The dying art of conversation between males and females ...

Pic sourced from: thisisgreatsex.com

This isn't a subject I wanted to tackle with fiction because although I could have given a damn good run at it, I'd constantly be writing in the first person. As objective as I think I can be, I still have my own views on the subject and tend to have a lot to say sometimes. My friend Sophia asked me to write on the topic some time ago, but through circumstance I'm only getting to it now!

Before you ask what the hell I'm talking about – what I'm talking about is us, you and me, and virtually every other heterosexual person on the planet, and what's got me shooting words on the page is the question; whether or not, as males and females are we engaging in conversation?

I could wrap this up with a very simple yes we are! But in order to continue talking I have to give a little context to what I'm trying to get across.
When I say conversation, I don't mean two people talking about a topic of no value with the lingering thought in both their minds as to when is the person going to shut up and just snog me? No. I'm here to explore the notion that some of our so called conversations are based around a fundamental need to ingratiate ourselves to the opposite sex in order to facilitate fallacio or some other pleasurable sexual act.
But hold on – is Stefan really saying that the only reason men and women converse is to screw each other’s brains out? Not entirely. I'd wager that most people in a relationship really do have genuine platonic chats/rants/discussions with like-minded or otherwise people of the opposite sex, I'm even saying that single people find it relatively easy to natter about some really interesting and stimulating stuff without ulterior intentions, but ... if you're sitting there across from someone you think is hot or would like to see in less clothing then there are things you're going to do during that conversation which you wouldn't do with say; Sally with the incredible amount of facial hair for a woman and a wart on the end of her nose.
Firstly, if you're crushing on someone during a conversation you'll feel less comfortable talking about any personal quirks that others in your inner circle of friends finds odd, or you won't divulge too much personal information period. If you find your yapping away and keep fixing clothing, straightening that tie, checking your hair or stroking your clavicle, then they are all signs that you might just wanna fuck the person you're talking to, or failing that, you're a little nervous because you're out of town and your mate Jerry who knows you back when you had braces and evil breath just walked into the bar and waved at you, or, you just have a tendency to touch yourself ... (you're worried, I'm worried, we're all worried).
I believe that conversation isn't dead and if you're passionate about a subject then there's no harm in discussing it. I also believe that we all have thoughts about different people, sexual or otherwise and that's fine as long as those thoughts stay in your head unless invited out for dinner and a good movie ... (yes SEX - please try to keep up!).
Usually the best friend a man can have is a woman and in lots of cases vice versa. In my experience men tend to stab you in the back at a moment’s notice, whereas a woman would consider your feelings first for the most part.
I don't have that many guys I can turn to in a crisis and I'm cool with that, but if you think I'm wrong or way off its okay I'm just speaking from personal experience. Feel free to colour me stupid and ignore everything I just wrote.

£110.20

Greetings! Yet another opportunity for some fiction provided by, Sally Laine of the Facebook ‘Laines’. I think they’re a rich family possibly responsible for some of the major breakthroughs in 1950s British aviation, but I could be way off the mark, you’d have to ask her yourself.

Anyhooob! Sally’s writing prompt is: Does happiness always come at a price?

I have no idea what I’m going to do with this one and I’m writing this brief introduction you’re reading now prior to writing the story, so I’m literally ‘free-writing’ right now (not Automatic writing), Google it if you’re a little confused.

So ... here goes:
 

£110.20

Monday morning queues are usually something that Brian tended to avoid. For obvious reasons he made a concerted effort to steer clear of them completely, in case during the process of waiting he lost the last remaining echoes of his sanity. He was still in possession of the little portion of patience that kept him on from crossing that thin line called, crazy; but the imaginary rope used keep him at bay had become a frayed line of thread.  

“Next please.”  

Brian’s eyebrow twitched involuntarily as he let the bank clerk’s voice repeat over and over in his head. The ‘Next please’ to signify it being his turn wasn’t about to happen anytime soon. The bald headed man in front of him had held his interest for less than a minute, his tattoos – detailed and intricate and inked onto his smooth dome – made for light reading mixed with pictures, kind of like a children’s book without any edges.  

“Next please.”  

