It's been too long...

The truth is, I felt shy

But I know I can't keep avoiding what I really want to do in life just because it's easier. Also, I'm very reluctant to get back to the endless reams of notes I have to take... My pile of books to get through is several feet high. That's an English Lit course for you! I've been thinking about writing this a lot recently and generally about the writing I've done and what I would like to write in the future, and I am aware of the fact that now is maybe not the best time for me to get stuck into the challenges that there are in writing a full blown novel. However, my fingers have been itching again. Yay!

So let's talk short stories because these are more manageable than the novels I'm in the middle of writing. I've literally lost the plot with those... Stephen King says in his book On Writing, that the best thing to do is to make yourself write two thousand or so words every day so that novels are finished within a couple of months. It clearly works for him; that man can write A LOT and it's quality stuff as well. Perhaps that's more manageable than I think it is, perhaps I should aim for 500 instead, or failing that, a sentence. It's keeping up the routine that I need to figure out. But let's move away from my writer's envy. I work too hard for a first year English student as it is, too keen really, but I've been writing occasional short stories instead. Although there are a lot of time restraints at Uni, there are also loads of sources of inspiration. After a lecture on Modernism/Impressionism, unreliable narrators and the short story form, I went to the library to get some books out and ended up writing this instead; a much more fun and creative use of my time.

I hope you enjoy. Comments and criticism very welcome as always.

P.S. I went to a lecture on the short story by Jon McGregor, author of If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things, the other day. He talked about how learning to read is the same as learning to write and recommended reading lots of short stories to learn about the methods of writing. You can more clearly get into the nuts and bolts of writing in terms of what they have tried to achieve and how it has come across. He said that the short story is a more concentrated art form because the writer can have greater control of the pace as the story is meant to be read in one sitting. It can also be more intense as the air is charged with meaning and the writer can add more layers to the story because it is more likely to be read more than once. Every word should count.
It was very interesting. He speaks very poetically and that is reflected in the lyricism of his prose. If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things is a really beautiful book and I think writers can learn a lot by reading it.

A gentleman's attic

I pushed the door open and it made me ache. Its aged hinges screamed. There was a still that shook me as my eyes pierced the gloom. They imposed, my thoughts, onto the long neglected, starved from touch, objects. I felt they stared back with blindness. Conscious, suddenly, of a certain childish hesitancy that I had been projecting as though I had never grown away from that shy little girl, I pushed the door wide open with decided confidence. Perhaps this lacked respect. I felt the air disturbed, felt the dusty cusses of those last breaths that she had gasped here. The cancerous thickness of them stagnated in the air; I inhaled the sickly musk of it. It was tight and strange like starvation. I was a fish out of water.

It will just be ghosts here soon. My ghost and Mother's ghost before and Mother's ghost before that.

That's what she had said. It was the Mother's waiting room. Waiting, always. We never had much luck with men in our family. Never seemed to hold on tight enough to them or we held onto them too tightly. Then the same happened again and again and again. Memories of mother's murderous howls and wails that echoed through the house and etchings of nails scratched onto the pink cherubim wallpaper. She could not destroy him. There was only she and me left. For it. With a steady hand I allowed the candle to hover against the wall above the faded gold bed-post, black-gold-black-gold, a gate to heaven-to-hell-to-heaven-to-hell. There was blood there in the crevices of the torn paper. Her love had been deep and desperate. Mad love. Madmen. Mad dogs in the last hot flush of a summer almost over.

I observed the room. The room observed me with questioning eyes. The next lunatic, the next asylum seeker. Perhaps.

I am that history, that inheritance. I can be what they want me to be. I can agree to the family curse.

I walked to the window, put my candle on a table. The door fell shut quietly behind me. I did not flinch. I could have no fear because there was nothing unknown. The net curtain was wedding veil and I pushed it gently aside to reach through the thin but definite metal bars. The window latch was out of reach... Just out of reach... Ghostly fingers brushed against mine as they reached with mine for death. The blackness was my horizon. I shivered in the darkness and coldness.

A dying breath suffocated the candle and then I could hear the sound of breaking hearts. The snapping sound of snuffed sanity. Their dying memories lived on in my living dying moments.

Downstairs I hear the sound of him, his voice that impeded on us. His laugh. They pulled at his voice, sucked at him. They wanted him here. Bitter-sweet hopes of footsteps outside, the squeak of the gate, a man's voice. The voice of God. They never came back.

