Day 253 – Writing is hard work

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Why Writing is the Hardest (and Noblest) Work in the World

“Writing is the hardest work in the world… writing is harder, lonelier and nobler and more exciting!”  – Harlan Ellison

Few quotes capture the paradoxical nature of the writing life quite like this one. To the outside observer, writing looks deceptively simple. It is just a person sitting at a desk, tapping at a keyboard or moving a pen across paper. No heavy lifting, no hazardous machinery, no immediate physical exhaustion.

Yet, any writer—from the novelist crafting a sweeping epic to the copywriter drafting a landing page—knows the truth: Writing is agonising. It is a profound psychological wrestling match, a solitary confinement of the mind, and, at the same time, one of the most thrilling endeavours a human being can undertake.

Why is writing the hardest work in the world? And more importantly, why do we keep doing it? Let’s break down the beautiful, brutal reality of the craft.

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1. Harder: The Agony of the Blank Page

Why is writing harder than physical labour? Because physical labour has a beginning, a middle, and an end. You dig a ditch, and when the sun goes down, the ditch is there. You feel a satisfying ache of completion.

Writing offers no such guarantees. You can stare at a blank white screen for four hours, type three sentences, delete all of them, and end the day with less than nothing. You are pulling something entirely out of the ether—translating abstract thoughts, emotions, and half-formed concepts into a linear sequence of universally understood symbols (words).

It is an act of creation from absolute void. As the late writer Gene Fowler famously put it: “Writing is easy. You just stare at a blank sheet of paper until drops of blood form on your forehead.”

2. Lonelier: The Solitary Confinement of the Mind

Most jobs involve collaboration, socialisation, and external feedback. Even remote work usually includes Zoom calls, Slack messages, and team updates.

Writing, however, is intensely, ruthlessly solitary. You cannot write a book, an essay, or even a deeply resonant blog post by committee. Ideas are forged in silence. The heavy lifting of editing, pacing, and structuring takes place in the quiet echo chamber of your own skull.

Worse still is the isolation of doubt. When you are stuck in the middle of a messy first draft, you cannot turn to a coworker and ask, “Does this make sense?” You are the creator, the critic, the taskmaster, and the audience, all rolled into one. That profound isolation is why so many writers lean into eccentric habits or struggle with imposter syndrome—you spend hours inside your own head, and eventually, the walls start closing in.

3. Nobbler: The Pursuit of Truth and Connection

If writing is so difficult and lonely, why don’t we all just quit? Because of the noble element.

Writing matters because it is an act of extreme empathy. When you write, you are attempting to bridge the gap between two isolated human consciousnesses. You take your specific, subjective experiences of joy, grief, confusion, and wonder, and you distil them into ink and pixels so that a stranger, sitting hundreds of miles away and years in the future, can read them and say: “I thought I was the only one who felt that way.”

Writing immortalises ideas. It challenges injustice, preserves history, heals trauma, and sparks revolutions. To put words on a page with the intent to move, educate, or inspire another human being is a sacred trust. It elevates the mundane to the meaningful.

4. More Exciting: The Rush of Discovery

And finally, there is the excitement—the addictive, elusive high that keeps every writer coming back to the desk, morning after morning.

Writing is an adventure of discovery. Great writers often say that they don’t write to know what they think; they write in order to find out what they think.

There are moments—rare, magical moments—when the friction stops. The cursor flies across the screen, the right metaphors seem to assemble themselves, and you surprise even yourself. You unlock a door in your subconscious that you didn’t know was locked. You realize, mid-sentence, the true point of the piece you’ve been struggling with for a week.

That rush of sudden clarity, that lightning-strike moment of creative flow, is unlike anything else in the world. It is the carrot at the end of the psychological stick that makes all the agony worthwhile.

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The Verdict: Embrace the Struggle

If you are a writer experiencing the crushing weight of a difficult draft, take heart. The struggle is not a sign that you are failing; the struggle is the job.

Writing is the hardest work in the world. It is supposed to stretch you, break you down, and rebuild you. But in doing so, it offers a rare kind of nobility and an unmatched thrill.

So, sit back down at the desk. Stare at the blank page. Let the drops of blood form on your forehead—because on the other side of that blank space lies a connection waiting to be made.

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Are you currently battling a blank page, or are you chasing the high of a breakthrough? Let’s talk about the writing struggle in the comments below!

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Day 252 – Overcoming failure

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The Aesthetics of Inadequacy: Why Samuel Beckett Made Failure His Masterpiece

Most writers spend their lives trying to transcend, outrun, or at least strategically overcome their failures. They polish the rough edges, suppress the dud manuscripts, and curate a trajectory of upward momentum.

Then there is Samuel Beckett.

Where others saw an obstacle to be conquered, the Irish modernist saw a fundamental truth of the human condition. Beckett didn’t just tolerate failure; he elevated it into a formal aesthetic, a philosophical inquiry, and ultimately, a triumphant theme.

