Day 250 – A book can have an impact on you

…

How Great Books Transform Us: Exploring the Wisdom of Russell Banks

“The mark of a good book is that after having finished, I’m a slightly different person. I think a little differently, I see the world a little differently…” — Russell Banks

We’ve all experienced it. You close the back cover of a novel, stare blankly at the wall for a few quiet moments, and realise that the room around you looks just a bit sharper, the air a bit heavier, and your own mind a bit more vast.

The late, great American novelist Russell Banks captured this phenomenon perfectly. Books aren’t merely entertainment; they are alchemical agents. They take our existing worldview, melt it down in the crucible of a compelling narrative, and recast it into something new.

In this post, we’re going to explore what it means to be transformed by literature, why the best books linger in our psychology long after we’ve turned the final page, and how reading deeply makes us more empathetic, aware human beings.

---

The Anatomy of a Transformative Read

What separates a forgettable beach read from a truly great book? It isn’t necessarily complex plotting or ornate prose. Rather, it’s resonance.

A transformative book acts as a mirror and a window.

• The Window: It transports us into the minds, eras, and realities of people we would otherwise never understand. It grants us access to the interior lives of the marginalized, the eccentric, the historical, and the fictional.
• The Mirror: It reflects our own hidden fears, secret joys, and moral ambiguities back at us, whispering, “You are not alone in feeling this way.”

When these two functions combine, our cognitive framework expands. As Russell Banks suggests, we don’t just consume a story; we assimilate it. We ingest the author’s perspective and let it rewrite our mental software.

---

Why Good Books Change How We Think

Neuroscience has begun to catch up with what readers have known for centuries: reading fiction literally changes your brain.

Studies in cognitive psychology show that when we read about an experience, the same regions of the brain light up as if we were experiencing it ourselves. If a character is running, our motor cortex activates. If a character is expressing deep grief, our emotional empathy networks fire up.

Over time, this simulation builds psychological muscle.

1. Enhanced Empathy: By walking in the virtual shoes of diverse characters, we become less insular. We realise that human motivation is complex, messy, and rarely reducible to “good vs. bad.”
2. Nuanced Worldview: Dogmatism thrives on simplicity. Great literature thrives on ambiguity. When a book forces us to sit with unresolved endings and morally grey protagonists, we become more comfortable with the uncertainties of real life.

---

Experiencing the “Banks Effect” in Everyday Life

Have you ever finished a book and noticed that your internal monologue has adopted a bit of the author’s cadence? Or perhaps you walked down the street and found yourself noticing the architectural details, the plight of a stray animal, or the quiet desperation of a commuter—things you would have otherwise walked right past?

That is the “mark of a good book” in action.

• After reading Victor Hugo, you might find yourself viewing the institutions of society with a renewed passion for justice and mercy.
• After reading Virginia Woolf, the ordinary moments of a Tuesday afternoon suddenly shimmer with hidden psychological depth.
• After reading Russell Banks himself—known for his unflinching examinations of working-class American life—you may look at your neighbors with a deeper, more empathetic curiosity about the quiet struggles they carry.

---

How to Choose Books That Will Change You

If you want to read in a way that actively transforms you, intentionality matters. Here are a few ways to ensure your reading list leaves a mark:

• Step Outside Your Comfort Zone: If you mostly read contemporary thrillers, try 19th-century Russian literature or contemporary post-colonial fiction. Read stories from cultures, economic backgrounds, and belief systems vastly different from your own.
• Slow Down: Transformation doesn’t happen at 3x audiobook speed. Allow yourself to linger over sentences. Keep a notebook handy to jot down quotes and reflections.
• Discuss What You Read: Talk about books with others. Articulating how a book made you feel helps cement the psychological shift it triggered inside you.

---

Final Thoughts: The Unfinished Self

We are works in progress, incomplete blueprints being continually revised by our experiences. And among the most potent experiences available to the human mind is the quiet, profound act of reading.

Russell Banks reminds us that the best stories don’t let us walk away unchanged. They chip away at our biases, expand our capacity for empathy, and leave us standing a little taller, seeing the world with fresh eyes.

What is the last book that changed who you are? How did it shift your view of the world? Let’s discuss in the comments below!

…

Day 250 – A book can have an impact on you

…

How Great Books Transform Us: Exploring the Wisdom of Russell Banks

“The mark of a good book is that after having finished, I’m a slightly different person. I think a little differently, I see the world a little differently…” — Russell Banks

We’ve all experienced it. You close the back cover of a novel, stare blankly at the wall for a few quiet moments, and realise that the room around you looks just a bit sharper, the air a bit heavier, and your own mind a bit more vast.

The late, great American novelist Russell Banks captured this phenomenon perfectly. Books aren’t merely entertainment; they are alchemical agents. They take our existing worldview, melt it down in the crucible of a compelling narrative, and recast it into something new.

In this post, we’re going to explore what it means to be transformed by literature, why the best books linger in our psychology long after we’ve turned the final page, and how reading deeply makes us more empathetic, aware human beings.

---

The Anatomy of a Transformative Read

What separates a forgettable beach read from a truly great book? It isn’t necessarily complex plotting or ornate prose. Rather, it’s resonance.

A transformative book acts as a mirror and a window.

• The Window: It transports us into the minds, eras, and realities of people we would otherwise never understand. It grants us access to the interior lives of the marginalized, the eccentric, the historical, and the fictional.
• The Mirror: It reflects our own hidden fears, secret joys, and moral ambiguities back at us, whispering, “You are not alone in feeling this way.”