He thinks I have gone upstairs to lie down, weak woman, one of my migraines. But I am here. Contemplating solitude. The choice of it.

I sit in the darkness and see. My future. In here. For an eternity. They will not let me leave. Madwoman in the attic, I sing. Mad woman. The woe of men. They chant.

In the dull glimmer of light that came from... where... I don't know... Myself perhaps, could I presume. In that dullness I sat and stared at my face in the mirror. There was a corpse's grin staring back at me, a lunatic bride's reflection that beckoned in a dusty moth-eaten yellowed gown with a  dirty worm-eaten yellowed face.

He said he needed me, wanted me, loved me. He said that would always be true. I will not wait to find out.

Dear, come here, come to see the attic. It's a forgotten treasure. My mother's room you know. Dear one, sweet angel, yes, perhaps for the baby. Soundproofed you know. Where were you last night, dear? Working, I've heard that one before. Please do admire the drapes and the furnishings. Didn't my mother have marvellous taste?

Time for me to go now. Farewell my love. It's not you, it's me. And my needs. I close it. I lock it. There is silence and I have the world.

On Sharks and Mincer

I thought I'd write a little bit about my writing process of Sharks and Mincer. During my gap year I experienced the world of retail work for the first time. I never really stopped to think about how boring it must be sitting at a till all day long. I guess I was a little too concerned about getting my grades for University. I didn't get into my first choice Uni so had to resit one of my subjects in January. A very depressing day was results day for me... I'd be getting As and A*s the whole year and just didn't manage it on the day, for whatever reason. I suspect that it's because I revised a bit too much as the night before my French oral exam I tried to look over some verbs and was hit by a wave of dizziness that made me nearly sick the next day. I once threw up all over my Year One teacher and was glad that I didn't repeat that beautiful scene with my oral examiner. Anyway, so resitting a subject that I felt I'd already squeezed every last inch of my bitter effort into studying for was not the most positive start to the gap year that I had planned to take but I still managed to juggle a job in a supermarket (the clue's in the title) and study again for my exam.

I say it wasn't the most positive, but really I was actually quite content. This was time on my hands to do whatever I pleased, with no school and no rules apart from the ones I set myself. I was getting a taste of the adult world and I was excited. When I got the job I was really happy with myself. Someone thought I was capable enough to work for them, to be paid money! I listened ardently to everything that they taught us and wore my uniform proudly, ready to do everything they asked of me. I was a little shocked that we weren't allowed to drink water or go to the toilet but I quite liked talking to customers and working the till, though I felt a little shy about taking money from them at first. It seemed to me so much like the game of shops that I used to play when I was little. It seemed almost comical, a role play from one of my French or Spanish classes, not a real and utterly ordinary situation that we submit to every day. I enjoyed it, all in all, however. Cynicism isn't the way I approach things. For me it grew over a long period of time and like a canker in a rose I gradually began to loathe it (Not to draw any comparisons between myself and a flower as well renowned for its beauty as a rose, I've already got the whole daisy thing going as it is for flip's sake! Really stretching the flower theme too far, I know, quite sad really). It seemed ridiculous to me that my colleague felt that she had to resign because the powers that be refused to let her go to the toilet. The constant dehydration and a thirst never quenched by the pitiful breaks we were given really withered away my enthusiasm (last flower reference I promise!)

Then I went travelling around the world for a blissful two months and saw San Francisco, New Zealand, Australia and Hong Kong, spending the money I made from all of those painful hours. It was not until I returned to reality and started working again that I realised how poorly we were treated. It wasn't until the second time round, after I had seen something of paradise, that the rude customers and the patronising managers started to get to me. My smile began to feel fake and fixed like a mannequin's and I became an obsessive clock-watcher, counting down the minutes. Of course, some days were good, some were not so good. I realised after a while that it depended a lot on what kind of mood I was in. I tried not to be moody because then the time would go slower and things would be worse. No one noticed if I was anyway. I was very good at hiding the grump. I worked by a system of two hours. If I started before the customers arrived, that hour or so wouldn't count because stacking shelves and chatting to colleagues didn't count as the real work. Then, the first two hours, go, go, go. I hoped for a change in activity. Sometimes there was, sometimes there wasn't. If there wasn't, well, only another hour until a break! Then after the break, two hours, go, go, go, then a break (as late as possible) and a waste check to finish off the day. All very exciting stuff, I'm sure.