That call was slightly quicker than the last but the old lady at the front of the queue moved with a great deal of difficulty. Several people behind her shifted uncomfortably as they assumed she was not only mostly immobile but also partially deaf and with any luck, suffering with glaucoma. Everyone’s suspicions were confirmed the moment she was asked: “Morning madam, how can I help you?”

The old lady craned her unusually long skinny neck toward the holes in the glass divider and placed a freckled ear against it.  

“Sorry Deary, can you say that again please?” 

A low murmur filled the bank foyer. Brian pursed his lips and wrung his hands together to stop the primal scream that was making its way along his vocal chords. Instead he compressed it into a sigh, felt a bead of sweat run down his back and clenched his fists by his sides.

The old lady still hadn’t explained what she’d come to the bank for but the young girl behind the glass seemed well trained and apparently, extra patient. If Brian was a volcano he would have erupted and wiped out an entire village by now.  

“Are you okay?” Someone behind Brian asked. 

He turned enough to see it was a woman about the same age as his ex-girlfriend. She even looked like her, long brown hair, light brown eyes and make-up erring on the side of ‘too much’. He imagined strangling her first, then changed it to throwing a bucket of water over her face to clean off the excess paintwork. When he came back to reality he realised he’d been staring a little too long and turned around but not before tilting his head left to right in the universal ‘I’m so so’ reply developed for people that chose not to use their words. 

She smiled showing the same kind of teeth his ex has then pulled her phone out of a bag and started texting someone, probably someone with as much make-up as she had on currently. 

Brian looked back at the occupied clerks and mentally made a note to try not to be rude when it was his turn. The last clerk, a round middle aged woman looked a little like his ex’s mum, he would make doubly sure he was not rude to her, but that, if it happened, would be very difficult. He could feel something like a headache working its way around his skull, picking up where it’d left off a few days before. His right eye began to twitch and the left one started to sting. Only a massive amount of concentration and the subtle breathing techniques the doctor had taught him were preventing his mental dams from bursting. 

He’d come to the bank before work to sort out something important, something that would determine the course of the rest of his life. Anxious not to be late, anxious that the doctor had diagnosed him with mild depression, anxious that his bag was very heavy, anxious that he was anxious; Brian didn’t appreciate all the clerks suddenly apologising to their customers before pulling down their blinds that read, ‘Closed’. The entire queue as one vocalised their disgust at the sudden turn of events as what appeared like a manager or supervisor stepped out into the body of the bank and walked towards the queue. Just before he was about to speak an alarm went off. 

“I am terribly sorry everyone, but the bank is being closed for several minutes while an engineer resets our security systems. In order to do this we need everyone to vacate the premises and wait outside. I have cards with numbers on them so when we open again everyone will be seen in the order they are currently waiting. Again, I apologise for the inconvenience.” 

Although it was an inconvenience most of the queues inhabitants took their numbers and reluctantly made their way to the exit. When the manager got to Brian he looked at the outstretched hand, the number ‘23’ written on it, and as he did; the little cogs in his brain jammed and halted. The stress of trying to make them start up again was too painful and in a last ditch effort to reboot the system, one of the cogs broke in half. The dam collapsed.

Brian put his hand into his bag and pulled out what appeared to be a remote trigger. The manager stepped back at the sight of Brian’s sweaty face and the black thing that could have been an old mobile phone with a big red button attached, in his hand. The people that had received their tickets – the ones that were savvy enough to notice a bad situation get worse – walked a little bit faster past Brian and the manager who remained frozen to the spot, neither of them saying a word, Brian had said more than enough. “Lock the doors please?” Brian asked. The manager noted the wave of calm in Brian’s voice which made him more scared than when he’d seen what he was holding.

Brian turned around and addressed everyone still in the foyer. “Could everyone please stay where they are? I’m asking nicely but I don’t actually have to.” 

The old lady hadn’t heard much apart from a faint ringing noise on the edge of hearing, so she was still trying to figure out why the lovely little girl had closed the blinds down on her, which she thought was very rude considering she’d not even been told why.  

Brian turned to face the people still in the bank edging closer to the exit and placed his thumb on the red button. Like lemmings they all froze and a beautiful silence poured from them. “Lock the doors.” Brian told the manager. 

