1.
The
sprawling metropolis of Birmingham’s city centre assembled below them like an
urban patchwork quilt as the blades of the chopper forced a need for its
occupants to shout. “It’s going up!” yelped out the pilot pointing with
enthusiasm at a huge pole being erected in the city centre that was hoisted up
with three mega-sized cranes.
Neil looked
down at where the pilot was pointing and produced the most splendid smile that
a multi-billionaire businessman could ever hope to achieve in his busy and
stressful position. His lifetime plan was slowly beginning to see the light and
it gave him immense pleasure. “Yes,” he stumbled; it was the only word he could
find. His mind was drifting, locked in with the trance-like perpetual motion of
the chopper’s blades. Gradually he was taken back, back to a simpler time when
his only wish was to visit that shop.
“Welcome to
Create-A-Cuddly Workshop!” beamed a chubby student girl, lisping her words of
welcome through her teeth’s metallic fence. Although his father could see her
braces glistening under the neon lights, little Neil could not; he was only
knee-high to a grasshopper and far too eager to get started on his project than
to concern himself with the young shop assistant’s dental issues.
All little
Neil could see of her was her two rolls of chubbiness under her large youthful
breasts, tightly wrapped in a Batman logoed T-shirt. He smiled and the girl
picked up on it, “do you like Batman?” she asked of him to which he only shied
away to bury his face into the loud coloured skirt of his mother. She gave a
smile, exposing those braces for all their glory as she turned to the father of
the family who was clutching his wallet through his pocket, concerning himself
with just how much this bill would advance to. As she did so Neil got a full
waft of the most amazingly decorated cuddly teddy-bear poking out from a pink
rucksack. Meanwhile the father had her full attention; above the T-shirt reared
a youthful student girl with pointed ended red glasses and so many ribbons and
beads in her hair you could hardly tell what style or colour her hair was
underneath.
“It’s his
birthday,” pointed out the man, still grasping his wallet, hoping for a reprise
under the circumstances. She failed to reply but remained as electric in mood
as she was upon welcoming them. Turning to the little boy she beamed, “Oh wow!”
she cried, “is it your birthday?”
Neil found
some courage, “yes,” he mumbled.
“Oh wow,”
she repeated, “and how old are you today?”
“5!” he
wisped, proud as Punch.
“5!” she
responded with a fake glee, “wow, what a big boy, what is your name?”
“Neil,” he
stumbled again with a warming to her breezy and excited attitude.
“Neil!” she
screeched, “happy birthday……”
“Happy
Birthday Sir,” said the other man in the helicopter, his hair was grey, he was
suited in expensive clothes and sat on his lap was an enormous quantity of
paperwork pinned to a clipboard.
“Thanks,”
said Neil, bursting suddenly out of dream reminiscent, “it’s looking good isn’t
it?”
“Sure is, we
will be underway in no time,” he replied with a look of awe at the fellow
besides him, “the wind is strong and blowing from the east.”
Neil just
hummed, wondering if all the power of the natural forces would be adequate. His
top team of scientists, geologists and marine experts had forecast the
mission’s success; they assured him that his dreams would come true. Although
it was something he wished as a boy it was not selfishness, Neil had used his
hard-earned billions to create this project for the people of the UK and an
overwhelming majority voted for its approval. He just couldn’t believe this was
coming to a conclusion so soon after production; the mining team had dug
underneath the country so soon.
The chubby
student gleamed at Neil while she bent to his level to fasten a sticker upon
his breast, “here’s your Create-A-Cuddly birthday sticker!”
The little
boy looked more than pleased and caressed its shiny surface with his
fingertips. “Now,” lisped the girl in a tone that would sound patronising to
anyone over the age of 5, “what kind of cuddly are we making for you?”
Again
silence as he buried his head back into his mother’s skirt, he was embarrassed
to tell her his desires as he could not see what he wanted among the wondrous
array of deflated furry skins that lay with precision around the sides of the
shop. There were bears, there were monkeys and bunnies, dogs and cats, even a
squirrel and a frog. There were licenced skins, Teenage Mutant Turtles, Star
Wars characters and Disney Princess’s galore. But, and this is a big but, there
were no dinosaurs.
Neil had his
heart set on creating a dinosaur and when Neil had his heart set on something….
2.
The crowds
were uncontained in jubilation, they screamed in joy, they laughed in abundance
and shouted their approval. The remainder of the nation that had not attended
the momentous event watched their TV in confusion, unsure in the believability
of the proposal that was just announced. They knew that this was a plan by an
eccentric madman and no amount of scientific speeches proving the theory to be
possible would waiver their scepticism but still they had to admit, it sounded
like a pretty neat idea.
Neil sat on
the podium, overjoyed with the response as the crowds continued to vocalise
their elation. He stood and shook hands with Dr Darren Horton as the young
scientist bowed at him like he was royalty. Neil walked across the stage to
greet Alfred, the Prime Minister and they too received each other with a firm
handshake. Alfred turned the crowd and bellowed, “Too long have we been bowing
down to Brussels! The European Union has failed to accommodate us and with the
help of Neil and his team we can now bridge the gap between our lands!” and
with that he welcomed the President of the United States of America to the
platform.
Although the
crowds were screaming and the moment that the celebrated President stood forth
was one heck of an historic occasion Neil did not stand in the same sensation
of awe as his fellow UK citizens; he had met the President on numerous
occasions to discuss the proposals. So despite the man’s enormous charisma,
charm and booming presence Neil’s mind began to wander over the happenings that
were surely the root to this fantastic idea.