It didn't occur to me to write down all that I had experienced until I started working in the Cafe. Perhaps my mind had a moment or so to sit back and enjoy things because time went quicker and there was much less clock-watching. One day I sat down and just started writing about it all. I learnt a lot about people on that job and saw much to be laughed at, much to be criticised. I'll say now that the characters are fictional in this story but it's all based on my experiences. Although it's a bit different in that it doesn't follow the usual conventions of standard grammatical prose, I went for the stream of consciousness effect with the hope that it creates a sense of the fluster and mindlessness of the job itself. They say that writer's lie to give more truths. I hope this does something of the sort.

Thanks for reading,
Daisy

A little taster

This is more autobiographical than fictional but I really enjoyed writing it. The inner rage of a shop assistant brought me lots of inspiration.

Sharks and Mincer

A brief memoir of a gap year student 

Every little hurts

Good-morning Sir/Madam. Thank you for waiting today. No all of our available staff are on tills I'm afraid. Do you need any of our 5p bags/10p bags for life? Yes we charge for bags it's to help the environment. You don't believe in that, fair enough, it's a government conspiracy, fair enough, daylight robbery, of course. So would you like one? A small one. (for all that shopping?) Sure thing. Would you like any help packing? No response, packs anyway. (Comment on product): that broccoli is divine! (Up sell): Have you seen any of our offers in-store? It's 2-for-1 on cabbages today. Yes, that's right. Would you like me to get you some? No it won't take a moment. There you are. Too dirty... (Not a speck of dirt). Ah... Right, I'll just get you some more. These better? Not S&M standard... Right... (Queue waiting, till flashing red, time up! Time up! Customers scowling). Right. You'll take them. Fantastic! Is there anything else I can help you with? (no more please no more). You couldn't find the potatoes. (Sigh). Well they are probably by the - the... broccoli. Would you like me to – yes of course. One moment. Go to vegetable section, pick up a selection of potatoes, get asked for help by another customer, a dithering soft-spoken old woman who has forgotten what it was she wanted to buy; she slowly reaches into her weathered carpet bag which seeps out odours aux chats, aux cigarettes, potatoes heavy, customer waiting, queue waiting, till flashing red, Time up! Time up! 2 minutes a customer, A Joke! A bad Joke! Alarm bleeping, man pushing past excuse me, babies screaming boredom, trolley collisions, no other staff in sight, I just want some tinned tuna, for my cats. Right no problem, just this way Madam, move quickly, turn around, old woman still manoeuvring trolley with two items in, go over to help, get hit by trolley trying to help her with trolley, take her to the tuna, potatoes actually quite heavy, arms aching, anything else I can help you with good thank you goodbye, before she can reply, half-run, swift, like pac-man, swerving around customers, nearly banging into customers, bring potatoes over to customer, sorry to keep you waiting, it's not me I'm worried about customer remarks gesturing queue which is half-way down the shop. Which potatoes, those ones, scans potatoes, puts potatoes in bag, anything else I can help you with? No. (no thank you?) Will you be using your S&M card today? Doesn't hear, never mind. That's £20.91 please. Never just buy what I come in for and sarky remark about expense. Puts card in, puts in pin before time, just a moment, what? Just a moment, please, it takes a moment to register the – ah, now you can put it in. Wait for authorisation wait for authorisation wait for authorisation. Ah no! You pulled it out too soon – card declined. Customer sighs impatiently. Sorry! (I must apologise). Repeats procedure. Customer looks at me like I'm impotent. There we are you can take your card. Here's your receipt. Give bags to customer. Those bags are a bit pathetic aren't they? Yes, the 5p ones are better. I'm not paying 5p for a bag. Okay, thank you very much, have a nice day! It's ridiculous! 5p for a bag. (Is she really going to do this now?) You don't have to do that in other supermarkets you know. Oh really? Well, it's the policy... You should tell your managers that you think it's ridiculous. (But I don't). Yes. Well. Thank you. Have a nice day. Goodbye. Customer turns to leave looking through shopping bags. Other customer approaches. Customer returns looking cross. Wrong potatoes wrong potatoes. I wanted King Edward not new potatoes (but you said...!) and these ones are dirty too! Scowl! (Dirty potatoes what a travesty!). 15 minute break not for another 2 hours 14 minutes. End of shift not for another 3 hours 46 minutes. Queue of customers a mile long, each one with the same pantomime performance of scripted lines… 