When these two functions combine, our cognitive framework expands. As Russell Banks suggests, we don’t just consume a story; we assimilate it. We ingest the author’s perspective and let it rewrite our mental software.

---

Why Good Books Change How We Think

Neuroscience has begun to catch up with what readers have known for centuries: reading fiction literally changes your brain.

Studies in cognitive psychology show that when we read about an experience, the same regions of the brain light up as if we were experiencing it ourselves. If a character is running, our motor cortex activates. If a character is expressing deep grief, our emotional empathy networks fire up.

Over time, this simulation builds psychological muscle.

1. Enhanced Empathy: By walking in the virtual shoes of diverse characters, we become less insular. We realise that human motivation is complex, messy, and rarely reducible to “good vs. bad.”
2. Nuanced Worldview: Dogmatism thrives on simplicity. Great literature thrives on ambiguity. When a book forces us to sit with unresolved endings and morally grey protagonists, we become more comfortable with the uncertainties of real life.

---

Experiencing the “Banks Effect” in Everyday Life

Have you ever finished a book and noticed that your internal monologue has adopted a bit of the author’s cadence? Or perhaps you walked down the street and found yourself noticing the architectural details, the plight of a stray animal, or the quiet desperation of a commuter—things you would have otherwise walked right past?

That is the “mark of a good book” in action.

• After reading Victor Hugo, you might find yourself viewing the institutions of society with a renewed passion for justice and mercy.
• After reading Virginia Woolf, the ordinary moments of a Tuesday afternoon suddenly shimmer with hidden psychological depth.
• After reading Russell Banks himself—known for his unflinching examinations of working-class American life—you may look at your neighbors with a deeper, more empathetic curiosity about the quiet struggles they carry.

---

How to Choose Books That Will Change You

If you want to read in a way that actively transforms you, intentionality matters. Here are a few ways to ensure your reading list leaves a mark:

• Step Outside Your Comfort Zone: If you mostly read contemporary thrillers, try 19th-century Russian literature or contemporary post-colonial fiction. Read stories from cultures, economic backgrounds, and belief systems vastly different from your own.
• Slow Down: Transformation doesn’t happen at 3x audiobook speed. Allow yourself to linger over sentences. Keep a notebook handy to jot down quotes and reflections.
• Discuss What You Read: Talk about books with others. Articulating how a book made you feel helps cement the psychological shift it triggered inside you.

---

Final Thoughts: The Unfinished Self

We are works in progress, incomplete blueprints being continually revised by our experiences. And among the most potent experiences available to the human mind is the quiet, profound act of reading.

Russell Banks reminds us that the best stories don’t let us walk away unchanged. They chip away at our biases, expand our capacity for empathy, and leave us standing a little taller, seeing the world with fresh eyes.

What is the last book that changed who you are? How did it shift your view of the world? Let’s discuss in the comments below!

…

Days 248 and 249 – Writing exercise

…

When I woke I knew I was going to be on a world of pain. Whatever the head of operations was thinking when he sent Maria in as backup obviously forgot the last time he made the same mistake.

It got us both captured, simply because she wasn’t capable of remembering basic details of her cover story.

We all had bad days, but she seemed to have more than most.  And I don’t know why operations thought that she could help me.

Not in that last delicate stage.

And it was there.  The trade was being made, everyone had got over their jitters, and then Boris had to ask, why I’ll never know, where she said she came from, a question he had asked earlier with an answer that satisfied him, Bratislava.

The second time she hesitated, and that was the moment I realised she must have made it up and couldn’t remember the lie, saying, Vienna.

And two seconds later we had no trade and eight guns on us.  I was surprised we were not executed there and then.

Instead I was in a dungeon, certainly underground, damp and dank.  And cold enough to make me shiver, though I think my current situation had something to do with it as well.

At least I was not tied up, which in itself was a worry.  I didn’t think Boris was underestimating my capabilities, because he didn’t seem the sort of adversary that would.  He’d managed to survive a long time on the murky world of betrayal.

This had been our chance.

It was quite dark, and I could barely see anything, other than a shard of light coming from under the door at the top of the stairs.  The floor space, or what I could discern of it, was almost entirely taken up by boxes stacked on boxes, and random items of furniture.

I was sitting in an old lounge chair, one of three.  And when I looked harder, I could see Maria asleep in another, a short distance from me.

I suppressed the urge to strangle her.

It was not the first time we had been in this situation.  Last time, we had simply been abandoned, with a ticking time bomb.

Literally.

Who knew one of her many talents was disarming bombs?

It didn’t make up for getting us put in the building in the first place.

She stirred, but didn’t wake.

Perhaps my anger was misdirected.  I should strangle the operations officer who sent her to me after I had specifically said I would not work with her again, and that this mission needed only one person to see it through.

Or perhaps I should be disappointed in the Director, who told me that it would not happen a second time.  Which led to the supposition; were they trying to get rid of me?

I heard a thump upstairs, followed by muffled voices and shuffling feet.  Had someone come to look for us after missing the check-in after the deal was completed?

Surely operations wouldn’t compound the problem by sending an operative to rescue us.

The door at the top of the stairs rattled, then I heard the distinct sound of a key turning in the lock.  It opened and a body was shoved through the gap, sliding down the stairs to the landing.  Before the dust had settled, the door closed again.

How many other bodies were lying around down here?.

I got up, then fell back in the chair, my head suddenly spinning out of control.  I’d obviously been drugged before being thrown or carried down.

The second time I was more cautious and slowly stood up.  Less spinning, but still coming in waves, until after a few minutes it abated, and I could stand.

Another few minutes before I could get up the stairs and check the pulse of the new arrival. 