The key to
Neil’s success was the fact that he always strives to achieve his goals. They
say that when Neil had his heart set on something, he got it without doubt. A
younger Neil had his heart set on creating a dinosaur at the Create-A-Cuddly
workshop but his dream was suddenly burst. Although he could not fathom the
words his father gladly spoke on his behalf, “He wanted to make a dinosaur,” he
boldly claimed.
The chubby
bundle of enthusiasm that was the shop worker shook the ribbons in her hair as
her fantastical expression of ecstasy suddenly dropped to be replaced by a far
more solemn one. Her bottom lip curled, her eyes immediately watered and she
turned both around and downwards, crouching to face the little boy that was
still grasping to his dream. “Awlllllllll, ain’t that cute; A dinosaur?!” she
whimpered.
The little
boy, unable to pick up on the expressions and body language of the girl three
times his age, clutched onto his faith that he was here to make a cuddly
dinosaur and the fact that the time was
nigh to rupture this vision was the furthest thing from his tiny mind. As the girl
broke the news gently he matched the expression change of the shop assistant
tenfold. Remaining in her crouching position she steadily moved both her arms
up to place them on the boy’s shoulders, “I am sorry,” she began as softly and
sincerely as she could considering it was almost her time for a lunch-break
and she had been acting this show now
for four and a half hours, “we don’t have dinosaurs.”
“We don’t
have any need for Europe, we have no desire to be European,” announced the
Prime Minister, proudly placing his hands upon the shoulders of Neil. “Today we
have a chance to join our brothers and sisters from across the Atlantic and I
propose that we welcome this idea with open arms!”
Neil stood
proud with those hands upon his shoulders, just like the shop assistant except
the Prime Minister was not attired in a Batman T-shirt and teeth braces; I will have my dinosaur, he thought to
himself with a giggle.
“Oh but you
can’t,” whined the girl, acting like she was equally as upset as the young Neil
before her. She gave up; there was no rescuing the boy from his disappointment
at this point. Slowly she raised her
body and turned back to his father, “you’ll have to go to America for that,”
she informed him.
The Dad lit
up, he loved to be filled in with the facts, “really?” he asked, keen with
interest.
“Oh yeah,”
she squeaked with delight, “Create-A-Dino is a new branch, you should see
them!”
The cogs
worked overtime on the father’s forehead, producing a ripple. Suddenly he came
to his senses, “Well, we haven’t really got time for that,” he humoured, “I’ve
only paid for three hours parking!”
She giggled,
picking up on his wit but not really finding it truly amusing she continued,
“We have a like, really cool monkey!” She picked up a deflated furry toy and waved
it at the upset little boy with a glee that was risky to promise breaking
through his depressive change of heart.
By
everyone’s amazement it shed a glimmer of hope as Neil only slightly upturned his
frown.
3.
Overall Neil
was satisfied with the response of the nation, the fullness of his proposal not
yet coming to light. The plan’s realism seemed so far off in the minds of the
people of the UK, but he knew this; who
could blame them? They stood silent, aghast at the final unravelling of
Neil’s master plan.
The
satisfaction was equal to the younger version of Neil on that remarkable day;
he was overjoyed at the creation of his monkey; complete with a Spiderman suit
and mask but somewhere hidden in the depths of his youthful brain the dream of
creating a dinosaur still lurked. Awash with the joy of the present the boy
wandered to the till, the father not in the same state of jubilation when the
toy was packed into a box and the price revealed to him. He hummed as he put
his debt card into the slot, the grin from the staff of the Create-A-Cuddly Workshop
now not so appealing to him. Sure it was more of a smirk he paid nonetheless,
maybe it was a tall price to pay for a cuddly toy that his son had to actually
assist in the production of but he was safe in the knowledge that for the smile
on that little boy’s face, the event was priceless. Of course the owners of
Create-A-Cuddly workshop, the pioneer of the whole idea, well, they knew that
parents were suckers for this, the price tag labelled on each individual item
of clothes and accessories showed certain ruthlessness about the whole notion.
It was something the older Neil Kimber came to respect and mimic.
However this
was not the full connection here. Neil Kimber had come to the top of his
business with hard work, his father though not destitute was an honest labourer
and Neil knew that he was destined for greater things. Of course by the time
that Neil made his first million all the events of that birthday had long ago
waned in his mind. The teenage entrepreneur that created a mobile phone app so
useful and powerful that it was snapped up by a progressive manufacturing
company with a contract in the million dollar mark was only the beginning. The papers that run the story of the amazing
mind of Neil Kimber gave force to his acumen; the monkey instead of the
dinosaur incident was long forgotten.
From then on
the project escalated, newer versions came on to the market, then an innovative
concept in hardware to use the app on. This allowed Neil to buy out the company
who originally took his idea on board. A multimedia platform developed in which
to launch even more games and apps. Then sequels came along, the merchandising,
the series of books using the characters from the app’s built-in games and
finally the film adaptions. Neil became a rich young man, investing wisely
always building on the success and never creating any product that would fail
to impress.
Now a media
tycoon frustrated by the “yes-men” that surrounded him he sat contented in his
plush office, bathing in luxury with his right-hand man Tony. Tony was a large
man, both psychically and in power. As managing director he answered only to
Neil and Neil liked him for his honesty, if he didn’t like the idea he would
tell Neil straight. Tony may have been large but his belly could not be
described as flabby, it was a solid stomach filled with expensive cuisine and
covered with equally expensive material. He waved his wrist randomly as he
spoke, shaking his Rolex and causing his sovereign rings to sparkle in under
delicate illumination of the computer controlled lighting system. The room was
filled with triumphant celebration; the deal for their own television channel was
sealed, nothing could stop them now. Tony laughed in the face of risk, “Whatever
we do now Neil old boy will sell in the millions, do you realise what that
means?”