…An hour and 4 minutes later. Yes I am counting the minutes. My eyes flit to the little electronic till clock like a bird to a nest. It almost seems cruel that it's there. Throat dry now. Goose-pimples on arms under the rough cringe of the cheap polyester fleece. Artificial asbestos air conditioner. Throat very dry now. Water not allowed for another hour and ten. Voice comes out as a squeaky croak to the customers, thank you for waiting, any cashback, do you need  bag, I'm a broken record, a cliché, a mindless zombie.  Remember colleague who says fuck you instead of thank you with a big smile and wish I had such guts. Wish I could be anything but a mindless zombie for the 12 hours a week I am stuck on the till. Wait I said mindless zombie already. Phrase repetition has been stamped to the bone, like the S&M loyalty card stamp. I could be thinking Shakespeare, composing sonnets, planning novels, poems, recalling witty quotes, in this time. Brain switches off. Something to do with the repetition and the noise and the people. Still, thinking this at least. This is something, isn't it? Oh oops, didn't say goodbye to that person. Three hours down the line it's hard to care. I watch the managers laughing, chatting away to one another and try to make eye contact. Don't they know, don't they think? I catch eye contact, there was definitely eye contact, but they look away, untroubled.  

Pardon sorry, yes of course, I'll just call someone. I ring the bell and it buzzes pathetically like a loose balloon or a whoopie cushion fart. I sigh, then turn around to the guy at the till behind because his bell works. Stan, Stan, my mouse voice chimes like the tiniest triangle of an orchestra, Stan. His customer hears me, takes pity on me, brings his attention to me. He glances up and blinks through thick-rimmed glasses, looking down past his swollen santini tomato nose. Yes? Could you er ring the bell? He stares uncomprehendingly for a long moment, perhaps because he had to shuffle and reshuffle the words in his lost mind, or perhaps because he was considering saying no, for once, as I often thought about, for fun. Can I have some cashback? No. How the prospect amused me for hours and hours! Then he placed one of his sausage fingers, (would it be indulgent to call them chipolattas?), onto the bell. It rang, sharply, a clear-cut call for help that the managers would not be able to ignore. I smile at the customer. Sorry just bear with me a moment. What if I don't want to bear with you? Old man humour, yes, but still rude. I laugh humourlessly and the laugh seems to drain my spirit even more. Thinking of Stan I am amused by a thought that those senior members of the food hall seemed to have body parts that resembled food. His cauliflower beard and cocktail sausage eyebrows are as far as my limited imagination allows me to stretch before manager comes over. 

This is Dame Scarlet Darling, so named by me because of her red cabbage hair and her love of pet names. Yes Darling? She asks, placing a supporting/patronising hand on my shoulder and looking at me, or past me, not sure. Everything all-right Darling? I like her, all the same, more than the others, though the kiss she gave me once just for turning up was quite startling. She has more spirit, at least. Yes thank you. Temptation to add Precious onto the end was quite delicious. An unintended rhyme! How delightful is my trifle! Now there's food on my brain and the result does not mesh with decent poetry of any kind. This gentleman here wants another chicken so he's got the 3 for £10 deal. Of course Darling, I'm sorry to keep you waiting sir, she addresses the customer. I won't be a moment. Sorry to keep you waiting, she says to another customer in the queue who rolls her eyes in response. Am struck by a feeling of camaraderie for Dame Scarlet Darling after the rude customer. Also admire her for not letting the system get to her. I always admire the long-standing members of staff. People don't appreciate how hard it is to maintain the enthusiasm. I remember my first few weeks at the job – endlessly cheerful and helpful. That's still there, but there's the resentment now too. Ms Darling must know how it breaks through the cracks like rain corroding a weathered miserable-faced statue. She always encourages me. Keep smiling darling, well done darling, your parents must be so proud. This thought is really only very fleeting, my own resentment towards the impatient customers steers my thoughts down another route. 

We really do take it on all fours for the public. Company policy. £6.55 an hour and we're expected to lick the dirt off their shoes if it so suit them. Well that's an exaggeration. That's not fair. My increasingly grumpy water-deprived brain is sparking like a loose plug. Still, they're not all bad, the customers. I once had a nice chat with a customer about welsh cakes. She said I was wasted in this place. Then followed an occasion when I was nearly late for work because she caught me outside the shop and of course I must see the picture of her grandson. I was grateful to her though, she spoke to me like a human rather than a plastic moulded product of S&M. Some of the customers look at me like they expect to see a bar-code on my forehead, or a price, and very often they don't seem very satisfied with the expense. No one is ever satisfied with the expense. Some think it's my calling, my one true purpose; that my life outside the supermarket is me waiting to return to the supermarket. But she was one of those who smiled. She was one of those who could empathise.  