None.

I guess my hand being covered in blood told me he or she was dead.  It was hard to tell anything in the gloom.  I went back down and took the extra few steps towards Maria.

I felt for a pulse but it was not necessary.  A hand on my arm told me she was awake.  She probably had been the whole time.

“Who is he?” She asked.

“If it is a he, no idea.  And dead.”

“Why are we still alive?”

“We are of value to Boris.”

She took a moment to think about that, and perhaps how she was going to explain how this all went sideways.

“I’m sorry.”

I thought about that for a second.  “Not as sorry as you’re going to be if we get out of this.”

Perhaps I was overreacting but I was still angry.

She sighed.  “It was necessary.”

Of course.  Enough time had passed for her to formulate a story, one that I might believe.

“That’s what you said the last time.”

She let my hand go. “Be that as it may, you pissed someone off and they sent me. Believe me, if I had a choice…” She sighed again, realising it wouldn’t matter what she said. “It wasn’t my idea. I told them that if you saw me again, you’d shoot me yourself.”

I had made a similar threat to the director and the head of operations, and I thought they got the message.  I was wrong.

Or worse, this was how they removed troublesome operatives who had problems with working in a team.  Especially after they sent me to the training camp to try and eradicate the lone wolf tendency.

That’s what they called it.  The lone wolf tendency.

I flopped back in the chair and closed my eyes. I was still feeling scathing from the aftereffects of the drugs, and the disappointment of a botched operation. “Why was it necessary this time? And why was it necessary to send you, of all people?”

“They needed a distraction.”

They?  Why would they need a distraction?  Then I remembered a drinking session with one of the instructors, in a small inn near the training grounds, the day I discovered he was nursing old wounds.

Wounds that few people were aware of.

And the lamentable story of operations that were wheels within wheels, operations that operatives were given a part to play but not given the whole story, operations that came apart because the left hand didn’t know what the right hand was doing.

We had to learn to compartmentalise and adapt.  That sometimes we would come up against our own people playing a role, or that we would be working around the edges of a much larger operation.  Sometimes we would be told enough; sometimes we would not.

My last operation I was not fully briefed and found myself being removed before it interfered in another much more important operation.  To me, it seemed like bad planning.

Wheels within wheels.

This suddenly felt like one of those operations.

“What else is going on here?”  Obviously they needed my exchange shut down.  Why?

“You know better than to ask me.  I know less than you. And like you I just do as I am told.”

“Last time it nearly got us killed.”  Much the same as this time.

“That wasn’t the expected outcome, well, not mine anyway.  You’ll be happy to learn that earned me a ticket to the lone wolf tendency programme.  I prefer to work alone, and I get the feeling they’re punishing me.”

I wasn’t quite at the point where I would come to that conclusion, but it was a theory with merit.  It would explain the extended hiatus ordered by the new director a year ago, rumoured to be part of a government oversight committee request for reorganisation and more transparency.

In covert intelligence operations?

We had to work in a vacuum, with little oversight and absolutely no transparency.  The former director, the man who recruited me, believed in results, not pandering to oversight committees.

The door above us rattled again.  I looked up as a key was inserted in the lock.  I turned to tell her to disappear, but she had already.  Silently.

The door opened and light flooded the room.  I was standing in the middle of what might be called a halo of light.

All i could see was a shadowy outline at the top of the stairs.

“Where’s the girl?”

“What girl?”

“The one you were talking to.”

“That was my imaginary friend. When I woke up I was alone. And then my new friend arrived. I was looking at the body, “but he’s not talking.”

He aimed his gun and fired off a round. I heard it hit the seat did just been sitting in.

“Where is she?”

I shrugged.  “If there was someone here, then they’ve gone, because when I woke up, there was no one here.  Come down, check for yourself.”

“Or I can just shoot you.”

“And then I would have no value.  You tell me how I can help you, and I’ll do my best to get it.”

“I want to know where the girl is?”

“You and me both.  I have more reason to strangle her than you, believe me.”

He came down a few steps and stopped on the landing.  I caught the movement of a shadow behind the stairs, and then nothing.  He had to come down a few more steps before she could attack.

If that was her plan.

The closer I got, the more clearly I could see him, but it was not anyone I recognised, and was not one of the men I’d been dealing with for the exchange.

Had we been taken to a different place?  It didn’t explain why we were still alive.  Boris was not the sort to keep people who crossed him alive.

“Where’s Boris? He and I still have business to conduct.”

“He is gone.  Business done.  You are lucky.  You are both worth a great deal of money, the girl more than you.  Now, enough small talk.  Where is she?”

I shrugged.  “There is no girl down here.  I looked.  Nothing but boxes, old newspapers, and furniture.  And that man you killed.  Who was he?”

“Your pathetic rescue mission.”

He took another two steps, and then crouched to peer through the stairs behind him.  The next moment he was falling backwards down the stairs, the gun going off twice, both deafening.  I grabbed the gun and yanked it out of his hand as it fired again and I could just feel the bullet graze my arm.

One kick took the fight out of him, just as another shadow appeared in the doorway.  I had to move quickly just before a volley of shots rang out.

It took almost too long to get the gun in my hand and fire back, and I was only able to get a shot off because he hadn’t moved.

If he had the outcome would have been a lot worse.  He fired again, but those were random shots, as he tumbled headfirst down the stairs and, falling on the body on the landing, dislodged it and together they landed on the floor at my feet.

I spent another bullet making sure he wouldn’t come back to life at an awkward moment.

Maria came out from behind the stairs and wrenched the gun out of the hand of the second gunman. 