Neil did not
seem so excited about this; he leaned back in his fine leather chair behind the
antique oak desk once owned by Ronald Reagan, and hoisted up his legs and landed
them upon it. Cool as a cucumber in a fridge he shrugged, “no, what?”
“It means,”
whispered Tony in a sly manner, leaning across the table to point his chubby
ringed finger at him, “we can do whatever we want. I mean anything, anything we
could possibly dream of. Nothing is impossible now my friend.”
Neil was
still unmoved by it all, it seemed as if he already had everything he wanted
and more, so much more, “ok,” he slurred through the influence of the fine
wine.
Tony picked
up on this negativity, it was his job to do that, his tone turned into a
cackle, “there must be something Neil, come on, something you still want to do,
something…..”
“No,
nothing,” he replied.
“Something,
a dream….perhaps, from your childhood…….”
That is when
Neil stopped. For Tony it was like time had stood still, silence filled the
room, the ambience was slightly nerving, and he pondered if his boss had a
seizure or something. Neil just sat there still, pondering over his past,
childhood memories flooding through him like a tsunami of thoughts. It took
sometime then he recalled it and he snapped up causing Tony to spill his
expensive wine all over his expensive trousers.
“The
toilet,” Neil shouted, “in McDonalds!”
4.
Neil, like
most people, thought that continental drift was something you learned at school
that you would never need to use in any circumstance ever again. There were
lots of these at school, like 1066; the Battle of Hastings. Without belittling
the importance of this battle in English history it was only one of many
battles with historic importance but we was, for some unknown reason forced to
bash this year into our minds above all others. Neil had never had need to use
1066; The Battle of Hastings ever again, it served no practical use whatsoever
and likewise he thought the same of this continental drift malarkey.
Far from it
in the circumstances, continental drift would be something that needed much
clarification in his quest to find the facts that would seal his dream into
reality. When the geography was re-explained to him it seemed it was just not
possible, the tectonic plate that England resided upon also contained a number
of other European countries. The scientists that had delivered the blow, showed
that this was simply impossible but the words of Tony came back to him, nothing is impossible now my friend.
Sitting in
that toilet in McDonalds the tears from a much younger Neil flooded his cheeks
and he vowed to do something about what caused them. With the dinosaur incident
in the Create-A-Cuddly Workshop well behind him his father had rushed him out
of the store and across the shopping precinct, grasping firmly the box with
SpiderMonkey in it, straight into the McDonalds. Little Neil was singing “SpiderMonkey,
SpiderMonkey, does whatever a SpiderMonkey does,” all the way. His father had
put the song into his head, he knew not of the original as that old cartoon had
been worn out by the bettered series of up-to-date film epics of Spiderman,
still it amused his father to hear his son repeat this silly song and it meant
that he was overjoyed by the experience of creating his own cuddly toy, thus
justifying the massive price tag.
There the
family sat down to feast. The mother despised the fast food chain but knew that
her son enjoyed the McHappy Meal and so went along with this to complete his
birthday wish. Neil’s father also joined in with bashing the unethical workings
of the conglomerate but secretly he had a love for the sweet, trashy food it
produced in abundance. Neil loved it like the slogan told them to and was so
overjoyed by the day. He had seen the adverts on TV, the new animated film that
was causing a storm had a fast-talking racoon called Joey in it and McDonalds
had, as it always did for the latest movie craze, licenced its marketing with
it. The whole, self-labelled restaurant was adorned with a decorative festival
celebrating the film’s release and the TV advert showed the amazing toy that
came with every McHappy Meal. Joey the Racoon was bouncing all over the TV
screen, saying this and that in his funny squeaky voice and the toy did just
the same as this.
So, a few
chicken nuggets into the banquet the young Neil tried to claim his prize. His
father gave into the demands and handed the toy to his son. He couldn’t get his
little hands on it fast enough and after giving a second or two of examination
Neil pressed the button on its back. The eyes of the racoon popped out, just as
they did in the movie but alas, no sound was heard. Neil put it to his ear and
pressed again, these eating houses sure could be noisy. Still nothing and this
began to upset Neil again.
As the tears
rolled down the reddened cheeks of the boy his father launched out to console
him, “What’s wrong?” he asked and was immediately informed that the boy
considered it broken as it was supposed to talk. His mother took over the
consultation as the father strode over to the sales desk. There he explained
the problem to a spotty teenage lad in a McDonald’s uniform who promptly looked
back at him and proclaimed without a care in the world, “Oh, that is just the
American version, sorry.”
Despite the
apology it was finished with Neil’s father being pushed aside as the spotty
Herbert took the man behind’s order and Neil was sent back to his table. He
explained the occurrence to his wife and little Neil listened in. It was the
second time in as many hours that he had had his bubble burst by the fact that
these things were only to be obtained in America and so, he requested to go to
the toilet to be alone in his thoughts.
