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MARCUS: What did you say your job was?

TINA: I’m a cartographer.

MARCUS: A what?

TINA: A… map-maker.

MARCUS: A map-maker too? Busy gal. How do you juggle the two?

TINA: I’m also a juggler.

Gareth was 31 years of age but, at 6 foot 4, was already taller than most 32 year olds. He stepped on the bathroom scales and gasped in amazement that his feet weighed 15 stone, before remembering that that was all of him. He pressed the hash key on his phone and a huge consignment of drugs materialised. No, it didn’t. This was his fantasy and his mind danced with it probably every ten minutes of his life.

So basically it goes like this…

WOMAN 1: I saw a mouse.

WOMAN 2: Where?!

WOMAN 1: There on the stair.

WOMAN 2: Where on the stair?

WOMAN 1: Right there. A little mouse with clogs on.

Now, I have no problems with Woman 1. She’s just calling it as she sees it. She sees a mouse on the stair and she’s telling her friend about it. Fair do’s. Who wouldn’t do the same?

But Woman 2… Hmmm, Woman 2. Where do we begin? I can understand her first ‘Where?!’ She’s a lady and is within her rights to be initially shocked. But after it’s pointed out to her that the mouse is very clearly on the stair, she still needs filling in as to the exact whereabouts on that stair: Where on the stair? she asks. I don’t know about you, but I’ve never come across a stair that was so huge that you’d have trouble spotting a mouse on it. Also, let us not forget, the thing has got clogs on. You would think that a clogged mouse would stand out in pretty much any environment, wouldn’t you?

I don’t know. It just rankles with me.

Anyway, enough of me… you’ve been great. Thanks for having me.

Jackie looks out of the window, knowing full well it’s Tuesday. Vito fiddles with a boiled egg.

JACKIE: It’s raining.

VITO: What is?

      Just as the lift-doors were about to kiss, a hairy hand with an expensive watch on the wrist wedged itself between them. A V.I.-looking P. stepped in. He wore a steel-grey double-breaster that Angela guessed would give the watch a run for its money, money-wise.

  ‘Hello,’ she said, for despite having her space invaded, she wasn’t without manners.

      ‘Bonjour’, said the man.

    Good-oh, thought Angela. No further talking necessary. If he’d wanted some French chit-chat, he’d entered the wrong lift. She would only be able to count to ten or tell him she loved him. Call her Miss Innumerate Unromantic but she wouldn’t be trying either out.

DAN:         You are assertive, Laura. And don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

LAURA:      But how would I stop them? 

     Stuart hummed the intro to Simon & Garfunkel’s Mrs. Robinson as he waited in the foyer of the Ramada. He’d just booked a room for himself and Jilly, so what else would he be humming? The situation couldn’t be any more Mrs. Robinson-like if he’d tipped up in a ’65 Buick, checked in as Braddock and declared he only had his toothbrush on him.

      Tim woke up that morning at 7.45, a time he didn’t previously know was available in a.m.

JORGE:         Maria, where’s that ice cube?

MARIA:         What ice cube?

JORGE:         You know damn well. The one I left in the sink.

MARIA:         I haven’t touched it.

JORGE:         Well, it was here last night.

       Their relationship was matched in sterility only by their home. It was newly built and double-glazed to the hilt. Louise would double-glaze her wine glasses if Oprah or Trisha gave the concept the thumbs-up. And their house had to be new: Louise would have no truck with second-hand houses. Inside, it was either very dark (when the lights were switched off) or very light (when they were on). There was no in-between, no subtle tones, no shading: you knew where you stood with it.

       It was all so clean and clinical and uninspiring that it was starting to make Charlie feel sick. There was something about the pink, porcelain geese on top of the television that jarred with his idea of taste, and the phoney, little, tin-pot fireplace would surely romp home in the World’s Least Magnificent Living Room Focal Point competition.