fear.

‘Richard,' said the chairwoman, ‘would you like to—'

He stood up and ran. He ran off the stage, and opened a door and ran through. It was a cupboard. He ran back out, opened another door then ran down the corridor and out the foyer and down the street. He didn't stop running for ten minutes.

The next day, he tweeted a link to a statement saying he had suffered a panic attack due to his exhaustive schedule. Nobody believed him, the video was already everywhere. He was finished.

He wasn't seen again.

But I saw him, the other day.

He was in the park, feeding the birds. Pigeons, funnily enough. He was wearing pyjamas and dirty socks.

I saw him watch one pigeon in particular, as it did a wee dance around another. He looked deep in thought, like he was staring at a crossword clue, trying to work out what it meant. Then an expression crept across his face, one of understanding. A eureka moment!

But then he shook his head as he seemed to realise a flaw in his thinking. He had another eureka moment, which went as quickly as it came. Then again. And then he lost his rag.

He chucked his bag of bread at the pigeons and gave chase, shouting stuff. Chased them over to the pond, then jumped in. He ran after them, until the water was up to his waist, then up to his neck, until he was out his depth. Then he started to drown.

A few of us looked at each other, wondering if we should help, but we decided against it.

We thought it was best.

There once was a laptop that wouldn't start up. It used to be fine, years ago, nice and fast, no problems, the occasional crash but that was to be expected with computers. Then, for whatever reason, the crashes got a bit more frequent, and happened for no apparent reason. It wasn't like the laptop was being pushed to the limits, very little was asked of it, yet it crashed. It just seemed to crash whenever it felt like it, and that gave its owner a bit of a headache. Sometimes the crashes would be no more than a minor inconvenience, crashing while reading a blog or watching a video, nothing to tear your hair out over. Other times it would crash in the middle of filling out a form, which was a bit more annoying, because it would mean having to reboot, go back to the website and fill in the form from the beginning, with no guarantee that it wouldn't crash again. Still, it wasn't the end of the world. He could cope. Until now. Until this most recent crash. This was a biggy. Now the thing wouldn't start up. It would look like it was about to start up, then he'd get the blue screen thing and get no further. And that seriously put him out.

It was really important the laptop started up, because these days the owner wasn't just using it to watch stuff on YouTube or whatever, he couldn't just shrug it off and pull out his phone instead. At the moment he was using it to write a book. Just a collection of daft wee stories, but it was still a book, it was still important. Not only that, he had nearly finished. The whole book was on this laptop, the deadline was approaching and if the laptop wouldn't switch on any more then quite frankly it was game over. It was game over.

He tried switching the laptop on again, but again it didn't start. Blue screen. It'd happened before, the blue screen at start-up, but then he'd try again and it would work. But now, nope. Blue screen, time and time again. It was just not fucking starting. So he picked up his pen and began to write. No, he hadn't decided to write the book from scratch, it wasn't a story he was writing. It was a threat. A threat to the laptop. A promise. And his promise was this.

The next time he switched on that laptop, it had better start. It had better fucking start, or it was going in the bin. It was getting kicked the fuck out of, its keys were getting torn off, its screen was getting scratched with a fork and its electronics were getting pished on, then it was going in the bin. It was getting fucking melted, then it was going in the bin. This was its last chance. Its final chance. It wasn't a bluff: he could walk out the door and buy a new laptop that very day. Nothing stopping him. But he thought he'd give the laptop just one last chance. Him and the laptop went way back, after all.

He switched on the laptop.

It worked.

Wise move.

My mate Rennie shags his granda.

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Epub ISBN 9781473517899
Version 1.0

Published by Century 2015

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Copyright © Brian Limond 2015

Brian Limond has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work

First published in Great Britain in 2015 by Century

Century
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www.randomhouse.co.uk

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A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 9781780893754