My Silver Linings

I need to write a short story!

There used to be this popular website, where up-and-coming writers could publish their work and take part in regular competitions. Editors of the website usually provided thematic prompts for these. I found it to be surprisingly inspiring. Their last competition before the internet went bust didn’t have a prompt, just a word count limitation.

I have completed all the challenges with prompts and for the last week or so I am trying to come up with something to write about for the remaining one. Obviously, no one will ever read these stories, but it is still something to help pass the time. I have so much time on my hands these days.

I believe that keeping this journal made me a better writer, although most of it is just an unedited stream of consciousness, pouring out of me daily onto these poor pages. Today I am on my last ballpoint pen. I hate the thought of writing on my laptop, but I guess I will have to start doing that when the ink finally runs out.

What should I write about? This morning I was thinking about my neighbour’s dog Barry and his cat friend Larry. What a legendary couple of buds! Several years ago, on the 5th of November (Bonfire Night) Barry got really scared of the fireworks and ran away. Nick and Josie were devastated. I remember helping them put posters up the next day, stapling the “Missing best friend” printouts to the lampposts all around Greenwich. Barry was a Labrador - and Labradors are usually the happiest of dogs, but in the photograph that Nick and Josie chose he looked really sad, with his ears floppy, his tongue politely hidden and his big head tilted slightly as if feeling sorry about something.

Larry was fond of hunting squirrels in the front gardens of our Victorian terrace or sleeping on the warm bonnet of a car that had just arrived. That night he didn’t come home for his usual minced meat dinner. Josie went from door to door, asking everyone to check their gardens, but to no avail. She was in tears when she knocked on my door. I tried my best to comfort her and said that Larry probably went looking for Barry as they were always such great friends. Turns out I was right: they came home together the next day. As if nothing happened. That’s what I call real friendship.

I suppose this could work in a short story, but there needs to be more drama, some sort of epic adventure to the other side of Greenwich Park in search of a long-lost treasure! Maybe they meet a wise old mouse on the way and get into a fight with the local butcher? Ah, I wish I could write like J.R.R. Tolkien or Neil Gaiman…

All the best writers always give the same type of advice: write about what is closest to your heart. That is a tall order! I think about my mum and dad all the time, trying to imagine what they might be doing right now, but it is too hard to put that on paper. I need to distract myself.

I thought that looking outside might bring back some fond memories so I spent the whole afternoon upstairs, near the entrance. The round reinforced plexiglass window was quite foggy, but I still enjoyed the view. The vast sky looked typically British, devoid of any detail or colour as if the sky painters decided once again to bail and go drinking to a local pub. The wind was quite strong, playing with a loose electric line flopping on top of the high voltage tower, and the field of brownish-grey stretched all the way to the horizon. Not the most exciting view. I wish I was still in London! I wish I had another window to look out of…

I know! I should write a story about reincarnation! That is one truly fascinating topic to explore!

I had a friend in college. Her name was Lucy and she was absolutely wonderful: so witty and wise and breathtakingly gorgeous. We were good friends, but our relationship never developed further, mainly due to my excruciating awkwardness and her natural shyness. Many years later I stumbled upon her at Luton airport. She was going on a business trip to Lisbon, but her plane was delayed. I was supposed to fly to Amsterdam to meet up with a friend and managed to arrive at the airport way too early. We had 2 hours to kill.

It was nice to see Lucy again after so many years, but it hurt just a tiny bit when she told me that she is now happily married and raising a son. Throughout our conversation, I couldn’t help but wonder how different our lives could have been if we ended up together. As if I ever had a chance with her!

Lucy told me a fascinating story about her son Luke. He was born nearly a month earlier than expected and his birthday fell exactly on the same day as his grandfather’s. I think she said the 20th of February, but I might be misremembering. Lucy and her father John were very close throughout her life; unfortunately, he didn’t get a chance to meet his grandson and passed away earlier that year after hip surgery complications.

One day, when Luke was about 4 years old, he and Lucy were watching Discovery Channel when a program about fighter planes came up. Luke suddenly became very agitated and excited. “Mommy, can we watch this one?” - he vigorously exclaimed.