“You hesitated.  Could’ve been the difference.”

She simply glared at me like I was a novice.

I shook my head.  No point explaining glaring lights and drug aftereffects to her.  Like the instructors said, there were no excuses, just dead people who missed their moment.

“You first.”  I decided to see if she baulked.

She didn’t.  The steps now clear we went up and then took up a position either side of the door.  If this was a babysitting operation, there would be only two.  If it was something else, there would be more.

She peered out; I did likewise.  There was no one in the passage.

A few minutes later we established there was no one else in the building.

There were cell phones and vehicle keys on the table, along with half eaten food and drink.  Our rescuer must have interrupted them.

Maria picked up one of the phones.  “No security.  The guy made a call to a burner about five minutes ago.  I looked at the other.  Equally insecure.  It had three numbers in its call log.

There was a text, with our photos and instructions to wait until called.  That call had been while outer captors had come to visit. 

“We should leave,” I said.

We both heard screeching tyres of several vehicles. 

“Too late.  CCTV.  Just noticed it,” she said.  “No trust in the world any more.”

The next few seconds bracing ourselves, and then machine gun fire.  Somebody decided they didn’t like us.  That lasted a minute, then stopped.  Glass, brick and wood settled and dust filled the air, thick enough to hide an onslaught.

That was the distraction so that another team could get around the back so they could attack on two fronts.

The phone in my hand rang.

Maria looked annoyed.

I answered it.  Boris’ voice.  “You apparently have angered your masters and they’ve put a price on both your heads.”

That was a shock.

“When?”

“As of the moment you broke out of the cellar.  I was not the one holding you, but I’d be foolish not to take up the contract.”

“Thanks.”

“I propose a deal though.  You get to walk away if you’ve got a half million.  I’ll tell them you’re dead, or at least as dead as I want you to be, and you have to disappear.”

‘You want to play dead, live another day?”

“How much?

“Quarter million.”

“How dead is dead?”

“No going back?”

“They’re our people out there?”

“Apparently.  Boris is offering us a way out.”

Another 30-second spray this time from the front and the back.  More dust and disintegrating building materials.  It wouldn’t be long before they came in and finished the job.

The shooting stopped.  She said, “Take it.  We’ll sort out the details later.”

“Done,” I said into the phone, just as movement came from the front, the full front on assault.

…

People do not get put on a hit list for no reason.

That reason sometimes can be very obscure.

Boris didn’t know what the reason was, only that it was an opportunity to make money.  Ideology was far less of a motivation than becoming fabulously wealthy and Boris was well on the way.

He was, by self-confession, a businessman, and he had no feelings one way of the other about whether we lived or died.

And in doing business, he had no qualms about us coming after him after the dust had settled simply because he had a code of ethics.  Twisted perhaps, but we discovered quite to our surprise he was a man of his word.

Better than some people we knew, or perhaps more appropriately. Who were more acquaintances, people we didn’t really know at all.

That quarter million bought us safety, an Academy Award-winning make-up artist who made us the best-looking corpses ever, and a ticket to a run-down, badly in need of repairs cottage somewhere in Tuscany.

We spent a lot of time covered in a different sort of building rubble, almost unrecognisable as out former selves and much liked by all those around us, although like anyone where someone new and strange moves in, they were initially wary.

Did we miss being agents pretending we were saving the world?  Yes and no.

Did we find out why we were had a hit order on us? Accidentally.

I was in London about a year later.  There was, by this time, no one who would recognise the old me, i had changed that much. 

It was at a random cafe, and I saw a man named Giles, a relative of the Director- nepotism at its worst.  He was an arrogant fool who honestly believed as the Director’s son-in-law, he had the same authority.

I cam out with a coffee in a take away cup and decided did but at his table.  It was rather crowded.

“Alan Giles, isn’t it?”

His head snapped up from the paper he was reading.

“Who are you?”

“We did Uni together.  Cambridge.  You won’t remember me, but I was that extra in the table, the one everyone ignored unutilised they needed help with assignments and exams.”

“Name?’

“You won’t remember.  No one else has.”

“Not surprising.  Go away.”

It was like he was talking to a stray dog.

“You finished up in Department F.  With your uncle.  You were always banging on about how he needed someone ofvyourvextraordinary deductive powers. Police or something.  You get that job?”

He would either tell me to mind my own business, or instead talk about himself, failing to understand the Official Secrets Act was there for a reason.

He looked at me like I was stupid.

“I run the department, have done for ages.  Did a clean out, got rid of all the dinosaurs Uncle Peter kept on.”

“Fired them?”

“God no.  You don’t fire them.  That comes back and bites you later on.  No.  We found a more permanent solution.  Well, I did.  He was going to simply put them out to pasture.”

“Poor people.”

He shook his heard.  “You don’t know the half of it.”  He caught sight of someone behind me and folded his paper. “Got to go.  Please don’t annoy me again, or there will be consequences.”

I got up just as a woman arrived.  I recognised her. Alison, the Director’s personal assistant. “Who are you?”, then stopped for a second, giving me a curious look.

I’d only met her twice.

“Do I know you, you seem familiar.”

“No.  You couldn’t.  I was at University with Alan.  He was an inspiration to all other average students.”  I tried not to dip it on to much sarcasm, but I guess I failed.

“Be off with you,” he said. 

I shrugged.  “Nice meeting you again, Alan.”

It was.  It answered a long-standing question.  Who set the dogs on us?

…

When I got back home, Maria was in the middle of making her version of fettuccine carbonara, a dish I had to say was one of my favourites.

“Get it all done?” She asked.

A slight rearrangement of our banking.  And a small unforeseen side job.