Break-time! Break-time! Oh sweet sweet salvation. I run, half-run, running would look unprofessional. But time's ticking, 14 minutes left now and I'm stuck behind the slowest walkers ever. Big smile. I smile at other colleague, receive grumpy blank look in return sudden vision of myself in ten years time still working here with liquorice hair, green bean brows and a santini tomato nose of my own. I can just taste the indifference. Swipe card, run upstairs and yes! In staff room with a whacking 13 minutes to spare. Grab food from locker, run to staff-room a little out of breath. Free cup of tea, best perk of the job, though have to add cold water so it cools down enough in time, else burnt mouth, burnt throat – not good downstairs with nothing to drink. Burn tongue anyway. Sit alone today, half-grateful, chatting means not enough time to eat lunch. 15 minutes for 6 hours work, familiar injustice swarms through mind like a bee hive with a dying queen. 15 minutes of sweet heaven. Downstairs is a kind of hell. Imagines damnation to be serving a never-ending stream of impatient customers saying the same goddamn things over and over and over and over any cashback any cashback any cashback any cashback at all? Then devil says okay you can take your 15 minutes in heaven now. Imagine staff room as heaven, can think of nothing more depressing. Everyone there silent and mournful like a lost soul or complaining about the hell downstairs asking when you started when you finish what hours you do. They'll forget soon. Oh it's been so busy down there hasn't it! Yeah so busy! Yeah really busy. Hmm... Has it been busy in menswear? Oh you know, steady. Ah okay. 

Manager walks in and sees me. Ah! Hello! I've heard that you're interested in working in the café. Oh oh well yeah I would like to work there. Brilliant. I'll get that organised then and let you know when you'll start. Okay? Oh yeah, brilliant, thanks! Prospect of café seems almost too good to be true. I'd heard they get to have a drink if they're thirsty there and even chat to their colleagues when it's not busy. The prospect of such a utopia being a reality leaves a smile on my face, not that there's not usually one plastered on there. Looks at watch, minus 2 minutes to go to toilet. Minus 2 because I've already taken too long for break. Only so quickly you can eat a sandwich. After all no rush to return to the till, no rush to return to hell. 

On till again. Manager loud-mouth closes my till. ALL-RIGHT? I'M CLOSING YOUR TILL SO YOU CAN DO A WASTE CHECK. OKAY? HAVE YOU DONE WASTE BEFORE? Erm yes... (about 500 times). M'OKAY. FAB. SO COULD YOU JUST SIGN OFF FOR ME AND FOLLOW ME. THAT'S RIGHT COME WITH ME. I remove self from chair and have to stretch limbs out of chair mould. YOU ALRIGHT? Yes thank you. A bit stiff. LAUGH. SO WHEN ARE YOU GOING TO UNIVERSITY? Oh, in Septemb- OH THAT’S A SHAME BUT YOU’LL COME BACK TO US, I KNOW IT, YOU’RE JUST THE TYPE TO COME BACK TO US. OUR LITTLE BOOMERANG EMPLOYEE. Inward grim shudder. Oh, than- RIGHT COME WITH ME AND I'LL SHOW YOU. I follow to one of the aisles. Inner groan. It's deli, the most annoying aisle to waste check because of the sheer number of packets of ham squashed together. RIGHT. BASICALLY A WASTE CHECK MEANS THAT YOU HAVE TO LOOK AT EVERY PRODUCT, THAT'S RIGHT, EVERY PRODUCT AND TAKE FOOD OFF THE SHELF THAT IS EXPIRING TODAY WHICH IS THE 7TH, THE 7TH OF APRIL. IF YOU FIND ANYTHING THAT SOMEONE ELSE HAS MISSED, LET ME KNOW. Looks dangerously fierce, eyes popping, looks on the verge of a breakdown. IT'S A £5000 FINE PER ITEM IF THE FOOD STANDARDS FINDS IT. SO IT IS VERY VERY IMPORTANT THAT YOU CHECK CAREFULLY M'OKAY? Yeah I know, I've been doing this for a long time you're not adding anything new, but I nod along with a stupid smile because playing at innocence has removed me unscathed from sticky situations with managers before. SO TAKE YOUR TIME BUT WORK EFFICIENTLY M'OKAY? I LIKE TO WORK CLOCKWISE AROUND THE AISLE STARTING FROM THIS POINT. Right. AND IF A CUSTOMER ASKS YOU TO DO SOMETHING SWIVEL THE FOOD LABEL. He demonstrates. SO YOU KNOW WHERE TO COME BACK TO. THAT CLEAR? Clear as it's always been. I nod and smile, perhaps a forced smile now. RIGHT, LET ME KNOW IF THERE'S A PROBLEM. M'OKAY? OKAY! Thanks for the earache. PARDON! Thanks for the help! He smiles, his jaws shark-like and nods theatrically. THAT'S OKAY! Almost expect him to add, JUST DOING MY DUTY! Before flying off to patronise the next person. 