As he was instructed the manager pulled out a set of keys and when the automatic door slid shut he disabled and locked it, top and bottom. Without being told he dropped the keys and slid them to Brian. The jingle of keys against the hard floor broke everyone out of their individual nightmares and a few of them began praying. 

 

Unsure of what to do next Brian told everyone to stand against the doors and windows looking out onto the high street. He deposited the keys into his pockets and breathed through the chakra located in his forehead. It didn’t make him feel any better. 

Brian took the heavy bag off his shoulder, zipped it up and slid it to where the other customers were standing. “I wouldn’t touch that if I were any of you.” He said, with a complete measure of intimidating calm. The bag stopped a few feet from where they were standing. One very tall man fell to his knees and began sobbing like a child. No comfort came from the other customers who were trying to put as much distance between them and the bag which meant pushing themselves even harder onto the glass separating them from the street and freedom. 

It was a bold move for something so straight forward. The money was a means to an end and he only wanted enough to get the job done, get a little piece-of-mind and put an end to all the speculating. The fact that he was now in a bank trying to think like a hostage taker was purely down to acute (not mild as the doctor had said) depression. Things would feel a lot better once he had the cash. Going about it this way was stupid, silly – he knew that – but the clock ticking on the wall nearby, the girl on the phone, the old lady, the smell of the really tall man’s sweat and the lack of fresh air had done their job and gently sent him sailing into an abyss of his own making. 

Brian hadn’t hated his ex, even when she cheated on him several months ago, stole his car and locked him out of his own house. They were all things that could be dealt with regardless of the pressure he was under, but finding out he might be a dad and knowing for sure, was the only thing keeping him going.

The paternity test wasn’t as expensive as he’d thought and he’d done his research online, found a company he could use and noted the cost attached. After being refused ‘online banking’ the only other way was to transfer the money into his dads account and get him to pay for it. That was all. That was why he’d tried to endure the Monday morning queue at the bank, endure the people and the waiting. It was too much.

Standing in the middle of the foyer with a remote detonator gave him carte blanche over everything and everyone present. “Hey you!” Brian motioned to the manager, “Get one of the tellers hiding out back to open up and help me, please?” He finished politely but mildly agitated. The manager walked over to the door he’d come out of earlier and knocked it several times. It didn’t open. “Try again.” Said Brian.

“It’s me, David. Open the door, please.” He pleaded. David noted that the three seconds prior to the door opening were the single longest moments of his life as well as the few drops of pee that wet his underpants as he stood waiting.

“Don’t go in, just tell one of them to go to their station and open up.” Brian was so preoccupied with getting the money transferred that he failed to notice the flashing blue lights outside or the sounds of a crowd building as the police cordoned off the area. He was focused on a single task, but not enough to realise that what he was doing was wrong and may have bad consequences. He needed to complete the task he’d come to do and no one was going to prevent him doing it. 

The walkie talkie in his hand that looked remarkably like a remote detonator of some kind beeped once and every person in the bank dived to the floor apart from the old lady who looked around in general bemusement.

Brian quickly turned the walkie talkie to it’s ‘off’ setting and kept his attention on the set of blinds slowly rising to reveal one of the clerks from before. As luck had it, it was the one that resembled his ex-girlfriend’s mother. This made him walk towards the glass window with the walkie talkie outstretched toward her threateningly. The woman reeled backwards in her chair, a vivid tapestry of fear plastered all over her face.

It wasn’t until this point that Brian began to sound like someone who’d done something like this before. “Get back to the fucking desk and make a transfer to this account!” Brian shouted, slamming a piece of paper from his trouser pocket onto the counter.

“Ca- can, can, you pass it through the s- slot please.” The woman stuttered and moved back to the desk. A few beads of sweat made her hair stick to her forehead just the way his ex’s mums hair did when she walked to the shops and back. Fat bitch, Brian thought.

He passed the paper to her and she began punching his request into her computer. 

“Erm, how much should I send, sir?”

“£110.20.” 

The woman looked at him momentarily confused and remembered her current predicament. Through force of habit more than anything else she began to ask if he wanted anything else and stopped herself.

“Is it done?!” Brian asked, his finger trembling over the red button.