She looked up, that trademark flour coating on her clothes and smudge on her forehead.   It was hard to say if she was a better spy than a cook or vice versa.

“What needed to be done, yes.”

It had given me a few days to ponder the new life we had, and how much it meant to be alive, when if truth be known, we should not be.  It was hard to have to disappear and not put your head up.

And not be living that vicarious lifestyle.

Just before I left we had a heartfelt discussion about what we had then versus what we had now.  I think both us needed something else, but neither of us felt we could trust any agency again.

And while we had a perceived target on our backs…

Except now…

She noticed the change in my demeanour.  It was very hard to hide.

“What?  Something happened, didn’t it?”

“It was a right place right time moment. The sort you only get once in a lifetime.

I left it there for a minute.

She was holding a wooden spoon and at the end of that minute looked like she was going through throw it at me. “What?”

“I ran into Giles.”

“The Director’s nephew?  Slimy Giles?”

He held special significance for three of the female recruits.  On a visit to the training facility he thought he could use his position, inviting them to dinner with benefits.  It didn’t quite work out the way he would have liked.

Two were washed out; the third was standing opposite me.

“He picked the same cafe I did.  He had no idea who I was, other than he believed he went to uni with me.  I was asking him about the job, and he told me he was on a special commission to permanently remove the dinosaurs.  His words.  He sanctioned the operation that included a dozen good agents.”

“Tell me you returned the favour?”

I nodded.

“Good.”  She sighed.  “That target was off our backs.  He was always going to be the stumbling block if we got bored with this life.”

“Are you bored?”

“No.  Had we not been thrown together like this, and got the opportunity to discover a completely different life? I’m pretty sure I’d be dead now, going out in a blaze of glory. But sometimes I wake up and wonder if there was something else I could be doing. Every now and then.”

Boris had left a burner phone, and an offer that if we ever wanted a job, he might be able to help.  She hadn’t mentioned it, but I could feel it was in her thoughts.

“Well, Boris…”

She smiled.  I knew that smile, the cat that ate the canary.

“Speaking of Boris…”

…

©  Charles Heath  2026

Days 248 and 249 – Writing exercise

…

When I woke I knew I was going to be on a world of pain. Whatever the head of operations was thinking when he sent Maria in as backup obviously forgot the last time he made the same mistake.

It got us both captured, simply because she wasn’t capable of remembering basic details of her cover story.

We all had bad days, but she seemed to have more than most.  And I don’t know why operations thought that she could help me.

Not in that last delicate stage.

And it was there.  The trade was being made, everyone had got over their jitters, and then Boris had to ask, why I’ll never know, where she said she came from, a question he had asked earlier with an answer that satisfied him, Bratislava.

The second time she hesitated, and that was the moment I realised she must have made it up and couldn’t remember the lie, saying, Vienna.

And two seconds later we had no trade and eight guns on us.  I was surprised we were not executed there and then.

Instead I was in a dungeon, certainly underground, damp and dank.  And cold enough to make me shiver, though I think my current situation had something to do with it as well.

At least I was not tied up, which in itself was a worry.  I didn’t think Boris was underestimating my capabilities, because he didn’t seem the sort of adversary that would.  He’d managed to survive a long time on the murky world of betrayal.

This had been our chance.

It was quite dark, and I could barely see anything, other than a shard of light coming from under the door at the top of the stairs.  The floor space, or what I could discern of it, was almost entirely taken up by boxes stacked on boxes, and random items of furniture.

I was sitting in an old lounge chair, one of three.  And when I looked harder, I could see Maria asleep in another, a short distance from me.

I suppressed the urge to strangle her.

It was not the first time we had been in this situation.  Last time, we had simply been abandoned, with a ticking time bomb.

Literally.

Who knew one of her many talents was disarming bombs?

It didn’t make up for getting us put in the building in the first place.

She stirred, but didn’t wake.

Perhaps my anger was misdirected.  I should strangle the operations officer who sent her to me after I had specifically said I would not work with her again, and that this mission needed only one person to see it through.

Or perhaps I should be disappointed in the Director, who told me that it would not happen a second time.  Which led to the supposition; were they trying to get rid of me?

I heard a thump upstairs, followed by muffled voices and shuffling feet.  Had someone come to look for us after missing the check-in after the deal was completed?

Surely operations wouldn’t compound the problem by sending an operative to rescue us.

The door at the top of the stairs rattled, then I heard the distinct sound of a key turning in the lock.  It opened and a body was shoved through the gap, sliding down the stairs to the landing.  Before the dust had settled, the door closed again.

How many other bodies were lying around down here?.

I got up, then fell back in the chair, my head suddenly spinning out of control.  I’d obviously been drugged before being thrown or carried down.

The second time I was more cautious and slowly stood up.  Less spinning, but still coming in waves, until after a few minutes it abated, and I could stand.

Another few minutes before I could get up the stairs and check the pulse of the new arrival. 

None.

I guess my hand being covered in blood told me he or she was dead.  It was hard to tell anything in the gloom.  I went back down and took the extra few steps towards Maria.

I felt for a pulse but it was not necessary.  A hand on my arm told me she was awake.  She probably had been the whole time.

“Who is he?” She asked.

“If it is a he, no idea.  And dead.”

“Why are we still alive?”

“We are of value to Boris.”

She took a moment to think about that, and perhaps how she was going to explain how this all went sideways.

“I’m sorry.”

I thought about that for a second.  “Not as sorry as you’re going to be if we get out of this.”

Perhaps I was overreacting but I was still angry.

She sighed.  “It was necessary.”