Still, the waste check is what I look forward to and this is a biggun so I probably won't have to go back on the till at all. A lovely half-plastic, half-fake tan bleach blonde customer summons me over mid-argument with equally lovely boyfriend looking for lettuce, I find lettuce, she snatches, I wait for thank you, she continues arguing with boyfriend and leaves me standing their smiling pleasantly like a large-toothed wide mouthed fool. Wonderful woman! It is hard not to judge the clichés. 

I return to waste check, find apple pie in wrong place, walking to dessert aisle when loud-mouth sees me WHAT YOU DOING? SHOPPING? My laugh sounds like choking. Would love to plaster loud-mouth's loud-mouth with apple pie but another day perhaps. Return to waste check with back and neck ache and eye strain. Heart thuds heavily with every close date. Oh shit 8th April, that one will be gone tomorrow! Search hundreds find nothing want to find something that validates the point of effort. Ah-ha an out-of-date salami packet from the 5th. Shocker! 2 days out! Tut-tut to those lazy checkers before me. Loud-mouth would love this! I feel like waving it around or ringing a celebratory bell. Then I look at it again and realise. That's no achievement. It's bloody salami. And I am ashamed of my joy, my loud-mouth minion joy. Who actually gets happy about finding out-of-date salami? I look around, hesitate, then drop it into the waste basket. Carry it to cupboard feel like red-riding hood on the way to granny with goodies good girl. 

Any hot drinks?

New job. Café girl, new face, new role, new change, new till, new skills, new thrill. Filter coffee, tea, latte, mocha, americano, cappuccino, frappaccino,  babyccino, mochaccino, spazacchino, napacchino, slapacchino, blessyouacchino, hotburnacchino, iwannagohomeacchino, espresso, double single, extra hot water, skinny, full fat, chocolate on top, with cream or milk, ice with that, glass for your drink, wash your hands in the sink, extra hot, earl grey, loose leaf, hot chocolate to go, no touching you're on show, beans in the grinder, small, medium, large cups cups cups fill up the cups, free biscuit, free drink, take tray over, drinks on the way, different froth for different drinks, drinks will be waiting for you around the side, sugars, cutlery and sauces opposite the till, behind you, napkins, where are the napkins, smoothies, toasted sandwich, not enough sausage, a jacket with cheese, beans, tuna, sweetcorn, coleslaw, chilli, burns, ouch burns! Hot milk please, extra hot water please, stamp my card please, I've got a free one! Any ice with that? Any ice? I said, any ice with that? 

Staff in the café seem friendlier. We're a team, united by coffee! Aprons, hats and all! The beans are POW SMACK GROUND into fairly drinkable coffee. I'm most impressed by the free drinks here. Arrive early. 7 a.m. – a completely different time of day to be working. No customers at first, no customers! Water, water, whenever I want and coffee! Hands shaking. Should probably slow down on coffee. First café-girl I meet, café-girl, like super-girl, tells me to bribe managers with coffee. I like coffee now, though it makes me sneeze. The grind gets everywhere. Under the nails, in the skin, the eyes, on the brain. Coffee on the brain. Managers hate everyone in the café. Why? Because it's better here? The green on this side of the fence creates envy. I don't know. Just doesn't harm to bribe them. Later I see the “help” managers offer. They clear a few tables, PLONK onto the rack. There, all done! They don't know the system. Plates and saucers and cutlery on top, cups and pots on the trays. Thanks very much manager X! 