“YES, yes! It’s been transferred.” The woman blurted out fearfully. More sweat trickled down her forehead now and the young girl that was helping the old lady stepped out and put a reassuring hand on her colleagues shoulder. She looked up at the walkie talkie then at Brian with a mix of fear, compassion and disgust. Brian couldn’t help notice now he was closer that she looked a little like his ex’s sister who had helped in stealing his car. Sods Law, he thought. 

“Take your friend and naff off!” He said and turned to the rest of the foyer.

The manager was still standing with the door ajar in one hand and the other slightly covering his genital area as Brian walked towards the exit and for the first time noticed all the commotion outside. “This doesn’t look good.” He said more to himself, and stepped over a really long person who’d apparently passed out.

The people flattened against the doors parted and got flat on the floor without being asked, outside there was a semi circle of police cars and police covering the bank, scores of people behind looked on in amazement. Things like this didn’t happen much in their town and a few of the offices looked understandably scared. Brian couldn’t see a few faces, the ones perched behind open car doors who looked like they were looking down the length of their truncheons right at him.

Brian let the view wash over his eyes for a moment or two. He hadn’t planned to do what he did, or use the expensive walkie talkie he’d bought for his nephew to hold up a bank, but he’d gone in with one purpose and getting what he needed done meant piece-of-mind, piece-of-mind meant a little break from feeling depressed and experiencing some closure sometime soon meant; a little break from his personal demons that the doctors had recently told him were a manifestation of his apparent bipolar disorder. 

The blue lights didn’t matter; the crowds and the commotion meant nothing at all. The important thing was getting the job done, he was happy, and the means in Brian’s mind were justified.

Brian took his phone out and called his dad. “The money’s in your account.” He said on hearing the old man answer on the other end.

“I’ve already paid as I knew you were at the bank, and be a good lad and don’t forget to bring me back a copy of The Daily Mail would ya son?” 

Brian was about to say goodbye when he noticed a wisp of a crack in the glass door that hadn’t been there before. He ignored it and said goodbye but no words came out. Confused, he looked at the phone and it read that he was still connected and could hear his dad’s voice asking if he’d heard his request when another small crack appeared. This time he heard the glass fracture around the tiny hole.

A few police officers surged forward, they were holding more than truncheons but Brian couldn’t tell exactly what. When they got near, a lance of pain surged through his shoulder and hand. The walkie talkie had exploded taking a few of his fingers with it. His shoulder felt like it had been dislocated and cut off, but it still seemed to be intact. 

Brian fell to his knees and the pain subsided before the broken ends of his fingers touched the floor. Unable to support his weight he slumped forwards in a heap hitting his head on the glass in front of him. The inhabitants of the bank had been screaming; their cries muffled by the rush of blood and adrenalin as he tried to stay conscious. The last emotion he was able to latch onto was the feeling of short lived happiness; he hoped he’d feel that again soon.  

Kreative Randomnezz: Marian

They say the best things – yada, yada, yada! I’m sorry for keeping people waiting but sometimes it’s good to take a minute or two to get something done. This is just one of those times. Plus I’ve had quite an emotional week and took some time away from everything ‘network related’.

This is another Facebook prompt from another Facebook friend ………….

The prompt is: Common sense would have told you that. It came from Rosalind Ming and might not be what she expected to read, but it’s where the sentence took me and I couldn’t control the genre of the piece.

Let’s see how I got on below …

Marian

Dr Marian Noel looked out on the desolation and ruins a few feet from her laboratory window. Apart from a few sections of the once titanic facility, all that was left were the armoury and science block where she stood on the 15^th floor.  

Taking off her white rimmed oval glasses the sharpness of what her spectacles delivered became dull, hazy; maybe this was a good thing? She thought. Her eyes immediately began to sting with the strain and she placed the glasses back on, bringing back the vision she could do without.

A lot of the destruction was her fault. Knowing that there was a window of time where all of this could have been prevented made her feel several times worse than knowing so many lives were snuffed out on her watch.

The lab had no edges or corners and its shape made it ideal for several teams of scientists to work in clusters without running into each other. The layout made her feel dizzy for the first time since working in the sci-block for 12 years. The white and grey sphere of a room felt lonely in the way a hospital would if you woke up on a ward to find you were the last person on Earth.