His father
stood outside the cubicle, asking him if he was okay, or if he was finished yet
and Neil just grunted. What was really happening inside that cubicle was that a
storm was brewing; a mental tempest was stirring in his very soul. He was
questioning why, why could he not have the talking Joey, the Create-A-Dino, why
did American kids get all the best stuff. This resulted in him considering the
options. The options were threefold, option one; he cried in the toilet and had
to accept it, the most likely. Option two was that he ran away to America,
simple but hard to achieve being just five years old. Option three developed
from that immature imagination where anything is possible…… Neil awoke from the
dream, nothing is impossible now my
friend.
The plan
just needs some serious redesign and this is when Dr Darren Horton stepped into
his office and his life. Like an angel from above except armed with a
PowerPoint presentation rather than a set of wings he proposed just such a redesign.
Neil was in awe when he saw the blueprints, an animation depicting colossal
digging machines burrowing underneath the whole of the United Kingdom. He
gasped at the artist’s impressions of the gigantic floats the size of cities
joined by a network of crosshatched steel girders and he swooned when the
system that had been operating clearly held the weight of the entire landmass
of the UK and, by the look of the animation, had the whole country floating.
A moment
silence struck the office as a nervous Darren Horton stood before the assembly
and the famous Neil Kimber, the boss, the kingpin, the man. But the man came over to him, slowly at first but building in
speed and authority and he threw his arms around him. “Gentleman,” he
announced, “this man will lead the way, this plan cannot fail!”
This still
produced a sense within the committee that they were in the presence of a
madman. Neil detected this and so he made a speech to convince them: “Ladies,
Gentleman; do not deny me this dream, do not doubt that we can do this, nothing
is impossible now my friends,” he flashed over to Tony who had plain forgotten
his own quote and sat with the same vacant look as the rest of his team.
Neil paced
faster around the room, “Are we suckered into believing that we are treated to
the same civilised perks of a developed nation as those living in America?
Should we have to put up with these half-baked consumer goods when the USA has
some far better versions?”
Well, his
speech was so convincing to the committee that he used the same one when it was
time to address the nation, “….People of England, are we all subjected to the
subdued side-effects of the American Dream, should we put up with their
offcuts? Does everyone in England join in with me in wishing that we could have
those giant burgers and huge fat cars? When do we really have the chance to
supersize our Big Macs so that it resembles a small dwelling for elephants?
Does everyone in this country have, in some small way, a wish that Elvis was
from our country and ponder that perhaps, if we had the right to bear arms the
whole place would be a far better place to live?”
The office
sat still, occasionally looking at each other to confirm that others too
considered that their boss had finally lost all sanity.
Relentlessly
Neil barked on, “When can we have the opportunity to buy Nike trainers so
cheaply and pour maple syrup on our pancakes so indulgently as if we had three
taps on our kitchen sinks, hot, cold and maple?”
This sure
made them think but Neil was on a roll, “and why can we not enjoy the wealth of
TV networks and be entertained by a Hollywood that we can proudly claim is from
OUR country? We welcome a time when monotonous scenes of Hugh Grant blithering
about in his slack shirt, hopelessly dribbling over some piece of posh totty
can be replaced by exciting car chases and urban shootouts with Will Smith…… ”
he continued unabated, “…..and to what of language I hear you ask, Why, we may
want to drop the letter U in colour, it
really doesn’t need to live there. We might want to refer to our pants without
being laughed at, we don’t want to have to remember all the different names of
all the different varieties of biscuits when the word cookie will do and as for fanny,
well, every Englishman would want one of those, just to try for a while. I am
certain,” he went on proudly engaging his audience, the whole of the UK,
“Ladies and gentlemen of England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland I am certain that
we all really want to be cowboys and cowgirls in the Wild West, we all would
want a chance to run for a term in the White House and we all long to be married
by an Elvis impersonator in a Las Vegas hotel.”
The crowd
seemed overwhelmed with positivity, the country were clearly jealous of those
Americans and they all wanted a piece of the action. Neil was tapping into
their deepest desires but the plan was yet to be fully revealed, how they would
react then Neil was unsure, so he continued to build up the hype, “We love with
a capital L, a capital O, a capital V and a capital E to use our Americanisms,
we buy into every gimmick those US companies throw at us. From hot dogs to
Santa Claus, from trick and treating to beef jerky we, in today’s Britain are
more Americanised than the Americans themselves! We want our Twinkie Bars and
we want them NOW, or, or, I’ll pop a cap in yer god damn ass!”
A pause for
dramatic effect was swallowed up hook, line and sinker by the nation, “So I
thought this idea up as a child and absurd as it may sound it is in fact, by
the reckoning of the leading scientific minds, today, possible. You see I put
it to the back of my brain, filed as my
crazy imagination but one day I was walking through the market place and I
saw a sign on a stall that read ‘hot donuts!’ I figured, donuts, not
doughnuts!” Suddenly he threw his whole body into a spasm, flickering about the
stage, “So my friends, my good, good friends, I thought there and then, to hell
with it, to hell with Brussels and their silly laws on the shapes of bananas, to
hell with the Euro, let’s rip off the Chunnel and tie it like an umbilici cord
and then look at our newly formed belly button and laugh out loud, give those
French the finger and let us join our American friends in the big country,
let’s live off the coast of Florida, where the sun always shines and old people
go around on roller-skates, where it is law to smile and wear Mickey Mouse ears
and everyone is bronze and beautiful…. So, ladies, gentlemen across the nation,
take heed of my plan, love my thoughts, and support me in my mission; that is
all I ask. With the help of Doc Darren Horton here we can dig underneath this
rain-drenched country and we can float this baby like a huge boat and we can
erect masts of massive proportions across the Midlands with sails waving red,
white and blue and we can sail this bitch to America!”