Of course.  Enough time had passed for her to formulate a story, one that I might believe.

“That’s what you said the last time.”

She let my hand go. “Be that as it may, you pissed someone off and they sent me. Believe me, if I had a choice…” She sighed again, realising it wouldn’t matter what she said. “It wasn’t my idea. I told them that if you saw me again, you’d shoot me yourself.”

I had made a similar threat to the director and the head of operations, and I thought they got the message.  I was wrong.

Or worse, this was how they removed troublesome operatives who had problems with working in a team.  Especially after they sent me to the training camp to try and eradicate the lone wolf tendency.

That’s what they called it.  The lone wolf tendency.

I flopped back in the chair and closed my eyes. I was still feeling scathing from the aftereffects of the drugs, and the disappointment of a botched operation. “Why was it necessary this time? And why was it necessary to send you, of all people?”

“They needed a distraction.”

They?  Why would they need a distraction?  Then I remembered a drinking session with one of the instructors, in a small inn near the training grounds, the day I discovered he was nursing old wounds.

Wounds that few people were aware of.

And the lamentable story of operations that were wheels within wheels, operations that operatives were given a part to play but not given the whole story, operations that came apart because the left hand didn’t know what the right hand was doing.

We had to learn to compartmentalise and adapt.  That sometimes we would come up against our own people playing a role, or that we would be working around the edges of a much larger operation.  Sometimes we would be told enough; sometimes we would not.

My last operation I was not fully briefed and found myself being removed before it interfered in another much more important operation.  To me, it seemed like bad planning.

Wheels within wheels.

This suddenly felt like one of those operations.

“What else is going on here?”  Obviously they needed my exchange shut down.  Why?

“You know better than to ask me.  I know less than you. And like you I just do as I am told.”

“Last time it nearly got us killed.”  Much the same as this time.

“That wasn’t the expected outcome, well, not mine anyway.  You’ll be happy to learn that earned me a ticket to the lone wolf tendency programme.  I prefer to work alone, and I get the feeling they’re punishing me.”

I wasn’t quite at the point where I would come to that conclusion, but it was a theory with merit.  It would explain the extended hiatus ordered by the new director a year ago, rumoured to be part of a government oversight committee request for reorganisation and more transparency.

In covert intelligence operations?

We had to work in a vacuum, with little oversight and absolutely no transparency.  The former director, the man who recruited me, believed in results, not pandering to oversight committees.

The door above us rattled again.  I looked up as a key was inserted in the lock.  I turned to tell her to disappear, but she had already.  Silently.

The door opened and light flooded the room.  I was standing in the middle of what might be called a halo of light.

All i could see was a shadowy outline at the top of the stairs.

“Where’s the girl?”

“What girl?”

“The one you were talking to.”

“That was my imaginary friend. When I woke up I was alone. And then my new friend arrived. I was looking at the body, “but he’s not talking.”

He aimed his gun and fired off a round. I heard it hit the seat did just been sitting in.

“Where is she?”

I shrugged.  “If there was someone here, then they’ve gone, because when I woke up, there was no one here.  Come down, check for yourself.”

“Or I can just shoot you.”

“And then I would have no value.  You tell me how I can help you, and I’ll do my best to get it.”

“I want to know where the girl is?”

“You and me both.  I have more reason to strangle her than you, believe me.”

He came down a few steps and stopped on the landing.  I caught the movement of a shadow behind the stairs, and then nothing.  He had to come down a few more steps before she could attack.

If that was her plan.

The closer I got, the more clearly I could see him, but it was not anyone I recognised, and was not one of the men I’d been dealing with for the exchange.

Had we been taken to a different place?  It didn’t explain why we were still alive.  Boris was not the sort to keep people who crossed him alive.

“Where’s Boris? He and I still have business to conduct.”

“He is gone.  Business done.  You are lucky.  You are both worth a great deal of money, the girl more than you.  Now, enough small talk.  Where is she?”

I shrugged.  “There is no girl down here.  I looked.  Nothing but boxes, old newspapers, and furniture.  And that man you killed.  Who was he?”

“Your pathetic rescue mission.”

He took another two steps, and then crouched to peer through the stairs behind him.  The next moment he was falling backwards down the stairs, the gun going off twice, both deafening.  I grabbed the gun and yanked it out of his hand as it fired again and I could just feel the bullet graze my arm.

One kick took the fight out of him, just as another shadow appeared in the doorway.  I had to move quickly just before a volley of shots rang out.

It took almost too long to get the gun in my hand and fire back, and I was only able to get a shot off because he hadn’t moved.

If he had the outcome would have been a lot worse.  He fired again, but those were random shots, as he tumbled headfirst down the stairs and, falling on the body on the landing, dislodged it and together they landed on the floor at my feet.

I spent another bullet making sure he wouldn’t come back to life at an awkward moment.

Maria came out from behind the stairs and wrenched the gun out of the hand of the second gunman. 

“You hesitated.  Could’ve been the difference.”

She simply glared at me like I was a novice.

I shook my head.  No point explaining glaring lights and drug aftereffects to her.  Like the instructors said, there were no excuses, just dead people who missed their moment.

“You first.”  I decided to see if she baulked.

She didn’t.  The steps now clear we went up and then took up a position either side of the door.  If this was a babysitting operation, there would be only two.  If it was something else, there would be more.

She peered out; I did likewise.  There was no one in the passage.

A few minutes later we established there was no one else in the building.

There were cell phones and vehicle keys on the table, along with half eaten food and drink.  Our rescuer must have interrupted them.