When Lucy reached this point in her story at the airport, she lost her composure for a bit. Her bright hazel eyes became wet and she took out a little foldable mirror to fix her mascara. “Luke told me everything about the fighter jets in the program as if he was the presenter. Stuff like flying range, ammo capacity, type of engine, fuel tank size, max speed etc. It was so so bizarre…”

John was an RAF pilot all his life, joined at 18, retired to the ground at the Northolt base at 35 and kept training new recruits till he was 60. Fighter jets were in his blood and he used to take Lucy to the base when she was in her early teens. He also spoke nearly fluent German.

When shortly after the Discovery Channel episode Luke started using German words in his speech, Lucy was in a state of shock. She told me she didn’t know what to do with this and that she was worried there could be something wrong with Luke. It is a shame that she had to board her plane shortly after she told me this story. I wish I knew more!

Right after she left, I managed to find Lucy on Facebook and even wrote her a message, but I am not sure if she ever received it. I wonder how they are doing now…

…Had to stop writing for a bit ‘cause the generator was acting up. The temperature safety relief valve sticking again. It was annoying, but I managed to get it working after two hours of dismantling and cleaning it in my candlelit kitchen - a very romantic setting!

It is funny how your brain can get used to certain background noise and just cancel it out after a while. Without the generator rumble, I could hear the purification system pushing air through the vents. I also thought I heard a car noise outside, but that is definitely not real. It just can’t be…

I miss driving… I still remember my Transit van fondly. I got it right after college and we’ve travelled all around the UK together. It had a license plate KP54BUF so I called it Captain Buf. I’ve spent plenty of nights camped out in the back in a sleeping bag. I loved Captain Buf, and I think he loved me back. The mechanical side of things was very reliable and the diesel engine boasted great fuel economy. However, the electrics were awful and in the end nothing really worked, even the dashboard was fried so I had to rely on the GPS speedometer on my phone.

It was sad to say goodbye, but Buf kept asking for more expensive repairs, failing MOT spectacularly each year and rusting away rapidly. I decided to make my contribution to curbing extreme pollution and awful air quality in London and called the local scrapyard.

It rained hard the day it was supposed to be picked up. When the flatbed truck arrived the van simply refused to open the electric door lock, no matter how many times I’ve pressed the button on the remote. The actual lock has been jammed for many years now, so

the driver had to use all his lock picking techniques to get inside and take Captain off the handbrake. The van was making soul-wrenching squeaky noises when being loaded onto the flatbed. The driver from the scrapyard saw my grief-stricken face and decided to cheer me up. I wonder if these guys are trained in “bedside manners” the same way that doctors are?

“These Transits tend to become your best friends, I know what I am talking about, I had one just like yours! I am sure it will continue to bring joy to someone else, reincarnated into a washing machine or maybe a microwave oven.” - said the driver when Captain Buf was finally mounted onto the flatbed.

I think I am getting off track here. A story about an old van? I am sure nobody wants to read that!

I didn’t get any shuteye tonight; the generator was making those sputtering noises again and my dinner of yet another can of baked beans gave me awful indigestion. So instead of sleeping my brain decided to rummage through all the friends I used to have and all the stories they told me over the years. I am starting to forget their faces… God, I wish I didn’t rely on cloud storage when it came to photographs! It was so stupid to wipe clean all hard drives just because I thought storing everything on a cloud of a big fancy tech company was convenient and bulletproof. What an idiot!

I also really wish I’d downloaded some games onto the laptop! Or movies! Or some music! That would be so nice… All I’ve got is The Beatles “Let it Be” album, bloody Minesweeper and dreadful Solitaire as well as a two-hour documentary about the Amur tigers going extinct. I hate that movie! Maybe just because I’ve seen it way too many times…

Creativity eludes me today… I’ve ruined my day by looking at the calendar. Time-keeping has lost any meaning and these last 8 months feel like 10 years. Also, it appears that Christmas is right around the corner. I don’t feel like celebrating, but I wouldn’t mind a real Christmas tree. I miss the smell. And spending an hour trying to untangle the lights. And seeing mum and dad in their funny Xmas jumpers… Goddammit!

Another sleepless night. Managed to find one more issue with the generator - the bottom manifold has a leaky gasket. I’ve taped it up and the rumbling noises went away. Not sure how long it might hold.

Went upstairs again today and saw a beautiful sunset. The pale orange disc was low on the horizon, with a milky halo around it. It looked eerie. I cried like a baby. I wish I could see a normal, untainted sunset again, in full colour, with gorgeous yellow turning orange, and then red, and then almost violet… I wish I could feel the warm rays of the setting sun on my skin…

Fun fact: my first ever short story was about sunset. I was in middle school and Mrs Flemming gave us an assignment: 2000 words love story. We had a weekend to do this, and then the best stories were supposed to be read by the teacher in front of the whole class. Being a teenager at the time I’ve decided that this is my chance to express how I feel about a girl I really liked.