If most literature is built on the pursuit of success, resolution, and meaning, Beckett’s work is the magnificent monument built on the ruins of their impossibility. Let’s explore how the master of the absurd turned artistic and existential failure into high art—and what modern creators can learn from his glorious embrace of getting it wrong.

---

The Paradigm Shift: From Mastery to Incompetence

To understand Beckett’s relationship with failure, you have to look at the tradition of Western letters. For centuries, the implicit contract between writer and reader was one of authority. The author was an architect constructing a tidy, coherent world.

Beckett, deeply scarred by the horrors of the 20th century and disillusioned by grand narratives, realized this contract was a lie. How could an artist pretend to offer neat resolutions in a world shattered by world wars and defined by existential dread?

Instead of faking mastery, Beckett chose incompetence.

In his landmark essay on the painter Bram van Velde, Beckett dropped a meta-commentary on his own artistic ethos, writing: “The expression that there is nothing to express, nothing with which to express, nothing from which to express, no power to express, no desire to express, together with the obligation to express.”

This is the quintessential Beckettian bind: you must speak, even though you have nothing to say; you must try, even though you are bound to fail.

Waiting for Godot: The Art of Getting Nowhere

No work captures this ethos better than Beckett’s 1953 masterpiece, Waiting for Godot. The play’s premise is an act of structural failure: two tramps, Vladimir and Estragon, wait on a desolate road for a man named Godot who never arrives.

• Act I: Nothing happens.
• Act II: Exactly the same nothing happens, repeated.

Traditional drama relies on plot progression, character arcs, and a climax. Godot actively resists all three. It is a play about a failed appointment, a failed communication, and a failed attempt to pass the time.

Yet, by stripping away plot, Beckett achieves something profound. By making failure the very architecture of the play, he frees the audience from the tyranny of expectation. We stop asking, “What happens next?” and instead confront the deeper, heavier question: “What do we do with the time we have left?”

In Godot, failure is not a bug; it’s the operating system.

“Fail Better”: The Ultimate Creative Mantra

Perhaps Beckett’s most famous contribution to the lexicon of failure comes from his 1983 prose piece, Worstward Ho, which contains the oft-quoted, fiercely paradoxically encouraging line:

“Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.”

This is not cynical resignation; it is radical liberation. “Fail better” is a direct challenge to the paralysing perfectionism that plagues modern writers, entrepreneurs, and artists.

Most people view failure as a binary: you either succeed or you fail. Beckett introduces a gradient. He suggests that failure is an infinite regress, but within that regress, there is a craft to be honed. You can learn to articulate your ignorance more precisely. You can learn to map your dead ends with greater eloquence.

When you accept that failure is guaranteed, the stakes lower, and the true creative work can finally begin.

Why Beckett’s Failure Matters Today

In our current cultural moment—obsessed as it is with highlight reels, algorithmic success, and relentless personal branding—Beckett feels more subversive than ever. We live in a world terrified of looking foolish, of being cancelled, or of producing sub-optimal outputs.

Beckett reminds us that:

1. Uncertainty is honest: Pretending to have all the answers is a form of artistic dishonesty.
2. Incoherence has emotional resonance: Sometimes, the only way to express grief, confusion, or absurdity is through stuttering, repetition, and silence.
3. The struggle is the art: The value is not in the finished product that solves all problems, but in the noble, doomed attempt to articulate the inarticulate.

Conclusion: Embracing Your Inner Beckett

You don’t need to write a play about two guys standing by a leafless tree to incorporate Beckett’s philosophy into your life.

Next time you face a blank page, a botched project, or an ambition that has completely derailed, take a page out of Beckett’s playbook. Stop trying to transcend the mess. Lean into it.

Acknowledge that the words won’t be entirely right, the project won’t be a neat masterpiece, and the grand plan might completely dissolve. Then, smile, take a deep breath, and heed the master’s advice:

Try again. Fail again. Fail better.

…

Day 252 – Overcoming failure

…

The Aesthetics of Inadequacy: Why Samuel Beckett Made Failure His Masterpiece

Most writers spend their lives trying to transcend, outrun, or at least strategically overcome their failures. They polish the rough edges, suppress the dud manuscripts, and curate a trajectory of upward momentum.

Then there is Samuel Beckett.

Where others saw an obstacle to be conquered, the Irish modernist saw a fundamental truth of the human condition. Beckett didn’t just tolerate failure; he elevated it into a formal aesthetic, a philosophical inquiry, and ultimately, a triumphant theme.

If most literature is built on the pursuit of success, resolution, and meaning, Beckett’s work is the magnificent monument built on the ruins of their impossibility. Let’s explore how the master of the absurd turned artistic and existential failure into high art—and what modern creators can learn from his glorious embrace of getting it wrong.