Suddenly the
crowds ceased the cheering and stood and stared at Neil with his eyes closed,
standing legs akimbo and thrusting a fist into the air. Neil sensed the
silence. He peeked with just one eye open to see that the whole of the UK held
their mouths open, gasping.
For the
first time in his speech he stumbled, his words, now sounding more sincere,
more meaningful conveyed his passion, his dedication to this cause, with a
croak he mumbled, softly, honestly and genuinely, “we could be the 51st State
of America…….think about it…….”
5.
A national
referendum was called; every man and his dog came out to vote. Then, when the
government realised that dogs were voting they deemed this unacceptable and had
to call the whole ballot again. Neil waited as patiently as he could; he lost
most of his hair and chewed his fingernails to the core. Then one day, the
votes counted a 99% positive outcome for his campaign and the country got
prepared to set sail. An overjoyed Neil collapsed with elation and was called
into hospital.
A whole five
years passed, Neil’s project employed over a million workers, boosting the
economic recovery in Britain. Many European contractors and labourers pulled
out of the deal when they realised exactly what the plan was; they figured that
Britain leaving their shores would not be good news for Europe, at least not
for the baked beans and tea industries at any rate.
During the
first half of the term Neil was on fire, he had become the celebrity of the
day, the hero of the decade and he relished in the attention. He performed on
chat shows, addressed the nation on the progress of the project and drafted a
book of his experience which reached the top of the charts, outselling the
memoirs of Ant and Dec. Musicians and
singers grouped up to perform a celebratory concert and Neil made several
visits to the USA where he met the important people like the President and even
more important people like Bruce Springsteen. His most memorable part of the
visit though was of course his trip to the Create-A-Cuddly Workshop where the
staff treated him to a full size cuddly Tyrannosaurus Rex with sunglasses and a
stars and stripes bathing suit, which he called Gavin.
However,
through the turning of the latter half of the preparation stages to dig under
the country and float it, age began to get the better of Neil Kimber and he
experienced some medical problems, losing his hair and back troubles were minor
and now gave way to more serious issues with his heart and cloistral levels.
The highest experienced doctors were on call and it was not long for Neil, like
most people coming of a certain age, to manage to come to terms with his
condition and he began to feel much better.
Teething
troubles with the plan like ensuring they tunnelled deep enough for all the
trillions of pipes and cables to stay intact, all archaeological sites were
excavated or abandoned and the decision of if they should include Canvey Island
or not all had to be ironed out by professionals and people who had never
actually been to Essex. Soon though things were looking good, health and safety
officers were happy, the scientists were content, the only people still
complaining were the conservationists and environmentalists whose concerns lie
with the natural habitat of a variety of wildlife in the country but it was soon
pointed out to the nation by Neil’s overpaid experts (sponsored by Starbucks) that
maybe the foxes, deer and hedgehogs could do with a bit of a holiday with some
nice weather.
The Queen
met with Neil on several occasions with concerns to her monarchy, asking if she
would now be under the control of the President of whom she considered to be “a
rather uncouth and gaudy individual.” Neil assured her that if she was to run
for President of the USA she would surly win, the Americans loved her more than
anything else British except for maybe Stonehenge and Benny Hill. She seemed
happy with this and started eating chilli dogs and rapping to hip hop straight
away. If all else failed she was advised by MI5 that she should reveal the
truth that she is in actual fact an android; the American’s loved androids in
their Government and Arnold Schwarzenegger was given as an example. Providing,
she was informed; you don’t reveal that you were made in Japan.
So, some
years it took for the plan to become fact but now, as a fully repaired Neil
Kimber flew over Birmingham in his chopper he looked upon the giant masts being
erected underneath them and smiled. “Welcome to Create-A-Cuddly Workshop!” he
laughed to himself but was not heard by the pilot.
“What was
that Neil?”
“Oh,
nothing….really…..” he replied.
A quick tour
of the masts, another to inspect the large turbines erected all across the east
coastline, save Great Yarmouth, they’ve had enough crap already thought Neil
and things were looking good. The Prime Minister set a launch date of the 31st
of February which was quickly altered and put down to the fact that he was
exhausted after all the excitement despite not being wise enough to realise
that in a few months’ time his position will be redundant or at the very most,
nothing more than equal to a parish councillor.
People in
the USA were excited too, some of them had even heard of the UK and the average
five percent of the nation that could correctly point it out on a world map
rapidly increased to a staggering seventeen percent. The beaches of Miami were flocked with
supporters waving Union Jack flags and trying fish n chips blissfully unaware
of the reality that a rather dull and unexciting island with pompous and old
fashioned attitudes was about to crash into their lively shores land locking
them forever.
Still with
both nations gripped by the event a zeppelin sized champagne bottle was smashed
upon the White Cliffs of Dover while Robbie Williams sang a farewell to Calais
and the boosters blasted off a speedy launch. In Birmingham and all through the
central Midlands the sails were cast and the Shard in London was used as a
birds-nest with top Navy officers at the helm. They assessed the wind and
directed the whole country in a south west direction across the Atlantic Ocean.
After a week
people got used to the delicate rocking of the country and gradually life
returned to normal. It would take an
estimated two years for the country to land in Florida and so everyone was
urged to stay calm and carry on, it was a slogan that though had been used
before in wartime was now popular as a parody on Facebook and therefore suited
to the whole bizarreness of the event.
Doctor
Darren Horton looked at Neil in merriment, “Well, we’ve done it; though we will
never quite look like her we will soon be as American as Marilyn Munroe.”