Better than fish face anyway. He comes in at 8. Alright guys. You been having a party here? The chairs and tables are all over the place. Oh, no, the party just started when you walked in. Sees a drink bottle out of place, clicks teeth. I'm going to have to deduct 5 points for that. Also there was an elastic band on the surface. Another point for that. Customers like to look around for faults like that. Really? Yes. So you should really keep that area clear. Also that's not the best way to mop a floor. Clicks teeth. There's water everywhere. Looks fine to me. He demonstrates. Really make sure you squeeze the mop. Like this, that's right. Thanks so much for that lesson on self-improvement, fish face, as he slimes his way back down to food to join the other sharks. He stops to turn. Oh, I've got a waste follow-up to deal with you. He’s almost skipping with excitement. A what? You missed something in food. You left some waste. Oh. So I hope we can do that soon. Scold scold scold. Suddenly realise that I am pouring hot water out of the teapot onto my own hand. He doesn't see. Glad because don't want another life lesson. Am left thinking, what about my 100% mystery shop? Hard work or not, it doesn't make a difference. They used to give rewards, I was told, £25 vouchers. Now not even a well-done. I wonder again why it is that I care about this petty little S&M world. Remind self that University is on the horizon, a career as a beaming light of hope. I wonder whether in the end it all means the same, or less. I think about reading my tea leaves later. Something to do. 

Customers arrive. Have you got any teacakes? Teacakes? Teacakes at all? No I'm afraid they haven't arrived yet. Perhaps they would have if you had arrived later, and not queued up outside before we'd even opened. It's a Saturday morning! You're not working! Why aren't you in bed? I don't say this. Customer scowls martyrdom. Oh. Tuts. Rolls eyes. I don't know eh! I'll just have to have a um – a um- a um... I do enjoy the paralysis that their indecision enforces onto me, the servile bated breath to hear what master will choose. Yet that thought was indulgently angry, I don't really mind and, I realise, I am the same. It's the driver-cyclist hypocrisy. When you're driving you hate the slow cyclist, when you're the cyclist you hate the pushy driver. Which one am I? The driver or the cyclist? 

Then there's always the O.A.P. comedians. You see them pre-hersing their jokes as they come in.

Bonjourno.

Laugh. Hello.

What? You don't know Italian? But you're barristas.

Brings over teapots to an old couple.

What am I going to drink it out of?

Hahaha. Cups on the way! Don't quit your day job.

Just a filter coffee please.

Would you like some milk or cream with it?

No, I always take my coffee neat.

And hilarity ensued.

Old man comes in with little wispy-haired vacant-eyed wife. She stands by the table that they sit at every time, eyes peeking over the partition wall, watching her husband in case he runs astray. Little meercat's eyes, wide and waiting.

   He comes over, café-girl next to me breathes, oh no, with a certain doomed realisation. He doesn't smile back or return my greeting. He cuts up my hello with I'll - have - one - small - filter - coffee - with - hot - water - and - one - small - filter - coffee - with - hot - milk. Each word with a rhythmic impatience, he nods to show he has finished his order. So... would you like one of the filters to be a weak one? I'll - have - one - small - filter - coffee - with - hot - water - and - one - small - filter - coffee - with - hot - milk! Increased rhythmic impatience. Didn't answer my question at all. We both stare at the perceived incompetence of the other. Right! Anything else for you today? No. Tone like he's speaking to a child. If I wanted anything else I would have asked for it! Now. How much is that! Meercat's eyes stare at us to check that nothing unsolicited is occurring, or perhaps simply waiting because he won't allow her to be seated before himself. There you are, sir. Throat contracts with repressed distaste. There we are indeed! Snatches tray without another word.

Those are the funny ones. I was spraying tables and I sprayed a little too close to a couple on the table adjacent to me. The woman clasped her hands over her mouth with a murder-scene gasp. Oh! Don't spray so close, dear. We don't like chemical sprays. Oh. Sorry. I moved away and she didn't remove her hand from her mouth for another minute. But they are the funny ones. They don't bother me. 

