As the ravages of time affect us all, I stare into the mirror and I am greeted by a face that looks both familiar and unfamiliar at the same time. There are traces of the young boy who once flapped around gurgling nonsense about loins and chagrins mixed with those unavoidable lines and bags around and under the eyes. It’s always the eyes that give it away.
I am awash with melancholy. Has it been twenty years since Reuben was born? Almost twenty years since I moved to Newcastle? Coming up to twenty-three years since finishing sixth form? Where has the time gone?
I look back through the photos in my phone to make sense of the madness, to try and find a firm grip on the rockface of life. I must shackle myself to something tangible because I will go out of my mind if I do not. My most recent photos are of the Florida holiday: cheery blue skies, sunshine lollipop backpacks and rainbow cookie wonderlands. All of it warms my soul to see it once more like an old friend visiting. Then I see him:
SERIOUS IAN?!
He’s crept into one of the photos. He is pushing boundaries this time because, sat in a tiny car going around the Toy Story ride at Disney, shooting at aliens with lasers for points with his technicolour space gun, there he is. The irony is delicious. When did he turn up? I didn’t see him flipping through t-shirts trying to find one with Launchpad McQuack on. I didn’t witness him stuffing burgers into his grill and then finishing up with a strawberry milkshake, pretending that in a way it would count as a “balanced meal”. He must have snuck into my suitcase when I wasn’t looking.
About halfway through the holiday I caught what felt like a bad cold and needed to rest more. Was it me that woke up every time or have I been myself less and less? Could it be:
- Maybe he tiptoed out to watch the Superbowl at some aggressive masculine sports bar and put a huge wager on one of the teams to win, watching the TV with a pint and a grimace as he realises he’d backed the wrong side
- Maybe he walked around the vacant tourist trap landscape, shaking his head about the silly offers in the windows of souvenir shops, muttering to himself, “this country used to mean something.”
- Maybe he complained to the hotel because the swimming pool didn’t open early enough and that it should be available shortly after the time he usually awoke at 5.45am
- Maybe he told the family in front that they needed to calm down and that it wasn’t the “real” Mickey Mouse that they were waiting to greet.
I mean I’m not Fight Club so that probably didn’t happen but if he can creep out when I’m living it up abroad then it means he can appear anywhere. Literally anywhere? Literally anywhere. You’d best watch out.
15 comments on “The return of…”
This is very concerning. If Serious Ian is now your response to shooting a laser gun while on a Toy Story themed ride, then I have to look at how much less jolly than that your normal surroundings are when, say, you’re sitting at your desk at work or strolling down the vegetable aisle at Tesco, and wonder whether Frivolous Ian will ever return.
I don’t know why he popped out. At the time I was having a riot shooting everything. I thought I was smiling. Clearly I’m cracking up.
You weren’t smiling. You had the cold dead eyes of a killer. I’m afraid of Serious Ian.
He doesn’t live in France. You’re fine, mate. The chances of you bumping into one another is slim to none.
And what about when I leave France? No, it’s too dangerous. That’s why I hired a bodyguard.
What’s the bodyguard called? Also, bit off topic, but does he like balloon animals?
I can’t release highly sensitive details like that on a public website like this. The risk of my security detail being compromised is just too great. All I can say is that he’s called Gareth Brownlow and he works for TNB Security Ltd.
Gary Brownlow? Sounds like two things:
1) He’s a fake Gary Barlow or really wants to be Gary Barlow but bailed at the Council office and changed his name to something similar
2) Could be a background character in a Matt Berry sitcom.
Gareth. Don’t call him Gary, he gets really angry when people call him Gary. One time they wrote “Gary” on his cup at Starbucks and he put his fist clean through an entire banana loaf, end to end.
That’s impressive. Did anybody offer him a job shortly after this feat?
Yes. I did. And that’s the story of how Gareth Brownlow came to work for me. (Great story, I know, and, I’ve already bought the movie rights.)
TNB Security appears to be a rare, one track CD promo single. Is this what Gavin Brownlow was doing before you hired him?
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/146519899140
That’s him. If he’s not being violent enough as a bodyguard I sometimes point at people I don’t like the look of and tell him they said his song was shit.
That sale has ended! Damn you, Gavin Brownlow!
Does Graham Brownridge only work for you when you leave France? Who’s looking after the goods when your gaily galivanting round the garlic gardens of Gaul?