---

The Paradigm Shift: From Mastery to Incompetence

To understand Beckett’s relationship with failure, you have to look at the tradition of Western letters. For centuries, the implicit contract between writer and reader was one of authority. The author was an architect constructing a tidy, coherent world.

Beckett, deeply scarred by the horrors of the 20th century and disillusioned by grand narratives, realized this contract was a lie. How could an artist pretend to offer neat resolutions in a world shattered by world wars and defined by existential dread?

Instead of faking mastery, Beckett chose incompetence.

In his landmark essay on the painter Bram van Velde, Beckett dropped a meta-commentary on his own artistic ethos, writing: “The expression that there is nothing to express, nothing with which to express, nothing from which to express, no power to express, no desire to express, together with the obligation to express.”

This is the quintessential Beckettian bind: you must speak, even though you have nothing to say; you must try, even though you are bound to fail.

Waiting for Godot: The Art of Getting Nowhere

No work captures this ethos better than Beckett’s 1953 masterpiece, Waiting for Godot. The play’s premise is an act of structural failure: two tramps, Vladimir and Estragon, wait on a desolate road for a man named Godot who never arrives.

• Act I: Nothing happens.
• Act II: Exactly the same nothing happens, repeated.

Traditional drama relies on plot progression, character arcs, and a climax. Godot actively resists all three. It is a play about a failed appointment, a failed communication, and a failed attempt to pass the time.

Yet, by stripping away plot, Beckett achieves something profound. By making failure the very architecture of the play, he frees the audience from the tyranny of expectation. We stop asking, “What happens next?” and instead confront the deeper, heavier question: “What do we do with the time we have left?”

In Godot, failure is not a bug; it’s the operating system.

“Fail Better”: The Ultimate Creative Mantra

Perhaps Beckett’s most famous contribution to the lexicon of failure comes from his 1983 prose piece, Worstward Ho, which contains the oft-quoted, fiercely paradoxically encouraging line:

“Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.”

This is not cynical resignation; it is radical liberation. “Fail better” is a direct challenge to the paralysing perfectionism that plagues modern writers, entrepreneurs, and artists.

Most people view failure as a binary: you either succeed or you fail. Beckett introduces a gradient. He suggests that failure is an infinite regress, but within that regress, there is a craft to be honed. You can learn to articulate your ignorance more precisely. You can learn to map your dead ends with greater eloquence.

When you accept that failure is guaranteed, the stakes lower, and the true creative work can finally begin.

Why Beckett’s Failure Matters Today

In our current cultural moment—obsessed as it is with highlight reels, algorithmic success, and relentless personal branding—Beckett feels more subversive than ever. We live in a world terrified of looking foolish, of being cancelled, or of producing sub-optimal outputs.

Beckett reminds us that:

1. Uncertainty is honest: Pretending to have all the answers is a form of artistic dishonesty.
2. Incoherence has emotional resonance: Sometimes, the only way to express grief, confusion, or absurdity is through stuttering, repetition, and silence.
3. The struggle is the art: The value is not in the finished product that solves all problems, but in the noble, doomed attempt to articulate the inarticulate.

Conclusion: Embracing Your Inner Beckett

You don’t need to write a play about two guys standing by a leafless tree to incorporate Beckett’s philosophy into your life.

Next time you face a blank page, a botched project, or an ambition that has completely derailed, take a page out of Beckett’s playbook. Stop trying to transcend the mess. Lean into it.

Acknowledge that the words won’t be entirely right, the project won’t be a neat masterpiece, and the grand plan might completely dissolve. Then, smile, take a deep breath, and heed the master’s advice:

Try again. Fail again. Fail better.

…

Day 251 – Writing exercise

…

The first sensation I had was excruciating pain.  My leg, my side, my arm… it was hard to tell what hurt most.

A voice above me was in full panic, “We’re losing him.  Make it happen … now.”

Then he realised I had surfaced, an eye partially open, to one side a large leaning lump of metal, smelling of oil or something else.

“Stay with me sir,stay with me.” His hand on my chest, I could hear the groaning sound of metal, and a slight easing of the pain.

“Easy, easy now”, then a scream, ” gently.”

The pain came in a rush and then I heard a scream.  I never thought it might have come from me.

…

Whoever it was hovering had changed; it could be the same person but I didn’t think so.  I could smell lavender.

Perhaps I was dead.

The pain was less, hovering there in the background.

The voice had morphed into a woman’s slightly higher pitch, soothing but urgent.

A man was standing over her.

“He’s stabilised, critical, but ready for transport.  It isn’t good, but its not bad.”

At least that’s what I thought she said as inky blackness and silence followed.

What the hell had happened?

…

Two days and three operations later, followed by an induced command for three more, I woke again, in a completely different setting.

The ICU.