Neil
smirked, “yes, I cannot believe it has really come to pass; my childhood
dream……” (Not to look like Marilyn Munroe you understand; just to be American, Jeepers
this isn’t some kind of transvestite tale you know.)
6.
“One man’s
dream has turned into a national nightmare,” informed a rather dash looking
newsreader with a smart suit and black designer glasses, “as Cornwall falls
into the hands of the Atlantic and Skye has long since perished the people of
Britain are asking how much longer can we hold out, Bridgwater was never
supposed to be a seaside town?”
Neil slammed
his bony finger upon the off button of the TV’s remote control in frustration,
“Shit!” he cried. The rest of his team around the boardroom table fell silent,
twiddling their thumbs and looking up at the tube lighting breathing artificial
illumination to the morbid ambience in the room. No one dare speak up except
Gavin (Gavin’s are like that,) a young apprentice keen to better his position
in the company, or, in technical terms, brown
tongue. With a wheezy asthmatic
whine he whimpers, “Sir, we have to call the President…..”
“God damn
it, you don’t think I’ve tried that?” yelled a frustrated Neil who strolled
over to the window and flicked his index finger away from his middle finger
after jabbing it into the blind and caused a streak of light to shine through.
Neil looked down at the beautiful gardens of his manor below. How he loved this
decadence, he had worked so hard to get it. He never took it for granted, he
was a self-made billionaire and always thought he had maintained his feet to
the ground so to speak but now he questioned the effects of his wealth and
power, was he really just another average Joe Blogs?
The scene on
the other size of his sizable fence fuelled his concerns as a screaming mass of
protestors pushed and forced the fence with a private security team and police
forming a human chain between them and fence and getting rather squashed under
the pressure of a million hippies with bad hygiene. “We have to do something
about them,” pointed out Gavin with a sly smirk.
Neil thought
out loud, “throw them some soap?”
However it
was more than just hippies now, a full riot had begun to form under his very
feet, the crowds shouted out their hate remarks, they shouted out for Neil’s
head, they held badly grammatical placards, they jolted them into the sky and
pushed and shoved their way to the front, they wanted to be the first in the
queue to ring the neck of the man that put them in the middle of the Atlantic
ocean without a paddle. He took a gulp and quickly pulled his fingers out of
the blind, how could it have gone so wrong?
he gravely asked himself.
Neil took a
seat and frowned at the yes-men sat before him, questioning the value of any
input they may dare to contribute, they sat there looking scared of him; the
whole atmosphere could be cut with a knife. “Wait until the Scottish get here,”
pondered the spotty lad out loud, Neil wished he was Darth Vader. The whole
idea of strangling this blotchy boy was the very turn in his image that he
wanted so much to avoid but often, with great power it becomes tricky not to
play out this stereotype. He wasn’t evil, he just had a dream and it went
wrong. As the sea became fiercer and the equipment wore thin, the floats began
to subside, the country began to tip and tilt, floods covered the low lands and
it appeared that the country was cracking apart. Many people had perished
already, the Queen had gone into hiding and before she did she despatched a
message for Neil to do the same, revealing a secret hiding place in which she
could meet him at. The fact that she publicly posted it on Neil’s Facebook wall
was concerning and he doubted if she still alive at all, those raging maniacs
outside were verging on a uprising, and who could blame them, it had gone so
wrong.
Neil tries
to put them to the back of his mind but, the thought of them getting past the
security, nonetheless the security themselves turning against him had become a
topical issue raised in the meeting; them, or them, or any of them, tearing his
limbs from his body was something that was hard to mentally put on the
backburner. He quivered at the thought of it all and returned to focus his mind
on the boy’s earlier comment. He recalled with distaste the conversation with
the President when he tried to make contact. A clever man in running a country
but a nincompoop with a mobile phone; he never remembers to turn it off,
revealing much top secret information for anyone to hear on the other end of
the line.
However
distraught Neil was determine at that point not to try and sound too desperate
for his help, “Hello? Mr President, It is Neil Kimber here,” he began with,
sighing under breath.
“I’m having
a bath!” came the distant reply as if he was not talking directly to Neil but
someone else in his room which was soon confirmed when he continued to say,
“why do they always call me while I am having a bath, tell them to piss off,
bloody Russians!”
Neil sighed
a deeper sigh, it was impossible not for it to be hidden, he overheard a voice
explain to the President of the USA that it was not Russia but Neil Kimber from
Great Britain. “Who, from where?” was all he asked and that was so demeaning
that Neil slammed the phone down to hear the last words from the other end,
“have we got anymore bubble bath?”
Neil knew he
had to try again no matter how futile the result may be. He called the meeting
to a close, took Doctor Horton to one side, bought Gavin some Lego Star Wars
which cheered him up somewhat and retired to his private quarters. All the way
there the brainchild of the project was pointing out his miscalculations,
apologising profusely for the errors in his maths and suggesting that perhaps
the engineering staff had cut corners from his original blueprints. Neil cared
for none of it, “what’s happened has happened; we need to find a solution and
fast. The time for blaming can come later Darren, we need rescuing.”
“Are you
seriously going to try the President again?” inquired the Doc.
“Yes, I
believe I am,” answered Neil, overflowing with scepticism but at a loss end for
another suggestion. He picked up the phone, fell into his finest office chair
and spun it round, “Katie, get me the White House.”