Her name was Sara. She goes to meet a friend after school. The sunset that day never ends. The time stops and everyone freezes except Sara and her friend Daniel (obviously inspired by myself). They fall in love and go exploring the world frozen in time together.

I’ve spent the whole weekend crafting this and in the end was quite proud of the result. My parents were very curious about me locked in my room both days, but I was too shy to let them read what I wrote.

Mrs Flemming seemed pleased with my story and read it out loud during the lesson. I was looking at Sara the whole time, wondering if she figured out that this was about her. The authors were kept anonymous for the sake of unbiased voting: we were all supposed to choose the number 1 story. Halfway through the reading of my story, I realized I might have made a fatal mistake: when I named my main character Daniel, I didn’t account for a boy in our class actually named Daniel, who happened to be the captain of the cricket team and thus immensely popular amongst girls. I am pretty sure Sara thought that he wrote the frozen world sunset story. I saw them holding hands in the corridor the next day…

The most incredible thing happened about a decade later when out of the blue I received a message on Facebook from Daniel: “Dan, I am sorry I “stole” your sunset story, I figured it was yours and I knew you had a crush on Sara, but when she asked me about it, I had to say it was mine, I just had to! We are now happily married and expecting our second child. Thank you so much, you’ve changed my life with that story!”

We had to write plenty of essays at university and I found myself enjoying the writing process once again. Majoring in art history sounded glamorous at the time, and we all felt like cutting-edge bohemians back then.

That changed quickly after we graduated: apparently, there is absolutely no work for people who can spit out 4000 words on “colouristic symbolism in late period Rothko” and debate the impact of the post-impressionist movement. Sam’s dad owned a hip cafe on Brick Lane and clearly felt pity for us, so half of our group ended up waiting tables and working at the bar there. It was one of the coolest cafes in all of London, that I was sure of, however, this wasn’t exactly how I imagined my bohemian life would go. My student debt was enormous and my career opportunities were few and far between.

I’ve curated a couple of student exhibitions in Shoreditch and helped a fellow course mate open up a tiny gallery in Hackney. None of us had any idea how to run a business or find a decent job after uni. They just don’t teach you that there. And this wasn’t just our uni - friends from the nearby contemporary music academy were all out of work as well. At least they could play an instrument, so there were some weddings (and funerals) to make a couple of quid here and there.

A young boy named Jordan used to hang out near the cafe. He was homeless and sleeping rough in his bag on the side street. We were supposed to get rid of all the food at the end of each day, but no one in the cafe could just throw food away. So, we started to feed Jordan and a couple of his homeless friends every day after our shifts ended. Many times this was the true highlight of my day after dealing with spoiled customers, unhappy with how rare their sirloin steak was.

As a token of gratitude Jordan drew these little sketches of us on cafe napkins. After seeing his drawings, I bought him a proper sketchbook and a set of pencils and in a matter of weeks he grew into an incredible portraitist. His drawings were so honest, sincere and devoid of any pretentious crap that we spent 4 years studying at uni. Raw and beautifully detailed.

I wish you could have seen Jordan’s facial expression when one cold November evening we presented him with an invitation to his first-ever art exhibition, set in our friend’s gallery in Hackney. He hugged us so hard and sobbed for a good half hour. The exhibition lasted for nearly a month and was a massive success. An art charity fund awarded Jordan a creative grant to develop his abilities and offered him a studio residency in Shoreditch. This was one of my most favourite Christmas holidays of all time.

This is turning into some sort of autobiography... Those were trying times, but I was young and free and could do whatever I wanted (kind of). I am still young, but far from free. At least no one cares about my student debt anymore.

Here is a good story! One day a distressed-looking lady knocks on the door of the staff room at the Embankment tube station. She tells the head of the shift that her husband is “no longer here!”. She explains that back in the 1960s, Oswald had recorded voice messages for the tube service, including the legendary “Mind the gap between the train and the platform”. He died several years ago, but his voice lived on in the underground, making sure that everyone travelled safely and knew what stop came next. His wife Margaret loved him very much and she took the Northern Line quite frequently, listening to her husband’s soothing baritone. And then one day it was gone, just like that, replaced by some robotic-sounding lady with too many metallic overtones in her vowels.