A nurse was sitting in the chair next to me, apparently toiling over the Times cryptic crossword.  I’d wrestled with a few of my own.

She seemed angry, or perhaps she had one of those faces that looked perpetually sad.  I would be too if I worked in this ward.  So many people seen at their very worst.

Of course, I doubt many would be in the same sinking ship I was on, not knowing what happened or why I was there.

Except..

I had done a full reconciliation of my body and I was covered in bandages, and barely able to move.

So, conclusion?  I was hit by a bus.

I stirred, and she looked up.  I was surprised it hadn’t stirred her into instant action.

She carefully put the newspaper to one side, wiped her hands on one of those antiseptic towels and then stood, taking in the biological sights on the machine beside me and nodding to herself.

A lot of wires ran between me and that machine.

She could see me looking at her.

“Can you speak?”

Good question.  The words were in my head, but   come out.  My mouth moved but there was no sound.  Where was that volume button?

“That would be a no, then.”

“In case you haven’t put two and two together, you are in hospital.  This is the Intensive Care Ward and my name is Nancy.  You have been in an induced coma to help in your recovery and in a minute a doctor will be here and will tell you more.”

That was enough.  Definitely hit by a bus.

The doctor when he came, looked no older than a high school graduate.  His manner was strange but I put that down to him being tired.  He looked tired.

His description of my case was disjointed, or perhaps that was me, picking out the salient features.

Car accident – other driver drunk and died at the scene – I nearly did but for a fast-acting off-duty trauma nurse – extensive broken bones – a hell of a shake-up – but I would recover.

In time … except ..

It appeared I had no memory of the accident, who I was, and a lot of other information everyone routinely knew about themselves like name, address, and phone number.  Or anything personal.

How was that possible?

…

It seems a man with no name must be a criminal.

That was the impression I got when Nancy the nurse told me I was getting a visit from the police, though the way she put it, it was to try and identify whether I was a missing person, considering I had been, by this time, seven days out of circulation.

Was I supposed to feel like a copy of the daily newspaper, or an old book?

Of course, the police had to wait until the doctor decided I was well enough to cope with an intensive interrogation.  By this time the boy doctor had been replaced with an elderly man, almost grey, with a permanent amused expression, and the best bedside manner tone.

Every word he spoke sounded reassuring even if it wasn’t.  He could, I decided, sell ice cream to the Eskimos.

“Unfortunately,” he said, after poring over the ever thickening chart file, “I can only hold them off for so long.  They don’t seem to like the idea that someone cannot remember who they are.”

“I wish I could remember.  The accident, what I was doing before the accident, and whether someone out there is worrying about whether I’m dead or alive.”

“I’m sure the amnesia is only temporary.  After all a car landed on you.  A lot of people would not have survived.  That is one of your nine lives expended.”

Odd, I felt as though it was not the first time I’d spent time in one of these places.  I was due to move to a ward later today.  That was when I would have the first appointment with the torturers, otherwise known as the physiotherapists.

“Thanks, but no point delaying the inevitable.”

…

Detective Lucas and Detective Samson were as different as chalk and cheese.  When they walked in, Lucas, the elder of the two was first.  Samson was young, enthusiastic and animated.

Lucas looked like he’d already done the graveyard shift and decided not to go home.  Tired and aggravated, as if coming to see a guy who couldn’t remember his own name, was an affront to his detecting skills.

Samson hung back and had a notepad out, pencil ready.  Lucas stood at the end of the bed.

“Ninety nine times out of a hundred a person who plays the amnesia card is running from or trying to hide something, and in my experience, are criminals trying to escape the consequences.”

Lucas, apparently, was the bad cop.

“Which one are you, Mr John Doe?”

So, I was John Doe.  Oddly I knew what that meant.  The hospital had to call me something, and I wondered how many John Doe files in their archive.

“The one that got hit by the proverbial bus.  The one that nearly died.  The one that will be lucky to pick up a piece of paper, let alone mastermind an art gallery heist, or drive a getaway car.”

“It’s not my first rodeo.  We’ve done a facial recognition pass on you, and fingerprints, and very strange, you don’t seem to be on any database. To me, it’s impossible to believe you just don’t exist.”

They were not the only gobsmacked people in the room.  “What can I say?  There was no ID, a wallet, drivers licence, credit cards, anything.”

“Not even a label on your clothes.  You have several wounds, long healed, but are the result of a knife, and several bullets.  Can you shed any light on how or when these happened?”

“No.  It’s news to me.”  And scary news.

That tells me, as incredible as it sounds, that you are or were a spy, or you’re here illegally, on a mission.  You will be getting a visit from the FBI, after I sent the a copy of my report.”

If he was trying to use threats to jog my memory, it wasn’t working.  It was still blank.  But something I discovered, I could translate the detective’s words into several different languages, especially after he accused me of being a spy.