Dr Noel looked down at her lab coat, the blood was still there, and it wasn’t hers.

The workstation she usually occupied was covered with inconsistent results and failed clinical trials printed out, for her own personal torment. She had persisted in light of the glaring facts, the multitude of reasons not to advance, and she had done so knowingly.

Pushing the boundaries of science was something regularly done in the sci-block but not by her, she was the careful one, the one who towed the line, kept to the rules. Got teased about her OCD when it came to discussions on quarantine procedure and yet, the blood on her lab coat was still there.

A coffee stain reminded her how powerful the blast was. She resisted the urge to clean it off. The cup had been a few feet away but its contents had leapt out and splashed over the screen positioned nearby. That was the only thing she’d seen before losing consciousness, a perfect stream of black/brown steaming liquid flying in mid air and stopping for the briefest of moments then continuing on its predetermined arc.

What bothered her almost as much as the whole debacle being avoided was the moment where time appeared to pause and then as though it hadn’t … carry on.

No one else was in the lab, an eerie silence loud enough for her to worry filled her ears. Where had the blood come from? Where was the rest of the science team? Dr Jerrod, and his group, Major Dunkley and his personnel that doubled as an elite group of soldiers as well as scientists, an often arrogant group of individuals acquired as a security team by the E.D.G.E Corporation.

Dr Noel pushed stray bits of paper off her workstation, they appeared to move a fraction slower than they should have but she failed to notice and began tapping on the keyboard until the on-screen display changed and what appeared like random code flicked across at high speed, her eyes keeping pace with strand by strand of letters, numbers and symbols until she found what she was looking for and hit the space-bar. The strands stopped abruptly like a kid running down a corridor that’d suddenly been told off by a teacher. Noel pushed her glasses further up her nose and gazed at the obvious discrepancy in the format of the encoded set of instructions. It would have taken moments to rectify, seconds to change and would have spared so much destruction had she not completely missed it. Not missed, she thought – totally glazed over like it was unnecessary.

Her actions had proven fatal, but for who? All she knew was everyone in the lab had disappeared, fled, died, vanished; who knew? Most of the city had been levelled and somewhere along the line someone had been injured inside the lab but it wasn’t her, that - she did know.

A sensation she wasn’t prepared for cradled her in its embrace. The computer screen blurred for a moment even though her specs sat neatly on her face and a noise like a massive generator filled the spherical space she was occupying. The stain on her lab coat began to grow as the sound got louder. Voices could be heard as though they were in the room with her. A dizzying feeling gripped, took hold. She leaned back in the chair trying to figure out what was happening.

The noises got louder, closer.

Labs were built for various reasons often unbeknownst to the people that worked in them and this one began to spin, slowly at first then kicked itself up a few gears until the walls became a blur of grey and white. The centre of the room remained still. Dr Noel lost consciousness.

"She's back!" Major Dunkley said to Dr Jerrod. Both men looked at their colleague suspiciously, having materialised right in front of them.
"Is she d- ?" Asked Jerrod as Major Dunkley cut in.
"Well her wound looks fatal. It must have happened when she set off the device and vanished."
"Where did she go?"
"I'm the head chief of security, I also do a bit of thinking but you're the smarter one here, Dr Jerrod. Hazard a guess?
"It looks as though she ordered the mainframe to shunt 200% more power down the spatial conduit, see the break in the code there and there?” The doctor said pointing at Noels workstation. "That's why she appeared to vanish, although she didn't go anywhere if you can think four dimensionally?"
"She ripped a hole in time?!"
"Theoretically yes but, more of a cut than a rip. Her equations were precise enough for it to be smooth sailing, that is, apart from these two strands here and here. The event was localised to three inches either side of where she is now."
Major Dunkley looked closer at the sequence Dr Jerrod was referring to and, not a man 'engendered' to being surprised and showing it, he sucked in a breath of air as his brain did the math. “If this formula anything to go by, wherever she went, she disturbed not only the timeline but may have destabilised gravity within a 300 mile radius.”

