The retirement problem

I was woken at 6.30 one morning by a hammering on my back door. I quickly dressed and hurried downstairs to find Alun looking stressed and tired.

“I’m retiring Jed,” he said, “I’m exhausted by our constant adventures. Island life is supposed to be relaxing, but this year it’s been one problem after another: war, Dalek invasion, ecological disaster, escaped lions, broken cassette players, Ed Milliband’s face on a piece of toast, mysterious footprints, pirates, faked moon landings, Nazi invasion.”

“The last three weren’t us,” I said, “they were our fathers, grandfathers and piratical ancestors.”

“Even so Jed, every day I’m here at the crack of dawn hammering on your door about some emergency or other. I’m getting too old for it Jed. I’ve decided not to take part in any more of these stories.”

“Fair enough,” I said. “To be honest I’ve found these adventures a bit of a distraction myself. I’m supposed to be a full time novelist, but I haven’t had time to write a word of a novel all year. As you say it’s been one thing after another.

Alun left shortly afterwards to “Get on with his life.” I made myself a jug of coffee, switched on some classical music and settled in front of my computer to begin the novel I’d been planning to write all year, before these adventures got in the way.

The first sentence came easily, though I struggled with the second. After about an hour I realised what the problem was and deleted the first sentence. Happy with this success I rewarded myself with a toast break.

The toast burnt slightly, leaving an impression not dissimilar to the face of President Obama, but I decided against contacting Alun and instead covered the image in butter and Marmite before consuming it.

The rest of the morning was spent on frustrated attempts to create the perfect opening sentence and it was soon time for lunch, after which I had to milk the geep and visit the elephants at the top of Elephant Mountain. I eventually returned to my computer. Instead of remaining stuck on the first sentence I opened the story in Chapter 2 and began writing a scene involving realistic, rich dialogue between the main characters discussing their favourite cheesecake.

All this talk of food reminded me that it would soon be time for supper, so I began cooking spaghetti, which I ate whilst watching a film on TV. The movie was one of a trilogy and I ended up watching all three and going to bed some time after midnight.

I awoke late, exhausted by the previous day’s writing and, after a breakfast of egg and coffee, I re-read what I’d written the previous day. It was rubbish. I deleted the entire scene and started again.

By lunchtime I’d written half a page of vaguely useable material, but felt frustrated none the less. All the time I’d been having my adventures with Alun I’d blamed them for distracting me from writing. But now that I had time to write I realised that my real problem was a lack of inspiration. I longed for Alun’s latest mad scheme to generate my creativity.

After lunch I milked my geep and walked up Elephant Mountain to see the elephants. Lacking creative inspiration I extended my stroll to the cliffs overlooking Refrigerator Bay, where I spent half an hour examining the abandoned fridges to see if any of them were inhabited. Alas, still no trace of the Refrigerator Bird once common on this island.

There was time for an hour’s writing before I cooked supper, during which time I edited the half page to a really high quality paragraph. Once more I retreated to the kitchen and began cooking pasta, eating the meal in front of a TV show about celebrity chefs cooking spaghetti. I was doing it all wrong apparently. Next time I cooked pasta I would need seven ingredients I had never previously heard of, at least three of which don’t even exist if google is to be believed. It would also take me approximately eleven hours, involve seventy-six separate saucepans and five separate languages.

After supper I printed out my completed paragraph and readied myself for a night’s writing. However, before I could begin to type my first word I was interrupted by a hammering on my back door. It was Alun.

“I’ve found a pin Jed.”

“I thought you’d retired Alun.”

“I tried Jed, but I’m bored. I’ve been moping around the house with nothing to do. Then I found this pin and thought ‘aha, an adventure’.”

“But whose pin is it?”

“Exactly Jed. Whose pin is it and what is it doing on the island? I’ve a good feeling about this Jed. This is going to be our most exciting adventure yet.”