Maria picked up one of the phones.  “No security.  The guy made a call to a burner about five minutes ago.  I looked at the other.  Equally insecure.  It had three numbers in its call log.

There was a text, with our photos and instructions to wait until called.  That call had been while outer captors had come to visit. 

“We should leave,” I said.

We both heard screeching tyres of several vehicles. 

“Too late.  CCTV.  Just noticed it,” she said.  “No trust in the world any more.”

The next few seconds bracing ourselves, and then machine gun fire.  Somebody decided they didn’t like us.  That lasted a minute, then stopped.  Glass, brick and wood settled and dust filled the air, thick enough to hide an onslaught.

That was the distraction so that another team could get around the back so they could attack on two fronts.

The phone in my hand rang.

Maria looked annoyed.

I answered it.  Boris’ voice.  “You apparently have angered your masters and they’ve put a price on both your heads.”

That was a shock.

“When?”

“As of the moment you broke out of the cellar.  I was not the one holding you, but I’d be foolish not to take up the contract.”

“Thanks.”

“I propose a deal though.  You get to walk away if you’ve got a half million.  I’ll tell them you’re dead, or at least as dead as I want you to be, and you have to disappear.”

‘You want to play dead, live another day?”

“How much?

“Quarter million.”

“How dead is dead?”

“No going back?”

“They’re our people out there?”

“Apparently.  Boris is offering us a way out.”

Another 30-second spray this time from the front and the back.  More dust and disintegrating building materials.  It wouldn’t be long before they came in and finished the job.

The shooting stopped.  She said, “Take it.  We’ll sort out the details later.”

“Done,” I said into the phone, just as movement came from the front, the full front on assault.

…

People do not get put on a hit list for no reason.

That reason sometimes can be very obscure.

Boris didn’t know what the reason was, only that it was an opportunity to make money.  Ideology was far less of a motivation than becoming fabulously wealthy and Boris was well on the way.

He was, by self-confession, a businessman, and he had no feelings one way of the other about whether we lived or died.

And in doing business, he had no qualms about us coming after him after the dust had settled simply because he had a code of ethics.  Twisted perhaps, but we discovered quite to our surprise he was a man of his word.

Better than some people we knew, or perhaps more appropriately. Who were more acquaintances, people we didn’t really know at all.

That quarter million bought us safety, an Academy Award-winning make-up artist who made us the best-looking corpses ever, and a ticket to a run-down, badly in need of repairs cottage somewhere in Tuscany.

We spent a lot of time covered in a different sort of building rubble, almost unrecognisable as out former selves and much liked by all those around us, although like anyone where someone new and strange moves in, they were initially wary.

Did we miss being agents pretending we were saving the world?  Yes and no.

Did we find out why we were had a hit order on us? Accidentally.

I was in London about a year later.  There was, by this time, no one who would recognise the old me, i had changed that much. 

It was at a random cafe, and I saw a man named Giles, a relative of the Director- nepotism at its worst.  He was an arrogant fool who honestly believed as the Director’s son-in-law, he had the same authority.

I cam out with a coffee in a take away cup and decided did but at his table.  It was rather crowded.

“Alan Giles, isn’t it?”

His head snapped up from the paper he was reading.

“Who are you?”

“We did Uni together.  Cambridge.  You won’t remember me, but I was that extra in the table, the one everyone ignored unutilised they needed help with assignments and exams.”

“Name?’

“You won’t remember.  No one else has.”

“Not surprising.  Go away.”

It was like he was talking to a stray dog.

“You finished up in Department F.  With your uncle.  You were always banging on about how he needed someone ofvyourvextraordinary deductive powers. Police or something.  You get that job?”

He would either tell me to mind my own business, or instead talk about himself, failing to understand the Official Secrets Act was there for a reason.

He looked at me like I was stupid.

“I run the department, have done for ages.  Did a clean out, got rid of all the dinosaurs Uncle Peter kept on.”

“Fired them?”

“God no.  You don’t fire them.  That comes back and bites you later on.  No.  We found a more permanent solution.  Well, I did.  He was going to simply put them out to pasture.”

“Poor people.”

He shook his heard.  “You don’t know the half of it.”  He caught sight of someone behind me and folded his paper. “Got to go.  Please don’t annoy me again, or there will be consequences.”

I got up just as a woman arrived.  I recognised her. Alison, the Director’s personal assistant. “Who are you?”, then stopped for a second, giving me a curious look.

I’d only met her twice.

“Do I know you, you seem familiar.”

“No.  You couldn’t.  I was at University with Alan.  He was an inspiration to all other average students.”  I tried not to dip it on to much sarcasm, but I guess I failed.

“Be off with you,” he said. 

I shrugged.  “Nice meeting you again, Alan.”

It was.  It answered a long-standing question.  Who set the dogs on us?

…

When I got back home, Maria was in the middle of making her version of fettuccine carbonara, a dish I had to say was one of my favourites.

“Get it all done?” She asked.

A slight rearrangement of our banking.  And a small unforeseen side job.

She looked up, that trademark flour coating on her clothes and smudge on her forehead.   It was hard to say if she was a better spy than a cook or vice versa.

“What needed to be done, yes.”

It had given me a few days to ponder the new life we had, and how much it meant to be alive, when if truth be known, we should not be.  It was hard to have to disappear and not put your head up.

And not be living that vicarious lifestyle.

Just before I left we had a heartfelt discussion about what we had then versus what we had now.  I think both us needed something else, but neither of us felt we could trust any agency again.

And while we had a perceived target on our backs…

Except now…

She noticed the change in my demeanour.  It was very hard to hide.

“What?  Something happened, didn’t it?”