Maybe I was.

…

The physiotherapist looked like a doctor out of a Frankenstein movie, with close-set eyes, jutting chin and receding but unruly hair.  The long nose, high cheek bones, pencil moustache and thin cruel mouth completed the nightmare.

I had been asleep, woke and got a hell of a frighten when I saw him peering down at me.

“Mr John Doe, I presume?”  Damn, he had a German accent. 

What had happened in my life that just seeing him filled me with fear?

“One of many John Doe’s, yes?”

“I am one of two physiotherapists that have been assigned to you to get you back on your feet.  At this moment it time that might see an impossible feat, but I assure you it is not.  We have gone over your scans and it seems there is nothing insurmountable.  Time and effort is all that will be needed, when the time comes.

“In the meantime we will be outlining the exercises we would like to do in preparation.  We will begin an expansive program, bit by bit.  Any questions?”

Yes, about a hundred.  But only one that needed an answer.

“What is my current condition?”

“Better than it was a week ago.”

OK.  Ego boosted, now tell me the truth.

“You’re doing as well as was expected.  We’ll know more in a week, but it’s my firm belief we’ll have you up and around soon enough.”

“And my memory?”

“Not my field, but there are people in that field all over but there are several who work here, and you should talk to one or two.  I’m sure if you talk to your doctor he will find a specialist in that field.”

….

I was woken by raised voices put on the passage, and I could just see through the partially closed blind a hospital security guard, my night nurse. And a man and a woman arguing.

More visitors for me most likely.  I looked at the clock on the wall, and it was a few minutes past six on the .morning.

A pre dawn raid by a police department, though the two were dressed in plain clothes, I believed they were with the FBI. 

It was tactics to burst in, just before dawn, when everyone was asleep and tired, just in time to wake them up and ask questions.  Hoping their guard would be down.  Hoping my guard would be down.

Argument over, IDs flashed and threats made, the two came in and the male agent introduced himself as Agent Rostrum and his partner, Agent Bairns.

I remembered watch the X files where the agents always introduced themselves as Agent something, as if they had no real first name.  They were nothing like Mulder and Scully.

They took up positions either side of the bed, as if they expected I was going to make a run for it. 

Rostrum started.  “We’ve been told you can’t remember anything.”

They could have started less confrontational, but I was guessing this was part of the shock treatment, hoping I was half or completely dazed after being awaken abruptly.

For some strange reason it felt familiar.  What was worse, I felt a strange calm come over me.  I should have been outraged.

“You’ve been told correctly.”

“So, you don’t remember anything before during or after the crash?”

“Not at the moment.  The doctor seems to think the shock of a vehicle landing on me has caused temporary amnesia, and expects my memory will return, sooner or later.”

He looked at his partner, then back at me.  Clearly, he didn’t believe me.  “The number of suspects who have used that lame excuse tells me you have something to hide.”

“Then you tell me who I am, and why I was where I was when the accident happened.  Was I fleeing scene of a crime, because the police would have told me that.”

I looked steadily at him, unblinking, and waited for him to crack first.

“Was there a crime within a fifty-mile radius?”

No answer, so apparently not.

“You could have been on the way to committing a crime?”

“Was I in a car when I had the accident?”

“Yes.”

“Was there anything in the car to suggest I was running from or going to a crime?”

“No.”

“Who was the driver of the other car?”

“A seventy four year old retired schoolteacher.”

A blink, then a light bulb turned on in the recesses of my mind.  The description that it was a seventy four year old retired schoolteacher stuck a chord, a familiar chord.  Why?

“So, I’m driving along, he comes out of nowhere at speed and the cars collide.  It’s a logical series of events that make sense to me.  Wrong place wrong time, but no, you think I’m some crime lord with a fake memory excuse?”

“Aren’t you?  The circumstances are compelling evidence.  You just about described the whole event fir someone who can’t remember.”

“Anyone with a brain could work that out for themselves.  If that’s all you’ve got then you can leave now.”

“We have….”

Another person walked in the door, a woman dressed far more stylish than the FBI agents.  Someone who reeked of authority.  A lawyer?

She had a card and flashed it at the two agents.  “This interview is over, and you two can leave.  I’ve spoken to your boss.  Ring him and check.  Meanwhile, scoot.”

“This is highly irregular.” Rostrum was not pleased.

“This will turn into a very bad pain in the ass if you disobey a direct order.  Leave, now.”  The woman had not raised her voice but it felt like she was shouting at them.”

“Who are you again?”

“Ring your boss, though by this time I’m sure he’s well into writing up your insubordination record. I suggest you hurry to get ahead of this.”

Once again he looked at his partner and she nodded, at the same time heading towards the door.  She was not going to be branded with the same brush as her partner.  Rostrum reluctantly followed.

When they left, the new arrival closed the door and came back. 