A woman whose sides had spread wide from too many S&M pies and teacakes huffs over to the till. Her hand lodges itself firmly above her hip amidst the rolls as though essential for keeping it in place. Her other hand slaps down onto the counter. Her rings clash with the surface. I see a receipt under her palm. Is everything alrigh- No, everything's not alright. Excuse me, are you the manager? She points her clawed index finger at her like she's jabbing with a fencing sword. Er- no, café-girl says. Well, I wish to lodge a serious complaint about this girl. A jab between the eyes at me. A moment of awkward confusion. Oh? Well! She was very slow on the till and then I looked at my receipt and what do I find? She doesn't wait for an answer. She's overcharged me! For another soup. Now tell me? I feel the penetration of her furious stare and feel myself sinking. Do you do this to every customer? Do you cheat other customers out of their money in this way? Because I might not have checked it you know! Am struck by her triumphant prosecutor stance. No, of course not, I'm very sorry. We'll give you a refund. My voice shakes. I had not expected to be called a thief today. Well that's just not good enough really, is it? To café-girl, I want to talk to your manager because you really shouldn't allow someone so incompetent to use the till. I shrink and want to disappear. It feels like I'm slowly diminishing like unwanted coffee down a sink. Café-girl speaks up for me, Now, obviously we're really sorry and will give you a refund but unfortunately we're only human and humans make mistakes. How else would she learn if we didn't let her use the till? Woman looks inflamed with fury. She doesn't want us to be human. Are you talking back at me? No – I. That's it! I will never come to the S&M café again. We say nothing but both think that that wouldn't be such a bad thing. We give her the refund and she occasionally spurts, Ridiculous! Incompetence! Then she leaves.  

I rage as she rages. Café-girl shrugs. Be neutral to it. This isn't your life. None of it is worth it. Just laugh at them, Daisy. Learn from them. 

The customer gets annoyed, I become annoyed about them getting annoyed. I choose to be just as they choose to be. Walking into my bright cliché of a future, I realise that maybe there was a happier mind-frame in choosing not to be annoyed, for worker, for customer, in the other paths that my many walks of life will follow. I know it to be true. I'm not a person here, merely an observer in mind, a server in body. The two can be separate. I started the job, my first job, beaming and happy with the highest of aspirations. Everyone used to say how nice it was that I was always smiling. How nice my smile was. Some customers said that it had brightened up their day. Then the sharks got to me, the mincer got to me. It ground me down. I let it grind me down. I think, as I leave the job forever, that removing the mind from the situation needn't result in apathy and brainlessness either. It will only serve to give me the gift of heightened empathy. There were good people, it was easy to forget that. After all, why stress over a teacake?

Reasons and Confessions

Hello there! I'm going to make a confession straight away and I hope you won't close the page in annoyance. I'm not really called Daisy Brown and that picture isn't really what I look like (unfortunately I don't have Charlotte Bronte's body or a daisy shaped head), so I'm lying just a little bit, but I thought we should start off with a clean slate, or rather, a clean computer screen. Daisy is just a nice name that I think would suit my writing character, because that's what I'm creating here essentially, a character, as we do really whenever we are who we are. So we're all writers of our own lives and whatnot but what I aspire to do is write about other people and other worlds but lately my own world has been getting in the way. After all, locking myself up in my room to write all the time in my first year at Uni wouldn't make me many friends... No, now's not the time for me to be a social recluse. If anything my writing would be worse because I would have no way of learning more about people and would probably end up writing wrist-slitting cringe about why the world doesn't like me and moan - self-pity - moan - moan - groan. Not to say of course that shutting oneself away to write doesn't produce marvellous works of literature for some people. Perhaps I just have less imaginative independence than them because I need people around me to write.

But anyway, it's not easy having the motivation to do something that you want more than anything to do when you're lacking in self-confidence. Those of you that are writers yourselves or have tried to write at any time probably know what I mean. It's the ohh anything I write will be rubbish anyway so why mess up what is a perfectly unmarked piece of paper (or word document) syndrome. When I was thirteen I wrote my first novel in just over a month. Although the standard of it was really nothing to be proud of, I was able to write 120,000 words in that time because I wasn't worried about my writing. I was in the perfect zen state of ignorance to the worth of what I was putting on the page and so could write write write all I liked. I'm told that writing is re-writing anyway, so imagine how wonderful it could be if I could be producing that much of it in so little a time all the time. Eventually I'm bound to re-write something that's good enough. I've tried since and in fact nearly finished my second novel (though that is at the moment on seemingly permanent hold) and am working on another project which I'll tell you about another time because I'm aware that I'm rambling and not getting to the point of why I'm writing this blog.

I am writing this blog because I want to write in spite of all the obstacles that life poses and I think this will give me some motivation. Secondly, I think writing this will make me think more about my writing process and stay focused. Lastly, I want people to read some of the things I write because having an audience might spur me on, but for now only while I hide shyly behind Daisy.

So I hope you will read some of my short stories and poems and I apologise profusely if they are not to your taste. I'll work on it! Maybe we'll even see a development throughout the course of this blog. I hope so anyway.

Putting my pen to paper begins now.