Dr Jerrod had been working out the results as Dunkley verbally put it all together. He surmised that the nuclear reactors some 150 miles away must have been damaged with such a sudden gravitational shift and caused a massive explosion, maybe minutes in their future. Dr Noel had suffered an injury in the process. He lifted her lab coat and found a small piece of shrapnel sticking out of her upper abdomen. On further inspection it wasn’t a small piece but part of a longer pipe that hadn’t completely gone through and left an imprinted bruise at the base of her spine.

Noels workstation went blank.

“What’s happening?” Major Dunkley asked anxiously. A command prompt appeared on the screen reading: ‘Y/N’.

“I didn’t get a chance to complete the equation to reverse whatever she’d put into motion,” Jerrod said staring at the workstation, “I can’t be sure which command is the right one, yes or no.”

“We have to make a decision don’t we? So let’s make it, and hope we don’t make the same mistake she did.” Major Dunkley offered, the soldier in him speaking finally.

Dr Jerrod’s hand hovered over the keyboard just as Dr Noel regained consciousness and made the decision for them.

Success

If you're reading this I'm not dead, planning to die or have a death wish; I just felt like kicking the sentence off with - if you're reading this ... 
On Facebook the other night I put a status up saying: 

..'Maybe you've seen me posting blogs/shorts on FB ... cool. I need YOUR assistance. Give me a sentence/word - something that'll kick-off more stories and I'll blog them, tag you here, and credit you at my site 'Kreative Anythingz'. Thanks in advance.'..


This idea was inspired by the IndieInk weekly writing challenge that I have been taking part in since April. It's tons of fun and other writers giving you prompts for fiction/non-fiction really stretches my imagination - plus it's just a whole lot of fun. 
I'm calling this request I plan to put on Facebook at least once a month, Kreative Randomnezz. 

As promised to my Facebook friends I will tag & credit whoever gives me a prompt. The first has come from Remi LeBeau, he gave me a word, and that word was: Success ...


“They talk about it having a smell, about success having an undeniably exclusive aroma that makes the feeling of it satisfying, but the trick; as often many fall short, is first experiencing the smell, that sweet smell.” - Stefan Jeffrey (yes it's cool to quote yourself sometimes)

He woke up sniffing, cold, wet, hungry and angry. This wasn't the way things were supposed to be happening. He knew little about destiny and couldn't come to accept waking up behind an Indian restaurant covered in trash being part of his master plan. Who would?
His montage of trash and waste that he called a quilt tumbled away as he sat up bleary eyed, gazing at a harsh stain on the side of a large dustbin. There was a time when he would wake up to the sight of beautiful women in his bed, sometimes one either side of him, each resting a head on his broad chest, curling their legs around his to stay warm. Not even cats came near him now; he smelt rancid and knew it. An uncle had once said: "Boy, if you can smell yourself without making an effort it should prove effortless to smell good." 
Gary's hand squished itself into something warm and wet, the feeling was unbearably disgusting but he'd long ago lost the ability to make faces of annoyance in the blinding glare of things that would make the average person cringe. He was, by all definition, a complete tramp.
The backside of the restaurant was only used to toss out the trash. Staff there had become so adept at waste disposal they rarely looked at what they were doing, if they did it didn't matter, Gary was the human equivalent of a Where's Wally puzzle. Beneficial for him that on rare occasions they missed their target and this collection of errant garbage became, his home.

Feeling the pull of a new day, Gary got up, found his 10p Tesco's bag containing his life right now and stumbled out of his bed into the opening of the alleyway. Commuters, mums, children; they all avoided him giving wide berth to his pungent odour, screwing up their faces in that all too familiar scowl he didn't notice anymore.
The high street was a buzz of activity at 8.30am. The street vendors selling fruit, vegetables and other useful non food items were already shouting at the top of their lungs, coaxing in old ladies and the odd passerby who had no intention of stopping. Gary stepped past all of them, gradually feeling the old strength in his legs that he remembered when he wasn't sleeping in damp trash on chilly nights. His back felt considerably normal too; better than it had in a while. He noted mentally that last night he'd probably got the consistency of waste totally exact to the bend and shape of his spine, or it was a complete fluke and wouldn't last for more than an hour.

A path opened out in front of him. He never needed to weave though crowds they just moved out of his way.