She looked at me for a full minute, before saying, “You really don’t remember?”

I looked at her.  Yes, there was something, but it might be that she had an unforgettable look.”

I shook my head.  “There’s something there, but it’s not clear.”

She sighed.  “We are together Michael, we have been for about a year.  It’s taken me all this time to find you.  You really don’t remember?”

Michael?

Something in my head dropped into place.

Michael?

A fragment popped into my head, a memory of a woman, a photo in a magazine.  Another fragment, a room, a large table, a man, a woman, not the one here with me, a map.

A photo in a magazine.

She looked very different in the photo, standing on the deck of a yacht, in a bikini so small it was barely there, but it was the golden hair and oversized sunglasses that stuck in my mind.

Like a movie actor, or something else, maybe the wife of a billionaire, the man who owned the yacht.

It was definitely not me.

And she was definitely not my wife, or partner, and we would never be involved, not in the way she was intimating.

She must have seen my expression changed.

“You remember something.”

“I have seen you before, yes. On a page of a magazine, though slightly less dressed than you are now.  But beyond that, nothing.  I’m sorry.”

She gave me the same look as the FBI agents did.  They didn’t believe me either.

“That’s alright.  We can get the best doctors and figure out what’s happened.  It’s only temporary, after all.”

She said it almost too offhandedly, perhaps to put me at ease.

Another fragment popped into my head, and this one was slightly more terrifying.  That seventy-four-year-old retired schoolteacher, coming out of the cabin of the yacht, holding a gun.

What the hell was I mixed up in.

She saw the expression and smiled.  “There it is.  Harry said if I turned up, you’d remember.”

And oddly, right after she said that, she looked very strange and then collapsed on the floor.

I had just enough time to recognise a hissing sound and looked up at the air conditioning vent in the roof.  Gas.

I could do with some more sleep.

…

©  Charles Heath  2026

Day 251 – Writing exercise

…

The first sensation I had was excruciating pain.  My leg, my side, my arm… it was hard to tell what hurt most.

A voice above me was in full panic, “We’re losing him.  Make it happen … now.”

Then he realised I had surfaced, an eye partially open, to one side a large leaning lump of metal, smelling of oil or something else.

“Stay with me sir,stay with me.” His hand on my chest, I could hear the groaning sound of metal, and a slight easing of the pain.

“Easy, easy now”, then a scream, ” gently.”

The pain came in a rush and then I heard a scream.  I never thought it might have come from me.

…

Whoever it was hovering had changed; it could be the same person but I didn’t think so.  I could smell lavender.

Perhaps I was dead.

The pain was less, hovering there in the background.

The voice had morphed into a woman’s slightly higher pitch, soothing but urgent.

A man was standing over her.

“He’s stabilised, critical, but ready for transport.  It isn’t good, but its not bad.”

At least that’s what I thought she said as inky blackness and silence followed.

What the hell had happened?

…

Two days and three operations later, followed by an induced command for three more, I woke again, in a completely different setting.

The ICU.

A nurse was sitting in the chair next to me, apparently toiling over the Times cryptic crossword.  I’d wrestled with a few of my own.

She seemed angry, or perhaps she had one of those faces that looked perpetually sad.  I would be too if I worked in this ward.  So many people seen at their very worst.

Of course, I doubt many would be in the same sinking ship I was on, not knowing what happened or why I was there.

Except..

I had done a full reconciliation of my body and I was covered in bandages, and barely able to move.

So, conclusion?  I was hit by a bus.

I stirred, and she looked up.  I was surprised it hadn’t stirred her into instant action.

She carefully put the newspaper to one side, wiped her hands on one of those antiseptic towels and then stood, taking in the biological sights on the machine beside me and nodding to herself.

A lot of wires ran between me and that machine.

She could see me looking at her.

“Can you speak?”

Good question.  The words were in my head, but   come out.  My mouth moved but there was no sound.  Where was that volume button?

“That would be a no, then.”

“In case you haven’t put two and two together, you are in hospital.  This is the Intensive Care Ward and my name is Nancy.  You have been in an induced coma to help in your recovery and in a minute a doctor will be here and will tell you more.”

That was enough.  Definitely hit by a bus.

The doctor when he came, looked no older than a high school graduate.  His manner was strange but I put that down to him being tired.  He looked tired.

His description of my case was disjointed, or perhaps that was me, picking out the salient features.

Car accident – other driver drunk and died at the scene – I nearly did but for a fast acting off duty trauma nurse – extensive broken bones – a hell of a shake-up – but I would recover.

In time … except ..

It appeared I had no memory of the accident, who I was, and a lot of other information everyone routinely knew about themselves like name, address, and phone number.  Or anything personal.

How was that possible?

…

It seems a man with no name must be a criminal.