This time
the President had obviously been briefed as he replied to Neil’s greeting as if
he was an old friend, “Hey Neil, buddy, how’s things?” It sounded so fake, you
would have thought that the President of the USA would have known who he was
being that they met on several occasions and you would have also thought that
he would know where the country of Great Britain is, particularly under the
circumstances that it was due to crash into one his many states any day now.
“Very bad Mr
President to be honest,” informed Neil, “we are experiencing some bad storms
out at sea, the floats are not keeping up and half the country has been
flooded, millions of people have perished and now we are noticing huge cracks
in the surface of the land, tears and rips that could break us all apart.” This
was all well put; the fact was that many cracks and splits in the hull of the
country were becoming a serious threat, especially in a city called Hull. In
particular was the line along Hadrian’s Wall that was tearing Scotland
completely away, although, unbeknown to Neil and the Queen this was all quite
deliberate on the part of the Scottish who had, after taking the liberty of
nationalising themselves, decided to use Hadrian’s Wall like perforations on a
business form and were currently using the grease from deep fried Mars Bars to
fuel the energy to cut along the line with a huge pair of scissors.
There was a
silence from the other end of the phone line which Neil feared and then
suddenly the President did something unexpected, he laughed. Neil could hear in
the background the man himself addressing the first Lady who had asked who was
on the phone. “Those Brits!” he explained with a belly laugh, “I just don’t
understand their humour, all that Monty Python stuff but jeepers, do they know
how to tease me,” then he pulled his phone back to his mouth, “you crack me up
you Brits,” he lied, “that British humour, I can’t wait to see you all soon, we
have pancakes.” And with that the phone went dead.
“In America
bad means good,” suggested Doctor Darren Horton as Neil looked up to him
desperate for an answer to the madness, “as in; Bad, I’m bad, I’m really bad,
you know it, j’mon!” Neil ignored the doctor fondling his crotch, twirling and
moonwalking around the room and decided to scratch his chin. The whole country has gone mad, perhaps I
should join them, he considered, after
all, the country is doomed, everyone is going to die out here and it’s all my
fault; why not go cuckoo?
As he did so
he found the whole room suddenly beginning to melt away as if it was liquid,
the walls, the ceiling and everything in it. The floor began to melt around him
and he looked over to the doctor who seemed unafraid and also to be joining in
with the whole melting theme, quite happy to be diminishing from reality. Neil
screamed, confirming that he had finally lost the plot, running around like a
headless chicken was one option to express his petrified state but he could not,
he found he couldn’t move at all until the whole room and everything in it had
melted away, leaving a small grey booth in which he was sitting in. Suddenly to
break the new silence he heard a geeky female voice calling, “we have a waker,
I repeat; we have a waker!”
7.
A scraggy
looking old man in a white coat came into the booth and started prodding Neil’s
eyes, staring into them. He spoke with an uncaring tone, “very well, you can go
home now Mr Kimber.”
“What?”
cried Neil, awash with anxiety and confusion, “what happened? Did the country
make it to Florida?”
The doctor
sighed, “Whatever is in your own fractured mind is your responsibility,” he
waved an A4 piece of paper at Neil, it had a lot of small print but the man was
clearly pointing to one particular clause, “see here?”
At the
bottom of the page Neil could clearly see his signature written on the bottom,
“I don’t understand, but what happened?”
The frumpy
and annoyed man sighed, “The mind is normally slightly muddled by the
experience, it only lasts a few minutes and you will adjust back to reality
again very soon. I however have just clocked off and I am taking the wife out
for dinner tonight so there is no time to explain.”
A young
woman with a concerned face appeared over his shoulder, the light from the door
was unbearable and Neil had not seen her before, “looks like another collapsed
memory stem doctor, it seems to be happening to them all. We will have to coax
him back in gently.”
He turned to
the woman, “I haven’t got time for that,” he moaned, “the steak won’t eat
itself now will it?” With that said he left the room and the woman came over to
Neil and held his hand.
Over her
shoulder she complained, “He cannot go anywhere yet,” and then, in a
patronising tone she asked him, “Do you know who you are?”
“Of course,”
sounded a now quite annoyed Neil Kimber, “I am the hugely successful business
tycoon Neil Kimber and I have a very important role to play, I need to address
the President of the USA straight away, the whole country will die if I stay
here!” he protested.
She looked
at a file on her lap, “you are indeed Mr Neil Kimber but I am afraid you are
not a successful businessman. I am sorry Mr Kimber but you came to us as a
poor, desperate tramp and agreed to take part in a mind experiment within this
virtual reality suite; fantastic huh?” She smiled at him but it was
unconvincing.
The man put
his head back in the door, he had swapped his white coat for an overcoat and
was frantically shoving his arm in its sleeve, “just pay him Jules, he has
signed the secrecy contract now get rid of him!”
The woman
ignored him and gave another smile, “we do have to get you moving now Mr
Kimber, we have other people waiting to use the booth, do you recall what
shelter you came from?”
“What?” he
cried, shaking with fear and slapping his head, “I did not come from any
shelter, I live in a manor, I live in luxury, I am well known, I saved the
country from the Europe!”
“I am
afraid, these all seem like products of the virtual reality suite, you see, it
homes in on your dreams, your aspirations and creates a world around them,” she
explained. She intensified the grip on his hand, “tell me; how did you save the
country from Europe?”
“I dug
underneath the country and floated it, then I sailed it like a boat across the
Atlantic Ocean, it was working well and then we experienced a few proble……”
The
patronising tone increased, “do you really think that sounds realistic Mr
Kimber? Tell me, why did you do this?” She began to fill in a form, frantically
scribbling details with a pen as he spoke.