Gary walked through the town centre unimpeded until the shops and commotion all around was replaced with flats, houses. One house in particular had its front door ajar. From inside the smell of a healthy fry-up wafted out on a slight breeze and blazed a path to Gary’s nose. Bacon and eggs stopped him in his tracks. Not eating anything freshly cooked for so long played on his mind. He stood still taking in more, trying to somehow convert what he was able to smell into tangible, edible treats. Failing, he noticed he was getting closer to the house, his legs moving on their own, on no orders issued from his brain.

From inside, the sound of dishes clinking together, water running and a radio kicking out a morning show could be heard.

The door opened silently. He wasn’t aware it was his hand that had pushed it open. Mesmerised by the aroma of a home cooked breakfast, Gary found himself in an impressive hallway. The walls boasted a beautiful shade of magnolia bordered by a dark pine skirting board with enigmatic patterns carved into them. At intervals framed pictures hung, one or two pictures of flowers, and an old couple still in touch with their good looks despite their advanced years.

The smell pushed Gary deeper down the hallway. Light poured in from the other end and the sound of someone, possibly a man, whistling; broke Gary’s aroma induced reverie. He realised where he was, what he was doing, and began to panic. He was too far into the house to get out before anyone coming out of the kitchen; at what used to be the far end of the hallway.

He froze.

His heart beat several steps faster than needed. Sweat made its way out of his pores and added a thin film of moisture to his already clammy skin.

The whistling stopped.

The light that bathed the hallway vanished. Gary was face to face with a young man holding a metal spatula. The man’s face didn’t change in the slightest. He didn’t flinch, turn up his nose or move away. They stared at each other for what Gary thought was a long time. He dropped his Tesco’s bag breaking the silence.

“I can help you.” The man offered.

Gary had heard: Can I help you? He backed away. The young man stepped forward, his face a picture of concern.

“Wait, don’t go.” There was something in the way he spoke that made Gary stop. He wasn’t scared or angry that a strange tramp was standing in his hallway, he appeared genuinely concerned. He really wanted to help.

Gary felt uneasy about several things, and wondered if the man lacked the sense of smell.

Another moment of silence allowed both men to look each other over. Gary noticed the salt and pepper hair, strong facial features and soft eyes of someone possibly in their mid twenties, but the eyes told a different story. What they gave away was that this person was at least ten years older, and seemed to possess surprising compassion for a trespasser in their home.

Slowly Gary calmed down. The man shifted, tilting his head toward the kitchen. “Are you hungry?” He asked.

Gary nearly fumbled the words leaving his mouth, his voice raspy for having not used it in a while. “Erm yes.”

“Come, eat with me,” the man beckoned, “I’ve just cooked, I have enough for two.”

At first Gary couldn’t believe what he was hearing. It was the eyes that reassured him gave him that feeling this surprising person was being, sincere. He slowly followed as the man turned and headed back to the kitchen.

Steam kicked up from a pot on a hob, the kitchen was big enough to house a centre island. It looked like something out of a brochure. If not for the range of food already on the counter and a tea cloth tossed idly to one side, the room was immaculate.

“Please sit.” Again the eyes.

Gary found a stool at the centre island and sat struggling to resist picking at the stray bits of chopped fruit on a large plate. “Why have you- ?”

“Please, accept my hospitality and enjoy this meal I’ve prepared, we can talk later. Ok?” The man cut in.

Gary nodded and looked at the plate of scrambled eggs, bacon, mushrooms, beans and toast that had been placed in front of him. For a second or two he sat with the fork the man passed to him and drank the smell of the food in for one last time before tucking in.

Christmas morning ... the start of a summer holiday! That’s what the first few bites felt like. Through the dirt and grime on his face, Gary let loose a yellow toothed smile. His host smiled back, tucking into his plate of treats. Both men sat quietly regarding each other casually over breakfast. Gary had seconds.

The plates were cleared away but Gary felt as though he needed to return the favour if possible. When his host got up to pour drinks, Gary jumped up and brought the dirty dishes to the sink and began washing up.

“Hey, no need ... please.”

The tone in the man’s voice was polite enough to make Gary stop.