“It was a right place right time moment. The sort you only get once in a lifetime.

I left it there for a minute.

She was holding a wooden spoon and at the end of that minute looked like she was going through throw it at me. “What?”

“I ran into Giles.”

“The Director’s nephew?  Slimy Giles?”

He held special significance for three of the female recruits.  On a visit to the training facility he thought he could use his position, inviting them to dinner with benefits.  It didn’t quite work out the way he would have liked.

Two were washed out; the third was standing opposite me.

“He picked the same cafe I did.  He had no idea who I was, other than he believed he went to uni with me.  I was asking him about the job, and he told me he was on a special commission to permanently remove the dinosaurs.  His words.  He sanctioned the operation that included a dozen good agents.”

“Tell me you returned the favour?”

I nodded.

“Good.”  She sighed.  “That target was off our backs.  He was always going to be the stumbling block if we got bored with this life.”

“Are you bored?”

“No.  Had we not been thrown together like this, and got the opportunity to discover a completely different life? I’m pretty sure I’d be dead now, going out in a blaze of glory. But sometimes I wake up and wonder if there was something else I could be doing. Every now and then.”

Boris had left a burner phone, and an offer that if we ever wanted a job, he might be able to help.  She hadn’t mentioned it, but I could feel it was in her thoughts.

“Well, Boris…”

She smiled.  I knew that smile, the cat that ate the canary.

“Speaking of Boris…”

…

©  Charles Heath  2026

Day 247 – Fear of the blank page

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Naked Truths: How to Overcome the Fear of the Blank Page (Without Actually Imagining Your Readers Undressed)

We’ve all heard the classic public speaking advice: “If you’re nervous, just picture the audience in their underwear.”

The logic goes that by reducing a room full of judging, critical humans down to their skivvies, they instantly lose their intimidating aura. Suddenly, you aren’t presenting to a board of directors or a room full of peers; you’re talking to a bunch of regular folks in polka-dot boxers and lace bralettes.

It’s silly, slightly absurd, and wildly ineffective for most people (mostly because picturing your boss in tighty-whities usually causes more anxiety, not less).

However, the psychology behind the trick is solid. It’s about reframing the power dynamic. It’s about stripping away the manufactured pressure of a situation to reveal the simple, human reality underneath.

So, how do we translate this concept to the writer’s ultimate nemesis: the fear of the blank page?

When facing a pristine, glowing white document, writers don’t usually fear the paper. They fear judgment. They fear failure. They fear that what they write won’t be smart, profound, or polished enough.

If you want to conquer the blank page, you need to strip it of its power. Here is how to apply the “underwear rule” to your writing process and finally start typing.

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1. Realize the Page Isn’t a Masterpiece Waiting to Happen (It’s Laundry)

When a blank page feels intimidating, it’s usually because we’ve put it on a pedestal. We treat the cursor like a spotlight and the first sentence like a literary legacy.

The Translation: Strip the page of its dignity.

Accept right now that your first draft is going to be messy, awkward, and poorly fitted—much like wearing mismatched underwear on laundry day. A blank page isn’t a marble slab waiting for a Michelangelo; it’s a dumping ground for half-formed thoughts. Give yourself permission to write absolute garbage. You cannot edit a blank page, but you can fix a terribly written paragraph.

2. Picture Your Reader as a Friend (Or Just a Person)

When we write, we often imagine an intimidating, anonymous crowd reading our work with crossed arms and red pens. We write for “The Internet,” “The Critics,” or “My High School English Teacher.”

The Translation: Strip your audience of their intimidating title.

Instead of imagining a faceless mob of critics, picture one specific, friendly person. Write an email to your best friend explaining the concept. Talk to your sibling. When you shift your mental audience from “The Public” to “One Individual,” the stakes instantly lower. You stop trying to sound like a textbook and start sounding like a human being.

3. Change What You’re Wearing (Digital Disguises)

Sometimes the environment contributes to the intimidation factor. Staring at a blinking cursor in a professional, stark-white word processor like Microsoft Word or Google Docs feels like sitting in the principal’s office.

The Translation: Change the aesthetic.

Just like dressing down changes your confidence, changing your writing environment can strip away the pressure.

• Use a distraction-free writing app with a dark mode (like Typora, Scrivener, or Ulysses) so the page isn’t glaring at you.
• Write your first draft in Comic Sans or a goofy font—it’s scientifically impossible to take a sentence seriously when it’s written in Comic Sans, which instantly kills your inner perfectionist.
• Write the first version by hand in a cheap notebook where mistakes don’t carry the finality of a digital delete key.

4. Write the “Unpublishable” Intro

The hardest part of any journey is the first step, and the hardest part of any article or story is the first sentence. We agonize over hooks, desperately trying to start with a bang.

The Translation: Start with a terrible warm-up.

Give yourself a rule: The first three sentences are not allowed to be good. Write intentionally bad sentences to break the ice.

• “I have no idea what I’m writing about right now, but my coffee is cold.”
• “This is going to be a really stupid article about writing.”

Once you break the silence of the page—even with nonsense—the spell is broken. You’ve crossed the threshold. Now you can delete the garbage intro and get to the real work.

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The Bottom Line

The fear of the blank page is just performance anxiety in disguise.

Just like public speaking, writing triggers our deepest insecurities about being seen and judged. But the next time you freeze up in front of a flashing cursor, remember the core lesson of the “underwear” trick: The things intimidating you only have power because you gave it to them.

Strip the page of its perfectionism. Strip the audience of their judgment. Stop waiting for the muse to show up in a three-piece suit, and start writing in your sweatpants.

…