That was the impression I got when Nancy the nurse told me I was getting a visit from the police, though the way she put it, it was to try and identify whether I was a missing person, considering I had been, by this time, seven days out of circulation.

Was I supposed to feel like a copy of the daily newspaper, or an old book?

Of course, the police had to wait until the doctor decided I was well enough to cope with an intensive interrogation.  By this time the boy doctor had been replaced with an elderly man, almost grey, with a permanent amused expression, and the best bedside manner tone.

Every word he spoke sounded reassuring even if it wasn’t.  He could, I decided, sell ice cream to the Eskimos.

“Unfortunately,” he said, after poring over the ever thickening chart file, “I can only hold them off for so long.  They don’t seem to like the idea that someone cannot remember who they are.”

“I wish I could remember.  The accident, what I was doing before the accident, and whether someone out there is worrying about whether I’m dead or alive.”

“I’m sure the amnesia is only temporary.  After all a car landed on you.  A lot of people would not have survived.  That is one of your nine lives expended.”

Odd, I felt as though it was not the first time I’d spent time in one of these places.  I was due to move to a ward later today.  That was when I would have the first appointment with the torturers, otherwise known as the physiotherapists.

“Thanks, but no point delaying the inevitable.”

…

Detective Lucas and Detective Samson were as different as chalk and cheese.  When they walked in, Lucas, the elder of the two was first.  Samson was young, enthusiastic and animated.

Lucas looked like he’d already done the graveyard shift and decided not to go home.  Tired and aggravated, as if coming to see a guy who couldn’t remember his own name, was an affront to his detecting skills.

Samson hung back and had a notepad out, pencil ready.  Lucas stood at the end of the bed.

“Ninety nine times out of a hundred a person who plays the amnesia card is running from or trying to hide something, and in my experience, are criminals trying to escape the consequences.”

Lucas, apparently, was the bad cop.

“Which one are you, Mr John Doe?”

So, I was John Doe.  Oddly I knew what that meant.  The hospital had to call me something, and I wondered how many John Doe files in their archive.

“The one that got hit by the proverbial bus.  The one that nearly died.  The one that will be lucky to pick up a piece of paper, let alone mastermind an art gallery heist, or drive a getaway car.”

“It’s not my first rodeo.  We’ve done a facial recognition pass on you, and fingerprints, and very strange, you don’t seem to be on any database. To me, it’s impossible to believe you just don’t exist.”

They were not the only gobsmacked people in the room.  “What can I say?  There was no ID, a wallet, drivers licence, credit cards, anything.”

“Not even a label on your clothes.  You have several wounds, long healed, but are the result of a knife, and several bullets.  Can you shed any light on how or when these happened?”

“No.  It’s news to me.”  And scary news.

That tells me, as incredible as it sounds, that you are or were a spy, or you’re here illegally, on a mission.  You will be getting a visit from the FBI, after I sent the a copy of my report.”

If he was trying to use threats to jog my memory, it wasn’t working.  It was still blank.  But something I discovered, I could translate the detective’s words into several different languages, especially after he accused me of being a spy.

Maybe I was.

…

The physiotherapist looked like a doctor out of a Frankenstein movie, with close-set eyes, jutting chin and receding but unruly hair.  The long nose, high cheek bones, pencil moustache and thin cruel mouth completed the nightmare.

I had been asleep, woke and got a hell of a frighten when I saw him peering down at me.

“Mr John Doe, I presume?”  Damn, he had a German accent. 

What had happened in my life that just seeing him filled me with fear?

“One of many John Doe’s, yes?”

“I am one of two physiotherapists that have been assigned to you to get you back on your feet.  At this moment it time that might see an impossible feat, but I assure you it is not.  We have gone over your scans and it seems there is nothing insurmountable.  Time and effort is all that will be needed, when the time comes.

“In the meantime we will be outlining the exercises we would like to do in preparation.  We will begin an expansive program, bit by bit.  Any questions?”

Yes, about a hundred.  But only one that needed an answer.

“What is my current condition?”

“Better than it was a week ago.”

OK.  Ego boosted, now tell me the truth.

“You’re doing as well as was expected.  We’ll know more in a week, but it’s my firm belief we’ll have you up and around soon enough.”

“And my memory?”

“Not my field, but there are people in that field all over but there are several who work here, and you should talk to one or two.  I’m sure if you talk to your doctor he will find a specialist in that field.”

….

I was woken by raised voices put on the passage, and I could just see through the partially closed blind a hospital security guard, my night nurse. And a man and a woman arguing.

More visitors for me most likely.  I looked at the clock on the wall, and it was a few minutes past six on the .morning.

A pre dawn raid by a police department, though the two were dressed in plain clothes, I believed they were with the FBI. 

It was tactics to burst in, just before dawn, when everyone was asleep and tired, just in time to wake them up and ask questions.  Hoping their guard would be down.  Hoping my guard would be down.