“Go upstairs. Third door on the left is the bathroom. There are towels on a shelf, take a shower. In the adjoining room is a set of clippers/razors, cut your hair and have a shave. Across the hall is a closet, you look about my size and build, take whatever clothes you like. When you’re done, come back down here and we’ll talk.

Gary couldn’t believe his ears. Why was this stranger being so generous? He couldn’t regard him with suspicion, he was effortlessly sincere.

A little shocked and mostly confused, Gary said nothing in case his host change his mind and left the kitchen through the door the man had motioned to. It wasn’t the same one he’d came in, which gave a clue to just how big the house really was. Outside it seemed like a smaller property.

A spiral staircase was situated on the other side of a plush living room that Gary barely paused to take in. The thought of taking a shower was a greater pull than the soft throw pillows, immense sofa and shimmering large flat screen TV.

The shower had a stone granite feel to it, like having a cleanse under a waterfall. It was divine and surreal all at once. It took a while before Gary felt clean. He’d lathered himself up with shower gel and rinsed more times than he could count. Thick layers of dirt ran down the drain, layers and layers of humiliation and pain. There was something pleasantly cathartic about washing that Gary wanted to cherish. He spent over an hour letting the warm jets caress his skin, applying soap and gel frequently.

In the adjoining room after Gary towelled himself off, he found the tools his host had mentioned. Looking in the mirror he fought to remember how his hair once looked and cut it as close to that style as he could manage. His face, a tangled mess of hair took a bit longer. He wanted to get it right, after a while he did. Choosing a smaller, sharper clipper, Gary lined up the edges of his beard framing his lips and chin in a short smooth style that looked sharp.

Gazing at his new reflection in the mirror he began to get a sense of the man he used to be, but he felt different, broken.

His face was still handsome, he’d not seen it for several years but it was a face worth looking at. His eyes had lost some of their sparkle, but as he stood there taking in the view, a glimmer of what used to be; could be seen on the horizon of his pupils.

Across the hall was a closet which was really a long, wide corridor full of clothes neatly hung, colour coded and laid out beginning casual, colourful, turning smart; then ending with some of the most expensive suits he’d ever seen. Gary back tracked and thought about going with the casual look and realised he may never get another chance and walked forwards selecting a single breasted Alexander Amosu, he’d heard the suit was threaded with 18 karat gold, the buttons - paved and set with diamonds; was proof of its £70,000 price tag. On a shelf above all the clothes was the widest range of shoes and trainers Gary had ever seen. He chose a pair of Berluti's to complement his suit and found an Eton shirt to round off the look. When he was dressed and back downstairs, his host met him in the living room with a satisfied smile on his face.

They sat and started talking. At first the conversation was about Gary and how he’d come to be in his current situation, then his host talked about what he did for a living and some of the philosophies his father had taught him that he holds true to, in life and business. Gary listened intently, recognising some of the things he was hearing as information he’d known once, only, not from the perspective his new friend was describing them.

Soon it all began to make sense and the more Gary listened the more he was inspired. Before long Gary had taken off his jacket and they sat in front of a laptop studying trends on the stock market, reading news articles and watching the way money moved around the various trading centres across the globe.

Gary learnt his hosts name was Tom, he was 26 and his father had taught him to trade when he was very young. He knew how to look at graphs/spreadsheets and predict which direction stocks were heading, and 90% of the time he was right. He’d owned a consultancy but got tired of being tied to a building by day so he traded from home, often for fun. It was his dreams that he chose to place ahead of work and the pictures on his laptop’s screensaver were evidence that he’d been doing a lot of dreaming. In one picture Gary was sure Tom was standing underneath the aurora borealis, wrapped up in warm gear, with a massive grin.

That was what it meant. Gary didn’t know what it smelled like until now.

It smelled of clean sheets, good food and nice surroundings. It also smelled like the love and trust a father has in a sons abilities and Tom’s wife and children that walked into the house as Gary closed the laptop.

“Thanks for reading – I don’t usually talk after a post but I really enjoyed writing this. I loved trying to tie in the sense of smells, linking them to attitudes and ultimately the premise of the story. I want to thank my Facebook friend Remi for giving me the opportunity to write this. I hope he likes where I went with it.”