Neil had to
stop and think, “well, no, it was impossible but, but we could do anything, we
could do the impossible…..”
“No one can
do the impossible Mr Kimber, that is why it is impossible,” she slyly pointed
out and it was something that had to make Neil seriously think. His thought
pattern seemed to be suffering, as if; by some force his intelligence was
rapidly diminishing before him. The conversation continued much like an
interview, she asked him several questions as to why he thought he could do the
impossible, why he thought that it was all so real and she began to probe into
just what was behind the whole idea. Eventually after much discussion he had
explained the origins of the whole incident at the Create-A-Cuddly Workshop and
then the toilet in McDonalds where as a child he dreamed up the idea while
frustrated that there were things in America that he could not get here in
Britain. “You see,” she leaned in and explained, “The whole illusion was based
purely on a childhood dream archived in your memory. You created the concept
and the virtual reality suite accessed that and turned it into the program,
clever isn’t it?”
Neil was
lost for words, after an hour or more of this consultation there was a slim
part of him that actually began to believe it. He stumbled for a few moments
and had not the notion to respond against it, it all seemed the most likely,
“yes,” he mumbled, “yes it is.”
Then he
began to feel like he was being ushered out, she was trying to convince him to
leave, at first politely but with an increasingly harsh tone taking place. She
handed him a manila envelope with some money, “you agreed Mr Kimber, not to
mention this experiment to anyone if you recall.”
That is when
Neil lost control, he was no tramp, he was Neil Kimber, business executive, the
entrepreneur extraordinaire, the maker of the impossible, that was the reality
and it seemed as if the rebels against his idea had finally broke through the
security, captured him, tortured him with persuasive techniques, messing with
his mind…..yes, it is all clear now!
He leaped up
knocking the woman over and screamed in a rage, “how dare you, how very dare
you all, you bastards,” he screeched at the walls and at the ceiling, looking
above and below for where they were hiding, behind the one way mirrors,
sneering at him. “What I did I did for all of us, to make the country a better
place for all of us; what I thought was best for the country, best for us all;
we voted, it was all democratic, the majority wanted this, we sailed, it did not
work ok, I admit, I was wrong, I did not mean for it to end like this. Now I
have said my piece and that is all I can say, now let me out, let me out!”
The other
man had come back into the room, “Doctor, I thought you had gone?” asked a
flustered and ruffled woman, laying on the floor in distress.
“Too many of
them are losing it, sedate this patient nurse now! We cannot have them
talking!” He handed her a syringe.
She
struggled to her feet as the doctor rushed out again. Approaching Neil slowly,
“now, now Mr Kimber, you are suffering a mental meltdown as a product of the
experiment, you need to relax, ok, just calm down and relax, we will help you
back if you trust me,” she got closer to him and he pulled back, tense and
insanely, “come on Mr Kimber, it is all ok, I am here to…..”
“NO!” he
blubbered like a child, all of it had come to this moment, he knew that they
were playing a game with his mind, “I will not!” Somewhere though there was a
tiny element in his mind, from all that she had told him that perhaps she was
right, that this was reality. He was a tramp needy of money so much that he had
agreed to take part in this crazy experiment. Then as a rush to the head he
gave up on that notion, why be a tramp when he could be rich beyond his wildest
dreams? Why live this life? He needed out, they were out to crush him and very
soon the country would be returned to European shores. He had to be given a
chance; America was now so close that he knew, in his heart of hearts that they
could make it. He yelled, “we will make it, we will I promise,” he whimpered.
“No, there
is no master plan to float Britain to the shores of America, that is crazy, Mr
Kimber, can you not see that? We can help, let us help you,” she continued
moving close enough to leap at him and plunge the syringe deep into his vein
but just plucking up the courage to carry it out.
“NO!” he
threw himself back onto the seat he came from; hoping it would take him back to
the manor, “Let me out!”
Suddenly a
voice he recognised came from beyond the door, it soothed him, “don’t worry
Neil, we are coming in!” it demanded.
Suddenly the
door was thrust open and Neil’s father, just as he remembered him as a child
threw himself into the booth and cuddled his son, “you are ok son,” he consoled
him.
This is when
Neil began to realise that the booth was no virtual reality suite at all rather
it was the toilet in McDonalds and he was not businessman nor tramp but just a
small child. The world around him faded back into a reality with more clarity
than ever before and was filled with embarrassment at being locked in the
toilet at the fast food restaurant.
How his mind
to concoct such an amazingly imaginative story at such a tender age was nothing
new to Neil, he had the imagination to produce the bizarre scenarios, he was
used it and knew no different. He sighed, it seemed so plausible in his mind,
but Neil was smart enough to know that these things were, in an adult world,
impossible. His friend, now he come to think of it, Doctor Horton did look like
Darren his best friend at school as his words came back to him when he was
escorted back into the restaurant, “nothing is impossible my friend.”
“Come on,
eat up,” encouraged his Dad but Neil did not feel like eating. His whole life
was just a dream, he would have to play it out again and he knew it would be
all so different. He looked down depressingly at his Chicken McNugget meal; so much for the happy part of it.
His Dad
looked at him and smiled, he supposed he should be pleased to see him after all
these years if they were real but, well, they
weren’t. “Come on, eat up Neil,” he requested again, “we have to go to the
Create-A-Cuddly Workshop; we can build a dinosaur now that Britain has docked
in America remember?” and with Neil’s look of astonishment his Dad finished off
his mind-blowing statement with a subtle wink.