Argument over, IDs flashed and threats made, the two came in and the male agent introduced himself as Agent Rostrum and his partner, Agent Bairns.

I remembered watch the X files where the agents always introduced themselves as Agent something, as if they had no real first name.  They were nothing like Mulder and Scully.

They took up positions either side of the bed, as if they expected I was going to make a run for it. 

Rostrum started.  “We’ve been told you can’t remember anything.”

They could have started less confrontational, but I was guessing this was part of the shock treatment, hoping I was half or completely dazed after being awaken abruptly.

For some strange reason it felt familiar.  What was worse, I felt a strange calm come over me.  I should have been outraged.

“You’ve been told correctly.”

“So, you don’t remember anything before during or after the crash?”

“Not at the moment.  The doctor seems to think the shock of a vehicle landing on me has caused temporary amnesia, and expects my memory will return, sooner or later.”

He looked at his partner, then back at me.  Clearly, he didn’t believe me.  “The number of suspects who have used that lame excuse tells me you have something to hide.”

“Then you tell me who I am, and why I was where I was when the accident happened.  Was I fleeing scene of a crime, because the police would have told me that.”

I looked steadily at him, unblinking, and waited for him to crack first.

“Was there a crime within a fifty-mile radius?”

No answer, so apparently not.

“You could have been on the way to committing a crime?”

“Was I in a car when I had the accident?”

“Yes.”

“Was there anything in the car to suggest I was running from or going to a crime?”

“No.”

“Who was the driver of the other car?”

“A seventy four year old retired schoolteacher.”

A blink, then a light bulb turned on in the recesses of my mind.  The description that it was a seventy four year old retired schoolteacher stuck a chord, a familiar chord.  Why?

“So, I’m driving along, he comes out of nowhere at speed and the cars collide.  It’s a logical series of events that make sense to me.  Wrong place wrong time, but no, you think I’m some crime lord with a fake memory excuse?”

“Aren’t you?  The circumstances are compelling evidence.  You just about described the whole event fir someone who can’t remember.”

“Anyone with a brain could work that out for themselves.  If that’s all you’ve got then you can leave now.”

“We have….”

Another person walked in the door, a woman dressed far more stylish than the FBI agents.  Someone who reeked of authority.  A lawyer?

She had a card and flashed it at the two agents.  “This interview is over, and you two can leave.  I’ve spoken to your boss.  Ring him and check.  Meanwhile, scoot.”

“This is highly irregular.” Rostrum was not pleased.

“This will turn into a very bad pain in the ass if you disobey a direct order.  Leave, now.”  The woman had not raised her voice but it felt like she was shouting at them.”

“Who are you again?”

“Ring your boss, though by this time I’m sure he’s well into writing up your insubordination record. I suggest you hurry to get ahead of this.”

Once again he looked at his partner and she nodded, at the same time heading towards the door.  She was not going to be branded with the same brush as her partner.  Rostrum reluctantly followed.

When they left, the new arrival closed the door and came back. 

She looked at me for a full minute, before saying, “You really don’t remember?”

I looked at her.  Yes, there was something, but it might be that she had an unforgettable look.”

I shook my head.  “There’s something there, but it’s not clear.”

She sighed.  “We are together Michael, we have been for about a year.  It’s taken me all this time to find you.  You really don’t remember?”

Michael?

Something in my head dropped into place.

Michael?

A fragment popped into my head, a memory of a woman, a photo in a magazine.  Another fragment, a room, a large table, a man, a woman, not the one here with me, a map.

A photo in a magazine.

She looked very different in the photo, standing on the deck of a yacht, in a bikini so small it was barely there, but it was the golden hair and oversized sunglasses that stuck in my mind.

Like a movie actor, or something else, maybe the wife of a billionaire, the man who owned the yacht.

It was definitely not me.

And she was definitely not my wife, or partner, and we would never be involved, not in the way she was intimating.

She must have seen my expression changed.

“You remember something.”

“I have seen you before, yes. On a page of a magazine, though slightly less dressed than you are now.  But beyond that, nothing.  I’m sorry.”

She gave me the same look as the FBI agents did.  They didn’t believe me either.

“That’s alright.  We can get the best doctors and figure out what’s happened.  It’s only temporary, after all.”

She said it almost too offhandedly, perhaps to put me at ease.

Another fragment popped into my head, and this one was slightly more terrifying.  That seventy-four-year-old retired schoolteacher, coming out of the cabin of the yacht, holding a gun.

What the hell was I mixed up in.

She saw the expression and smiled.  “There it is.  Harry said if I turned up, you’d remember.”

And oddly, right after she said that, she looked very strange and then collapsed on the floor.

I had just enough time to recognise a hissing sound and looked up at the air conditioning vent in the roof.  Gas.

I could do with some more sleep.

…

©  Charles Heath  2026

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