TFL staff were quite touched, so the most active members started their own investigation and after a couple of days located the original tapes of these announcements. They made digital copies for Margaret and also managed to convince their superiors to “reinstate” Oswald at Embankment station.

This is really sweet, right? And visual! You can almost see Margaret in her beige trench coat and a colourful silk scarf sitting on the dusty bench at Embankment, her eyes fixed on the loudspeaker in the corner of the platform, her lips trembling a bit and her long grey hair free and dancing with every train passing by.

Today was my weekly radio search ritual. Nothing. Not a single beep. Not sure what I was hoping to find... I wish I had a microphone and a transmitter here so I could send something out myself… Maybe someone is listening somewhere out there? I am starting to hear patterns in the static…

Took a nap and dreamt about a restaurant I used to frequent. It was a dingy little place in Chinatown, but it had the absolute best hoisin duck in all of London, so crispy and fragrant! Woke up with a gurgling stomach and an idea: I wonder if the food can taste different if you eat it in the dark? I remember there was a novelty establishment like that somewhere in central London. You dine with the lights out - and it is supposed to be a transformative experience. I will try this tonight!

Reporting back: beans still taste bland, lights or no lights… It would be nice to have something not out of a tin can for a change. On the bright side, I think I have perfected the recipe for ramen noodles: water has to be around 85 degrees and the block of noodles needs to be crushed into medium-sized bits and submerged in water for exactly 7 minutes and 44 seconds, no more, no less. And most importantly, seasoning goes in first, on the bottom of the pot. Shrimp-flavoured pots are my favourite, but I am running out of those. Roast beef and chicken broth flavours left.

My mum used to cook the best pork chops with mushroom sauce and melted cheese on top… Ah, I would give anything to get even just a little slice of that… Actually, I would give anything to just see mum, to hug her and tell her how much I love her!

I am so tempted to go outside… But I am really scared. I have nothing to lose (except my life, obviously), but I just cannot find the courage to unlock that door. It has only been 8 months since it all happened, so the air is most definitely still highly toxic… I remember hearing somewhere that it will take at least several years, or maybe more before we should venture back out…

I still cannot believe that humankind existed for more or less 60 000 years and it only took around 100 years to fuck it all up… We had it all, but we needed more. More and more and more. Till we gambled it all away… Greed, bigotry and corruption won…

Okay, enough of this moping!

My father had taught me to actively keep looking for the silver lining when facing adversity. I’ve always tried to follow his advice and over the years developed a habit. I guess this is how you train your inner optimist.

My silver lining today is that, despite everything, I am still alive. I have a pantry that should last for about 11 more months if I ration my tin cans, enough diesel fuel for modest consumption for around 13 months and enough drinking water for a year or so. I have a bookshelf with some Hemingway, Bradbury, King, Clark, Murakami, Fitzgerald, Salinger and others. I can still write on my laptop when this pen runs out. The generator seems to be working okay for now and I am only missing two lightbulbs out of 12 total. Oh, and I am definitely getting much better at Minesweeper!

I didn’t quite understand why my father had to buy this place in the middle of nowhere a couple of years ago, but I can still remember how worried he sounded when passing me the keys and organizing the pantry delivery when everyone was panic-buying and then looting all around the country. “Don’t forget to keep looking for the silver lining!” - was the last thing he said to me before I had to seal the door. I remember his grey Volvo struggling through the mud, faint diesel engine sputtering noises barely making it through the thick steel.

What if it all could have been different? What if we took responsibility for our actions? Stopped overconsumption in its tracks? Eased geopolitical tensions and worked together to equalize life on Earth, living as one nation, free from the constraints of made-up borders and corrupt governments. Fed, clothed and educated. Helping each other and enjoying the process. Making art and promoting kindness. Looking at the stars and feeling tiny in the vastness of the universe.

Maybe it will be different now! When we finally emerge from our shelters, physically weak but mentally much stronger, with more appreciation for the little pleasures of life, like a walk in the park, home-cooked dinner with friends, a quiet evening with the family. Maybe in order to learn compassion we had to lose it all… Start over, on a slate wiped clean?

The sun will set. And then it will rise. And we will be once again looking at one another, smiling. Hopeful and at peace with the world around us. Ready to live again.

London, 21.12.21